Norman Rennalls, a retired engineer, tells his important healthcare story. The Fed is draining the wealth of many. A recent article about Trump reentering the White House should scare us into action.
A healthcare story
The Fed is screwing us.
I watch several minutes of the Federal Reserve Chair, Jerome Powell. He was discussing monetary policy and the economy with the Senate Banking Committee. While watching both Democratic and Republican Senators questioning the Chair, only Elizabeth Warren broke the undeserved praise and respect for a man that cared nothing about the middle class and poor America. She made him acknowledge the modus operandi of our economic system. It depends on having a certain percentage of people unemployed and suffering to ensure a stable economic system for the wealthy.
The Fed Chair is concerned about a stubborn 6%+ inflation rate. The strong employment market seems to concern him as well. A country with strong employment is a problem for the Fed, and our corporations, who want a heavy supply of unemployed workers from which to choose since, in a supply and demand world would accept pittances for wages.
Representative Katie Porter (D-CA) recently provided an analysis that proved most of our inflation was a result of corporate greed. They raised prices because they could. That is the definition of inflation. One would think the Fed Chair would advise Congress that if they did not want him to use the only draconian tool he has, raising interest rates, that they would create policies that stopped corporate attacks on those who put them into power. But he did not.
The purported worker shortage is a political choice. There are millions of immigrants who want to enter the United States for economic and political reasons and who are ready to work. Yet, many in our government use them as a political football that limits employment shortfall.
While corporate greed is responsible for more than half of the inflation picture, they are responsible for even more. Their incompetence and poor decision making is what we are all paying for now. They decided to offshore our manufacturing and at the same time create just-in-time-inventory, which means shortages occur whenever there is a shock in the system, like pandemics or natural disasters. They profit from those decisions, and they profit when their incompetence fails.
How Norman Rennalls navigated our fraudulent healthcare.
Norman Rennalls, an engineer, activist, and early retiree, learned a lot about our fraudulent healthcare system. In navigating our health insurance system, he had choices to make. Would it be just going on the individual market or the Affordable Care Act Exchange? The period between retirement at 62 and when Medicare kicks in at 65 can be perilous.
Norman found that depending on your income, for most, getting into the Affordable Care Act (ACA) exchanges is the best option. To be clear, we need a real universal single-payer healthcare system, but until then, the ACA, aka Obamacare, is the best option.
Trump could be the President again.
This morning I read an article that I perused yesterday about the possibility of Trump becoming President again. I kinda blew it off. After all, Fox News is getting exposed as a fraud. Their internal communications prove they know they are lying to their listeners. They admit it among themselves and in their deposition for their Dominion voting machines trial.
One would figure that they would pay a price, and their followers would run away or at least be quiet after figuring out they were deceived. That would not be the case. I was amazed at the response I got on a recent video I made about Tucker Carlson’s deceptive video. The Fox News deception did not matter.
I reread Paul Goldman & Mark J. Rozell’s article titled “If You’re Worried About President Trump Part 2, Fear the Electoral College“ and unfortunately, it has a ton of merit.
A simplistic 18th century math formula, not the latest complex Big Tech algorithm, is the greatest growing threat to our democracy. This formula got scratched out using a quill pen in 1787. Then it was used in 1789 to elect George Washington as our first president. This enduring presidential algo is found in Article II, Section I, of the U.S. Constitution.
The term “Electoral College” doesn’t appear there. But the basic math does. Each state has two senators. This equals two electoral votes, regardless of population. In addition, a state gets representatives in Congress based on population. Each representative equals one additional electoral vote. The District of Columbia is allocated three electors. The Electoral College majority next year will be 270.
In the two-party era, four presidential candidates finished second in the popular vote but won a majority of the electors and thus the White House: Republican Rutherford Hayes (1876), Republican Benjamin Harrison (1888), Republican George W. Bush (2000) and Republican Donald Trump (2016).
Yet these elections failed to sufficiently highlight the Electoral College’s danger to our democracy. We believe the 2020 presidential results should be a wake-up call. …
The answer is clear. Eight presidential elections have taken place since America entered the post-Cold War era. In chronological order, the GOP nominee received the following popular vote percentages: 37.5 percent, 40.7 percent, 47.9 percent, 50.7 percent, 45.6 percent, 47.1 percent, 45.9 percent and 46.8 percent.
Trump’s alleged political prowess is actually in line with the average GOP candidate. Democrats won the popular vote in the latest four elections by the following margins: 9.5 million, 5.0 million, 2.9 million, 7.1 million. Trump’s losing margin increased by over 4 million in 2020. The biggest majority chunks came in Hillary Clinton’s 14 strongest jurisdictions. These voters aren’t going for Trump in 2024. This means: To win a popular vote majority, Trump needs 7 million more votes in the remaining closely contested states. This is highly implausible without a Democratic meltdown.
Trump’s strategy for winning a third straight GOP nomination is therefore rational, not crazy as his detractors claim. Do whatever it takes to win over GOP primary voters, then hope the Electoral College math works in his favor.
If you want to maintain a modicum of democracy, it is incumbent on us all to do the work. We must engage all who we can sooner rather than later.
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