#developers + politicians + insurance companies

[jacksproject2025]

I want all the rich libs who lived in the Hollywood Hills and Pacific coast to DO SOMETHING when we all find out what the people they donated to, endorsed, campaigned for and voted into office plan to do with all the land they just lost. The federal Dems aren’t financing the recovery out of the goodness of their cold black hearts. Newsom didn’t stand by with his hands in his pockets for no reason. The hydrants weren’t empty for nothing.

[i-like-swiss-cheese]

Friendly Reminder That

-58,000 Americans died in the Vietnam War

-50,000 Americans die yearly of bad health insurance

-Schoolchildren learn all about the Vietnam war (for me it was in the 4th grade, but I imagine outside of TN it is different)

-There are a total of 25 Vietnam War memorials in the US (according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Vietnam_War_monuments_and_memorials)

-There are no memorials to people with bad health insurance

-all being equal, 22 bad healthcare memorials should be erected every year

-the leading cause of bankruptcy is bad health insurance

-32 out of the 33 "Developed" countries have universal/single payer healthcare

I spent an entire semester of school learning about the Vietnam war when I was only 9 years old. And yet, that same year almost as many people died of health insurance. I never learned what that was in school and to this day I have never been taught anything about health insurance, but I have had a further 5 lessons on/near the topic of The Vietnam War. If we call the Vietnam war a tragedy here in America (which we should, most of those soldiers were drafted and forced into fighting to the death for a war they did not want to fight), then we should regard health insurance companies as the worst thing to happen to this country. Deny. Defend. Depose. I have seen many friends lose loved ones to bad health insurance, and it breaks them because there was something they could have done. THEIR LOVED ONE WOULD STILL BE AROUND IF THEY WERE RICH. Murder is murder, no matter if its done by the stroke of a pen or the click of a pistol, and yet one is 2.5x more frequent than the other, and 100% more legal. Free Luigi. And if you don't, then lock up every single one of those dirty rats that kill people for profit and buy politicians all so they can upgrade their 5th yacht.

Eat

The

Rich

[lua-magic]

Self Development and Astrology( Vedic Astrology).

There are four main important houses in Astrology called as "Kendra house" ie one, four, seven and ten.

Rest all other houses are supporting houses.

First 🏠 house, is the house of self and personality. Sun is exalted in first house, because Sun is soul, so if you know your weakness and strength and work on your body regularly ( as Mars has lordship of first house) then no outside enemy can defeat you. And if your body is in good state then you can enjoy all the pleasures of the world..

Fourth house The most important house, once you get defeated emotionaly then nothing can help you, it is said, once, you loose emotionally you loose everything in life

So never depend Emotionally on anyone. Never give control of your emotional body to any one.

Jupiter is exalted in fourth house, because even if you loose everything in life but hold on to your morality, you will get everything in life again.

For native who has their Jupiter in two, six, four and ten it is better if you go in work related to Jupiter like counselling, and teaching, spirituality, and work related to religion.

Next house which is important is seventh House, is house of your focus and attention .

This house tells you, where you give your focus that area will expand, also tells you focus on your partnership or network, because your network is your networth, you finally become like the person with whom you spend most time with

Next house is your house of Karma, or the tenth house If you know what work makes you happy or you do what you enjoy,then you are the most carefree and happy person.

Tenth house is opposite to fourth house, it means, once you work hard, fourth house related things like luxury and comfort will come to you easily.

If you have Mercury in 10th house or fourth house, then would get success when you involve in communication, speech or develop some kind of skill

If you have Venus in fourth or tenth then it is better you do work related to cosmetics, luxury, apparels, textile.

If you have SUN in fourth or tenth then it is better you work alone and independent. You can be good politician as well

If you have Moon in fourth or in tenth then you can get involved in food related job, or in psychology or get in job which has traveling..

Mars in second or in tenth house, then involve in land, property, house, real estate, or in Army, police or in sports. Such natives have so much of energy when someone assigns them task they will finish it fast.

Saturn eighth or in tenth house, should take work as their service,they can go in politics, or in service related industry, here Saturn will give you success slowly with time .

If your tenth lord is in first house, then do work related to self improvement and your body, such natives are great and can achieve alot in their career on their own.

Tenth lord second house, do work with your family, or related to speech and cooking.

Tenth lord in third house, do work related to skill development, sports, with siblings, media, communication, commission.

Tenth lord in fourth are extremely good, because person would get all luxurious and comfort by his work. You can work for masses, also home related job or service.

Tenth lord in fifth is also good, you can go in teaching and learning.

Tenth lord in sixth, you can work in charity, for pets, as doctors, healers, health workers, as auditor.

Tenth lord in seventh, it is better to go for business.

Tenth lord in eighth, research, soy, insurance, Bank, occult, astrology.

Tenth lord in ninth, good, you can go in counselling, teaching spirituality, religious work

Tenth lord in tenth is good, you are hard working and can work in any job.

Tenth lord in eleventh, you can work as free Lancer, create multiple source of income, work in social media

Tenth lord in twelfth, you can work in foreign country, or in foreign company, MNCs, import export, hospital, yoga, meditation.

One, four, Sven and ten are actual spine of your chart and you need to constantly work in these houses, rest all houses are by product.

[daynascullys]

i highly recommend leverage! but of course it depends, what are you mainly looking for in a new tv series?

but as far as leverage goes, i think some of my favourite things about the show are:

really great characters!! an honest man who’s lost his family struggling with morality, alcoholism & the group of criminals he has accidentally adopted/who adopted him lol (who he used to try and track down as part of his job in insurance investigation); the grifter who’s in love w him but has her own problems to sort out, who can pretend to be anyone for a con; an ambitious young hacker who’s the sweetest kindest guy ever & WILL make this group of emotionally stunted thieves into a family, so help him god; an ex-hitman who no longer kills people (and is still the guy who fights ppl but like knocks them out with killing them) and grumbles about everything while also loving to cook & deeply caring about his teams health & safety; an autistic cat burglar who loves stealing and is the worlds best thief, who is learning to trust people after a lifetime of trauma.

an awesome con + heist each episode. they’re always in some kind of Situation. they’re pretending to be wedding planners. they’re robbing a bank that’s already in the process of a robbery. they’re doing a magician show. all while at the same time doing very cool serious thief stuff. all of them are extremely good at what they do.

great character development, they each have their issues to work out, quirks to accept about themselves, things to learn.

very sweet relationships <3 both the romantic relationships & the platonic ones. i once saw it described as "found family speedrun" lol which is very accurate!!

genre is action/heist/crime sorta thing but also has many funny comedy moments. eg the characters who don’t grift attempting to grift and either really overdoing the alias or being very socially awkward.

makes you feel a little better about all the shit happening in the world. like. their clients are regular people who have been wronged by some kind of huge company or or corrupt politician or billionaire or something. and the team always somehow takes down the corrupt/exploitative/shitty person and get compensation & justice for the people who have been wronged.

Hi! I’m so sorry I didn’t answer this sooner because I appreciate the effort you put into this!

Spoiler alert, I watched the pilot yesterday and as MANY of you have predicted, I loved it 😂

[lysitheatheglasscannon]

I’m not someone who has watched a lot of superhero stuff, but those that I have seen (and are set in our world), don’t always have the most convincing sympathetic arc for villains. If you’re gonna pull the [over-used] sympathy card, at least make it worth our while. So I have an idea.

Let’s make a person who is chronically ill, and is getting worse, try to see many doctors. Doctors are not sure at best (and usually not really willing to find out), and dismissive at worst. It’s been years of trying to get answers. Our character is angry, frustrated, and grieving. Finally, one doctor sadly goes the distance just to find out the patient is dying. They deliver the bad news. The patient decides that since they don’t have a long life to live anymore, they want to try something. Online research has yielded results of a research center in a foreign country that is studying this illness. They say the cells of it can be studied, and some evidence suggests something can be done to manipulate them. So our character decides to travel there and volunteer themselves as part of the study, after all, they have nothing to lose. And of course, something something tropey happens, and they develop a superpower. (It’s a superpower story, what did you expect?) And they can LIVE. And what does our character do? Get back for years of their life wasted feeling hopeless and stuck.

Random doctors and practitioners all over the country start being murdered. The CEO and specific individuals are being targeted at one or two insurance companies. The police are confused. Why these people? It hasn’t ever happened like this before? And why is a nurse now dead? (Although, rumor has it, she bullied coworkers and patients.)

It takes awhile before the police notice that all the doctors killed have a few patients in common. Perhaps that is the key to cracking this case! They all rally around the last doctor. This one must be next, right? Except… no. The last doctor was never killed. And strangely, this doctor never seemed concerned about maybe being killed. When asked why they are not visibly concerned, this doctor responds “When you’ve really done all you can for your patients, and they know that, and you’ve shown them kindness, you can live without burdens.”

In total, our character spared three doctors. A young doctor who had been new to the profession at the time our character saw him, and who admitted he didn’t know since this was out of his area of expertise, but referred to a specialist. An older female doctor who had skipped her lunch just so she could talk further with our character about their experiences. And of course, that last doctor.

Our character had kept the names and dates and times of all phone calls and representatives from the beginning. Logged who was polite, and who wasn’t. Who kept giving them the runaround, and who had called back promptly. Everything was dealt with, even if murder wasn’t involved. They even started threatening politicians and lobbyists if a change in the healthcare system wasn’t made.

After several years of dealing out their version of justice, our character retires. The illness has flared back up again. This time, it cant be held off. They know this, the research facility had warned them this would probably happen. They decide to (painfully) walk to the park and sit down. You’re there sitting too. You just got off your phone with insurance. They won’t cover the expensive imaging you need. On top of that, you’ve seen 4 doctors in three months trying to get an answer to your pain. You’re crying. Our character is near enough to see this and asks what wrong. You explain, as efficiently as you can, what the issue is. It is NOT the same illness they have. They can’t advise you to see the three doctors they spared. But they listen and console you and tell you what to look for in a doctor. They tell you to itemize all your symptoms. They tell you a secret: sometimes you have to lie to the doctor. Because “it doesn’t matter WHEN that particular issue happened. It matters THAT it happened. And that it isn’t normal.” You reflect on this. Lie to your doctor about when a symptom started? But they have a point. You never did get an answer about that issue two years ago. And you’ve been having similar, albeit lesser severe, issues that mirror the big incident. Maybe, just maybe, you should lie next time. About that anyways, lying more than that makes you uncomfortable. Our character gives a last word of encouragement, and limps off. We never see or hear from them again. But you type up their advice and post it on a forum online. It helps hundreds of people with different illnesses, although you never know this. And our character never knew it either.

So we have a villain whose motives I can sympathize with. Years from their life taken from them by an unjust system. Nobody really likes insurance companies, and almost everyone has a story about a doctor who was terrible. This character end up indirectly helping several people. But the justice they dealt out beforehand, it wasn’t their duty to deal it. And that’s why they are a villain.

This was thought up by moi as I took a shower and reflected on my own health issues. And I recall what my brother went through to get an EDS and POTS diagnosis. No, he never lied.

[zooterchet]

Stages of Ethic

Preschool: Disturbed by the classroom placement schema, in parent company and success thereof, through athletic cheats in track and field.

Elementary School: Believed deeply in sciences and biome tests, to be performed without parent advice, assistance, or informing, instead as private assignments to be attempted for own self-sufficience; at cooking, automotive care, and insurance numbers.

Middle School: Introduction to the internet, and first person shooters; the game, as the learning device, to boost intelligence quotient, in mutual challenge at friendly sport; however of the mind, the proper physical fitness, not the body, the beaten nature of the lower development of the neurology.

Highschool: Hatred of holy wars; those spectral pledges, for a famine induced by wealthy wife of the patrician and centurion system, for a bridal broach; instead the poor, suffer as infantry, victim, and witness, the shutdown of farms for the halls of religion and country; not the common good, of the Catholic Catechism as promised; not refused and manipulated, by those princes held otherwise for hatred of rich girl netted as slave; and their lover, the handsome spy, a cunning and ruthless man.

UMass-Amherst: The concern of the racketeered good; the boycott to control contract, labor, location, good, and contraband. The sharing of law in marital secrets, however marijuana shared in front of child; hence raids under racketeering statutes, by both propaganda's production, and actual law given politician of selectman and district attorney - under direction of mayor.

Bridgewater Triangle: The concern in creation of parent, to remove cycle of poverty downwards into military tradition removed, and instead the upward mobility and into this and inside, the practice outside the career. The refutation of the Lutheran, as peaceful and pacifist, against the common ilk and whetstone of the war, whatever your place may be; your right to make a career, as unique, not a simple action figure, the tool of the pederast.

SNHU: The application of all past sciences observed in highschool and college, to the writ of the advisor, as the superhero; to be interdicted and maligned, as the prime piece of protagonist in fiction. The hero, as the orphan, to be castrated and done aside, included in fiction as their power and base removed; hence the Judaism, out of Babylon, stands for rights of the African and the coloured; not the privileged and wealthy, advised by those in inner circle, instead to be done aside and crushed.

Biden: The false information through factory and warehouse workers, the homosexual working class, Marines, as to the nature of Islam, and the common tomfoolery on Trump's campaign; the common ignorant, as having ignored rights as privilege and assumed, instead of protected by own vote as other besides self, and constituency of family vote as the same, in supporting industries; all interconnected, the infrastructure; infrastructure being the subsidy of federal origin, to any good necessary to obtain for one person, being national, hence supported by the net profit of housing (any controlled or special substance, taught by police, in highschool, having supported shelters and industry; under bank removed ledger of digit, the food consumed from national farms).

[reasonandempathy]

What to do with 10 trillion dollars

I spent way too much time actually answering a reddit question of "How would you spend 10 trillion dollars if you needed to in 20 years. You will die after 20 years." So, I figured I'd share it here.

With only $10 trillion dollars you can't stabilize greenhouse gases or get rid of fossil fuels, which are 13t and 44t respectively. I'm using a variety of sources, so don't expect citations.

I did slightly overpay for things, strategically, partially because I can only imagine doing the things I would do would make it more expensive than it would otherwise be. You'll see.

I'm presuming I don't get assassinated.

What you can do (I did the math) figures are in Billions:

Personal (2.44/10000):

1.44 on remaking 8 games as mid-line AAA games (I chose Legend of Dragoon, FF8, Witcher 1, and the Legacy of Kain series).

.214 on 50 years of housing and buying yourself a $130,000,000 home in NYC. Includes taxes, maintenance, and furniture.

.15 on household staff for 50 years, with at double the normal pay

.000327 to put 3 kids through the best pre-k and best college in the country

.664 setting up each of those 3 kids with their own equivalent home and staff setup

Public Service (4303/10000):

Big one out of the way. 2500bn in lobbying/buying up American politicians to enact structural reforms I want to see. You would think this would be way too much, since the presidential election in 2020 only had 14.4 in it. This amounts to averaging 250 in spending every election cycle, even off-year. I counter with the global commercial banking market having a market cap of 2800 in 2023. The defense industry is almost 480. Health insurance in the US is 1600. This is an expensive, long-drawn fight. This is likely the single most important thing on the list. Anti-corruption measures, labor rights, pro-democracy reforms, including ultimately making it illegal for other people to buy more elections.

a cumulative total of 1803 spent on:

curing the most common cause of blindness worldwide

eradicating polio, rabies, elephantitis, malaria, world hunger, COVID19 issues, Water + Sanitation access, extreme poverty, homelessness in USA, Canada, and UK (I looked for China, Indonesia, Nigeria, Egypt, and Pakistan but couldn't find real numbers),

protecting the Amazon rainforest

Corporate Fixing (5692/10000):

Buying up and changing (converting to Co-Ops, converting to non-profits, dissolving, or something in line with those:

Meta

Amazon

Disney

JP Morgan Chase

Lockheed Martin

Delta

Alphabet

Asda

Tesco

Nike

The Weinstein Company

United Airlines

Shein

EA

BP

Bayer (side-note: they own/are Monsanto now)

De Beers

Vonovia Real Estate Developers

DLE

Ubisoft

Ikea

Shueisha

and Viz Media

It leaves me with 1.4bn left over. I'm comfortable with saying an additional billion would likely be used up administratively as things get a bit more expensive than I thought they would.

Honestly, I could likely blow it on close friends and family who need it. If you have an issue with the house spending being for 50 years instead of 30, that can just be shuffled around a bit to include more people in my personal life to meet the same number.

Leaving me with 470 million to spend elsewhere in the next 20 years. Expensive vacations, nice cars, donating to "smaller" issues as I see worthwhile, giving family and friends money for their ventures/dreams, etc. make me think it wouldn't actually be hard to lose track of that much money in those many years.

Hell, if I want to I can probably spend a million bucks on food a year just for my family. Probably more, if I actively try to do so.

[stevensaus]

Stages Of Grief At The Brink Of The Apocalypse

All the content warnings for climate change, nihilism, and existential dread. All of them. This is a unique time for humanity. It is not the apocalyptic sentiment. There are literally dozens of predicted apocalypses in the various Christian traditions alone, and there's recorded warnings of the ending of the world going back to 2800 BCE. What is unique is that for the first time in human history, there's a damn good chance that they're correct. The effects of climate change are larger and worse than expected, happening faster than expected, and in ways that we didn't expect. After several years in Maslow's basement, the entirety of our species finds itself finally unable to ignore the real state of the world. Unable to ignore the onrushing realization of our own mortality. The change in climate -- and weather -- has become large enough that it is inescapably obvious. Suicide rates keep climbing among youth, and it's not difficult to imagine why. Their future has already been destroyed to feed other's greed. Equally obvious are those who have deliberately and intentionally traded human lives and health -- your life and health, your children's life and health -- just so they could get a few more millions, even though they've known the effects of climate change and pollution for decades. They are not nameless, faceless business executives or politicians.

We know who they are. We know, for example, that Shell's Wael Sawan, who, according to Bloomberg {1} "quietly ended the world’s biggest corporate plan to develop carbon offsets, the environmental projects designed to counteract the warming effects of CO2 emissions" in June 2023, just before it was ranked the hottest month on record... before being dethroned only a month later by July's temperatures. Or we could look at Manchin's long history of fighting anything resembling dealing with the climate crisis. There are plenty of examples, stretching back years. These are not nameless and faceless people who chose to enrich themselves at the cost of human lives. They are actual people, who have made actual decisions. Decisions that will bring harm to you, your children. To literally everyone you care about. Finding their names and faces is trivial. It's easy to find the lists of those on the board of directors and executive committees for, say, Shell (1, 2), Exxon (1, 2), BP (1, 2), and Chevron (1, 2). It's easy to find the politicians that have been corrupted and subverted. For example, you can see the top 20 Congressional recipients of oil & gas money during the 2022 election cycle in one nice list. There are charts of lobbying spending of oil & gas companies in the United States during election cycles from 1990 to 2022, by receiving political party. Feature articles lay out which House members, for example, got the most cash from the fossil fuel industry. And we know that fossil fuel companies -- and their individual executives -- were aware of climate change, its effects, and their role in it decades ago. We know that they've actively worked to subvert, delay, and derail work to slow or stop climate change. We know who they have bought off in both state and national capitols. We know their names. We know their faces. We know exactly who has -- and who continues to -- murder thousands of people simply to fatten their wallets. We know exactly who is responsible for every death caused by climate change. They're proud of it. Remember this. The people you're trying to step on, we're everyone you depend on. We're the people who do your laundry and cook your food and serve your dinner. We make your bed. We guard you while you're asleep. We drive the ambulances. We direct your call. We are cooks and taxi drivers and we know everything about you. We process your insurance claims and credit card charges. We control every part of your life. {2} We are the final children of history, raised to believe that we will have a future. But we won't. And we're just learning that fact. Anger is a stage of grief. {1} Full text at https://pastebin.com/raw/sKdGDaY0 {2} From Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk. Yes, I'm aware of the problematic elements of the work. You're missing the point. Featured Image by Marcin from Pixabay Read the full article

[agapewizard]

➝ THE GLOBAL OLIGARCHY. ❗

The world is run by a vastly powerful and wealthy British-American-European oligarchy of banks, corporations and dynastic families and institutions, which controls much of the wealth of the world. This cabal dominates finance and commerce, manipulates national currencies and economies, controls the media of most nations, and commands the earth’s resources. Their wealth and power originated in the middle ages and expanded over the centuries, and today they reign supreme.

Few people are aware of the power and global influence of these oligarchs because they dominate the major media. As a result, instead of informing us, the media feeds us a steady diet of entertainment, disinformation and lies – to distract us and misdirect us – so that the oligarchy can achieve its plan to dominate the world.

We see the world through the lens of the major media – for most people that means television. Books, newspapers, magazines, radio, and the internet play a role, but the vast majority of people around the world get their information from television. And, if those who own the global media conglomerates, and those who run the television networks and cable channels, decide to feed us disinformation and lies that serve the agendas of those in control, then, instead of being told the truth, we will learn not about the real world, but about the world they wish us to see, one that will serve their plan for global control.

Unless we reach beyond the media matrix to find sources that tell us the truth, authoritarian world government run by this powerful oligarchy will become a reality, and we will all be proles in a George Orwell totalitarian world.

A GLOBAL OLIGARCHY CONTROLS THE WORLD (A PARTIAL LIST)

Through interlocking Boards of DIrectors and stock ownership, and acting through private clubs, societies and institutions, often in secret, a vastly wealthy and powerful global oligarchy of dynastic families, banks and corporations, rule the world, owning outright or controlling:

MOST CENTRAL BANKS NATIONAL ECONOMIES NATIONAL CURRENCIES MAJOR STOCK MARKETS LARGEST PRIVATE BANKS POLITICIANS AND POLITICAL PARTIES CORPORATE MAINSTREAM MEDIA AND MUCH OF THE ALTERNATIVE MEDIA MOST INLFUENTIAL TAX-EXEMPT FOUNDATIONS MOST INFLUENTIAL THINK TANKS MOST MAJOR UNIVERSITIES AND EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS LARGEST ENVIRONMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS LARGEST HOLDING COMPANIES, ASSET MANAGEMENT CORPORATIONS AND HEDGE FUNDS LARGEST TRANSNATIONAL CORPORATIONS LARGEST INSURANCE CORPORATIONS LARGEST PHARMACEUTICAL CORPORATIONS LARGEST ENERGY CORPORATIONS MAJOR ENERGY RESOURCES INCLUDING OIL AND GAS GOLD, DIAMOND AND ESSENTIAL MINERAL MINING AND DISTRIBUTION CARTELS AGRICULTURAL LAND WATER AND WATER SYSTEMS LARGEST WEAPONS MANUFACTURERS INTERNATIONAL MONEY LAUNDERING NETWORKS INTERNATIONAL DRUG TRAFFICKING NETWORKS

THE GLOBAL OLIGARCHY’S INSTITUTIONS, CLUBS & SOCIETIES (A PARTIAL LIST)

The global oligarchy sets its agendas and coordinates its policies by way of secret clubs and societies, and some well-known as well as some less-well-known global instiutions.

UNITED NATIONS NATO WORLD TRADE ORGANIZATION (WTO) WORLD BANK INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND (IMF) COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS (CFR) TRILATERAL COMMISSION (TC) BILDERBERG GROUP CHATHAM HOUSE (ROYAL INSTITUTE OF INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS) CENTER FOR STRATEGIC AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES (CSIS) BUSINESS ROUND TABLE EUROPEAN ROUND TABLE OF INDUSTRIALISTS (ERT) INTERNATIONAL CHAMBER OF COMMERCE (ICC) WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM WORLD BUSINESS COUNCIL FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT (WBCSD) BROOKINGS INSTITUTION RAND CORPORATION HERITAGE FOUNDATION AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE CATO INSTITUTE CLUB OF THE ISLES PILGRIMS SOCIETY CLUB OF ROME

EUROPEAN ROYAL DYNASTIC HOUSES

In Europe today there are only ten monarchies left, but they have enormous wealth and power (dating back to the Middle Ages)

HOUSE OF WINDSOR (Great Britain and Northern Ireland) NETHERLANDS BELGIUM LIECHTENSTEIN LUXEMBOURG SPAIN DENMARK NORWAY SWEDEN MONACO

INTERNATIONAL BANKING FAMILIES

Eight families own the majority of stock in almost all private central banks in the world, including the Federal Reserve.

ROTHSCHILD ROCKEFELLER KUHN LOEB WARBURG LAZARD GOLDMAN SACHS ISRAEL MOSES SEIF LEHMAN

CENTRAL BANKS

Most sovereign nations in the world have publically-owned central banks, but they are controlled by a global banking oligarchy made up of the largest private banks and a few international banking and dynastic families.

The Federal Reserve, the central bank of the United States, is not owned by the U.S. government. Its Chairman and Board of Directors are appointed by the President of the United States, but it is owned and controlled by private banks.

The ten private banks listed below own the majority of shares in the Federal Reserve, and therefore control it.

ROTHSCHILD BANK OF LONDON ROTHSCHILD BANK OF BERLIN WARBURG BANK OF HAMBURG WARBURG BANK OF AMSTERDAM LAZARD BROTHERS OF PARIS ISRAEL MOSES SEIF BANK OF ITALY KUHN LOEB BANK OF NEW YORK GOLDMAN SACHS OF NEW YORK J. P. MORGAN CHASE BANK OF NEW YORK LEHMAN BROTHERS OF NEW YORK (filed for bankruptcy in 2008)

The majority of central banks in the world are “state-owned”, but are controlled by an international banking cartel.

INTERNATIONAL BANKING CONGLOMERATES

WORLD’S 25 LARGEST BANKS – 2012

HSBC BNP PARABIS INDUSTRIAL AND COMMERCIAL BANK OF CHINA MITUBISHI CREDIT AGRICOLE BARCLAYS GROUP ROYAL BANK OF SCOTLAND JPMORGAN CHASE BANK OF AMERICA CHINA CONSTRUCTION BANK MIZUHO FINANCIAL GROUP BANK OF CHINA CITIGROUP AGRICULTURAL BANK OF CHINA ING GROUP BANCO SANTANDER SUMITOMO MITSUI FINANCIAL GROUP SOCIETE GENERALE UBS LLOYDS BANKING GROUP GROUP BCPE WELLS FARGO UNICREDIT CREDIT SUISSE DEUTSCHE BANK

TRANSNATIONAL CORPORATIONS

BANKS & FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS ARE THE MOST POWERFUL CORPORATIONS

There are more than more than 40,000 transnational corporations in the world. More than fifty of the largest one-hundred economies in the world are corporations. Transnational corporations hold ninety percent of all technology and product patents worldwide. Transnational corporations are involved in 70 percent of world trade.

Hundreds of corporations, a large number being banks and financial institutions, own each others stocks and bonds – they collectively own themselves. Hence, it becomes nearly impossible to trace the roots of ownership and control. From their relative obscurity, they wield enormous control over national and global economies. These corporations emerged even larger and more powerful after the 2008 economic meltdown.

TRANSNATIONAL CORPORATIONS THAT HAVE THE GREATEST INFLUENCE OVER THE GLOBAL ECONOMY

A scientific study on the global financial system was undertaken at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, Switzerland, October 2011. Using a database which listed 37 million companies and investors worldwide, the researchers studied all 43,060 transnational corporations (TNCs), including the share ownerships linking them. The top 737 of these super-corporations or “super-entities” control 80% of the world economy. The top 147 super-corporations or “super-entities” control 40% of the global economy through direct and indirect ownership or controlling interest.

Below are the top 50 of the 147 super-corporations which have the greatest impact on the global economy – 2011

1 – BARCLAYS PLC – GREAT BRITIAN 2 – CAPITAL GROUP COMPANIES INC. – UNITED STATES 3 – FMR CORP (Fidelity Management) – UNITED STATES 4 – AXA FR 6712 – SWITZERLAND 5 – STATE STREET CORPORATION – UNITED STATES 6 – JPMORGAN CHASE & CO. – UNITED STATES 7 – LEGAL & GENERAL GROUP PLC – GREAT BRITAIN 8 – VANGUARD GROUP, INC. – UNITED STATES 9- UBS AG – SWITZERLAND 10 – MERRILL LYNCH & CO., INC. – UNITED STATES 11 – WELLINGTON MANAGEMENT CO. L.L.P. – UNITED STATES 12 – DEUTSCHE BANK AG – GERMANY 13 – FRANKLIN RESOURCES, INC. – UNITED STATES 14 – CREDIT SUISSE GROUP – SWITZERLAND 15 – WALTON ENTERPRISES LLC – UNITED STATES 16 – BANK OF NEW YORK MELLON CORP. – UNITED STATES 17 – NATIXIS – FRANCE 18 – GOLDMAN SACHS GROUP, INC. – UNITED STATES 19 – T. ROWE PRICE GROUP, INC. – UNITED STATES 20- LEGG MASON, INC. – UNITED STATES 21 – MORGAN STANLEY – UNITED STATES 22 – MITSUBISHI UFJ FINANCIAL GROUP, INC. – JAPAN 23 – NORTHERN TRUST CORPORATION – UNITED STATES 24 – SOCIÉTÉ GÉNÉRALE – FRANCE 25 – BANK OF AMERICA CORPORATION – UNITED STATES 26 -LLOYDS TSB GROUP PLC – GREAT BRITAIN 27 – INVESCO PLC – GREAT BRITAIN 28 – ALLIANZ SE – GERMANY 29 – TIAA US 6601 – INDIA 30 – OLD MUTUAL PUBLIC LIMITED COMPANY – GREAT BRITAIN 31 – AVIVA PLC – GREAT BRITAIN 32 – SCHRODERS PLC – GREAT BRITIAN 33 – DODGE & COX – UNITED STATES 34 – LEHMAN BROTHERS HOLDINGS, INC. – UNITED STATES 35 – SUN LIFE FINANCIAL, INC. – CANADA 36 – STANDARD LIFE PLC – GREAT BRITAIN 37 – CNCE – FRANCE 38 – NOMURA HOLDINGS, INC. – JAPAN 39 – THE DEPOSITORY TRUST COMPANY – UNITED STATES 40 – MASSACHUSETTS MUTUAL LIFE INSUR. – UNITED STATES 41 – ING GROEP N.V. – NETHERLANDS 42 – BRANDES INVESTMENT PARTNERS, L.P. – UNITED STATES 43 – UNICREDITO ITALIANO SPA – ITALY 44 – DEPOSIT INSURANCE CORPORATION OF JP – JAPAN 45 – VERENIGING AEGON – NETHERLANDS 46 – BNP PARIBAS – FRANCE 47 – AFFILIATED MANAGERS GROUP, INC. – UNITED STATES 48 RESONA HOLDINGS, INC. – JAPAN 49 – CAPITAL GROUP INTERNATIONAL, INC. – UNITED STATES 50 – CHINA PETROCHEMICAL GROUP CO. – CHINA

MEDIA CONTROL (A PARTIAL LIST)

The global oligarchy controls all of the major media. The media mega-corporations own each others stock, and in turn are owned and controlled by an oligarchy of transnational corporations, international bankers and European dynastic families.

In the United States, six global media corporations control 90% of what we see, hear and read.

COMCAST (NBC / Universal) NEWS CORP (Fox News / Wall Street Journal) TIME WARNER (CNN) VIACOM DISNEY (ABC) CBS

The oligarchy controls the major internet search engine and the major internet social media site.

GOOGLE FACEBOOK

The oligarchy controls the major print and broadcast media around the world, including:

NEW YORK TIMES WASHINGTON POST REUTERS ASSOCIATED PRESS BBC (BRITISH BROADCASTING CORPORATION) THE TIMES OF LONDON

The oligarchy also controls the most influential alternative media news sources.

➝ THE GLOBAL OLIGARCHY. ❗ https://thegreatwork208716197.wordpress.com/2024/02/12/the-global-oligarchy/

[sweetlog]

The Dark Side of Health Insurance: When Profits Trump Lives

Health insurance, at its core, was conceived as a safety net to protect individuals from the financial devastation of medical crises. However, in America, it has evolved into a sprawling industry where profits often take precedence over human lives. The cold efficiency of bureaucracy has turned a system meant to save lives into one that, at times, facilitates their loss—hidden behind the facelessness of paperwork, delays, and denials.

A System Designed to Exploit

For many, the experience of dealing with health insurance is a labyrinth of frustration. Claims are denied on technicalities, treatments are delayed, and coverage is insufficient for the care required. Each of these instances can have fatal consequences. Yet, these outcomes are rarely framed as what they truly are: preventable deaths. When a patient is denied life-saving medication or a critical surgery due to insurance red tape, it’s not seen as manslaughter. Instead, it’s chalked up to a “policy decision.”

This impersonal mechanism allows insurance companies to shirk moral responsibility. Decisions that cost lives are buried in a sea of paperwork and jargon, where accountability is nearly impossible to assign. The end result is a system where denying care is just another way to boost the bottom line.

A Business Built on Suffering

The American health insurance system is a prime example of capitalism’s darker side. Unlike most developed nations, where universal healthcare ensures access for all, the United States relies on a privatized system dominated by profit-driven companies. These insurers work hand in hand with hospitals to maximize revenue, often at the expense of patients.

Hospitals inflate prices, knowing insurance companies will negotiate lower rates—but those inflated prices remain for the uninsured or underinsured, plunging millions into debt. Meanwhile, insurers pocket billions in profits, while patients struggle to afford premiums, deductibles, and co-pays. According to a 2023 report, the combined profits of the top five U.S. health insurance companies exceeded $60 billion in a single year. These staggering figures reveal the true priority of the industry: shareholders, not patients.

When Did It All Begin?

The roots of this dysfunction trace back to the mid-20th century. In the 1940s and 1950s, employer-sponsored health insurance emerged as a workaround for wage freezes during World War II. This shift tied healthcare access to employment, creating a system where coverage was a privilege, not a right.

By the 1980s, deregulation and the rise of managed care plans solidified the insurance industry’s dominance. Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs) promised cost control but instead introduced a profit-first model. Denying claims, restricting provider networks, and prioritizing cost over care became standard practices. Simultaneously, the government turned a blind eye, swayed by lobbying efforts and campaign contributions from powerful insurance companies.

The Government’s Complicity

Rather than acting as a check on this exploitative system, the U.S. government has often facilitated it. Politicians receive millions in campaign donations from the insurance and pharmaceutical industries, ensuring that meaningful reforms are watered down or blocked entirely. The Affordable Care Act (ACA), while a step forward in some respects, ultimately preserved the privatized system, allowing insurers to continue reaping enormous profits.

Moreover, the revolving door between government agencies and the private sector ensures that the industry’s interests are well-represented in policy-making. Former insurance executives frequently take up influential roles in regulatory bodies, crafting rules that favor their former employers.

The Human Cost

The consequences of this profit-driven system are dire. In the United States, medical debt is the leading cause of bankruptcy. Millions forgo necessary treatments, ration medications, or avoid seeking care altogether due to cost concerns. And for those who do navigate the system, delays and denials can be a death sentence. A 2019 study found that lack of insurance or underinsurance contributes to an estimated 45,000 preventable deaths annually in the U.S.

The Way Forward

Real change will require dismantling the for-profit model that underpins American healthcare. Universal healthcare systems, as seen in countries like Canada and the UK, prioritize patient care over profit. Transitioning to such a system would ensure that no one dies because their treatment wasn’t “cost-effective” for an insurance company.

However, achieving this will require overcoming entrenched industry power and political inertia. It demands a shift in public perception, where denying necessary care is recognized for what it truly is: a moral failing and, in many cases, a form of systemic violence.

[ivankahasbeentreatedsounfairly]

THE NEW YOK TIMES

By Wendell Potter

Mr. Potter is the former vice president for corporate communications at Cigna.

I left my job as a health insurance executive at Cigna after a crisis of conscience. It began in 2005, during a meeting convened by the chief executive to brief department heads on the company’s latest strategy: “consumerism.”

Marketing consultants created the term to persuade employers and policymakers to shift hundreds, and in many cases thousands, of dollars in health-care costs onto consumers before insurance coverage kicks in. At the time, most Americans had relatively modest cost-sharing obligations — a $300 deductible, a $10 co-payment. “Consumerism” proponents contended that if patients had more “skin in the game” they would be more prudent consumers of health care, and providers would lower their prices.

Leading the presentation was a newly hired executive. Onstage, he was bombarded with questions about how plans with high deductibles could help the millions of Americans with chronic conditions and other serious illnesses. It was abundantly clear that insurance companies would pay far fewer claims but many enrollees’ health care costs would skyrocket. After about 30 minutes of nonstop questions, I realized I’d have to drink the Kool-Aid and embrace this approach.

And I did, for a while. As head of corporate communications at Cigna from 1999 until 2008, I was responsible for developing a public relations and lobbying campaign to persuade reporters and politicians that consumerism would be the long-awaited solution to ever-rising insurance premiums. But through my own research and common sense, I knew plans requiring significant cost sharing would be great for the well-heeled and healthy — and insurers’ shareholders — but potentially disastrous for others. And they have been. Of the estimated 100 million Americans with medical debt, the great majority have health insurance. Their plans are simply inadequate for their medical needs, despite the continuing rise in premiums year after year.

I grew uneasy after the company retreat. But it took an impromptu visit to a free medical clinic, held near where I grew up in the mountains of East Tennessee, to come face to face with the true consequences of our consumerism strategy.

At a county fairground in Wise, Va., I witnessed people standing in lines that stretched out of view, waiting to see physicians who were stationed in animal stalls. The event’s organizers, from a nonprofit called Remote Area Medical, told me that of the thousands of people who came to this three-day clinic every year, some had health insurance but did not have enough money in the bank to cover their out-of-pocket obligations.

That shook me to my core. I was forced to come to terms with the fact that I was playing a leading role in a system that made desperate people wait months or longer to get care in animal stalls, or go deep into medical debt.

The tragic assassination of the UnitedHealthcare chief executive Brian Thompson has reinvigorated a conversation that my former colleagues have long worked to suppress about an industry that puts profits above patients. Over 20 years working in health insurance, I saw the unrelenting pressure investors put on insurers to spend less paying out claims. The average amount insurers spent on medical care dropped from 95 cents per premium dollar in 1993, the year I joined Cigna, to approximately 85 cents per dollar in 2011, after the Affordable Care Act restricted how much insurers can profit from premiums. Since then, big insurers have bought physician practices, clinics and pharmacy middlemen, largely to increase their bottom line.

Meanwhile, the barriers to medical care have gotten higher and higher. Families can be on the hook for up to $18,900 before their coverage kicks in. Insurers require prior authorization more aggressively than when I was an industry spokesman, which forces patients and their doctors through a maze of approvalsbefore getting a procedure, sometimes denying them necessary treatment. Sure, the insurance industry isn’t to blame for all the problems with our health system, but it shoulders much of them. (In response to a request for comment, Cigna told The Times that Mr. Potter’s views don’t reflect the company’s and that Cigna is constantly working to improve its support for patients.)

At Cigna, my P.R. team and I handled dozens of calls from reporters wanting to know why the company refused to pay for a patient’s care. We kept many of those stories out of the press, often by telling reporters that federal privacy laws prohibited us from even acknowledging the patient in question and adding that insurers do not pay for experimental or medically unnecessary care, implying that the treatment wasn’t warranted.

One story that we couldn’t keep out of the press, and that contributed most to my decision to walk away from my career in 2008, involved Nataline Sarkisyan, a 17-year-old leukemia patient in California whose scheduled liver transplant was postponed at the last minute when Cigna told her surgeons it wouldn’t pay. Cigna’s medical director, located 2,500 miles away from Nataline, said she was too sick for the procedure. Nataline’s family stirred up so much media attention that Cigna relented, but it was too late. Nataline died a few hours after Cigna’s change of heart.

Nataline’s death affected me personally and deeply. As a father, I couldn’t imagine the depth of despair her parents were facing. I turned in my notice a few weeks later. I could not in good conscience continue being a spokesman for an industry that was making it increasingly difficult for Americans to get often lifesaving care.

One of my last acts before resigning was helping to plan a meeting for investors and Wall Street financial analysts — similar to the one that UnitedHealthcare canceled after Mr. Thompson’s horrific killing. These “annual investor days,” like the consumerism idea I helped spread, reveal an uncomfortable truth about our health insurance system: that shareholders, not patient outcomes, tend to drive decisions at for-profit health insurance companies.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/18/opinion/health-insurance-united-ceo-shooting.html

[thefluentstudent]

I don’t want to rain on the parade here but as a Construction PM I’m telling you that this doesn’t cost the construction companies or the Developer anything. The project Owner’s insurance pays out for property damage & theft and a project like this definitely has a great insurance policy.

If the goal is to make the contractors suffer enough to want to walk off the job, you have to understand that the contractors are only financially responsible for the work that they install. That’s why sugar in the cement mix worked so well in the past. If they couldn’t tell that the dry materials had been compromised, used them, and produced shitty work as a result, then they have to tear out the work and re-do it at their own expense.

If it were me, I’d splinter the lumber and then restack it so it looked like nothing was wrong until they tried to use it. Or cut down every single framing stud to 9’ and take all of the cut off pieces with me so no one notices they’re too short to use until it’s too late and they need to be reordered last minute for a premium.

Now if the goal is to cost the Developer money, you want to do as little damage as possible so that the total amount comes in under their deductible. And you can just do it a ton of times. If it’s spread out it has to be filed as separate claims. (I don’t know that this is the best way to go seeing as your taxes are what’s funding this project. It’s clear that this project’s already basically been written a blank check by Georgia politicians.)

Good luck!

On the night of November 13th we set fire to 6 Ernst Concrete trucks at 553 Seaboard Industrial Drive. Ernst is pouring the foundation for Cop City. This site, like so many others, is completely unguarded. Front-pouring cement mixing trucks have large rear engine compartments which can be accessed without opening any doors. We placed incendiary devices and kindling near the engine block, the fuel tank behind it, and the double rear tires. We encourage further experimentation with incindiary placement. There was a time when contractors were afraid to take on this project. If we can make the cost of the contract greater than the profit, they will drop it. Sneaking around at night is fun and burning shit is cool.

[head-post]

Berlin announces billions of euros for startup funding

German companies have pledged billions to support startup funding. They want to invest around twelve billion euros in venture capital by 2030, as announced by the German government and the state development bank KfW at the Startup Summit in Berlin.

A joint declaration of intent was signed along with companies. These include Allianz, Commerzbank, Deutsche Bank and US asset manager Blackrock, as well as Deutsche Börse, Telekom and Henkel. The declaration states that previous investments and improved framework conditions for startups are insufficient compared to international ones.

According to Federal Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP), the venture capital market is too small in international comparison. In the US it is three times larger in relation to economic power.

Many German investors are cautious. This is another reason why the new initiative is so important. Stefan Wintels, head of the state-owned KfW development bank, has said it would take 30 billion euros of venture capital a year to catch up with the US. KfW is coordinating the new initiative. Federal Economy Minister Robert Habeck (Greens) said that Germany has a problem with financing the growth phase of startups. Now politicians are looking to join forces with the business community.

The Startup Association recently called for a tripling of venture capital investment by 2030 to close Germany’s annual funding gap of around €30 billion. This requires mobilising more private capital for venture capital, especially from institutional investors such as insurance companies. Numerous IPOs of young companies outside Europe have resulted in significant losses in creating value for Germany as a place to do business.

Read more HERE

[leanstooneside]

MAD MAGAZINE (NEWHORIZONS)

◊ TOUGHNESS AND DIVISIVENESS

◊ TWENTIES AND THIRTIES

◊ ADDITION OR SUBTRACTION

◊ PETERS AND PETER

◊ VOLATILITY BUT I

◊ FTC AND JUSTICE

◊ ORDERS AND CONSTRUCTION

◊ SUBJECT TO SECURITIES

◊ INTEREST AND HE

◊ HEALTH AND SAFETY

◊ HE AND MR

◊ PURCHASE OR SALE

◊ EUROPE AND THERE

◊ AIRLINES TO BUYERS

◊ BEEF AND PORK

◊ BUSINESS AND DEVELOPMENT

◊ GUBER AND MR

◊ ANTONIO AND STREET

◊ COLUMBIA AND GUBER

◊ OIL AND GAS

◊ FIRMS AND ORGANIZATIONS

◊ JACOBS AND PACIFIC

◊ DRUGS OR INSANITY

◊ DISADVANTAGE TO ITS

◊ SPOT AND FUTURES

◊ OPTIONS AND EXPLORE

◊ BRUSSELS AND MILAN

◊ FUTURES OR OPTIONS

◊ COMPANY AND THERE

◊ YEAR BECAUSE STATE

◊ BONDS BEFORE MATURITY

◊ YORK AND JUSTICES

◊ POLITICIANS AND ACADEMICS

◊ ENVIRONMENT AND INSURANCE

◊ RIVALS BECAUSE IT

◊ TROUBLE TO JAPANESE

◊ INQUIRY AND REVIEW

◊ PAYMENTS TO BANKS

◊ AMSTERDAM AND FRANKFURT

[scientia-rex]

So medical billing in the US is decided based on “medical decision-making” complexity or, in some cases, time spent (the preferred way to bill while working inpatient). There are charts of this shit I had to learn in residency. Single stable issue you had to think about? 99213. Two stable issues, no orders? 99213. Mosquito bite you glance at and reassure patient about? 99212. Two issues, at least one of which you placed an order related to? 99214. And these codes reflect significant differences in compensation. They were originally dreamed up to reduce Medicare fraud. Guess how well that’s gone. I can turn almost any visit into a 99214 if I really want to. I have no way of knowing what my patients are going to pay up front and/or be billed later, because different insurances have such different copays (paid at the time of the visit) and non-covered portions (patient gets a bill later, sometimes 6-9 months later) and I cannot tell even knowing what your insurance is what you will be billed because of this visit. Is it free for you? Is your copay the same whether I bill a 99213 or a 99214? My clinic pays me, and my clinic pays the billers. Medical groups of any kind need dedicated billers in the US because insurance companies will go to such extraordinary lengths to avoid paying. I ordered a brain MRI on a patient recently. Insurance denied it. Reason: “Your doctor did not give any qualifying reasons for this order, such as concern for a brain tumor.” My note literally said “concern for mass.” Don’t know what world they live in that “tumor” and “mass” aren’t both worrisome in the brain. That was this week; every single day is chock fucking full of dealing with insurance company shit. I don’t get paid more for a 99214 than a 99213. I like that, because it reduces the pressure on me to bill higher. It can’t eliminate it, because my employers very much want me to bill higher, even if I’m staring at a cash pay patient who doesn’t have insurance and will get charged 146 dollars if I bill a 99213 but 184 dollars if I bill a 99214. I billed a 99202 the other day—technically it’s fraud, but it was a new patient (02 is new, 12 is established, and so on) and they were cash pay and they were deciding which lab orders they could afford. Technically I committed fraud. Under-billing preferentially is considered fraud. I don’t give one hot shit about that.

People die because of this system every day. Today I saw someone with COPD, a lung disease that becomes devastating over time. We had found an inhaler that contained the evidence based best medications for him. He did well on it. When January came around, the cost of the inhaler skyrocketed for him to over 300 dollars. He can’t afford it, so now he’s looking at doing his best to avoid needing a hospitalization. In the US, depending on your hospital and geographic area, that’s a sticker price of about 5 grand a night. Except that sticker prices in US medicine are a bizarre lie. It’s all collusion: between insurers and drug companies and politicians. We’ll make it illegal for the single biggest insurer in the US, Medicare, to negotiate drug prices, even though in every other developed country the government would of COURSE be able to negotiate drug prices. Biden is in the process of fixing that, right now, but in the meantime year before last I had a patient die because her blood thinner cost 500 dollars and she couldn’t tolerate warfarin, which is more dangerous but cheaper.

And hospitals are required to have charity care programs and they will chase you into your grave over a bill before telling you that. My favorite story: I worked at a clinic; I got my health care at that clinic. I was contesting my insurance not paying one bill (1500 bucks for a Nexplanon, which should have been completely covered by my insurance but ultimately wasn’t for bullshit technicality reasons) but sent them a message that I wanted to know how to pay the portion of my bill I wasn’t contesting with my insurance. They ignored that message. Months later I got a message from them on the secure messaging patient portal that if I didn’t pay up they were going to send me to collections.

I worked twenty feet from the people who sent that message. My name is very distinctive. They could have walked over and said, “Hey, what gives?” But these bastards looked a rural family medicine doctor working full time, making the clinic thousands of dollars a day, and they said, nah, fuck her.

I make enough money. I make more than enough money. Charge less for medical school (I owed 318,000 dollars when I graduated) and pay doctors less. Most of us would be fine with that and those of us who wouldn’t have no business being here. No one should get rich off healing. It makes the incentives to peddle snake oil irresistible.

The medical system is full of martyrs and bastards. You pray you get a martyr for a doctor and then watch them burn out. I’ve watched my own doctor burn out over the last five years of knowing her; in rural areas, you’re often stuck with no doctors BUT your friends to go to, because you know who the bastards are and you don’t want to see THEM. And I’m worried for her.

The US medical system needs to be incrementally improved. There is too much happening in any given second to even CONTEMPLATE burning it down and starting from scratch. We had an AT&T outage yesterday and we had dozens of people who couldn’t get meds they needed as a direct result of that. Every single second in this country there are thousands of hospitalized patients being given meds or getting surgery and none of this can be paused. Trying to do it during COVID killed at least one patient I know of; his screening colonoscopy got bumped so many times his cancer had a chance to grow and metastasize.

The US spends the most per person out of any country on healthcare. We rank 37th for quality.

The money goes in and goes straight back out to the shareholders of insurers, drug companies, and device manufacturers. People with enough money to buy big stakes in enormous companies. Eat the fucking rich.

"Why does a 15-minute visit with a doctor cost 150 bucks in America???" you're gonna want to read Money-Driven Medicine, by Maggie Mahar, and probably also The Social Transformation of American Medicine, to answer that question. It is not because your doctor is a greedy bastard; your doctor does not see most of that money. It is because the system is broken to a level that is truly impressive in its dedication to making a shit ton of money for insurance company executives and shareholders.

[newstfionline]

Wednesday, April 10, 2024

The rich world faces nightmare budget deficits (Economist) A decade ago finance ministries were gripped by austerity fever. Governments were doing all they could to cut budget deficits, even with unemployment high and economic growth weak. Today things are very different. Across the West, governments are spending a lot more than they are taking in. No government is more profligate than America’s. This year the world’s largest economy is projected to run a budget deficit (where spending exceeds taxation) of more than 7% of GDP—a level unheard of outside recession and wartime. But it is not the only spendthrift country. Estonia and Finland, two normally parsimonious northern European countries, are running large budget deficits. Last year Italy’s deficit was as wide as in 2010-11, following the global financial crisis of 2007-09, and France’s grew to 5.5% of GDP, well above forecasts. How long can the firehose [of spending] keep blasting? Talk of fiscal consolidation has recently become louder. The Italian government believes it will soon be reprimanded by the EU for its stance. In Britain the opposition Labour Party, which hopes to take power before long, promises fiscal rectitude. The French government talks about cuts to health spending and unemployment benefits. America is the outlier. In the world’s leading economy, the conversation still has not turned. Ahead of the election, Donald Trump and Mr Biden promise tax cuts for millions of voters. But fiscal logic is remorseless. Whether they like it or not, the era of free-spending politicians will have to come to an end.

Skip the Traffic: Commuters Turn to Ferries to Get Around (NYT) As remote work reshapes the way people live and travel around cities, Americans are taking to the waterways not only as part of their commute but also as part of their daily lives. Some coastal cities are seeing ferry ridership bounce back after a decline during the pandemic, and growing interest in water transit is spurring both new types of ferry services and waterfront development. The ferry boom comes as municipal governments are trying to address a variety of social, economic and environmental challenges, and as some of the country’s largest cities look to water transport to ease traffic, connect communities and meet housing and commercial development goals.

Insurers Are Spying on Your Home From the Sky (WSJ) Nearly every building in the country is being photographed, often without the owner’s knowledge. Companies are deploying drones, manned airplanes and high-altitude balloons to take images of properties. No place is shielded: The industry-funded Geospatial Insurance Consortium has an airplane imagery program it says covers 99% of the U.S. population. The array of photos is being sorted by computer models to spy out underwriting no-nos, such as damaged roof shingles, yard debris, overhanging tree branches and undeclared swimming pools or trampolines. The red-flagged images are providing insurers with ammunition for nonrenewal notices nationwide.

Teen Girls Confront an Epidemic of Deepfake Nudes in Schools (NYT) Westfield Public Schools held a regular board meeting in late March at the local high school. But it was not business as usual for Dorota Mani. In October, some 10th-grade girls at Westfield High School—including Ms. Mani’s 14-year-old daughter, Francesca—alerted administrators that boys in their class had used artificial intelligence software to fabricate sexually explicit images of them and were circulating the faked pictures. Five months later, the Manis and other families say, the district has done little to publicly address the doctored images or update school policies to hinder exploitative A.I. use. In a statement, the school district said it had opened an “immediate investigation” upon learning about the incident, had immediately notified and consulted with the police, and had provided group counseling to the sophomore class. “All school districts are grappling with the challenges and impact of artificial intelligence and other technology available to students at any time and anywhere,” Raymond González, the superintendent of Westfield Public Schools, said in the statement.

House Republicans are heading for the exits (Washington Post) House Majority Leader Steve Scalise thought he had a good argument for Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.). The Wisconsin Republican had announced he was going to leave Congress, one of 21 Republicans who have said they are headed for the exits this year. But three Republicans who had previously announced their intention to leave had reconsidered and were now going to stay. Scalise (R-La.) wanted to emphasize that momentum to Gallagher, hoping the young rising star might reconsider. The sell hasn’t worked yet. Gallagher, 40, is set to retire earlier than previously expected, leaving the House with just a one-vote majority when he departs April 19. The tumultuous year has reaffirmed for most that they made the right call to leave, that because the House has become more partisan, it is now more difficult to pass legislation that makes an impact than when many were first elected.

Protesters in southern Mexico set state government building afire and torch a dozen vehicles (AP) Protesters in southern Mexico set the state government building afire Monday and torched at least a dozen cars in the parking lot. The protests occurred in the violence-wracked city of Chilpancingo, the capital of the Pacific coast state of Guerrero. The protesters are demanding answers in the case of 43 students at a rural teachers college who disappeared in 2014. Another student from that college was killed in a confrontation with police in March. Images of the protests showed at least a dozen vehicles engulfed in fire and flames shooting out of the windows of the state office building, which is near the main highway leading from Mexico City to Acapulco. The building, which houses the governor’s office, was ransacked.

Haiti police recover hijacked cargo ship in rare victory after 5-hour shootout with gangs (AP) Haiti’s National Police agency says that it has recovered a hijacked cargo ship laden with rice following a gunbattle with gangs that lasted more than five hours. Two police officers were injured and an undetermined number of gang members were killed in the shootout that occurred Saturday off the coast of the capital, Port-au-Prince, authorities said in a statement. It was a rare victory for an underfunded police department that has struggled to quell gang violence following a spate of attacks that began Feb. 29.

Ecuadorians wanted an action man. President Noboa has fulfilled that role—embassy raid included (AP) While world leaders have expressed shock and bewilderment over Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa’s decision to raid Mexico’s embassy last Friday, the extraordinarily unusual move—and Noboa’s relative silence about it—is unlikely to hurt him with his constituents. In fact, it’s exactly the sort of no-holds-barred crimefighting they expect and voted for. Ecuadorians were looking for their action man last election, fed up with widespread corruption and the robberies, kidnappings, extortions and murders fueled by the growing presence of international drug cartels. Noboa, often sporting bulletproof vests, sunglasses and leather jackets as well as the occasional smart-casual white T-shirt, so far seems to be fulfilling that role. If stopping lawbreakers in their tracks means breaching an embassy, then so be it, Ecuadorians interviewed over the weekend told The Associated Press.

Russia and Ukraine trade blame over Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant drone strike (Guardian) On Sunday, multiple drones attacked the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in southeastern Ukraine. According to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the drones detonated at three locations around the plant, but only caused “superficial scorching,” not structural damage. Both Ukraine and Russia have blamed each other for carrying out the strikes, but it’s unclear who actually attacked the plant. “Attempts by the Ukrainian armed forces to attack the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant continue,” said the Russian forces currently in control of the plant. “A kamikaze drone was shot down over the plant. It fell on the roof of unit 6.” On the other hand, a spokesman for Ukraine’s military said that Russia had conducted a false-flag attack on the facility “with drones, pretending that the threat to the plant and nuclear safety is incoming from Ukraine.” Either way, the IAEA says the shenanigans need to stop. “Such reckless attacks significantly increase the risk of a major nuclear accident and must cease immediately,” said the director general of the agency.

Indonesia expects biggest-ever Eid homecoming (AP) Millions of Indonesians are packing bus and train stations, airports and highways as they head to hometowns to celebrate Thursday’s Eid al-Fitr festival with family. The Transportation Ministry expects the largest movement of people in Indonesia’s history. The agency is projecting the number of travelers heading home could reach 193 million, or nearly 72% of the population—up from 124 million, or 46%, last year. Indonesia is the world’s most populous Muslim-majority country. And every year, there is a vast exodus of people from urban centers across the vast archipelago to more rural hometowns to celebrate the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan. The homecoming tradition is known as “mudik.”

Gazans return to Khan Younis after Israel pull-out (BBC) Palestinians are returning to Khan Younis after Israel’s military announced on Sunday it was reducing its soldier numbers in the southern Gaza Strip. As Gazans make their way to a city largely destroyed by six months of war, many are finding rubble where their homes were. “We came to check our house. We didn’t find anything,” resident Asad Abu Ghalwa said. “You build a home corner by corner, stone by stone,” said another man who came back to Khan Younis. “And in the end, with a press of a button, it is reduced to rubble.” Still, this return gives hope to some displaced Palestinians like Muhammad al-Mughrabi, who used to live further north in Gaza City. “I dream daily of returning to my hometown,” he told Rushdi Abualouf. For now, Mr al-Mughrabi is in Rafah, with more than a million Palestinians.

Overcrowded ferry capsizes off Mozambique’s coast, leaving at least 98 dead, media reports say (AP) A makeshift ferry overcrowded with residents reportedly fleeing a feared cholera outbreak capsized off Mozambique’s northern coast, killing at least 98 people including children, local media said Monday. The ferry with an estimated 130 people aboard capsized Sunday after it departed the southeastern African nation’s coast for the nearby Island of Mozambique and at least 11 people were hospitalized, state-run Radio Mozambique quoted island administrator Silvério Nauaito as saying.

Large Scientific Review Confirms the Benefits of Physical Touch (NYT) A hug, a handshake, a therapeutic massage. A newborn lying on a mother’s bare chest. Physical touch can buoy well-being and lessen pain, depression and anxiety, according to a large new analysis of published research released on Monday in the journal Nature Human Behaviour. Researchers from Germany and the Netherlands systematically reviewed years of research on touch, strokes, hugs and rubs. They also combined data from 137 studies, which included nearly 13,000 adults, children and infants. Each study compared individuals who had been physically touched in some way over the course of an experiment—or had touched an object like a fuzzy stuffed toy—to similar individuals who had not. Positive effects were particularly noticeable in premature babies, who “massively improve” with skin-to-skin contact, said Frédéric Michon, a researcher at the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience and one of the study’s authors.