What Is Obamacare?

Dr. Gary North has the ability to put things very succinctly.  On Obamacare, he says  "National health care is the second most important of all government welfare programs. The first is funding education and making it compulsory. But this is generally enforced at the state level in the United States.

Why is government-funded medical care so important? Because it is the symbol of a state that has the power to extend life. It is the supreme agency of healing. Any government that does not pass laws funding and controlling the health care delivery system is seen by the apologists of state power as being inconsistent. A state that cannot heal is not a true god. The modern humanist state presents itself as the final court of appeal. It supposedly possesses final sovereignty."

Four centuries ago, this was called the divine right of kings. That meant that the king was the final court of appeal. There was no one or nothing higher, other than God. Today, the government's position is that there is no God. Therefore, the state is the final sovereign. It is God by default.

A final sovereign must possess the power of life and death. So, we live under the jurisdiction of a welfare-warfare state."

End of quotation.

Obamacare is the nickname given to Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.  Wikipedia says that it is "a United States federal statute signed into law by President Barack Obama on March 23, 2010."  It continues, "The law (along with the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010) is the principal health care reform legislation of the 111th United States Congress."  So Obamacare is a law, and with laws come penalties and rewards.  From a legal standpoint, it states that "PPACA requires individuals not covered by [an] employer-or [by] government-sponsored insurance plans to maintain minimal essential health insurance coverage or pay a penalty unless exempted for religious beliefs or financial hardship, a provision commonly referred to as the individual mandate."  Okay, so here is the gist.  The federal government mandates that you have healthcare whether you want it or not or whether you like it or not.  The federal government assumes that it knows what is best for you, that it has through its steroidal hubris knowledge of you and your body and your energy systems about how they interact more than you, more than the private communication that you have with God in the matter of health.  It assumes authority to make decisions about your life and about your health.  But who has that authority to tell you what to do with your body?  Does your body belong to you or to the federal government?  Does your body belong to God or to the benevolence of the federal government?  Over the last 3 decades, assumptions about what constitutes heart health, brain health, causes of diabetes, and lifestyles and diets that lead to obesity have been put under greater scrutiny, jeopardizing the established opinions supported by the pharmaceutical industry's dollars and educational arms.


I read through a Facebook thread where a couple of law students were debating the benefits of a single payer.

MORAL AND ECONOMIC COSTS OF OBAMACARE
Can't think of anyone better than Ron Paul to start this conversation.  He says, "Third parties, either government agencies themselves or nominally private insurance companies virtually forced upon us by government policies, have not only destroyed doctor-patient confidentiality. They also inescapably drive up costs because basic market disciplines-- supply and demand, price sensitivity, and profit signals-- are destroyed."  What are the moral effects of having confidentiality destroyed?  One, doctors become government agents who rat on their patients to the patients' employers.  Employers, in turn, are granted special privileges to not only snoop into an employee's medical file but then to publish, out of the best interests of the public of course, that information or at least to dangle it over them and to use it to blackmail in bureaucracies where unions purportedly hold management decisions and actions against an employee hostage.



With all of the health crazefederal government says that yoa The Act also reforms certain aspects of the private health insurance industry and public health insurance programs, increases insurance coverage of pre-existing conditions, expands access to insurance to 30 million Americans,^[4][5] and increases projected national medical spending^[6][7] while lowering projected Medicare spending.  

Start your research on Obamacare here.  
Here is a great reading list that covers Obamacare.

Up next:  Reality Check disputes the meanings of tax, penalty, and price.

Here, Ron Paul describes 4 bills that he sponsored to lower the cost of healthcare; each one died when it got referred to the Congressional Committee.

This was interesting, very interesting.  The young woman raises terrific questions and objections.  Grayson says that Americans don't want death as an option.

Downtown LA Construction Comes to a Screeching Halt

A terrific analysis by Robert Wenzel on how the economic miscalculations that occur with Federal Reserve money. 

Here is Bob Wenzel on the Scott Horton Show.

Billionaires by Ruchir Sharma

Billionaires and how they stack against the GDP of their respective countries and what that spells for their and the emerging economies.  Very interesting article by Ruchir Sharma.

Wartime Withholding Taxes

Robert Higgs from the Freeman on wartime with-holdings on taxes. 

This is a terrific article on withholding taxes that was initiated by Milton Friendman who lamented it later for good reason.

Jeffrey Tucker Interviews Toby Baxendale

Thoroughly loved this interview by the highly intelligent, ever gracious Jeffrey Tucker of Toby Baxendale on "Honest Banking in the UK."

Low Interest Rates Means Mal-Investment

Walker, an Austrian economist evaluates China's economy.  "He puts cement companies and real-estate developers in the category that will appear somewhat resilient before a deeper downturn takes hold, with the temporary reprieve supported by earlier pre-sales of housing projects.

Ultimately, however, many companies is those industries will collapse and eventually undergo consolidation, Walker said.

“Property-led growth and infrastructure-led growth is just about finished,” he said.

Walker, who adheres to the controversial Austrian school of economics, said that what’s unfolding is part of the normal business cycle, in which activity contracts and investments have to be written off.

He believes that China’s low interest rates have helped stoke mal-investment on a scale never seen before, and that another government stimulus package appears unlikely, given a glut of overbuilding, including transportation projects such as airports...

So when interest rates are low, they encourage borrowing because money is so cheap and investors don't care as much about their risk.  If investment is bad and the business bombs, companies will consolidate their capital and resources to stay alive. 

What Role Syria?

“Toppling themselves?”  Eichorn, your use of the CIA “world handbook” to point out that Syria’s economy is ranked 145 does not refute the fact that Syria is trying to build itself out of American hegemony, a term accurately used by Jakhongir early in this thread.  Jakhongir uses the language of the day, but I prefer to call it socialist yoke.  The point I was making, which you conveniently overlooked, was that the US presence with military bases and CIA offices riddled through the middle east chokes national sovereignty and free trade.  It's to know, Joe, that you've got the CIA World Factbook ready in hand, but there are other sources that might, perhaps even CIA-doctored, that prove that Syria is an emerging economy though ranked only 145th in the world.  Wikipedia?  It's not a bad place to start.
   

@Jordan:  Jakhongir was not asserting that the US is the only country with an intel presence in the midde east or anywhere else.  In fact, he mentioned the competition from China and Russia as "counterbalance."  He's right.  And his characterization of the US government as hypocritical no one can dispute, not even CIA-supporting Eichorn.  But Jordan, you're right, the US with its CIA is not the only country with an intelligence presence in the middle east.  My concession, however, to that point is conditional.  Who do you think built up the intelligence services in the Soviet Union or in China, two countries who are still trying to raise themselves out of communist feudalism even now decades on from the fall of communism in 1991 and 1989 respectively?  The US did.  There’s no way that the USSR, a former 3^rd rate Soviet economy could develop into a military super power in as few years without the financial, intelligence, and technological aid it received by the US before and since the Hoover Administration.  If I could be so bold as to recommend 2 worthwhile readings, I would offer G. Edward Griffin’s book The Creature from Jekyll Island and Anthony Sutton’s Western Technology and Soviet Union Economy.  http://peswiki.com/index.php/Site:LRP:Western_Technology_%26_Soviet_Economic_Development.

The only CIA Agent that I know from his writings and interviews and who I find worthy of trust is Michael Scheuer, an ex-CIA agent in charge of the CIA's Bin Laden unit in middle east intelligence.  I also appreciate Glen Chancy's arguments on Syria as one of the holiest places on earth. http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig3/chancy4.html.  His article alerts me to the fact that United States government's foreign policy is anti-Christian and not just anti-Muslim, a policy crafted in tandem with the depopulating forces within the CFR, the UN, and NATO.   To the US State Dept., destroying Christian communities is the necessary collateral damage as part of its recolonizing efforts in the middle east from a theocracy to a secular democracy.  It won't work.  Scheuer, whose opinion obviously is not infallible as Eichorn would imbue with his CIA reference, asserts that if Assad goes, Israel’s security goes.  Why?  Because Syria plays the role of moderate among middle east theocracies.  In fact, Syria's moderate position in the middle east is actually a benefit to Israel.

@J. Eichorn:  Eric Margolis explains that “Syria’s conflict is confusing.  It began a year ago when insurgent groups slipped in from neighboring Lebanon.  They were armed, supplied and trained by the CIA, Britain’s MI6, and Israel’s Mossad.  (Please forgive for not citing the CIA World Factbook as proof).  Their finances came from the US Congress, which voted in the 1980’s to fund overthrowing Syria’s Assad regime because of its antagonism to Israel and support for Palestinians, and from the Saudis.  Syria has fragmented along ethnic/religious grounds.  Some of the Sunni majority, particularly the powerful merchant class, still support Assad. So do Syria’s ancient Christians, about 10% of the population.  Like Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, Syria’s Assad protected his nation’s Christian sects from fanatics who call Christians western-backed traitors or idol worshipers.”  The conflict in Syria is not easy to read. 

The only CIA Agent that I know from his writings and interviews and who I find worthy of trust is Michael Scheuer, an ex-CIA agent in charge of the CIA's Bin Laden unit in middle east intelligence.  I also appreciate Glen Chancy's arguments on Syria as one of the holiest places on earth. http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig3/chancy4.html.  His article alerts the reader to the fact that United States government's foreign policy is anti-Christian and not just anti-Muslim, a policy crafted in tandem with the depopulating forces inside the CFR, the UN, and NATO.  To the US State Dept., destroying Christian communities is necessary collateral damage in its recolonizing efforts in the middle east to turn a theocracy into a secular democracy.  It won't work.  Scheuer, whose opinion obviously is not infallible as Eichorn would imbue with his CIA reference, asserts that if Assad goes, Israel’s security goes.  Why?  Because Syria plays the role of moderate among middle east theocracies.  In fact, Syria's moderate position in the middle east is actually a benefit to Israel.

Eichorn, to reply to your contention about my claim of Syria as an emerging economy, "And are you defining Syria as an emerging economy?" see if you can't find Syria in the list of emerging economies here:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Developing_country#List_of_graduated_developing_economies.  The point I was making by using the phrases like “emerging economy” and “emerging country” was that these countries want to their economies to flourish independent of western financial, military, and political yoke; they'd prefer to trade freely with countries than to war with them. 

Joe, I don't know if my example was the worst.  It may be, it may not be; it doesn't matter.  What I do know is that your drawing on the CIA as a source of economic data reveals a credibility problem.  With its hand in distributing a million doses of LSD to Americans, with its covert wars in too many countries to speak of, with its mind-control games, with its coups and assassinations of democratically-elected governments and leaders from around the world and peaceful organizations here at home, to call up the CIA as a source of logically consistent truth says to me that you've not only got a credibility problem but a moral one as well.  And Joe, when you argue, “You're talking about two nations that are on the brink of toppling themselves from the inside out,” do you stop and ask yourself "Who is on the inside?" or do you already know who is on the inside or do you care?  Without asking this question or fact-checking, or maybe you have, you are inadvertently dismantling the strength of your own position.  See here.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_orfcGnaseE&feature=player_embedded.

And anyone reaching for the CIA World Factbook is fighting a credibility battle, given the nefarious deeds that the CIA and other intelligence agencies have committed against American citizens and peoples abroad.  CIA World Factbook?  You offer nothing specific except a lone number that doesn’t even refute what to you is the worst example you’ve ever seen.  If it is the worst example you’ve ever seen, it would be fairly easy to refute, yet you cannot marshal any specific evidence to refute except with a blustery checking of the throat before you the thrust of my argument which was that the US should, according to many US presidents, stay out of entangling alliances with other nations.  That was my point.  It shows that you have no specific rebuttal to make other than to say “That’s not so.”  If that’s all that you can do, why get involved in the discussion where viewpoints are presented?  Let’s hope that it’s not because you don’t have one.  You  didn’t even have the courtesy to link any article or any link to support your point.  If you’re the kind of person, who in person labels statements to strangers as “the worst example” then your mama didn’t teach you anything.  But you’re not in the same room, you’re on Facebook.  I’ve had some heated, interesting, and protracted discussions on Facebook on topics that range from religion to politics to the economy.  I have never seen any remark so rude or so cowardice as yours.  If you perceived my comments as a challenge to your friend Jordan and wanted to seize on something to shut me, I kind of understand that; to your credit you’re defending your friend.  Good for you.  But it is stupid to refer to someone’s comments as the worst.  I don’t know anyone who does that.  Now I do.  The people I talk to and work with will always cite credible evidence.  To cite the CIA World Factbook is laughable.  I am sure that Providing information that might show how they’re wrong is always preferable. 

I don’t know you, dude.  s a bastion of authority    not remotely, outside of influence of other countries, but preferably  the point I was making was th though I did not explicitly define Syria as an emerging economy by putting in in the same class as China    With a nod to Jordan, yes, other nation states are involved in intelligence gathering.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Developing_country#List_of_graduated_developing_economies.  Here is a list of developing countries.  The one helpful thing that came from your comment is that, yes, I do need to read more on

could work better without interference from the west.   A nation that's GDP per capita ranks a whopping 145th in the world (CIA world factbook)?

“Sometimes I can understand the outrage against "imperialist America", but this is about the worst example I've ever seen used.”  I want to be careful not to make assumptions about you based on your comments, but this seems to be an apology for mass murder.  “Sometimes I can understand . . .”?  Wow!  That’s big of you.  I’m glad that you can under those who want their government reigned in a little.  But that Christian Exceptionalism elevates you to a higher asshole.  Imperialist America is a foreign policy that is designed by the UN and the CFR, agents for the international Left.  That’s a fact.  Check your world factbook.  And what organizations during the 20^th century were responsible for more mass murder than any other?  I’ll give you a hint brightboy: China, USSR, Hitler (yes, Joe, Hitler was a lefty—a socialist), Cambodia, Cuba, and others.  There are socialist forces in the middle east as there are throughout the world

and that shows US military bases surrounding Iran. I realize that it is a map of bases surrounding Iran, but Syria is a major ally of Iran. During the Iraq War, the US propaganda hinted at invasions into Syria, claiming that Syrians were entering Iraq and fighting as "insurgents," essentially trying to establish ground for an attack on Syria. As China and Russia and India begin making key trade agreements outside the purview of the US dollar and political hegemony, it emboldens other middle-east nations to throw off the socialist yoke the US has imposed on those states. The US wants one country to go a certain way, while these emerging countries are seeking their own way with the help of trading partners like capitalist China, like capitalist Russia, capitalist India in sync with US imperial collapse. I just think that Iran and Syria are symbolic for the grip that the US is losing around the world. Knowing that they're losing their empire, the US still wants to shape the outcome of the emerging economies.

You don’t say much of anything specific until you attack my statement as though hovering over a topic with vague platitudes is the product of a sophisticated analysis.  It’s not. 

Another cloud over the CIA?