Greece, the birthplace of democracy, is known more today for widespread tax evasion, inefficient government bureaucracy, and a monumental national debt that now exceeds its annual gross domestic product (GDP). Austerity measures demanded by the European Union, including massive public service job cuts, huge tax increases, reductions in public pensions and wages, and selling off the country’s infrastructure to private … Read More
Cleaning Up After The Floods
While no one will ever mistake The Great Vermont Flood of 2011 for the biblical deluge, its stories will be told, and its effects will be felt, long after the waters recede. In the meantime, the damage reports are still being tallied, and we may never be able to put a precise price tag on all that has been lost. … Read More
Concierge Healthcare
For most of us these days, visiting the doctor is a choreographed exercise frantically reminiscent of The Flight of the Bumblebee. You sign in, pay the required fee, have your vital signs checked, and then wait in a room barely big enough for the examination table and two chairs for the doctor to arrive. He or she then spends the … Read More
Something Is Rotten In The State Of Pharmaceuticals
The life cycle of so-called miracle drugs, like that of the butterfly, is relatively short but altogether fascinating. Pharmaceutical companies spend millions researching, patenting and testing new medications that promise sufferers lives free from prior medical constraints. Upon the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval of a new panacea, these corporations spend additional millions marketing the drug to doctors, hospitals … Read More
Bankers And Economists Are Not Your Friends
Bankers and economists are not your friends, and never have been; they are in the business of making money, and the expertise they bring to that job does not include doing what is right for you, but rather, what is right for the bank, and by extension, for them personally. That is the lesson that I learned from Inside Job, … Read More
The High Cost of Disaster
The recent and ongoing events in Japan, the third wealthiest country in the world (after the U.S and China), are familiarly tragic; it is only weeks ago that we woke to similar headlines from New Zealand, slightly more than a year since disaster struck Haiti, five and a half years since New Orleans sank under the winds and waters of … Read More
Union Busting In Wisconsin
On the off chance you’ve been fully occupied studying the protests and revolts in the Middle East and have not been paying close attention to what’s happening closer to home, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker is attempting to eliminate almost all public employees’ collective bargaining rights, as well as slash their health care and pension benefits. In response, the state employees’ … Read More
Revolution Is In the Air
The seed of revolution is political repression, its fertilizer, economic inequity. Revolution is not a new phenomenon; it first came into existence when civilization divided itself into the political strata of rulers and subjects, freemen and slaves. The list of recorded insurrections is long, beginning in Sumer almost 4400 years ago and continuing to the present day. Some are the … Read More
The Wonderful World of Tax Season, 2011
Times may change, civilizations may rise and fall but there is nothing surer than inevitability—taxes are, for good or ill, forever and the April filing deadline is just around the corner. 2010 was a year filled with tax legislation and new regulations. In addition to changing how we will deliver and pay for health care in the future, we altered … Read More
The High Cost of Not Caring
My thoughts have been occupied this week by a public drama and a personal tragedy. It may seem odd to connect the death of my mother-in-law in Glasgow, Scotland on New Year’s Day with the shooting approximately six thousand miles away in Tucson, Arizona, where a mentally disturbed Jared Loughner killed six and wounded fourteen, including Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. But … Read More