I’m on vacation (and thus this is unedited), but had this article forwarded to me and wanted to make a comparison. Human Trafficking is a serious problem throughout much of the world, in particular Asia and the Middle-East. Stories of people, mostly women, enslaved to work in garment factories, rice fields, brick factories, brothels, and homes are excruciating to read. They are most often not allowed to leave the premise. They are told that if they are disobedient in any way that they will be punished or their family will be. In many countries, such as Thailand, the police and other authorities are of little or no help as they are paid bribes to assist the slave masters and indeed, in some areas this type of slavery is considered socially acceptable.

When International Justice Mission (IJM) is prevented from putting up advertisements with a message to people who might be enslaved that they can contact IJM for help, Americans rightly go ballistic. The Brad Pitt’s and Angelina Jolie’s of Hollywood, the elected folk in Washington, and others scream about the lack of freedom of speech and how horrible these people are who do not want to help those enslaved.

Yet here in the U.S. this happens and what do we do? If someone plastered bus ads all over telling people that if they were enslaved in a Christian organization and couldn’t leave for fear of harm that here was someone who could help, I’d not be offended in the least. So, why are these SIOA bus ads offensive? We know from a number of cases in the U.S. in just the past year that some number Muslims are held hostage, eg, enslaved, under threats of death. Why does Miami-Dade Transit not want to help these people escape?

If I wanted to put up an identical ad, though trying to reach women enslaved and forced to work as prostitutes in Miami, would that be deemed offensive to pimps who enslave these women and thus not allowed on Miami-Dade buses? If it said:

Threat over your head? Leaving Prostitution? RefugeFromProstitution.com

What third world is Miami-Dade becoming?

What we’ve witnessed from the Catholic church over the past few years with its pedophile priests scandal has been, at the least, very concerning.

What we’ve witnessed from the Vatican in the past week has been absolutely nauseating.

The Pope and others in Catholic leadership need wives.

Not because this will give them a more appropriate outlet for their sexual appetite than the children they’ve been using. Though it will. And not because this will attract more non-pedophiles into the priesthood instead of it being overloaded with those with homosexual pedophilic tendencies. Though it will. But because these men are in dire need of normalcy, balance, and a woman’s opinion in their lives.

There have been dozens of cases (and likely hundreds or thousands) throughout the Catholic church, worldwide, of those in authority protecting priests who rape and molest children rather than taking actions to protect the children from further abuse by Catholic priests. Among other horrific actions, they’ve routinely moved priests accused of molesting and raping children instead of removing them. How many hundreds of men in authority throughout the Catholic church have done this? How many hundreds have made the decision to move one of these rapists and allow them to continue to rape little children? How many thousands have known about these decisions but did nothing?

As this scandal continues to grow it has become obvious that this is pervasive throughout the Catholic church. It is pervasive around the entire globe and it is pervasive at every level including the very top. And it goes back as far as anyone alive today can attest so we can only wonder how long it’s been going on.

Is anyone involved in leadership in any way in the Catholic church, from parish priest to pope, innocent of allowing these children to be molested? As pervasive as these actions appear to be I find it difficult to believe that anyone who has been in leadership for more than a year or two was not aware of what was going on.

We know that there have been thousands of complaints of priests molesting children over the past few decades. How many times, prior to the scandal becoming public, did the Catholic leadership who received these complaints contact any authorities?

What were they thinking when they allowed these things to happen? Were they in sympathy with these men? Were they thinking that they could understand the sexual frustration these men experienced and they could, on some level, sympathize with their molesting and raping children. And because of their sympathizing and empathizing so well with these rapists they deemed their actions justified in moving a molester from one job to another instead of removing him from ministry or doing what any normal person would – turn them over to the police.

How many of the people (I’m finding it difficult to continue calling them men) involved in any way in these decisions empathized because they too had molested children?

What was the Pope thinking when, as cardinal of Germany, he allowed a known child molester to continue working with children? What was the Pope thinking when, as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, he allowed a priest in the U.S., who had been accused many times of molesting children, to continue working with children for several years before taking action?

Can any, even remotely normal person, who finds out that someone who works for them is molesting children continue to allow them to work with children? I find it difficult to imagine what kind of person would do such a thing. Yet the leadership of the Catholic church has done so over and over again.

Can the men running the Catholic church then, in any way, be considered normal?

Yesterday morning a Vatican official commented that he simply can’t imagine the Pope being called to account for his actions. “It’s just not acceptable.” After all, the official said, he is the head of the church. He is ‘Christ’s head’ on earth.

Bullshit! The Pope is no different than any other man. And as we’re seeing, this Pope is far less than most other men.

The leadership of the Catholic church is one of the most insular and dangerous mutual admiration societies in history.

Wives

So, now we get to the topic of wives for these men. If those in authority in the Catholic church had wives and children would they have made different and much better decisions? What man with a child would ever condone the molesting of children as those running the Catholic church have been doing for so long? How often might these people have had a more normal outlook if they had a wife to discuss things with on a routine basis?

Over the past week we’ve seen an outpouring of support for the pope from all levels of Catholic leadership. What we haven’t seen (and what you’d normally expect to see in these circumstances) is a groundswell of those in leadership calling for an investigation of the pope and his actions.

Imagine if there was evidence, even much less than that against the Pope, that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid had known that another Senator had been molesting children and that Reid helped to cover it up to protect the party. I assume that even most Democrats would call for an investigation of Reid. Now imagine if celibacy was a requirement to be a Senator and so the senate was an insular group of celibate men. Might things be different?

Celibacy

I’m not at all against celibacy. I’ve known a handful of men and women who have chosen to live a celibate life. One in particular was a pastor of a church I worked for. I had a great deal of respect for him. There are two key differences; 1) he had chosen celibacy for himself, and 2) he was in leadership with a number of men who were married and had children of their own. He wasn’t in an insular environment of nothing but celibate men.

God never called for celibacy of pastors, elders, priests, or anyone in leadership. Jesus never said that celibacy was good or a requirement in any way. In fact, Peter, appointed by Christ as a church leader, was married. Do the leadership of the Catholic church know better than Christ?

For the first 1,000 years of the Catholic church there was no celibacy requirement. Celibacy was an invention of man for man’s purpose, not God’s.

The disgusting actions of Catholic leaders that have been uncovered in the past few years shows the result of relying on man instead of God and his Word.

A friend of mine runs a local company and made some comments yesterday regarding ObamaCare that I thought interesting.

They are taking an immediate write-off of about $90 million due to the loss of deductibility of retiree health benefits. This comes right off their bottom line and will impact their ability to hire new employees and increase the costs of their products.

They estimate that if they continue with their current level of health benefits that their annual costs will increase by a minimum of 11% or $25 million per year. One really big unknown, and that is not included in the $25 million, is how the elimination of lifetime limits will impact them. Genomics and other massively expensive new procedures and tests could bankrupt them without some form of cap on lifetime expenditures. A cap that under ObamaCare will now be illegal. According to ObamaCare, if you provide health benefits to your employees, it’s all or nothing. A completely open-ended, unlimited expense is impossible for any company.

Within the next year they will need to make a decision about any continued health benefits. Though he didn’t say it, the implied message is that it would be financially irresponsible to continue providing any health benefits after ObamaCare is implemented. Doing so would put the company itself at risk of bankruptcy. Their only choice will be to discontinue all healthcare benefits and have employees obtain healthcare from the government.

Government Healthcare – British Style

He grew up in Britain and provided some insight on the British system that the Democrats want to convert us to. Britain had no real medical system prior to the late 1940’s. Before then extremely few people in Britain, likely less than 5%, EVER saw or talked to a doctor or any other medical person. Without the free enterprise system that the U.S. has Britons tended to wait on the government to do something rather than do it themselves. For Brits the introduction of a government healthcare system in 1948 was a huge improvement over what they didn’t have prior and, without knowing a comparative system, still consider pretty good.

Contrast this with our current healthcare system in the U.S. that is the envy of the entire world. Many Brits come to the U.S. every year for healthcare. I don’t hear of any U.S. folk going to Britain for their better healthcare.

British doctors are paid £60,000 per year (about $100,000) by the NHS (National Health Service). This, they have found, is not enough to encourage people to go through medical school. Due to a shortage of medical students Britain has been importing doctors from India, Morocco, and other countries. The NHS is under serious financial strain and cannot afford to increase pay to doctors so the government are considering other options such as a much shortened medical school regimen that will produce something akin to a jr. doctor who would receive pay of about £50,000 per year.

For most Britons, if they want to see a doctor, they must call their local NHS first thing in the morning and hope to get an appointment that day. If they can’t get one that day then they wait and call again the next morning.

Barack Obama’s actions towards Israel since becoming POTUS have been quite amazing. What I’m not sure about is if they come from his being Anti-Semitic, Immature, or just plain Stupid. It doesn’t take too much research of the Israeli-Palestinian-Muslim conflict to see that Israel is not the aggressor, that Israel’s actions are defensive in nature.

Is Obama really so stupid as to not understand the nature and history of this conflict? I don’t think so. It is impossible for any one person to have a very good understanding of the many conflicts and issues around the world. And that is why our presidents have advisors and the U.S. State Department. Rationality is extremely in Israel’s favor, Obama has numerous intelligent advisors, it’s his job to understand issues before taking any action, he’s not that stupid.

Immature? Maybe. His administration was embarrassed by Israel’s announcement of building more apartments in East Jerusalem during Biden’s visit to Israel. Obama’s administration over-reacted which caused further embarrassment. Perhaps an argument can be made that Obama’s walking out on and cutting short a meeting, and then a planned dinner, with Israel’s head of State was a momentary spat of immaturity. Obama has shown before that he can be very thin-skinned. But he’s also always overcome it and persevered through. At least when he wants to. His recent actions towards Israel were pre-meditated and he’d thought through them. These were not simply spats of immaturity.

Could Obama believe that treating Israel like dirt and sideling up to Islamic states will lead to peace in the Middle-East? Possibly. Peace could also have been achieved prior to WWII by giving Hitler everything he wanted as well. We could have ignored his transgressions and the world he would have created and sought peace at any cost.

Well before Biden’s embarrassing trip we’d seen tips of Obama’s hat. Statements here and there, delaying of signing off on selling planes to Israel, something that until now was routine for any POTUS. Israel has been too good of a friend to the U.S. for too long to attribute Obama’s actions to anything other than Stupidity, Immaturity, or Anti-Semitism. If we’ve ruled out the first two, what’s left?

Since ObamaCare was signed in to law a number of companies have begun doing exactly what they said they would be forced to do and what I mentioned, almost 3 weeks ago, they would do (in Theory, Practice, Smoke, and Mirrors). They’re announcing hits on earnings, delaying the hiring of new employees, laying off employees, and reducing benefits.

But, according to Obama’s economists, ObamaCare was supposed to make things better not worse. Why are these companies doing this?

Businesses are getting hit with a number of things, complements of ObamaCare. First up is that providing prescription drug benefits to retirees is no longer tax deductible. This will cost the average Fortune 500 company that chooses to continue this benefit about $112 million per year in extra taxes. This may be chump change to economists playing with numbers in a spreadsheet or Congressfolk spending other people’s money, but it is very real to people running real businesses that need this money to pay employees.

It’s real money that has to come from somewhere. Real businesses can’t simply raise taxes to cover it or change a number in a spreadsheet. They either need to increase the cost of their products (which lowers sales so doesn’t help) or they need to reduce costs which is often best accomplished through reductions in the number of employees or the costs per employee (eg, reduce pay and benefits). Unfortunately other cost savings options either don’t exist or take several years to begin offering any savings.

And Henry Waxman is acting all confused over this. According to Byron York, writing for the Washington Examiner, Waxman sent a letter to CEO’s of several of the companies who have said that ObamaCare will cost them hundreds of millions of dollars and result in reductions in benefits, layoffs, etc. He wants them to come before Congress on April 21st to defend their actions. York wrote:

Waxman’s letter suggests he does not accept the company’s decision. “The new law is designed to expand coverage and bring down costs, so your assertions are a matter of concern,” Waxman wrote to Stephenson, in addition to letters to Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg, Caterpillar CEO James Owens, and Deere & Company CEO Samuel Allen. The companies’ decisions, Waxman wrote, “appear to conflict with independent analyses.”

Well, no surprise here that they conflict. And just who did these ‘independent analyses’? Business people who run real businesses that employ people and contribute to our economy?

Government is good and we need government, but let’s remember that government doesn’t make anything (OK, except I suppose it now makes unprofitable GM cars). It doesn’t contribute to the economy. Every single government employee, every dollar paid out by the government for healthcare, is paid for by people and businesses who do make things. It’s the people who grow our food, build our houses, and make our clothes who contribute to the economy and whose efforts pay for every cent spent by the government.

Does Waxman understand this? Is he or Obamaosi really surprised by the actions these businesses are being forced to take? Interestingly, I don’t think they’re surprised. I fear that what we are seeing was their intention. If businesses can no longer afford to provide healthcare benefits to their employees, where will their employees turn? Why, the government of course. We’re not all socialists now, but just wait a few years.

When challenged about the unprecedented, and very likely un-Constitutional, federal mandate that every person in the U.S. purchase health insurance, Democrats common retort is that without the mandate we cannot address the problem of insurance companies turning people down for pre-existing conditions. Not.

Their rationale is that without the mandate, but with a requirement that insurance companies not discriminate based on pre-existing conditions, people will just wait to purchase insurance until they have a need for it. If true this would indeed violate the very essence of insurance which is to spread out the risk of unpredictable expenses.

There is perhaps another option. Insurance companies can be required to not discriminate on pre-existing conditions when someone is transferring from one insurer to another. In other words, nobody is required to purchase health insurance. There is no un-Constitutional federal mandate. If you already have insurance though and simply need to transfer from one insurance company to another then the company you are transferring to must accept you, pre-existing medical conditions and all.

If you choose not to purchase insurance then you will be on your own for most medical expenses. But once you are in the insurance pool, and as long as you stay in it, then you’ll have no problems transferring. This eliminates the pre-existing conditions problem, protects the integrity of the insurance companies, and doesn’t violate our Constitution.

“When the people find they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic”

– Benjamin Franklin*.

Yesterday we took our biggest step yet towards socialism in the U.S. and also witnessed perhaps the most tyrannical action in 200 years. We haven’t witnessed the end of the republic, but we have witnessed the potential beginning of the end.

Our great country hasn’t come to an apocalyptic end with the passage of Social Security or Medicare nor by the incremental creep of increasing taxpayer funded welfare programs. It won’t from ObamaCare either.

Sadly, if ObamaCare is implemented it will be the middle-class who suffers the most.

Today we ALL share the same great healthcare system. The approximate 87% who have insurance all see the same doctors in the same clinics and hospitals and receive the same high level of care. The waiting room in my doctors office is always representative of a cross-section of our country. Whites, Blacks, Hispanics, young, old, rich and poor. I’ve seen well-known wealthy waiting the same as union laborers waiting the same as people on government assistance. Even the 13% uninsured have access to the exact same hospitals and emergency rooms.

The future will likely include a split healthcare system similar to Canada and the U.K.. A private one for the top 15-20% of wage earners, the wealthy and upper middle class, and a public one for everyone else. The private system will be largely identical to what we all share today. We’ve actually started to see this already. Many doctors and clinics will not see Medicare patients because they can’t afford to provide care for what the government pays. In New York and other heavily regulated states an increasing number of doctors no longer even accept insurance and only see those who can pay out of pocket.

The system for the other 80%? It will still have some great and caring doctors, nurses, and other caregivers. But it will not be able to provide today’s level of care to all comers. It will not be able to afford it nor will enough people choose to work in this lower pay system. Waits for care will increase just as in Canada and the U.K. With scarce resources we’ll begin to see prioritization, likely along the lines of future contributions to society (EG, younger workers will receive priority over those who can’t or don’t work – the older, etc.).

But all is not so gloomy.

The Good

There could be some good from this.

Foremost, we might finally see some practical limits placed on the commerce clause of our U.S. Constitution along with some re-assertion of the state’s rights that our founders intended. More on this later.

Second, we may see an awakening of a populace who have become complacent about our creep towards socialism.

Yesterday was a sad day for our country. But I’m still optimistic.

* Widely attributed to Benjamin Franklin though not absolutely confirmed.

Interestingly, that is the one headline about Tiger Woods we haven’t seen in the past several months. Tiger, nor any of the women he paid so well to service him, have been arrested or charged with prostitution.

I’m assuming it’s not an issue of celebrity because Hugh Grant, Charlie Sheen, Sen , and thousands of other famous folk have been arrested for prostitution.

It’s apparently not that only transactions below a certain dollar amount count as prostitution because Tiger appears to have paid less than Elliot Spitzer on at least a couple of occasions.

The form of payment maybe? If payment is of goods and services rather than greenbacks it is no longer considered prostitution? This would seem to make the most sense since it is also the measure applied to the most ubiquitous form of prostitution – guys buying dinners and gifts for girls to get them in bed. If so then I predict a huge increase in purchases of jewelry from Target (of approximately $250 value) along with a corresponding increase in returns of these gifts. “Prostitution officer? I didn’t pay her, I just gave her a gift!”

Such a fuzzy line we’ve created…

Note: I’m just beginning to look in to this. The following may be way way way off base. More to come when/if I have more time. Stop by if you find anything supporting or contradicting (though I won’t be around this week)…

It’s fascinating to read the opinions and testimony of various economists regarding Obama’s healthcare plan. A long and distinguished list have weighed in on numerous aspects, in particular, the money saving features.

A big chunk of the ‘savings’, as much as 3/4’s, is described thus.

Under the plan companies will, according to economists, do one of 3 things:

1 – Larger companies, those with more than about 250 employees, will hold the value of ‘Cadillac plans’ (the health plans provided to nearly all employees, including union employees in large companies qualify as ‘Cadillac plans’) to just below the level that triggers the proposed excise tax. In other words they will reduce coverage. Initially this tax will be triggered on any amount spent on healthcare and insurance in excess of $10,200*. The difference, approximately $4,200 per employee will be paid in additional salary to the employees.

2 – Many smaller companies will cease providing health insurance, encourage employees to purchase insurance through the government marketplace, and elect to pay the proposed $2,000 fine. The difference between what they are currently spending (approx $7,000) and the $2,000 fine will be paid to employees as additional salary.

3 – Some smaller companies will make no change and will continue with their current health plan.

Nice theory, won’t happen in practice. And I’d think they know it.

Competition, locally and globally, is fierce. Few employees will see any increase in salary as the economists predict. That is simply not reality. This theory though does seem to do a good job of hiding the true costs of Obama’s plan.

Despite theory being wrong, all is perhaps not so bad. One way large employers will reduce the costs of their plans (to keep them under the $10,200 excise tax limit) will be to place employees with risky, and thus more expensive, health behaviors in a separate plan with severely limited coverage. This will include employees who are overweight, smoke, drink heavily or are a drug abuser. If you get a speeding ticket or are otherwise documented as a high health risk you could find yourself in this pool as well. This will allow low risk and healthier employees to have better coverage for the $10,200 companies will be allowed to spend. Theoretically, this will encourage employees to make healthier choices so that they can join the healthy plan that offers better coverage.

* Note that on average these companies spend about $14,400 per employee per year on heathcare and, with few exceptions, every full-time employee from bottom to top receives the same plan (many companies also offer these plans to part-time employees at a pro-rated cost). Glenn Beck and a couple of others have said that government employee healthcare costs are considerably more, perhaps as much as twice. Employee benefits industry reports that I have studied have not supported this.

Yesterday I flew in to Chicago O’Hare to connect with a flight to Amsterdam. I had an hour and thirty minute connection which shouldn’t have been a problem…

Well, TSA in terminal 5, the international terminal, was a cluster to behold. I was greeted at the security checkpoint by a mass of about 150 and an estimated 50 minute wait. This just for the passport / boarding card check. Even with a flight that had started boarding and a departure in less than an hour I was told, twice, that I had to stand in the line. After 15 minutes in line and listening to a woman walk up and down the line quietly asking for anyone on SAS flight number something or other I asked about my KLM flight. She looked horrified. Apparently I should have been directed to the rush line earlier. She took me there.

Movie Theatre’s have large LCD displays over the ticket taker indicating what movies are currently seating. Why TSA can’t do the same for flights currently boarding and that thus have priority screening, I don’t know.

Once cleared through the passport check I was to choose among 5 lines for x-ray. About 7 people in each line, shouldn’t be a problem. I made my choice and waited some more. All was OK for a few minutes and then my line ground to a halt. I noticed that every time there was suspected contraband the screener checked the bag, stopping our line dead in its tracks until the screener resolved the problem. I really lucked out, there were 5 people in a row whose carry-on’s required hand searching and re-screening. An average of 4 minutes each.

In 18 of the 20 minutes it took our line to process 5 people, the line next to us got 27 people through. All of them, by the way, folks who had come through the passport check behind me.

I now had less than 10 minutes until my flight was scheduled to depart. I mentioned this to one TSA gal and asked if there was anything she could do. “No, we’re getting everyone through as quickly as possible.” I offered that it might be best if, when they encountered a bag with contraband in it, that it be pulled aside, someone other than the screener deal with it, and allow the screener to continue with those in line (most of whom did not have contraband).

“We don’t need your lip.” Was her reply. “We’re getting everyone through as quickly as possible.”

There was nothing I could do. I had no options. I was stuck.

Is this what we can expect with government run healthcare?

We have what is unquestionably the best healthcare system in the world. World leaders and the rich and famous come to the U.S. for the exact same healthcare as our union workers, CEO’s, bus drivers, unemployed, and even bloggers. Why would we want to turn our health over to the government?