As historians looks back on the legacy of Barack Obama’s presidency, a common theme emerges . . . much ado about nothing.

Look at the deploying of government help in the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020. Many loans & grants were rolled out to help business & individuals, including unemployment compensation so high that many people made more by not working, which was a tremendous error in judgment that was rectified as of August 2020 as I write this. I agree that there needs to be more done, especially for business, and that may be forthcoming. Maybe a vaccine will arrive that will get the economy back on track soon mainly by at least placing the fear, as it probably won’t eradicate the virus any more than the flu shot does. Hey, I can dream. Various mutations/strains of the 1918 Spanish Flu is still here over 100 years later and still killing hundreds of thousands of people a year, so many we’ll at least just get used to living with it like we do lots of other opportunistic diseases and cancers.

But in the mist of the Great Recession in 2009-13, there was little to no help coming from Washington for Main Street businesses & individuals, only some help for Wall Street, who are behind the very reasons why the Great Recession happened. It wasn’t caused by a real estate bubble — that was just a small part of the crash & that was caused mainly by Wall Street securitizing mortgages & encouraging mortgage companies & banks to make as many mortgages as possible under very suspicious circumstances to people who never should have gotten mortgages. The economy simply healed on its own and it took a good 4 years before anyone much saw any relief at all & a good 7 years before the economy returned to anything resembling normal. Another large part of the cause was insurance companies like AIG selling derivatives which insured against default (credit default swaps) and then losing their shirt when the market tanked and them not having any collateral to back them up.

Obama also didn’t get America out of the Middle East as promised. We’re still there today and there has never been any clear goal under 3 presidents now, one of which was Obama for 8 years. We got Bin Laden under his watch, but that was luck & could’ve happened under any president; Obama wasn’t to congratulate for it. His decision to not provide the body as proof was a poor decision as many Muslims believe he’s still alive & continue to fight under that assumption.

His crowning achievement, the ACA, otherwise known as Obamacare, has been vilified by a large share of America. Many more people are covered by insurance now than before, but it didn’t achieve the goal of full insurance for everyone, as the young people who were needed to make the system work refused coverage and the associated premiums, i.e., the “individual mandate”. Instead, it introduced a large segment of America into the health insurance system who were previously either uninsurable or were “rated” due to their preexisting conditions, which caused all premiums to rise as they couldn’t be charged more than anyone else in their age group. The so-called “catastrophic” coverage that many wealthy people bought along with those not so wealthy who were willing to risk thousands in out of pocket expenses to save money while healthy was forbidden as insurers had to offer policies with less risk to the policyholders, so you lost your liberty to choose your own level of risk.

I agree that all people should have at least basic medical care for either free or for a small fee, which should be supported by tax dollars and by a public premium based upon a percentage of income, like a tax essentially which would take the place of the insurance premium, and it should be administered by private companies who can provide a better level of service and have their profits regulated just like utilities to protect the public from abuses. That is one liberal POV I hold, as a society is only as good as it treats its lowest levels. But the argument to that is this: If you don’t have to take care of yourself in order to get insurance coverage, and you have to pay little or nothing for it, then someone else who’s working hard is paying it for you. You’re also abusing & neglecting your body & allowing yourself to be exposed to sources that cause cancers of all types, liver failure, heart disease, stroke & diabetes, while the rest of us who take care of our bodies have to foot the bill for your recklessness. I also believe that those of us who have money should have the option to get better coverage & better care quickly. The reason many people have money is because they put forth the effort to put themselves in position to make more money, and the reason many people are poor is because of poor life choices and lack of effort. People are not & never will be truly equal because not everybody makes the same effort to succeed. Treating every equally in many cases is an example of socialism, which doesn’t work as it removes the incentive to give that extra effort, which affects all of society when innovation & hard work stop.

Obamacare was a step in the right direction, but a poor step. People should be guaranteed coverage, but they must be allowed to be rated according to their health. Affordable drug options, affordable income-based premiums, allowing people to choose how much risk they’re willing to accept, and requiring some payment from ALL persons of any income bracket, whether it’s a small co-pay in the $25 range for each visit or a small one-time annual or monthly premium.

I believe history will view Obama as a poor & ineffective president, and he’s not even the first black president — he’s only half black.

I don’t fit into any category well politically. I’ve figured over the years that I’m more of Libertarian than anything, but that party can’t win elections because there’s not enough smart people to be Libertarians and provide enough votes. So rather than “waste” my vote, I don’t vote. Liberty means having the right to not vote. If I’m going to be voting for a party who I don’t agree with, why participate?

You have to vote for the party that has the same ideals you have, or at least as close to them as possible, assuming they’re close at all. “Voting for the man” is a ridiculous argument as the politician you’re voting for is getting his power, money & support from his party, so you’re really voting for his party. If you don’t like abortion and don’t think anybody should have one, you should vote Republican as that party feels the same as you. But if it’s also important that your personal freedoms are respected, then you can’t vote Republican as they only care about straight white Christians & policing your personal & social mores.

I like some of the Democrat ideals, mainly the personal freedoms they support such as freedom of & freedom from religion, meaning keeping religion out of school & work & not having the government support any religion by flying their flags, so to speak, and reasonable (not full) access to abortion, meaning within the 1st 3 months unless there’s a problem with the baby or mother, and removing sales taxes as they’re regressive & are just a honey pot for local governments to blow on God knows what, and gay marriage rights (what do I care if 2 gays or 2 lesbians get married?!? It doesn’t affect me), and other various rights pertaining to personal liberties, plus more taxation on the super rich & large corporations & large landowners, and removal of large business subsidies. I also believe in science such as the Big Bang Theory (which is a crummy show, btw) & evolution, and I’m positively sure their is no afterlife or God as I’m convinced that science & psychology have proven otherwise.

I also like a number of Republican ideals, such as business freedom from onerous government restrictions, removal of most welfare subsidies, a strong stance on blue collar crime & protections for police (the Black Lives Matter movement is a bunch of crap, as Blue Lives Matter More), plenty of defense spending to strengthen our borders & interests to protect us worldwide & to keep aliens out, not just Hispanics, but all the other aliens who are coming here to be schooled and taking the good jobs that should be going to Americans, also the COVID-19 shutdowns are total crap, and I believe in less taxes on small businesses.

To best sum it up, Democrats believe in personal freedoms, business restrictions & governmental financial support of our people. Republicans believe in business freedoms, personal restrictions, and governmental financial support for our businesses.

I believe in freedom from most government agencies & interventions as I believe in both personal freedoms & business freedoms.

That’s a Libertarian. I’m not one of those kooky anarchist Libertarians that think we don’t need any government except for minimal defense. We need government, just not as much as we have, and we need to get the government off the backs of businesses & out of our personal lives.

The one common thread I see in virtually every story where a cop has killed a person includes one of two common themes, and usually both:

1) The cops made an error, or simply exercised bad judgment.

2) The victims resisted arrest and/or didn’t do what the cops told them to do and/or used deadly force against a cop.

I believe most people, when confronted by a cop with a gun pointed at them, or knowing full well he could pull it & shoot you, will typically do whatever the cop says to do and resist, fight, or use a weapon against the cop, no matter how right or how scared they think they are. The ones who do the unthinkable are the ones who get killed.

The problem with the black community’s response is that they fail to look at the evidence and instead take the side of the black victim ALWAYS, which is racist. They also fail to take into consideration the character of those they support, who are usually robbers, thieves, counterfeiters, drug addicts, and various other types of criminals, which is also racist on their part, as the only criteria required to have to get BLM to take up your cause is simply to be black, and your circumstances have no bearing.

After studying the evidence in these cases, and I looked at the 10 biggest cases to date (June 6, 2020, which includes the George Floyd case), it’s rare to find a case where a cop is truly in the wrong in my opinion. Virtually every cop who’s been convicted of murder has been convicted by a socio-political runaway jury, not evidence, or they had a poor lawyer, which is ironic as these cops are seeing the flip side where defendants usually always have poor lawyers & a poor defense, unless they have a lot of money.

If a person fights with a cop, uses a weapon against him, has just fled the scene of a felony, won’t raise their hands or freeze, these are all reasons for a cop to shoot them. Cops don’t know who you are or your intentions, and they have a duty to protect society from you & from killing them until they can get you securely under arrest & figure out what’s going on and what your motivation is & whether or not you’ve committed a crime. But instead, blacks are fighting cops when they don’t think they should be arrested or simply don’t want to be arrested, and it’s leading to many deaths, and many cops who are strictly doing their job and finding themselves being put in prison simply because the black society demands it, regardless of the evidence or lack of it.

The Black Lives Matter movement needs to tell its members to not resist arrest anymore and do exactly what the cops tell you to do. If that were to happen, these killings would go away to a point when if a killing where to happen, it would truly be the cop’s fault.

I’m seeing headlines honoring the health care workers and others “on the front lines” in the “COVID battle”, and it never fails to amaze me how narcissistic & bullshit our society can be.

A “hero” is someone who goes ABOVE & BEYOND the call of duty AND puts their health and/or life on the line for another.

Using that definition, a “hero” would be a soldier who throws himself on a grenade, or rushes through enemy fire to knock out a bunker position & save the lives of his fellow soldiers.  It would also include a cop who put himself in a dangerous position to stop an armed felon when he couldn’t wait for backup to arrive.  It would also include a fireman who goes into a burning building to try and save someone when he’s been ordered out of it by his superior.

A “hero” would NOT be someone who is simply doing their normal job, such as a cop who’s making his rounds & is killed by a perp, or a fireman who is fighting a typical fire and gets killed when the structure collapses unforeseen, or a soldier who gets killed in a typical firefight or their plane goes down due to enemy fire.  These are all occurrences that can happen in the normal course of their job, they’re paid to confront these risks & expected to confront them as part of their normal job description, and they knew these risks going in.

Health care workers deal with sick people every day.  It’s their job to do so.  Treating patients who are seriously sick & dying is not a heroic act & doesn’t make them heroes.  It’s part of their normal job description.  This includes all types of health care workers as well as EMT ambulance workers, paramedics, and anybody who is dealing with the COVID-19 virus as part of their normal job description.  The fact that they’re working extra hours is part of the job description sometimes and they’re getting paid to do all of the above.

This is just another way for a segment of our society to elevate themselves for their own gratification AND for getting elevated simply for acknowledging them . . .

There’s also another segment of our population that likes to lift people up for kudos who shouldn’t be lifted up simply for doing their job they’re paid to do, and they do it simply because they want people to look at them as being important simply by identifying these people who shouldn’t be made to be special in the first place, or who the entire world already knows is special.  Take for instance the reporters who create these stories to get you to read the articles about these so-called health care heroes.  There also people who honor those who engage in a so-called charity running event who have managed to turn the spotlight away from those in need & shine it on themselves for the petty act they’re providing, which is winning a race that their family & friends donated to strictly to make them feel better.  There’s also those who are constantly saying “Support The Troops” like this is still 1969 Vietnam War era and make you think there’s a large percentage of Americans who don’t support the troops.  I’d venture to say that  99+% of Americans do in fact support & respect our troops, and many times, the people saying it have a personal stake in it, like veterans or those related to or married to active personnel.  It’s grandstanding strictly to shine a light on themselves as being supreme in their recognizing of others.

Don’t get me wrong.  I’m very happy people voluntarily join the military, police, fire dept, health care field, and who do a job most people can’t & won’t do, and I respect them & I’m grateful they do it, but they’re getting paid to do it & they know what they’re getting into.  If you ask me, we don’t give enough thanks to people who do other essential jobs like working on oil rigs, truck drivers, garbagemen, etc, because these essential jobs are not seen as being special, but they are special as the other jobs done by lots of other people all over America that’s needed for society to function — it just isn’t as glamorous as asking people to “Support the troops” or “First responders”.

COVID-19 overtook the world in 2020-21, and the fear & lack of proper action was the worst part of it.  Many people & our leaders failed to take the proper actions to combat it.  Yes, it’s a real virus & is a pandemic. much more than the flu, but there is a lot of misinformation about it, and those rumors are spreading like wildfire due to the internet.

The biggest reason it’s happening is because people nowadays love to try & make people think they are superior & smarter than others, especially if they’re in power, so they spout erroneous factoids to prop up their own persona, and their social circles & others repeat these false mantras.  Misinformation & under-information is the backbone of a panic.

A significant portion of America (and its leaders) believed that everyone should be quarantined, but not only did that not work once the virus got into the population of each country, it’s unnecessary & the worst thing we could do to our economy & our lives.  Only elderly people who have serious preexisting conditions (and a few people from 45 to 65 who have the same problems before they got it) are at risk of dying.  That’s who should have been quarantined, and leave the economy & all businesses alone.  Quarantining won’t3 work once it gets into the population of a country as a new batch of variants of the virus will come back every year just like the flu.

Quarantining & testing works best when it’s done at the point of entry of a country.  When a virus is identified, our world response should be to shutdown travel to or from that region until the virus is contained and a vaccine found & administered to that area.  If Wuhan had been shut down with no travel in or out, millions of lives would have been saved and we never would have experienced what we did.

I did virtually all of my research on COVID-19 & Influenza at 2 super-reliable places — the US Government’s Center for Disease Control (the CDC), and The World Health Organization (WHO).  I also used a couple of sites that had taken the time to look through some stats and boil them down to summaries.  If you don’t believe them simply because they’re wings of gov’t and like all gov’t agencies, somewhat susceptible to political pressure & red tape, then you’ve got a screw loose or you’re really pissed at the gov’t for some reason; either way, you’ve let your emotions cloud your judgment.  The gov’t isn’t the same from agency to agency any more than all people are the same.  The CDC is much more reliable for information than virtually any gov’t agency out there, and although there is political pressure on them at times, there isn’t as much political influence on their findings.

Before researching the Coronavirus COVID-19, I first examined the traditional influenza, “the flu”, which are Influenza viruses in the A, B & C categories.  I didn’t look into the “D” flu because it only affects animals.   The “A” Flu is the worst and is found in 75% of infections, and it affects both humans & animals (think Swine flu), and “B” flu affects only humans, but is not as prevalent as the “A” flu, and the “C” affects most humans and only some animals, and it’s even less prevalent than the “B” flu and usually only gets serious in kids. Note that the “A” flu has a lot of different subtypes called “HxNx”, with the “x” being a different number for each strain, e.g., H1N1 (that was the 1970’s Swine flu & was the 1918 Spanish flu & the Bird flu we’ve seen lately, though they were all different substrains of H1N1), H3N2, H5H1, etc., but the “B” has no subtypes.  The typical flu vaccine provides protection against H1N1 & H3N2 of the “A” flu, and also the “B” flu.  The “A” flu could potentially have 198 different subtypes, but only 131 have been detected in nature this far, and each subtype mutates into other variations, so there can be hundreds of variations of the flu each year.

The reason why the flu shot doesn’t provide 100% protection is because the vaccine is tailored to fight the specific mutations of the subtypes that researchers believe will be the predominant strains.  However, the viruses mutate as the season progresses to avoid & overcome the vaccine, and sometimes the guess as to which strain will be predominant can be totally wrong, but the vaccine typically makes the flu less serious if you do get any strain of it, i.e., you’ll get sick, but it’s way less likely to kill you if you got the shot.

The flu shot uses genetically-deactivated viruses, so you can’t get the flu from the shot, and you can’t get autism or anything else from it, though a few people may experience very mild flu symptoms, like 1% to 2%, and serious allergic reactions to the flu shot are very rare and typically happen within a few minutes of getting it, which is why I recommend getting it only at a doctor’s office.  Note that it goes in the muscle in your upper arm, not in your vein, and it saves millions more lives than the rare 1 or 2 it takes due to an allergic reaction.

A typical flu season in the USA infects 1 in 10 people.  The USA has appx 330 million people as of May 2021, so appx 33 million people get the flu each year.  Of course that’s an average.  Also note that for purposes of this article, I’m referring to everyone within our borders as “Americans”, even though we know that’s not the case, and the CDC says that the flu affects minorities in greater percentages than white Americans and they also get the flu shot in lower percentages.  We also know that minorities are less likely to take off work or seek treatment due to lack of insurance or money or fear of losing their job or being deported, which can lead to worse outcomes when fighting the flu & can spread the flu in minority groups/populations easier.

Of those 33 million who get sick from the flu, appx 330,000 of them end up in the hospital, which is 1 in 100 of the sick Americans, and 1 in 1,000 of all Americans.

Of the 330,000 of those who end up in the hospital from the flu, appx 33,000 of them die each year, which is 1 in 10 of those in the hospital, 1 of 1,000 of the sick Americans, and 1 in 10,000 of all Americans.

Of the Americans who die from the flu, 75% of them are age 65+, and many of them suffered from an underlying condition as well, especially those who are younger.  It’s not like generally-healthy people 65+ are dying from it in droves.  Appx 2% are people under 18, whose immune systems haven’t matured enough to fight the flu.  That means 23% of the people who die are between 18 & 65, which is the vast majority of Americans’ ages, and we know that minorities get the flu in higher percentages.  We also know that most people from 18 to 65 who die from the flu usually always have an underlying condition that contributed to the death, such as a chronic illness like asthma or COPD, or a weak immune system caused by genetics, disease or a medication that treats a problem, but also weakens the immune system.  Certain internally-taken antifungal meds can do that.  Also, cancer & heart patients in that age range are more susceptible to flu-related death than the general population.

In other words, if you’re 18 to 65 & in reasonably good health, you have greater than a 1 in a million chance of dying from the flu, like hitting most lotteries, and you never win those, right?  It multiplies tremendously in your favor if you don’t go to crowded places like schools and events, and even more if you don’t have kids who live with you or visit your home, and even more if you simply wash your hands before you touch any part of your face’s orifices and before you eat.  If all 3 apply to you, you’re more likely to die from space debris or a meteor falling on you.

Now that we have things in perspective, let’s examine Coronavirus COVID-19.  COVID-19 is a variation of Coronavirus, and it’s the one we’re dealing with at the moment.  There are a number of Coronaviruses, and the common cold is one of them.  When referring to this virus, we should refer to it simply as COVID-19.  We know from the current reports on COVID-19 that its death rate is much higher than the flu, but that’s mainly due to deaths of those age 65+ or who are sickly to begin with.  Of those who have been confirmed positive with COVID-19 in the USA & died, 82% of them were age 65+, and those younger had underlying conditions that exacerbated the death as did most of the elderly.

We also found that the number of people getting diagnosed rose, but that didn’t necessarily mean more people were getting infected, it just meant that more people were getting confirmed with it due to more testing being done.

There was a lack of tests & vaccines & a lack of people getting them when available, so it took longer to determine how many people had been infected & it’s taking longer to corral it because people won’t get the vaccine out of fear & misinformation

We believed that, like other viruses, COVID-19 was everywhere, and that you were very susceptible to getting it just by touching surfaces & introducing the virus into your eyes, nose or mouth, but that turned out to be mostly misinformation.  We were also told to stay 6 feet apart and to wear masks when outdoors.  We later found out that the primary method of infection (we’re talking 99%+ of infections) was airborne, and we also found out that if you were indoors, it didn’t matter how far apart you were, as the ventilation systems could carry the virus 60 feet to infect you, much less within 6 feet, but outdoors, the virus is not a factor unless you are within a few feet of someone and you don’t have a mask on.

We saw many wild figures used by those in charge who didn’t have a clue, which was not only erroneous, it was reckless behavior to make wild assumptions with little to no facts, and especially to broadcast them and create mass fear and panic when not warranted simply to look like you’re superior & powerful.

We also found out that the vaccine is not only safe, it works incredible well.  Most vaccines have an efficacy rate of 50% to 75%, but some of these vaccines worked at 95% against infection or symptoms, and virtually 100% against hospitalization & death.  Yet there are still people who are ignorant to the facts that refuse the vaccine, and the virus is currently running rampant among unvaccinated people worldwide.

The economic damage caused by the panic from the virus far exceeded the death toll.  The news media constantly stoked fears for ratings and power, and people who had no reason to panic did so.  I’m talking healthy people in their 20s to 50’s who lost their minds over this for no good reason.  Leaders of our state & federal governments capitalized on the virus for political purposes and to wield power for no good reason.

We had millions of Americans who couldn’t afford to stay home from their jobs & businesses for even a day, much less weeks.  As the businesses failed & buyers stayed away in droves & prices rose beyond belief simply because there were enough workers to make the products.

To counteract the unemployment, the Feds instituted an insane compensation package to all people who alleged that they had no work by giving them more money than they earned when working, even though their expenses were way less not working.  Why would anybody choose to work when they can make the same or more than they were when working.  Now we have many industries who can’t produce or distribute their products due to lack of labor.

Another major government screw-up was enacting a rent moratorium.  The government was paying people to stay home, so they had money, and no reason to not pay their rent.  Most real estate investors are those who rely on rents to make their own payments, and the fallout from that will mean more foreclosures and financial ruin to people who are the backbone of our economy — enterprenuers who risk their money & credit to succeed financially & help grow our economy.

So what’s the bottom line?  Appx 1 in 50,000 white Americans between the ages of 18 & 65 will die from the typical flu, which is 1 in 10,000 of all Americans.  COVID-19 deaths have been 20 times higher, but it was heavily those 65 & over, plus those younger who were in poor health to begin with, just like the flu.  Considering that white Americans between 18 & 65 are the group of people who are the most scared of the COVID-19, I’m directing this message toward them . . .

You have a way greater chance of dying from an accident, but you drive a car every day.  You have a way greater chance of dying from heart disease, stroke & diabetes, but you continue to eat improperly & not exercise & engage in behavior that causes these diseases, like smoking & eating a lot of fast food.  You have a greater chance of dying in gun violence, but you have to go where you have to go & do what you have to do and you also must own a gun to protect your family, so that doesn’t change your lifestyle.  You have a way greater chance of dying from an opioid overdose, but you pop too many pills not only when needed, but just for fun.

Only the elderly who have a serious condition should have been quarantined, which essentially means nursing & retirement homes, and no businesses should have been shuttered, and no one should have been receiving goverment money.  The only hope is for Americans and their leaders is to realize the mistakes they made and get back to business as usual, and seal off these hot spots as soon as a virus is found untl a vaccine can be made & introduced to the then-affected population.

It is not illegal for a boss to ask an employee for a date or for them to actually date & have sexual relations, or for co-workers to do the same.  The problem comes if the boss uses this relationship to control the employee in some manner, like a quid pro quo in getting raises & promotions being tied to the relationship in some manner.  Even if both parties are happy with the arrangement, it can be wrong to deny raises & promotions to others who aren’t having sex with the boss who are as qualified or more qualified.

It’s also a problem if the employee uses the relationship to falsely claim they were harassed & that there was no legitimate consent.  This is essentially extortion, but it’s hard to prove, and the boss and company wind up on the short end of the stick virtually every time unless a conspiracy or other exculpatory evidence comes to light.   This is what happens many times in sexual harassment claims, and the companies & bosses usually pay them off to avoid the negative press & costs of litigation or the risk of getting a judgment against them.  For every Harvey Weinstein, there may be just as many or more that didn’t do anything legally or morally wrong who get sued or even arrested for it.

Just because an employee didn’t want the boss to ask for a date even 1 time, it’s not sexual harassment.  The harassment could only start after that if the boss continues asking or the boss does something retaliatory due to the rebuffing.  The boss could be fired for violating a “no dating” company rule, but that’s not legally actionable.  Well, you could sue someone for anything with no evidence, but it doesn’t mean you’ll get a settlement or win the case; you could also be countersued for legal expenses by the person or entity you sue, and you could be charged with a crime yourself if you perjured yourself creating false charges or a prosecutor believes they could prove extortion.

The good things about the Affordable Care Act (aka “Obamacare”) are that it seeks to get everyone insured, which not only lowers everyone’s financial risk & increases their access to health care, it also provides subsidies to pay the premiums & also keeps insurers from denying coverage to people who are sick, i.e., those who need care the most.  It also made insurers provide a more “legitimate” form of coverage & did away with so-called “catastrophic” coverage, i.e., coverage with high deductibles; I’m talking $5,000 to $10,000 per year.  Wealthy people can afford to accept that much financial risk in exchange for a lower premium, but most can’t.  It has problems, but it’s a step in the right direction.  There should have been a financial proof of responsibility that the insured must have been required to provide, like ample cash if the deductible is due.

What you’re not hearing is that many of the problems with the ACA are political.  The ACA could work if it was politically popular across the aisle.  Insurers don’t like it, Republicans don’t like it, and many people have taken sides because of selfish reasons.  Poor people can’t get Medicaid coverage because Red states won’t vote to expand it there, which are the states poor people need it the most.  They claim the back-end cost is too high, but the truth is, they can’t afford to NOT do it.  There are many small community hospitals that have & will fail due to lack of Medicaid funding.  Rich & powerful people don’t like helping poor people, but in doing so this time, they’ll be helping themselves & everybody in our society as well and we’ll all be better off physically, emotionally & financially.

The whole reason insurance of any kind exists is because the risks are spread out among a pool of people, which are the policyholders.  99 people are paying for the 1 person who also paid, but got real sick that year & needed financial help paying the bill from the insurance company, unlike the other 99 who didn’t get sick that year.

When you let people in who are sick, yet don’t get enough people in who aren’t sick, you’ll have problems as a risk pool.  What the ACA didn’t do is make the penalty for not having insurance big enough to warrant getting it if you were young and had little health risk, or you simply didn’t want to pay for it, as the penalty is way cheaper than the coverage.  If the penalty for not having insurance was more than the cost of it, we’d have over 99% coverage.  I’ve had health coverage of my own that I paid for from the time I was 19 years old to now many decades along, and I can tell you that it’s been mostly a waste of money until I got to my 50’s, but that’s only because I didn’t have an unforeseen incident or health problem.  I could’ve had one, and I was covered if I did.

Another big problem is that many people who are high-risk have health problems due to their own life choices.  Diabetes & heart disease & many cancers are typically caused by poor lifestyle choices, yet everyone in an insurance pool pays the cost unless you make those high-risk policyholders pay extra.  At least they can’t be omitted from coverage under the ACA.  Also take the really high-risk people out & put them in Medicaid.

The real answer to all this is a single-payer system where the government provides free or cheap insurance, and taxes are raised to pay for it.  Yes, you’ll pay more in taxes than you do now, but you won’t have any outrageous medical premiums, nor $40 copays every time you go to the doctor (which add up quickly), and since everybody will be covered, costs will come down & the increase in taxes will be cheaper than the former premiums & copays.  That’s the only system that really works, but rich people & poor people prefer the status quo, which is where they continue paying cheap premiums for coverage that requires them to accept a large amount of risk that they can handle, and lets poor people pay little to nothing, or go without coverage and show up at ER’s and stick the hospitals with the bill, who then pass the costs on to the insurers & the middle class, which means the middle class pays the brunt of medical costs anyway just like they do income taxes.

Wealthy people won’t be reduced to standing in like for health care.  Just as other services in other industries pop up for those who have the money to pay, premium health services will pop up where you can get what you want or need quickly if you have the cash to pay for it.  Don’t want to wait for a doctor who takes your gov’t insurance?  Go see a private care doctor who will see you for $100 out of your pocket, a heavy sum comparatively, but one you can afford since you no longer have to pay $500 to $1,000 a month in premiums anymore when single-payer takes over, and your taxes won’t be nearly as high as that.

You can try raising taxes on corporations instead, but they’ll simply pay off politicians to not support that effort, and even if they did get taxed, they’d simply pass off the costs to consumers in the form of higher prices.  No matter what you do, the middle class pays the bills, especially those in the upper middle, and those who aren’t poor enough to be poor, but need every dime they have.

I have a huge problem with funeral processions for a number of reasons:

1. People get killed by them and in them.  Why?  Many states don’t have laws regarding the procession, whether they’re supposed to be marked or drive with flashers, or have a police escort, or whether the lead car or any behind it have to stop at red lights.  Unless you’re in front or behind one, you may not notice the flashers, but you would notice a flag in the window, although you might assume they’re all fans of the same football team heading to a game.  For the record, there is no law any of the 50 states requiring you to pull over for a funeral procession coming at you from the opposite direction.
2. The custom of pulling over for funeral processions approaching you (driving toward you & going in the opposite direction of you) is dangerous idea.  You can have an accident by ramming the rear of someone who sees a procession before you and slams on the brakes to pull over, or someone ramming you because you slammed on your brakes to avoid hitting the idiot in front of you, and when you try to get back into traffic, or you hit someone who’s trying to get back in traffic, or someone hits you on the side of the road.  All for somebody you don’t know and that you would’ve attended the funeral if you knew & cared (more about this idea of respecting dead people & their survivors that we don’t know below)
3. Pulling over for funeral processions is a ridiculous antiquated idea as it’s ridiculous to show respect or feel sad for people you don’t know.  I know that sounds bad & cold, but consider this — think about the people in the world who die every day.  Do you think about them often, or at all?  What about if you’re on vacation 2,000 miles away and while you’re in a coffee shop, you spot the obituary page of the local newspaper open,  Do you read it, and do you feel sad for those people & their survivors?  Of course not, because you have no connection with them.  If you got sad at every person who died and their families, you’d have no time for anything else as on average, a person dies in the USA every 12 SECONDS, which is 5 per minute, 300 per hour, and in 2018, 7,700 per day average for a total of appx 2.8 million people per year, and that’s just in the USA and only verified deaths.  If you’re getting sad every 12 seconds, you’re staying constantly sad and you have a mental problem, and if you aren’t, but you feel people should feel sad for complete strangers, then you’re a hypocrite, and if you feel you should be sad for only those dead people that cross your path, then you’re a narcissist who feels that it’s only important because it’s happening to you, or you’re still a hypocrite as you’re only showing fake sorrow because you’re being observed.

The whole idea of a funeral procession is a stupid idea.  Just tell people where the funeral is and let them get them on their own.  This is 2019, and anybody who doesn’t have Google Maps on a smartphone or GPS in their vehicle or can’t follow a road map you drew is a moron who needs to try to find their way home anyway & skip the funeral.  Nobody needs to follow the dead person — they don’t know you’re doing it, and if you think they’re looking down upon you from Heaven, well that’s not only a whole different argument about fairy tales vs reality & science & psychology, it’s also optimistic on your part that your favorite uncle isn’t looking UP at you from Hell for something screwed up he did that you don’t know about.

Even the idea of burying dead people in the ground is ridiculous.  I get the monument thing; I know you want people you loved to be memorialized, and we want the graves of celebrities to be monuments to them as well, but we can have monuments without the graves.  We can even put them in public parks so they will be maintained by local government & people have a chance to see them on a more regular basis without the thought of stepping across dead bodies to do so.  Cemeteries are the biggest waste of space in the entire world, even more than golf courses, which is at least something paid for and enjoyed by people.  Many cemeteries go under financially and turn into desecrated open graves amid unkempt grounds.  There is no need to save dead bodies, and burial costs are prohibitively expensive.  All people should be required by law to be cremated, no exceptions.  The reasons behind burials are just more antiquated religion reasons that have no business existing in a civilized, intelligent society in 2019, and they’re perpetuated by the for-profit funeral business & religion who take their pound of flesh from it.

It’s actually very simple to fix Social Security & Medicare, but no one will propose it or vote for it. Here’s a dozen things that should be done now, and anybody who grosses under $250,000 & disagrees with this has been duped by the GOP into believing their false rhetoric:

1) Remove the cap on earned income subject to Social Security & Medicare taxation. It’s time wealthy people lost a slight bit of their wealth for the common good since we all live in the same country, and they can afford it.  It’s not like charity as it benefits hard-working middle class earners who pay the bulk of taxes anyway.  The current cap is appx $168,000, which is sad.

2) Raise the “early retirement” option to 65 & only getting half of your Full Retirement Age benefit then, and raise the Full Retirement Age to 70 & phase it in over 5 years for those under 55 starting now, no delay.

3) Cap benefits at $36,000 a year no matter how much you’ve paid in and reduce benefits for those who have over $50,000 in AGI & slowly phase it out over that figure so that those who have over $80,000 AGI get zero.  This wasn’t meant to be a retirement plan, but social insurance for those in need with little to no other income.

4) Raise the income limit on which Social Security benefits are taxable. This will lose a little revenue, but it’s the fair thing to do. Only couples who gross more than $80,000 ($40,000 for singles) on their non-SS income should have to pay any taxes on their SS income.

5) Raise the taxation rates of Social Security & Medicare from 6.20% & 1.45% to 8.00% & 2.00% respectfully. This will be a slight 2.35% increase in taxes overall per person, but will generate a ton of revenue for the programs.

6) Pass a law that the Social Security Trust funds are to be kept secluded & can’t be borrowed ever for any reason.

7) Change the survivor benefits rules to also require survivors to wait until 65 to collect and under the same rules as others, which is 50% at age 65 & 100% at age 70. They can currently collect at 60, which is 6 to 7 years earlier than others now.

8) Scrap the Railroad Retirement Board & merge it into SSA and offer the older RRB emoployees early retirement packages & buyouts. It will save a ton of money in the long run. Bring those employees into the SSA for now and don’t make any new hires until the surplus of labor quits or retires at the expanded SSA employee pool.

9) Require people to pay FICA taxes for 30 years (or 1,560 weeks) to get Social Security benefits. It’s currently only 10 years, which is ridiculous.  It should be at least 30 yrs as most people are working by the time they’re 22, which would mean eligibility at 52, which is 13 yrs less my proposed early retirement age

10) Make it more difficult to get disability payments. If you can do any kind of work, you shouldn’t be able to get it.

11) Get rid of “crazy checks”. Lots of freeloaders on that list.

12) Lower SSI payments for those under 65 and phase them out entirely over a period of 5 years. People should have to carry their own weight at working age. Get rid of welfare.

I have a number of problems with charter schools:

1.They are de facto private schools in that they exclude students, but they get public funding, which is a unequal paradox. Brown v Board of Education covered this ground in 1955. A public school cannot exclude anyone except via zoning regulations in most areas that determine which school you can attend based on where you live, and possibly require those with special education needs (a/k/a, developmental problems, autism, etc) to attend what is usually a single school set aside just for those kids.

2.When you pull the brightest kids out of a school system and put them in separate schools funded by taxpayer dollars, you are giving preferential treatment to them and leaving behind the kids who don’t perform as well. This is exclusion and it’s wrong when tax dollars are involved. The kids who need schooling the most suffer.

3.When you allow people to pick & choose who will enter a school or any group, a single person, or a group of people are making decisions on other’s lives, and they can be manipulated and pressured into taking certain kids above others for no good reason other than they are part of the social circle. It’s an inequitable, but natural instinct for some morally corrupt & delusional people & groups to exclude others from their group to make themselves feel & look more important & distance themselves from others who don’t look, thing or act like they do. It’s all about control & power.

4. The Center for Public Education published a study showing that only 17% of charter schools performed better than public schools. 46% did no better or worse, and 37% performed worse. Therefore, 83% of charter schools exist simply to exclude others on some basis and ultimately for no purpose. Of the 17% that did perform better, than means 17% of public schools were “left behind” in favor of charter schools.

This list could go on and on and on . . .