So I’m just going to sit here and listen to songs your Daddy didn’t sing you. Unless he was Hawaiian.
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“One purpose of the public option is to save money. Experience with Medicare suggests that a government-run plan would have lower costs…it would introduce more competition and keep premiums down..and importantly, the public option offered a way to reconcile differing views among Democrats.”

But here’s the real zinger, in my book:

“…some who want a public option might be willing to forgo it if they had confidence in the overall health care strategy.”

Rock the vote.org hits it even harder when they point to the word “quality:
“The public option would operate alongside private insurance companies, making the market more competitive and driving quality up and costs down.”

And here’s why I support the public option, above all else:

“… even if you have insurance, there are lots of ways insurance companies can deny you coverage or stop your coverage. We call this “screwing you.” Not anymore under reform proposals…”

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The key to the public option and the reason people want the public option is to keep costs down. There is more than one way to skin that cat.”

If the public option was only about lowering costs we’d have 1000% agreement and whacko groups like the Right wing PAC, Conservatives for Patients Rights(CPR), wouldn’t spend millions on a national ad campaign whose sole purpose is to dump “the public option”.

The credit card concept was OK, but it became abused.

Boy, was that ever an understatement!

Once it became commonplace to pay for every day purchases (gas, lunch, etc.) with credit cards instead of cash it was game over, because most people never pay the balances monthly (and the companies knew this would be the case) so your $30 tank of gas became $60 when paid over 5 years with interest.

Layer on top of that constant bombardment by advertising that suggested you deserve that vacation, new clothes, new car every 2-3 years and the recipe for disaster was set.

In hindsight, credit should only be used for emergencies, purchase of a home and/or an automobile.

Most everything else can and should wait until you can pay cash for it.

The credit card concept was OK, but it became abused. The excuse for the abuse was that they were no recourse loans and were high risk so they were entitled to high ROIs and fees. Completely unregulated they abused the plastic money system. They provided credit to too many who did not deserve it and assumed that they would make out with the higher interest and fees charged to everyone. They were right and they had congress sit on their hands.

The congress bought the myth that home ownership means consumer spending and that makes jobs and also corporations money – it’s just a bubble. But it was one that sold well because the homeowner saw their home not as a place to live but as an growing asset and one to borrow against – yet another strategy for more income for Wall Street, and corporations who sell home “stuff”.

Debt can only be supported by income and cash flow. When the bubble burst it began the chain reaction ripppling through all the real estate related industries – construction, home products, cars, restaurants, and then to other segments as disposable income evaporated replaced by oppressive unserviceable debt the result of CREDIT. All sectors of the economy are being pulled into the debt /credit sprial.

If we are not growing and inflating, we are dying and in a death spiral. That IS a credit based economy.

US KIA Irak: 4343

US KIA Afghanistan: 829

Be good to yourselves, and all other living things.

Namaste