Health Care Bill

I took the following passage from one of Charles Payne's daily writings. I get his thoughts twice per day in my business email. He is the CEO of Wall Street Strategies and probably gets more air time on the business channels than any other black man. I respect him for his work ethic, conservative principles, writing style and faith in family and God.

"I believe that this bill will prove to be the Achilles heel of the Democrats, but it opens the door for more attacks on big businesses, too.

The CBO scoring of the bill is a joke as it defies commonsense. Really, is there a single person that honestly believes we are going to add 32 million more people to the healthcare system and costs are going to go down, doctor visits will not be rationed, and there will be less fraud, waste, and abuse? None of these estimates has ever been even remotely close. In 1965 when Medicare was being passed the official cost estimate put the 1990 price tag at $12.0 billion. Well maybe it felt like that number would hold as the 1966 cost was only $3.0 billion. The actual 1990 tally was $107.0 billion or 790% more than expected. Of course there are those out there that think healthcare reform is a birthright.

For these people there is always someone that is going to work hard and earn enough money to "share" with society. For these people the dreams an individual has are subordinate to the needs of the masses. So, if you're working two jobs to put your children through college that's too bad as someone else needs that money and even if they don't work they should be paid. On this line of thinking the Medicare Tax on investment income will now be 3.8% not the original number of 2.9%. Why invest? Why should anyone even work hard at all? The costs are too high with this bill. I'm not just talking about money or where it comes from but skirting the rule of law and rejecting the will of the people leaves the nation angry and vulnerable."

Chandler Update

Quite the Contrast

Stocks, bonds, currencies, commodities, low interest rates, growth stocks, value stocks, P/E ratios, debt/equity ratios, rising inventories, falling loan activity, Social Security deficits, trade imbalances, artificially high yuan, credit default swaps, Lehman fraud, AIG short squeeze, Citigroup 30% of NYSE volume, and on and on and on and on it goes.

Sitting in church this morning to attend the dedication of my friend's 3-month old daughter, I heard a story. A guy named Alex from a small village in Indonesia. He is raised in a very poor, Muslim-only culture. They sent him away to learn, to grow and to bring back the best he could to enrich their community. What he found was the best but it wasn't in his village's economic interest. What he found was Jesus Christ. Now he wants to bring back the best of what he found to his village but the elders of his village have told him that his life will be in danger if he returns with the message of Christianity. This village that nurtered him as a child and gave out of their poverty so he could have opportunities tells him it would be better now if he never returned. Yet, he says how can he not return to share this good news with those he loves? How can he not give the best of what he has to the people he cares about the most?

The first paragraph seems so meaningless while the second is so meaningful. It's impossible not to be struck by the contrast.