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Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Ya Gits Whatcha Pays Fer

Ah, yes. let the screaming begin over the gas line explosion in San Bruno. However, here’s the reality. If PG&E had spent the money needed to keep all their gas lines updated and in good repair, replacing the miles and miles of old, out of date pipes, they’d have to go to the PUC and get permission to raise their rates and the public would SCREAM!

If the government felt PG&E wasn’t keeping their lines in good repair, they’d pass laws and regulations spelling out exactly what needed to be done, PG&E and the public would SCREAM about too much government regulations!

And when those regulations required PG&E to raise their rates to cover the costs of all that repair, the public would SCREAM!

And if the government felt PG&E wasn’t operating safely and properly and turned the company into a not-for-profit (government-run) municipal utility, with profits plowed back into rebuild, repair and top notch maintenance, the public would SCREAM about socialism and communism!

Until their rates went down because munis often offer cheapter rates for their customers than for-profit operations. So, everybody, shush up. Seven to 10 people dead is about the going rate to continue business as usual.

Ya Gits Whatcher Pays Fer, Part Heh-Heh.

This from David Savage, reporting for the L.A. Times. “The conservative counterattack on President Obama’s overhaulof health insurance will take center state in the courts this week when Republican state attorneys general and leading small-business groups urge a federal judge in Florida to strike down the law before it can take effect.

“They contend Congress does not have the power under the Constittuion to require all Americans to have health insurance. They also say states cannot be pressured to spend more to cover low-income families.”

Oh, I hope the judge rules to dump the whole health care law. It will make millions of Americans very, very happy when we go back to the days of people being denied coverage for pre-existing conditions, or being dropped entirely right in the middle of their battle with cancer, for example, over some minor clerical oversight on their insurance applications made years previously. Their kids will be off their family policies at age 18, rates can continue to rise unfettered and millions can continue to be forced into bankruptcies over medical bills. And the overall government deficit will continue to rise into bust-the-bank levels as health care costs rise along with the unbridled and obscenely lush profit levels for the insurance companies. No longer will they have to spend 80% of their income on actual health coverage.

It’s just too, too perfect and it’s what Americans desperately want – lousy and/or unaffordable medical coverage, or, better yet, no coverage at all! So I can hear the joy in Mudville even now. Yes!

Ya Gits Whats Ya Pays Fer, Part Trey

For over twenty years, our tax and trade policies have been deliberately structured to benefit corporations. Corporations have no country. They go where the profits are. Thus, while promising all boats would float and all money would trickle down, American’s manufacturing base was carefully eroded and destroyed, the factories shuttered and the manufacturing jobs shipped overseas, thereby gutting first the working class jobs and then the managerial white/pink collar jobs.

Now, with President Obama’s proposals to re-boot America with R&D tax credits and other tax incentives, the full irony is about to come home to roost. R&D, which is still America’s greatest asset (we’re a nation of very, very clever immigrants) will result in tremendous benefits – to corporations holding patent rights and to people living overseas. Which is where all the innovative stuff thought up in the US will actually be made, because American policy has destroyed its manufacturing base. So, while we can invent stuff like crazy, we can’t manufacture it here to benefit our own citizens. Plus, because of our trade policies, it remains cheaper to send it all to China to be made and then imported here, thereby worsening our overall trade imbalances.

It’s a perfect two-for one, with Americans the losers – Trickle down Reaganomics at its finest! Congratulations, America. You got exactly what you asked for.

20 comments:

Churadogs said...

Aw gaaawwwd. You can't make this stuff up. After I posted this, a friend sent an article from sfgate on PG&E tring to push through changes in regulations that would push catastrophic losses onto the rate payers, not the stockholders. Bwahahahah. check out at http:www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=1c/a/2010/09/14/MN261FDDD8.DTL I hope. Or try sfgate.com and search PGE rate change , etc.

Watershed Mark said...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39105180/ns/business-picture_stories/displaymode/1247/?beginSlide=1

Alon Perlman said...

Just want to give you a ten thumbs up for your productivity this week.
Don't outsource yourself to China just yet, Ann.

Watershed Mark said...

Sorry for the link above that did not get you to where I was pointing.

Try http://www.msnbc.msn.com/ scroll down to about the middle of the page to the "Business" box and click on Cartoons- Obama's magic act...

Watershed Mark said...

Corporations don't pay taxes, their customers do. Unions chase jobs offshore and are currently destroying municipalities and governments at every level.
Can’t legislate stupidity no matter how hard the voters try to elect transparent progressive partisan politicians. Taxed Enough Already. More TEA after November, wait and see.

Churadogs said...

Mark: Oooo, what I'm waiting for is for our newest TeaParty darling in Deleware to get elected and then outlaw masturbation. It'll be full employmnet for at least half the state, 1/2 spying on the other half. Talk about stimulus money!

Way to go, Tea Baggers! Way to go!

Alon Perlman said...

Is that the one they refer to as "A Young Sarah Palin"?
Pause…Let the reality of it sink in.
A three card Monte where 3 one eyed jacks face up. A shell game where the shill and shark are in agreement, that there is no need to use a piece of paper with "peanut" written on it, since its all just a game. Just how many more times can that thing be dipped into a cup of hot water before people actually start to compare it's taste to... well ... A cup of hot water.

A grass root movement with all the trapping of a slick homey Madison Avenue campaign.
A symbolic symbol of symbolicism.

The Era of Dependency on Foreign Oil is over. (We will still have to drill at Anwar to preserve the social order and prevent perturbations of status quo income distribution)

Simply attach magnets to the spinning bodies of our founding fathers and power the future.

Churadogs said...

Alon sez:"A grass root movement with all the trapping of a slick homey Madison Avenue campaign.
A symbolic symbol of symbolicism"

Nah, it's all Astroturf funded by right wing money -- Koch Bros, Dick Armey's clients, etc. Funnel the money in, dress it up to look grass-rootsy, con the suckers. American shell game.

Anonymous said...

To Ann: The amount of profit that PG&E receives is regulated by a commission. The rate payers have received a bargain over the years from bad gas lines not being replaced. Now they are going to pay. Apparently the commission did not consider replacement costs or regulate inspections. And you trust government!

The 100 million fund for the home owners in San Bruno will be spread around to all ratepayers, to push this onto the stock owners will break the company, and who would buy a broken company. (Maybe the state will issue bonds for a bailout). In the end the taxpayers will pay, mostly our kids and grandchildren if they can find jobs.

You are correct about the R&D tax breaks, but are dead wrong about government policy causing us to lose our manufacturing base. We lost this because our labor costs were very high and the unions for years fought robotics which would lessen membership. Classic example is the textile unions which required six people to a loom when one person could take care of six looms. It made no sense to replace old looms with modern robotic looms. This business was taken away from the US by foreign companies. Apparel is no longer made in any quantity in this country. The Ladies Garment Workers would not allow automated equipment, and pushed for wages that would make clothing unprofitable. Consumers would not pay for high cost clothing. The government needed to protect consumers. We have been paying for cheap goods with the loss of our manufacturing base. Same with steel, and hard goods.

This has nothing to do with trickle down economics. It is sort of the BS which you and many others in Los Osos have supported: "Cheaper and better".

It seems that Obamacare also suckered in the "Cheaper but better" crowd, and now older people are going to get it in the neck because it will NOT be "cheaper but better". Worse than that, our kids and grand kids will have to pay for it with increased taxes. Democrats, with the exception of the hardened "Social Justice crowd" are running away from Obamacare quickly in order to stay in office.

America is going through a revolution and distancing itself from your views. How can anyone trust "Social Justice" democrats that pass bills without even reading them. Ahh yes! The "cheaper but better" crowd!

Anonymous said...

You gets what you pay for! If you cannot pay, why should you get? Of course everyone should have the means to have a fine home and a good living. However the government cannot give it to you. The government produces nothing and takes from those that produce. It is up to the individuals to take care of themselves or accept charity otherwise. Too bad, so sad, but reality. Socialism has failed and will continue to fail.

However "human excellence" can be found in all of us if we endeavor to develop it. It has nothing to do with money, only effort.

Watershed Mark said...

It'll be full employmnet for at least half the state, 1/2 spying on the other half. Talk about stimulus money!

Ann, This is Obama's/Pelosi and Reid's plan which is why there will be such a tremdous blowback in November and why masterbation hags are so upset.

Churadogs said...

Let's see, I think I once asked John if he had formally returned his Social Security payments, and forfeited his Medicare coverage. Never did get an answer. John?

Watershed Mark said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Watershed Mark said...

EVERYTIME I ask a person, who proclaims they believe in man made global warming, if they have given up their car I get a blank(progressive/liberal)stare and no answer...

Anonymous said...

Ann: I paid plenty of money into the social security program and have not got all of it back. I have never collected one cent in unemployment. You have been one of the recipients of the government theft from me.

I keep Medicare and Blue Cross supplemental insurance but don't use it. They are way ahead of me. I keep it for you. I can get full coverage insurance here in Panama for excellent hospitals at 50% of what my US insurance is costing me. A stay in a local hospital comes to about $75 a day, and doctors charge $20 for a visit. We have plenty of US trained doctors that are top notch. I pay cash.

Medicare and US Blue Cross is not accepted here in Panama.

Man Made global warming is a world socialist fraud that has made more than one fat democratic socialist very rich.

Churadogs said...

Why? If it's a hideous socialistic program? Or are you going to rail against all this theft and socialism and then, when you really need it, come running back to utilize it? Doesn't that strike you as being, uh, awfully hypocritical?

M said...

Didn't Social Security start out with the government investing our contributions with the intention of distributing it back when we were no longer able to work? To equate Social Security and Medicare with socialism is kind of a reach isn't it? I know I have been paying into Social Security since 1963, so I have no qualms about collecting it. It's not like i'm getting rich from it.
Sincerely,M

Churadogs said...

To a certain bunch of folks, Medicare and Social Security are evil socialism.

Churadogs said...

I forgot to add: To a certaina bunch of folks, Medicare and Social Security are evil socialism EXCEPT as those programs apply to THEM personally. Then, well, ah, er, then that's another thing altogether.

Watershed Mark said...

So it's like man made global warming reduction efforts...