Apple and Amazon and proprietary software: not a model for free trade.

Both Apple and Amazon like to maintain monopolies and don't like free trade, at least when it comes to selling applications and software for their products.

When you buy an iPod or an iPhone you have buy all the mp3s and Aps through Apple's iTunes. There is no chance for buying competitively priced products when you own one of these devices.

It's the same when you buy Amazon's Kindle, the electronic book reader. You can only buy books through the Amazon website. So if you buy a Kindle you have to buy all your books from Amazon and there is no chance for getting them through another source. There was controversy as well, when Amazon set the maximum price for a book at $9.99 and refused to let publishers charge more, when actually they should charge less because in the electronic format you can reproduce books infinitely at very little cost. The publishers wanted to charge whatever the market will bear. The controversy ended when iPad came out and let publishers charge whatever they wanted.

Now you can buy a competitors product and have more options, but you are then shut out from many of the cool apps or other exclusive content from these companies.

In other words their business model is protectionist, and these companies are thriving on it. Why can't this model work for trade in the United States?

Now if it is OK for these companies to have devices with exclusive content, why isn't are trade regulated that way? Why isn't it OK to regulate who you trade with and what gets traded with tariffs and regulations?

It is OK for these companies to make money with exclusive content, but when you try to protect jobs by saying things like you can only hire American workers for certain jobs that is not OK. Or companies that offshore workers have to pay higher taxes which would give them incentive not to offshore workers, that won't work either.

The Apple and Amazon business model should be the model for how the United States handles trade and protects jobs for its workers.

FDR bashing, the new right-wing hobby.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt was probably one of the greatest presidents that the United States has ever had. His four term legacy led to the right seeking term limits of presidency and the office has never wielded quite the same power again.

Now the right-wing dings are trying to re-write history to show that his so-called socialist policies like social security extended the great depression and did not end it.

Everyone knows that FDR's policies set up the United States for the Golden Age of prosperity that was 1950's and 60's, and since then it has been systematicaly destroyed under the guidance of Richard Nixon and more recently and more devastatingly by Ronald Regan (and Clinton and both Bushes didn't help things either).

They are now calling Obama a socialist and he is far from it. He is not touching income tax on wealthy Americans and he probably never will. It looks like the change he promised is not coming, and the US Government is proving once again it is really big business's bitch.

Please right-wingers, don't drag FDR's name (or his initials for that matter) through the mud. And face facts, the country did improve greatly after his presidency. And it is right-wing ideology that is destroying this country, not a move towards socialism.

Health Care Reform that I would like to see..

Well, it looks like health care reform is probably dead in the water now that Ted Kennedy's seat in the Senate went to Republican Scott Brown. Massachusetts seems to be rapidly going from a liberal Democrat state to a conservative Republican state, and given the amount of educated people there and the fact that there are no jobs for educated people in MA, you would think that this wouldn't happen.

Anyway as I have stated before if this health care reform plan doesn't take off, you won't see anyone take a middle ground. As a working class American currently with health care benefits, there are two reforms that I would like to see. One, if they could force doctors and hospitals to take anything qualifying as health insurance and not give them a choice as to whether or not to be a participated provider. I would like to see a mandate from Congress that says, if you are a doctor or hospital and you want to practice medicine you must accept all health insurance, there is no choice to opt out.

Two, medical offices, health insurance, and hospitals have to be run as not-for-profits, this way there will be no temptation from these organizations to give profits priority over peoples lives.

Members of congress are so out of touch with reality that they would never propose such things. I hope Obama's strategy calls for some contingencies, and they just don't give up like the Clintons did back in the 1990s.

The health care reform bill looks like it will just raise health care costs...

The proposed health care reform bill seems very strange to me, with no clear explanation from the government or the media how this bill will actually work. The bill that formed in Senate which seems to be the leading plan for reform has a tax on high cost health insurance plans to pay for things. Now who pays this tax, the worker or employer? I can't get a clear picture from the articles that I read, maybe I'm a little slow, but I think things are being left vague on purpose.

And what if these plans become unpopular and the health insurance companies stop offering them, then where does the money come from. I read an article that said the bill has no provision for inflation, what if all of our plans reach the $8,900 ceiling for individuals and $24,000 ceiling for families, then we all have to pay the tax?


This might make our health care plans worse in order to avoid that price cap. It would make much more sense to tax rich people. The House version of the bill had a tax on invidiuals making over $500,000 and families making over a million dollars. This makes more sense to me. Heck, I would even say we should be taxing individuals making over $150,000 and famlies making over $300,000. This would raise even more money. But somehow, maybe through heavy lobbying by the wealthy, the US government can't get away from supply-side economics, I guess Ronald Regan's hypnotic powers haven't worn off yet.


This looks like it will be fiasco, we really need to explore the one payer plan for this county, but it doesn't look like that will ever happen. And Ted Kennedy's seat now going to a Republican it looks like it is over for health care reform.

Where's the green revolution investment bubble?

A friend pointed out an article in the lampoon newspaper "The Onion" that reports how the US investors are desperately looking for another bubble to invest in like the Internet, real estate and sub-prime mortgage bubbles among others. See link here: http://http//www.theonion.com/content/news/recession_plagued_nation_demands

While this article is a parody, this is really how our economy works since the powers that be in the US are phasing out the manufacturing sector and some of the service sectors in our economy. Our economy just seems to be one big Ponzi scheme or three-card monte game.

The next bubble was supposed to be the green revolution, an economy that revolves around alternate energy sources. This was one of the platforms that Obama based his presidential election campaign on.

This for some reason has not taken place and the green revolution doesn't seem to be anywhere in sight.

Sure there are all electric cars coming to market like the Nissan Leaf, and Honda has a hydrogen version of the Accord but there is no re-fueling infrastructure to support them. I also saw a report on Nova about new thin solar panel cells and at the time the television program was produced the company that was manufacturing them, United Solar Ovonic, had a two year back log. Now by checking out Google News I have found that this company is laying off workers because their supply is surpassing demand. This doesn't make any sense. If the US Government was really committed to the green revolution this is where they should step in and help create a green infrastructure of electric and hydrogen fueling stations and help green companies like United Solar Ovonic find a market for their product.

This is not happening and investors are not coming to the rescue, because they do not see the money making potential in green technologies. But why? Because as I have stated here before, I think investors and the US government know that whatever green technology comes about oil will be sure to undersell it and ruin it. Even if it green ventures never become truly commercially successful, they could at least help the economy by driving the price of oil way down. This in itself would be a big help to the economy, but investors are not in the altruism business they are in the money making business therefore it will never happen. But at least government should be stepping in to help out, but they are not.

This also is why you cannot expect a free market to operate altruistically, and you need government to step in to be the altruist, but they cannot because big business keeps their hands tied through lobbying. Investors are not going to get the green revolution going because they are afraid they won't make any money and government hasn't stepped in to make sure that the right thing is done.


It is all up to the US Government to get the green revolution bubble going. This should be the priority over having another bailout for failing US banks and business, and it is not only the economy at stake, it is the environment as well.

Tax caps spell a slow death for government services

I heard NYC Mayor Mike Bloomberg at a press conference once say something like "Everyone wants great service [from their city government] but no one wants to pay for it. "

This must be true for the the proponents of tax caps, who want to put the slow kill on local government spending. A much better course of action would be for municipalities to post their incoming revenue and budgets on the Internet therefore citizens can see where money is being spent, and make sure that waste and abuse by officials are kept under control. But of course politicians would rather push tax caps because they probably have something to hide.

Tax caps are big in Massachusetts. They limit the amount of property and school taxes a municipality can impose. As a result of tax caps, Massachusetts schools and public services like libraries, police, firefighters, public works and recreation programs are slowly being shrunk into nothing.

Some tax caps are set below the Consumer Price Index and therefore the municipality cannot even attempt to keep up with inflation and services must be cut.

What surprises me is that this trend appears to the worst in the most affluent and educated communities. Massachusetts is the state that spawned the Kennedys for goodness sake, I always thought it was full of liberal intellectuals not right-wing yahoos. Newton, MA, a very wealthy suburb of Boston, recently cut city services through tax caps. This included closing four branch libraries. The branch libraries eventually re-opened staffed solely by volunteers. Soon they will need volunteer police and sanitation workers. I'm assuming they already have volunteer firefighters, but usually wealthy people are more concerned with making sure there mansions are safe from the threat of fire than they are with any other type of municipal services, so I bet the firefighters are still paid.

This trend will continue throughout the country as jobs continue to move off shore, and the rich being the only ones with money refuse to pick up the tab through taxation. If someone in your community starts the rally for tax caps it would be a good idea to counter attack buy starting a movement to make your local government's budget available online so everyone can see where the money goes, and then help local politicians make a decision as to what services need to be cut or if there is really a need to raise taxes.

A single payer plan may be better than government subsidized insurance

I think that a government sponsored health care plan will only drive up medical and insurance costs. We really need the single payer system that UK and Canada have. It has its drawbacks but like with our Medicare system, once doctors realize that Uncle Sam is paying the bill they are going to try to squeeze out as much money as they can get. This will drive up premiums across the board. Remember doctors are smarter than you and me, that’s why they went to medical school and you didn’t. If there are angles in working the system, they are going to find them

If you are getting Uncle Sam involved for subsidized care, the industry needs to be heavily regulated with price controls. Back in 1993 when the Clintons had their proposed health care reform on the table, there was talk of price caps for health care. I remember some representative from the physicians lobby stating on television that no other industry in the United States has pricing caps and guidelines, and then why should the health care industry have them. I desperately wanted someone to say because no other industry has such a direct impact on human life. You need to have price controls to allow people to live and not be made penniless through jumbo health care bills, as many Americans are. Of course the media didn’t bother to come back with that or any other opposing statement.

The scary thing about the single payer plan is that health care can be rationed out, and that the older you get, the longer you have to wait for a medical procedure. This is where having private hospitals on top of a single payer system comes in. Even with the single payer system there will still be a health insurance industry and plenty of opportunities for doctors to make money. You will have to have insurance for when you can’t get service quickly enough from the single payer system. You will have to seek care from a private hospital when you feel it is a life or death situation and the public system is not responding quickly enough. Therefore for the people who can afford it, you will have to pay for extra insurance just in case you can’t get the care you need from a single payer system.

Although I am really for health care reform, I believe it should be done with caution and a lot of regulation. Even though the single payer plan has its drawbacks, it is a better plan than a Federal sponsored insurance program put out there to compete with private insurance. The federal insurance plan could work as well, but not without strong price controls and caps.