SEIU Union Plan To Destroy JPMorgan
| Posted on 3/22/2011 | Views: ()
http://www.businessinsider.com/seiu-union-plan-to-destroy-jpmorgan
Share
Health overhaul law potentially costs $115B more
| Posted on 5/11/2010 | Views: ()
I ask, where do you think we're going to get the money to pay for this???... 46% of Americans do NOT pay taxes. Think about that...
WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama's new health care law could potentially add at least $115 billion more to government health care spending over the next 10 years, congressional budget referees said Tuesday.
If Congress approves all the additional spending called for in the legislation, it would push the ten-year cost of the overhaul above $1 trillion—an unofficial limit the Obama administration set early on.
The Congressional Budget Office said the added spending includes $10 billion to $20 billion in administrative costs to federal agencies carrying out the law, as well as $34 billion for community health centers and $39 billion for Indian health care.
The costs were not reflected in earlier estimates by the budget office, although Republican lawmakers strenuously argued that they should have been. Part of the reason is technical: the additional spending is not mandatory, leaving Congress with discretion to provide the funds in follow-on legislation—or not.
"Congress does not always act on authorizations that are put into legislation by drafters," explained Kenneth Baer, a spokesman for the White House budget agency. "Authorizations for discretionary spending are not expenditures."
Congressional estimators also said they simply had not had enough time to run the numbers. Costs could go higher, because the legislation authorizes several programs without setting specific funding levels.
The health care law provides coverage to some more than 30 million now uninsured, offering tax credits to help purchase health insurance through new competitive markets that open for business in 2014. When Congress passed the bill in March, the CBO estimated the coverage expansion would cost $938 billion over 10 years, while reducing the federal deficit by $143 billion.
"If Congress were to approve all of this new discretionary funding authorized in the health care bill, almost all of the administration's highly touted savings would be made null and void," said Jennifer Hing, spokeswoman for Republicans on the House Appropriations Committee.
But Baer said Obama would demand that added spending be offset with cuts in other domestic programs. "The president made clear he will enforce that with his veto pen," said Baer.
___
On the Net:
Congressional Budget Office report: http://tinyurl.com/3yp78jh
Share
Obama Attacks Blogs, iPods, X-Boxes
| Posted on 5/10/2010 | Views: ()
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rB0Paw-bNSg
US President Barack Obama lamented Sunday that in the iPad and Xbox era, information had become a diversion that was imposing new strains on democracy, in his latest critique of modern media.
Obama, who often chides journalists and cable news outlets for obsessing with political horse race coverage rather than serious issues, told a class of graduating university students that education was the key to progress.
"You're coming of age in a 24/7 media environment that bombards us with all kinds of content and exposes us to all kinds of arguments, some of which don't always rank all that high on the truth meter," Obama said at Hampton University, Virginia.
"With iPods and iPads and Xboxes and PlayStations, -- none of which I know how to work -- information becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment, rather than a tool of empowerment, rather than the means of emancipation," Obama said.
He bemoaned the fact that "some of the craziest claims can quickly claim traction," in the clamor of certain blogs and talk radio outlets.
"All of this is not only putting new pressures on you, it is putting new pressures on our country and on our democracy."
Obama, who uses the handful of Commencement addresses that he delivers each year to meditate on societal developments broader than the minutiae of everyday politics, warned the world was at a moment of "breathtaking change."
"We can't stop these changes... but we can adapt to them," Obama said, adding that US workers were in a battle with well-educated foreign workers.
"Education... can fortify you, as it did earlier generations, to meet the tests of your own time," he said.
Share
Communicating With Those Who Play The Victim
| Posted on 5/4/2010 | Views: ()
The role of Victim (poor me) is a favorite with many of us. There are so many "benefits" we can ensure by playing the role of the victim.
1. We automatically gain self-worth. Follow this reasoning closely. As a victim, we are the one to whom injustice is being done. Thus, the others are unjust, incorrect, not okay, wrong in what they do and consequently we are just, okay, good and right. We are worthy and they are not. Many of us, who lack sufficient self-esteem, find this as a way we can establish our self-worth, by being the victims of others' wrong doings.
2. As victims we can play on the others' pity and guilt. When they are angry with us, we can diminish their rage and aggression by appearing weak and abused.
3. When we want something from some one, we can play on their guilt, by making them feel responsible for our unhappiness or our problems.
4. We "as victims" are not responsible for our reality and thus not to blame if we or our lives are not as we would like them to be. We have an excuse for not being okay or manifesting our potential.
Thus, as victims, we gain what we want from the others, by making them feel responsible for our reality, and by believing that we are weak, incapable and in need of help.
When confronted with loved ones who are playing the role of victim, we need to free ourselves from the illusion that we are responsible for their reality or that we can create their happiness, health or success in life. We can love and support them with all heart, but we cannot create their happiness, health or success. Only they can do that.
We need to express our love to them in ways that they can feel it, without getting caught up in feeling responsible or guilty for their reality. This requires a combination of love, effective communication and clarity of mind. We need to help them find another way of getting what they need. Away free from self-pity and unnecessary suffering.
When we serve someone a fish, we feed them once. When we teach them to fish, we feed them for a lifetime. Thus the greatest gift we can give is our faith in the other's ability to solve his or her own problems.
A possible honest communication with a Victim might go something like this.
I message to a Victim
"Dear, I want you to know that I love and care for you and want very much for you to be happy and healthy and satisfied in your life. I want that very much and have been trying to create that for you. However, I am beginning to realize that I cannot do that for you.
"I realize now that I have been feeling responsible for your reality and some times guilty because you are not as happy and satisfied as we would both like you to be.
"I now realize that I do not help you by feeling responsible or guilty. These feelings just make me angry with you because you do not do what you could be doing to create a happier life for yourself. Also you often do not see how wonderful your life really is, because you frequently focus on what you do not have, rather than all the wonderful things you do have.
"Thus, I am no longer going to try to create your happiness or get your approval through your expression of satisfaction. I am going to love you and offer you whatever I can, without doing more than I believe I should and without getting feeling guilty or getting angry with you because you are not satisfied.
I hope you will be able to feel my love in this change. This has nothing to do with my love for you, but about an unhealthy codependence, which has developed between us, in which I am seeking my own self-worth through your happiness and satisfaction.
"Is there something you would like to share with me concerning this?"
There are of course situations in which someone may actually be unable to help themselves and sincerely in need of our help. In such cases we will serve them joyously with love.
Share
