Fox News has recently reported what happens when a country has social medicine. Bear in mind our politicians are trying to impose social medicine in the US.

A 69-year-old Japanese man injured in a traffic accident died after paramedics spent more than an hour negotiating with 14 hospitals before finding one to admit him, a fire department official said Wednesday.

The man, whose bicycle collided with a motorcycle in the western city of Itami, waited at the scene in an ambulance because the hospitals said they could not accept him, citing a lack of specialists, equipment, beds and staff, according to Mitsuhisa Ikemoto.

It was the latest in a string of recent cases in Japan in which patients were denied treatment, underscoring the country's health care woes that include a shortage of doctors.

The man, who suffered head and back injuries, initially showed stable vital signs, but his condition gradually deteriorated. He died from hemorrhagic shock about an hour and half after arriving at the hospital, Ikemoto said.

Ikemoto said the victim might have survived if a hospital would have accepted him more quickly. "I wish hospitals are more willing to take patients, but they have their own reasons, too," he said.

The death prompted the city to issue a directive ordering paramedics to better coordinate with an emergency call center so patients can find a hospital within 15 minutes.

The motorcyclist involved in the Jan. 20 accident was hurt too and was also denied medical care by two hospitals before one accepted him, Ikemoto said. He was recovering from his injuries.

More than 14,000 emergency patients were rejected at least three times by Japanese hospitals before getting treatment in 2007, according to the latest government survey. In the worst case, a woman in her 70s with a breathing problem was rejected 49 times in Tokyo

Posted by Walt as Medical, Socialism at 11:09 AM EST

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By Alan Caruba

My father used to say that there was no defense against stupidity. He was a very smart man. When he entered kindergarten in the early 1900’s, he spoke his parent’s native language of Italian. The teacher seated him beside a boy who spoke both English and Italian, and he learned English. Nobody gave it any more thought than that.

Dad passed through the K-12 grades in Newark, N.J., and then worked his way through New York University to gain a degree in accounting. Then he studied some more and was among the youngest men to become a Certified Public Accountant. All that study and hard work helped him survive the Great Depression. It is a classic American story.

In his time, American education was as basic as it comes. You learned the fundamentals of reading, writing, and arithmetic..

You were taught, not just history, but something called civics, lessons about the way the nation was governed and why our republic was a leading example of “government of the people, by the people, for the people.”

In a report by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, released in November of last year, more than twice as many people (56%) who took the test knew that Paula Abdul was one of the “American Idol” judges than where those famous words came from. Only 26% identified Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address as the source.
 
Of the 2,500 Americans who took the test that included college students, elected officials and other randomly selected citizens, nearly 1,800 flunked the 33-question test on basic civics. The elected officials scored slightly lower than the public with an average score of 44% compared with 49%; less than half.

There are two great threats facing America today. One is the vast ignorance of our history and of the way we govern ourselves, and the other is the growing numbers of functionally illiterate Americans.

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Posted by Walt as Education at 10:11 AM EST

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By Warner Todd Huston

My good friend, Ken Marrero over at Blue Collar Muse, did some  interesting research into where the money from Tennessee's share of the so-called stimulus payoff ends up going. Ken notes that there is a lot of money floating around but little of it goes to stimulate the economy. In fact, it seems that the lion's share goes to government and its grasping needs as opposed to the economy.

According to Marrero, The Volunteer State stands to have a windfall of $3,779,708,000 thanks to the pork-laden bill passed by Congress and President Obama. The list of payouts is impressive, but it really does show that only a small amount of the total could be considered an economic stimulant.

The list of recipients is instructive:

$771,610,000 on Education
$171,678,000 on "General Purpose"
$1,100,000,000 for Medicaid
$10,200,000 for the Foster Care system
$71,988,000 to mass transit capital grants
$20,394,000 to "clean water" programs
$57,814,000 to drinking water programs
$97,467,000 to something called "weatherization"
$59,065,000 to the state energy program
$7,199,000 for immunization
$2,614,000 for elderly nutrition
$41,932,000 to child care
$19,699,000 to the shadowy idea of "community services"
$2,069,000 to the "temporary emergency food assistance program"
$2,064,000 for emergency food and shelter
$11,500,000 for vocational rehabilitation
$174,210,000 for K thru 12 education
$50,386,000 for school improvement
$236,163,000 goes to the individuals with disabilities act

… well, this is just a tiny slice of the list that Marrero gives us — he also goes into detail about the items above. What his work does show is that few of these projects are economic projects. Instead what they are is grist for the mill of big government. Little of this money seems to be going to the economy in the form of helping business, assisting people with loans, or creating solid, long-term jobs.

In summation, Marrero says:

"Our totals are quite interesting.  Of our total $3,779,708,000 - $1,246,017 goes to various Education programs, $1,100,000,000 goes to Medicaid leaving just $1,433,691,000 to spend on everything else.  Almost two thirds of the money is excluded from stimulating the Economy in just two general items.  Of the monies left, $771,282,000 also fails to stimulate the Economy, $662,409,000 falls under the “Maybe” category and only $12,979,000 has the appearance of true Stimulus spending."

But Tennessee is no different than any other state in this regard. Obama and his minions in Congress did nothing to stimulate a flagging economy. This bill is meant for one thing and one thing only: to enlarge government and infuse the people's money into dubious programs of little worth as a way to self-perpetuate government.

This porkulus bill is more proof than ever that we now have a government of the government, by government, and for the government. And like cancer it grows to kill its host.

About the author
Warner Todd Huston is a Staff Writer for the New Media Alliance, Inc. (http://www.thenma.org/). The New Media Media Alliance is a non-profit (501c3) national coalition of writers, journalists and grass roots media outlets

Posted by Walt as Economics, Obama Watch at 2:53 PM EST

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By Alan Caruba

On “Jeopardy”, the popular quiz show, they have a category called “Stupid Answers” in which the answer is so obvious, posed in the question, that it is virtually impossible to get it wrong.

Unfortunately, we are afflicted by too many stupid answers to very real issues and needs, the most fundamental of which is energy. At the very heart of our society and economy is the dependence upon and need for uninterrupted and increased energy, primarily electricity.

The answers we have been hearing are the worst possible. Over and over again we are told that the U.S. must become more dependent on “alternative, clean” energy, meaning solar and wind energy. These represent about 1% of all the energy the nation consumes at present. Neither comes close to the energy produced by coal which represents over 50% of all the electricity we consume daily. Nuclear produces an additional 20%.

The utility that serves much of New Jersey, my home State, Public Service Electric & Gas recently ran an advertisement headlined “Caution: Blackouts Ahead…” The ad said that “The experts responsible for maintaining reliability on our electric grid flatly predict that we are risking catastrophic power outages in New Jersey if we don’t upgrade our system.”

In the great national debate about the nation’s infrastructure, perhaps no other issue is of more importance, other than the way electricity is produced, than the way it is delivered. Those power lines are the very heart of the way our nation functions. PSE&G is ready to spend $750 million to upgrade its part of the grid, estimated to begin suffering overloads in 2012. Opposing those upgrades is a phalanx of environmental organizations and a regulatory approval process that borders on the insane.

In the meantime, the cost of solar energy credits in New Jersey has jumped to as much as $675 a megawatt-hour for 2009. The credits are paid to solar developers for the energy they produce over a year. The purpose is to boost solar energy production despite the fact that it is the least efficient and most costly way of providing electricity.

Take away the credits and the utilities could spend that money on expanding existing coal-fired and nuclear plant production. This is the classic stupid answer to a real need.

Within the energy industry, all of this is well known. Last August, writing for a leading website devoted to the industry, EnergyPlus.Net, Joseph Welch, the CEO of ITC Holdings Corporation, wrote that “the probability of a second devastating blackout is very likely”, recalling one that five years ago left 50 million Americans in the northeast and Midwest without electricity in the largest blackout in North American history.

A partial, but stupid answer was provided by the 2005 Energy Act requiring reliability standards for the transmission grid, while at the same time dispensing federal largess to solar, wind, biofuel, thermal, and other forms of energy of dubious value. In the meantime, as Welch points out, the growing energy demand “is expected to increase 30% by 2030.

The Obama administration’s energy advisors, cabinet secretaries, and others, including the President, are all on record as opposing coal-fired electricity generation. Many of the nation’s governors remain opposed to coal-fired plants. And America is home to the greatest deposits of coal to be found anywhere in the world!

Yet another stupid answer is the idiotic notion that we can “conserve” our way to energy independence. The prospect of a ban on the sale of incandescent light bulbs as a means to conserve electricity is as idiotic as it gets. Fluorescent bulbs all contain mercury and will require a Hazmat team to clean up the mess if you break one.

As my friend, Michael J. Economides, an editor of EnergyTribune.com, pointed out in mid-2008, “Energy cannot be generated from nothing”, adding that “The next four decades are good for a dozen recessions if it’s business as usual, or for a constant downturn, if American politicos actually apply what they have been saying.”

The smart answers to America’s energy needs include opening oil drilling in the Alaska National Wildlife Reserve, on the nation’s vast continental offshore areas estimated to contain billions of barrels plus vast natural gas reserves. The smart answer is to begin yesterday to upgrade and expand our electrical grid system. The smart answer is to encourage the mining of our nation’s coal reserves. The smart answer is to build more coal-fired and nuclear plants.

Who opposes this? The Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth, and the Environmental Defense Fund, to name just three organizations dedicated to destroying the nation’s economy and its ability to provide energy to its people. Who opposes this? Ask the new Secretaries of Energy, the Interior, and the Director of the Environmental Protection Agency.

The next time one of these people, including the President of the United States of America, claims that global warming requires that we all freeze in the dark, impeachment proceedings should begin immediately.

Posted by Walt as Economics, Oil Production at 9:28 AM EST

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By Thomas E. Brewton

Corruption can be reduced only by reducing the size of the Federal government.

Much is being written about unsavory political influence exercised by the army of Washington lobbyists, who act as conduits for large amounts of influence money from special interest groups.  Those special interest groups range from business and environmental groups, to abortion advocates, and labor unions.

Tom Daschle's exit from nomination as the commissar of a national socialized healthcare system is among the headliners.  Another is Leon Panetta, bound for the CIA, coming off large lecture earnings from groups doing millions of dollars worth of business with the CIA.  Already fading into the background is Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's husband's big-bucks connections with some of the less reputable characters on the international scene, people against whom Secretary Clinton must represent the interests of the United States.

On the other hand, limiting people's opportunity to contribute money to help elect and influence representatives friendly to their interests is, apparently to most everyone outside Congress and the Supreme Court, an unconstitutional infringement of First Amendment rights. 

If we are not to invade First Amendment rights, what then are we to do? 

At the most fundamental level, the problem is what lawyers call an attractive nuisance.  If you build a swimming pool it is likely to attract small children, with potentially dire consequences.

If we continually enlarge the size and scope of the Federal government, already the largest dispenser of money in the world, it is not rocket science to forecast that every scoundrel in the world will be looking for ways to game the system or to steal money outright.  Notorious bank robber Willie Sutton, when asked why he robbed banks, is supposed to have answered, "Because that's where the money is."

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Posted by Walt as U.S. Constitutional Issues, U.S. Political Issues at 9:03 AM EST

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Washington, D.C. - At least $8.6 billion of President Obama’s proposed $1.2 trillion stimulus plan is meant to fund dubious special interest policy initiatives of environmental activists and should immediately be jettisoned, says Deneen Borelli, full-time Fellow with the Project 21 national black leadership network.

"It's outrageous that taxpayer money is slated to be used to fund the agenda of environmental special interest groups.  These special interest groups are using global warming alarmism to fund dubious projects while discouraging the use of fossil fuels," says Borelli.  "If liberal lawmakers really cared about stimulating the economy, they would remove rules and regulations that block the development of more fossil fuels.  This would provide good-paying jobs and lower energy costs for Americans.  Instead, they appear only interested in using their combined force of money, power and influence to fleece taxpayers of their money and their freedom."

Among the green earmarks in the bill legislation cited by Borelli:

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Posted by Walt as Economics, Environmental Issues, Global Warming, Obama Watch at 8:45 AM EST

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By Thomas E. Brewton

The light of God's truth has been snuffed out in Europe, now the least Christian and the most secularized and socialized part of the world.

This week, Black Rock Congregational Church is focusing on worldwide missionary programs and the 20-plus missionaries that the church supports. In that connection, rather than a traditional sermon, we at Black Rock-Long Ridge Congregational Church (North Stamford, Connecticut) heard a report by Dr. Ted Noble, one of those missionaries. His subject was the appalling decline of Christianity throughout Europe.

Fewer than one percent of Europeans are Christian believers. Elsewhere, especially in Africa and Asia, the percentage is much higher and growing. Europe has become a spiritual wasteland in which people look to the political state for their salvation.

In the 19th century, Africa, the Dark Continent, was looked upon as the great field of activity for Christian missionaries. Conditions are the reverse today. American Episcopalians, for example, who seek a return to the Bible and a turning away from the secularized social gospel that has overtaken their church, now look to African bishoprics for support.

Dr. Nobel talked mostly about the opportunities and the needs for missionary work in Europe. But it's important also to ask why Europe is in spiritual decline.

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Posted by Walt as Christianity, Europe Political Issues, Socialism at 4:32 PM EST

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By Alan Caruba

 “The Arctic may hold 90 billion barrels of oil, more than all the known reserves of Nigeria, Kazakhstan, and Mexico combined, and enough to supply U.S. demand for 12 years.” One would have thought Joe Carroll’s Bloomberg News report would have evoked some interest by the public and other media outlets. Instead, news of the U.S. Geological Survey was greeted mostly by a giant collective yawn.

“One third of the undiscovered oil is in Alaskan territory, the agency found…”  Considering that the Democrat-controlled Congress adamantly refuses to let drilling occur for the oil known to exist in and off-shore Alaska, it is not surprising the public has concluded this vast treasure will remain untouched.

Apathy, however, is not a very good response to the prospect of this mother lode of potential new oil. Worse yet, we stand lose any of the wealth it will generate if the same Congress signs the United Nations Law of the Sea Treaty, whose acronym, LOST, could not be more accurate. The Joint Chiefs of Staff have endorsed it, apparently oblivious to the fact that the mighty U.S. Navy can go anywhere it wants in the world. Even the Bush administration has marshaled no arguments against it.

This monstrosity of a treaty has been around since the days when the Reagan administration first rejected it.

Full disclosure of the contents of this treaty would have Americans in the streets of Washington, D.C. brandishing pitchforks. Bernard Oxman a professor at my alma mater, the University of Miami, describes its text as “amply endowed with indeterminate principles, mind-numbing cross-references, institutional redundancies, exasperating opacity, and inelegant drafting.” In other words, it is a document intended to steal the wealth to which the United States has a legitimate claim.

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Posted by Walt as Oil Production at 11:41 AM EST

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After just two weeks in office, the Obama administration is having a hard time living up to the Obama campaign's mantra of change for the better. Unless, of course, "better" is defined as an administration made up of a handful of tax cheats and broken promises.

While much of the United States is still basking in the afterglow of an historic election and an inspiring inauguration, much of the world is looking at Obama's first two weeks in office with in credulousness.

From a policy perspective, several countries have voiced concerns about the protectionist aspects of Obama's "stimulus" bill currently making its way through the US Senate. Meanwhile, even left-leaning France has rejected an Obama-style spending binge.

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Posted by Walt as Obama Watch, Taxes at 12:34 PM EST

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By Alan Caruba

In 1939, ten years after the crash on Wall Street, the Secretary of the Treasury, Henry Morgenthau, Jr., told the House Ways and Means Committee:

“We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. And I have just one interest, and if I am wrong…somebody else can have my job. I want to see this country prosperous. I want to see people get a job. I want to see people get enough to eat. We have never made good on our promises…I say after eight years of this administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started…And an enormous debt to boot!”

Does history repeat itself? Yes, it does. And there is every appearance that the White House and the Congress intends to repeat many of the errors of the last Depression that came to be known as Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal.

With exquisite timing, after ten years of research, professor of history, Burton Folsom, Jr. has published “New Deal or Raw Deal? How FDR’s Economic Legacy has Damaged America” ($27.00, Threshold Editions).

To get an idea of just how bad the U.S. economy was during the 1930’s, Folsom notes that, even though the U.S. had budget surpluses in 1930 and 1931, government spending “ballooned and far outstripped revenue from taxes.” It was the Wall Street Crash of 1929 that precipitated the Depression, but it was FDR’s

Initially voted into office in 1933, from 1937 to 1939 “the value of all stocks dropped almost in half…Car sales plummeted one-third in those same years, and were lower in 1939 than in any of the last seven years of the 1920s. Business failures jumped 50 percent from 1937 to 1939; patent applications for inventions were lower in 1939 than for any years of the 1920s. Real estate foreclosures, which did decrease steadily in the 1930s, were still higher in 1939 than in any years during the next two decades.”

FDR was an enormously popular President in his day. His photo could be found everywhere in people’s homes and apartment, in barbershops, in businesses, and just about anywhere people gathered, but he not only did not solve the nation’s economic problems, he made them worse with the help of a Congress. By 1936 Congress was totally dominated by the Democrat Party in ways that exceeded any previous party for 150 years.

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Posted by Walt as Economics, Obama Watch at 8:29 AM EST

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