Wednesday, January 01, 2014

Truth is stranger than fiction.

I don't believe 2013 was a particularly good year. 

But, the funniest real life story I heard came from a taxi driver. 

Three young women needed a safe ride home at 3AM New Year's Day, so they called a cab. They all climbed in the back seat. Once they got settled one of the young women asked the other two if they had extra panties.

The two stated, "No." 

The first lady said, "No, you don't understand, are either of you wearing an extra panty?" 

The other two stated, "No." 

The first young lady said, "I don't think I am making myself clear. Are either of you wearing my panties?"

The other two said, "No, we don't have your panties, wearing them or otherwise."

The first young lady said, "Oh, dear. I must have lost them and there were a Christmas gift from my fiance' What am I going to tell him now."

The second young lady stated, "Ask him if he was wearing them?"

"Made in Japan"

Income inequality is not a populous issue. It has existed in countries where capitalism is the basis of it's economy.

This was in the Washington Post: 

Jarad Bernstein's graph of the year: Rising income inequality is no surprise after seeing this. (click here)

By WonkBorg
December 31, 2013
The figure shows the percent of time that the unemployment rate was “too high,” meaning that it was above the rate economists (and, importantly, the Fed) associate with full employment.  In the postwar decades, job markets were slack less than a third of the time.  Since then, they’ve been slack about two-thirds of the time, even if you leave out the great recession.  While there’s a lot that goes into rising income inequality, it is not a coincidence that low, middle, and high incomes grew together in periods when tight labor markets dominated, and vice versa.


Capitalism cares only about itself. It has no god. It has no president. It has no rules. It exists to satisfy it's own dynamics to wealth. 

What I find most interesting about the graph is the correlation it reveals about the 'greed' of outsourcing.

There was a time in the USA when cheap foreign products were considered of far less quality. The USA companies went looking for cheap labor.

In the late 1960s and 1970s it was Japan.

Korea was cheap labor in 70's and 80's. 


China was in 90's and now and India also.


Let's take this one step further. By the year 2000, job creation in the USA flat lined.

Companies outsourced for profits, but, it also rid them of unions. It was the union that protected the income of the Middle Class. 

When compared to the outsourced jobs and the income inequality graph, the picture becomes more and more clear. 


This isn't rocket science. If there are less union jobs, there is less pay to the majority of Americans. The majority Middle Class supports the product base of Wall Street. There is no way the 1% or the 0.1% can sustain an economy alone. So while CEOs cash in on get rich quick schemes that sends American jobs overseas; they are also destroying their products markets. China has been producing American goods for three decades, yet the quality of life of their population is still impoverished. That is because the Chinese also suffer from poverty wages and unable to achieve upward mobility.

That is not exactly the most interesting part:


The job creation rate reflects a flat economic growth extending back to January 2001.

The Great Recession was a V-shaped recession that recovered jobs at the same rate as Bush job creation rate before the Great Recession. Even with all the government spending under Bush he could not move the economy. The degree of outsourcing was so intense that Bush concentrated on construction and military for his economic growth. The construction was draconian both in government treasuries and the environment. It was a supply side economy whereby China built huge cranes in most global ports and out produced other countries. The growth of China under the Bush economy was enormous, yet the people of China reaped little of Wall Streets profits. The Chinese government focused it's new wealth on building the strength of it's government and national accomplishments.

The fact the US construction business could not be effectively outsourced except for any raw materials it used, was the reason the housing market became so huge. When the collapse occurred in 2008, the dependency of the USA on construction jobs to the Middle Class collapsed as well and there became female heads of households because the construction business was gone and the men had nowhere to go to be employed. The jobs were gone.

A better way to look at it, is that the USA job market began to be specialized in jobs that Wall Street could not outsource. There was little diversity to sustain any downturn in 2008.

Wall Street got greedy and the SUSTAINABILITY of companies shrank. As the continued collapse of the American job force, Middle Class and unions declined there were more and more mergers and acquisitions which only served to make the job market shrink, too.

The reason there is a 1% and a 0.1% is because capitalism has no morals, has no conscience, has no rules and seeks only to satisfy it's own dynamics to wealth. The more contraction of the 'production base' of any product, the less competition, the less the quality forced by that competition, the less monies in the hands of consumers and the reduction of product base. 

Local economies build jobs, competition, security and self-interest. The American people need to recover their economy because Wall Street is unable to do it. If Americans are to rebuild their economy, income inequality has to be resolved and poverty minimized to an all time low. Once the USA economy has regained it's integrity, the larger global economy will improve as well.

The countries of China, Brazil, Russia and India have to develop their Middle Class for improvement in trade between nations. There cannot be a Wealthy Country that all others feed off. IT DOES NOT WORK.

The Christian Fundamentalists using religion for political volley suffer a serious flaw.

Generally speaking, a woman can always have another baby.

However, a baby cannot have another natural mother.

I doubt sincerely Pope Francis would regard the death of a woman lightly, if pregnant and there was a choice between fetus or mother and the woman's life were put last. Pope Francis is a scholar and not a stupid man mired is ideology. He appreciates life, but, not at the expense of another.

Where the decision in a religious context falls is also where the person has their soul in the grace of god. The child is not more innocent or virtuous than the mother.

Original sin (click here) is a condition, not something that people do: It's the normal spiritual and psychological condition of human beings, not their bad thoughts and actions. Even a newborn baby who hasn't done anything at all is damaged by original sin.

Original sin is an Augustine Christian doctrine that says that everyone is born sinful. This means that they are born with a built-in urge to do bad things and to disobey God. It is an important doctrine within the Roman Catholic Church. The concept of Original Sin was explained in depth by St Augustine and formalised as part of Roman Catholic doctrine by the Councils of Trent in the 16th Century.
Original sin is not just this inherited spiritual disease or defect in human nature; it's also the 'condemnation' that goes with that fault.

Protection of Life During Pregnancy Act

Interesting title for a law regarding women's health, isn't it? In the USA the 'knee jerk' reaction is to believe this deprives the rights of women and sides with the fetus. Right? At first glace, the immediate USA reaction is "Oh, no another oppressive abortion law."

This is the title of the Irish abortion law that protects women's lives. Women are no longer chattel of the government required to breed before any other priority in her life.


Savita Halappanavar and her husband Praveen photographed at their home in Galway.

Galway is a seaside province in Ireland. Nice couple. They were married and were building a life together when she died because an abortion was not performed.

She never asked for an abortion for an unwanted pregnancy and denied becoming desperate and seeking to end the pregnancy. This is not it at all. She was having a miscarriage and during that miscarriage she asked for an abortion. She was denied.


A report into the death of Savita Halappanavar (click here) and related issues has found a failure to provide the most basic elements of care in her case.
The pregnant 31-year-old died in an Irish hospital in October last year.
She had asked for a termination after being told she was having a miscarriage, but staff refused. Days later, she died from infection.
A 257-page report by the Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) was issued on Wednesday.
It found there were many missed opportunities, that if acted on might have changed the outcome for her.
The report was conducted after the HIQA was asked by the Republic of Ireland's Health Service Executive to investigate the safety, quality and standards of services provided at University Hospital Galway....

So, now there is a new law to protect women. The politicians are playing with the words,, "...clinical guidelines...". They are attempting to manipulate the new law, hence placing women back into the danger zone.

...Reilly insisted that abortions can be carried out without the guidelines being in place....(click here)

Health Minister Reilly is correct. There is no other issue regarding women receiving abortions. There isn't. Once it is legal everything is then up to the woman's physician. There is a reason why physicians get the big bucks and this is one of them. After a decade of school and internships, they practice. End of discussion.

This new law might need the support of peers from countries where women are esteemed and not government chattel as in the USA, to end the silly debate about physician competency in carrying out abortions.
Demanding a woman carry a pregnancy either unwanted or a danger to the woman's health is about as oppressive as it comes. A woman's life is more important than the fetus she is carrying. There are cases where accidental death allows the fetus to continue life and that can respected for the spouse or father. But, in all other instances a woman's life is more important than the unborn. 

The law does not dictate religious practices, but, it does subscribe to the fact regardless of a religious preference once the woman's life is in danger she is given priority. I mean to have a society value a woman's life any other way is hideous, oppressive and ridiculous. Without the woman alive and healthy, there won't a baby. Any other argument is simply stupid.

A woman alive means she can again carry a pregnancy when she believes she is ready to take responsibility for another life.

DECEMBER 1, 2013
Guttmacher Institute

BACKGROUND: In its landmark 1973 abortion cases, the U.S. Supreme Court held that a woman’s right to an abortion is not absolute and that states may restrict or ban abortions after fetal viability, provided that their policies meet certain requirements. In these and subsequent decisions, the Court has held that:

- even after fetal viability, states may not prohibit abortions “necessary to preserve the life or health” of the woman;

- “health” in this context includes physical and mental health;

- only the physician, in the course of evaluating the specific circumstances of an individual case, can define what constitutes “health” and when a fetus is viable; and

_ states may not require additional physicians to confirm the attending physician’s judgment that the woman’s life or health is at risk in cases of medical emergency.


Although the vast majority of states restrict later-term abortions, many of these restrictions have been struck down. Most often, courts have voided the limitations because they do not contain a health exception; contain an unacceptably narrow health exception; or do not permit a physician to determine viability in each individual case, but rather rely on a rigid construct based on specific weeks of gestation or trimester....

Think about how completely moronic that demand is of a government. Physicians don't practice based on rigid construction. If they did people would die. Every person is as different as their fingerprints and DNA. While the practice of medicine or surgery is guided by GENERAL understandings of anatomy and physiology there is no guarantee that a patient will react to treatment or surgery as expected. 

Genetic variability demands a thinking person with an understanding of the human body to perform any medical procedure, surgery or prescription. That means with an undetermined outcome a physician has to be free to treat the person as circumstances arise. Now, giving penicillin to a person known to have a severe allergy is not what I refer to, that is negligence. But, in the average practice a physician needs the freedom to treat the individual, NOT THE TEXTBOOK.

In all abortion decisions, the viable fetus needs to be put SECOND to that of the life of the mother, including her mental health.