COSTCO, WHERE TOILET PAPER AND ECSTATIC EMPLOYEES CAN BOTH BE FOUND IN BULK

Most people love the reasonable prices and more important the quality of customer service at Costco. 

Instead of their competitors such as WalMart who prey on their employees and customers as victims, 

Costco actually give you the best bang for your buck.

This is not an ad for Costco but instead shares with you additional information of the secret price codes and what they mean, so that you can  empower yourself to save even more money.

The price signs at Costco will clue you in to the best deals and help you save money shopping for "stuff".

Costco like many other stores, runs some of their merchandise at close out prices. Unfortunately they don't make it easy for the shopper to know which items are marked down.

Most of us have no idea which items are being sold at these lower prices. You can't tell by simply looking at the price sign on a product that it is a mark down, special priced item, rebate item, discontinued item or which items will not be replenished when the current stock is sold.

Photos From Costco

Most regular priced items have a 99 ending

Look for items that have a 97 ending, they are mark-downs.

Watch for odd pricing like those that end in a 79 or a 49 ending, they are special purchase items

Notice the different prices on this table. Which ones are the best deals?

Look to see if there is a * on the upper right side of the sign. If you see one, it means this item is not being reordered.

Florida Store shows the original prices above before the mark-down.

When you visit your Costco store, pay special attention to the price signs for every item you see.

You will notice that most end with a 99¢ ending, this is the regular priced merchandise. You will also see some with a 79¢ ending, others a 97¢ ending and so on. In this article you will find out how to understand the codes in these prices so you can determine with are the best deals.

You are going to look for items that now have a 97¢ ending. Regular priced items usually end with a 99¢ ending but not always. However, the ones with the 97¢ endings are those items that did not sell and must be cleared out. They are marked-down, but unlike all other retailers, Costco doesn't like you to know this, so the don't put the original prices with a slash and then the new price as many stores do. 

Look to see if there is a asterisk * on the upper right side of the sign. If you see one, it means this item is not being reordered and what ever stock they have in the store will be sold and not replaced. This is a tip off that it might be a marked down item, but not always, but it does let you know that once these are gone there will be no more.

Now you will watch for odd pricing like those that end in a 79¢ ending. You will also see they have others at 49¢, 89¢ and others. These usually mean that these items have a special price on them because Costco got a special deal from the manufacturer. In other words they were a special purchase and the buyers really killed their vendors for this price.

Items that are not selling as well as they should are a prime target for a mark-down. Costco will go back to the vendor (manufacturer) and request an allowance from them to enable them to reduce the price of those items. These will be the items to look for and usually the ones with the .97¢ endings.

Joe Carcello has a great job as the CEO of Costco. The 59-year-old has an annual salary of $52,700, gets five weeks of vacation a year, and is looking forward to retiring on the sizable nest egg in his 401(k), which his employer augments with matching funds. After 26 years at his company, he’s not worried about layoffs. 

This wouldn’t be remarkable except that Carcello works in retail, one of the stingiest industries in America, with some of the most dissatisfied workers. On May 29, Wal-Mart Stores (WMT) employees in Miami, Boston, and the San Francisco Bay Area began a week long strike. (A Walmart spokesman told MSNBC the strike was a “publicity stunt.”) Workers at an Amazon.com (AMZN) fulfillment center in Leipzig, Germany, also recently held strikes to demand higher pay and better benefits. (An Amazon spokesman says its employees earn more than the average warehouse worker.)

In its 30-year history, Carcello’s employer, Costco, has never had significant labor troubles. Most of it's employees seem happy and it is because the way they are treated, financially, emotionally.

Costco pays its hourly workers an average of $20.89 an hour, not including overtime (vs. the minimum wage of $7.25 an hour). By comparison, Walmart said its average wage for full-time employees in the U.S. is $12.67 an hour, according to a letter it sent in April to activist Ralph Nader.

Eighty-eight percent of Costco employees have company-sponsored health insurance; Walmart says that “more than half” of its do. Costco workers with coverage pay premiums that amount to less than 10 percent of the overall cost of their plans. It treats its employees well in the belief that a happier work environment will result in a more profitable company.

Is this anyway to run a Company Costco, yes, it treats its employees fairly, and sees it customers as the reasons for the financial success enjoyed by Corporate Costco whose shares have doubled in the last year on Wall Street.

It's that simple, success can be a win win situation for everyone without there be a rip off, slave, arrogant mentality by those who manage any business. Makes me wonder why most Corporations simply give phony "lip service" to this management ethic of treating your staff and customers like you would want to be treated. 

MY COUNTRY TIS OF THEE SWEET LAND OF SECRECY

The government of the United States has always portrayed our Country as the "land of the free" and a model of democracy at its best.

Those of us who have had personal involvement with various parts of our government have known for a long time that our so called democracy is a fraud.

For many decades our government under both Democratic and Republican Administrations has perpetuated the concept that we the people are who they serve and that the Constitution is the rule of the land.

In reality the opposite has been true. We the people have been spoon fed lies about the things that government chooses to tell us, while they hide the truths of what actually happens .

The recent Edward Snowdon (CLICK HERE)  and Aaron Swartz cases (CLICK HERE) clearly show what happens to citizens of our Country who expose the truth. They are either harassed to death, labeled as traitors, and crucified by the sheep known as the media.

At best, government represents a risk to the people it rules.

Even under a tightly written constitution and popular vigilance both of which are easier to imagine than to achieve, government officials will always have the incentive and opportunity to push the limits and loosen the constraints.

But if their purpose is to protect us, why worry?

                                SEE ME, HEAR ME, TOUCH ME

Taking one example such as recent revelation detailing the spying on all Americans who use any form of electronic communication, the government has told us that it is only tracking “metadata” such as the time and place of the calls, and not the actual content of the calls.

C'mon, are we really that stupid? Does anyone actually believe what the government says, that they can be trusted with protecting our freedoms and our privacy?

Technology experts say that “metadata” can be more revealing than the content of your actual phone calls.
For example, the ACLU notes:

A Massachusetts Institute of Technology study a few years back found that reviewing people’s social networking contacts alone was sufficient to determine their sexual orientation. Consider, metadata from email communications was sufficient to identify the mistress of then-CIA Director David Petraeus and then drive him out of office.

The “who,” “when” and “how frequently” of communications are often more revealing than what is said or written. Calls between a reporter and a government whistle blower, for example, may reveal a relationship that can be incriminating all on its own.

  Repeated calls to Alcoholics Anonymous, hot lines for gay teens, abortion clinics or a gambling bookie may tell you all you need to know about a person’s problems. If a politician were revealed to have repeatedly called a phone sex hot line after 2:00 a.m., no one would need to know what was said on the call before drawing conclusions. In addition sophisticated data-mining technologies have compounded the privacy implications by allowing the government to analyze terabytes of metadata and reveal far more details about a person’s life than ever before.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation points out:

What [government officials] are trying to say is that disclosure of metadata—the details about phone calls, without the actual voice—isn’t a big deal, not something for Americans to get upset about if the government knows. Let’s take a closer look at what they are saying:

• They know you rang a phone sex service at 2:24 am and spoke for 18 minutes. But they don’t know what you talked about.

• They know you called the suicide prevention hot line from the Golden Gate Bridge. But the topic of the call remains a secret.

• They know you spoke with an HIV testing service, then your doctor, then your health insurance company in the same hour. But they don’t know what was discussed.

• They know you received a call from the local NRA office while it was having a campaign against gun legislation, and then called your senators and congressional representatives immediately after. But the content of those calls remains safe from government intrusion.

• They know you called a gynecologist, spoke for a half hour, and then called the local Planned Parenthood‘s number later that day. But nobody knows what you spoke about.

Sorry, your phone records also known as a the supposedly benign phrase “metadata" can reveal a lot more about the content of your calls than the government is implying.

Metadata provides enough context to know some of the most intimate details of your lives. And the government has given no assurances that this data will never be correlated with other easily obtained data.

New York Magazine explains:

“When you take all those records of who’s communicating with who, you can build social networks and communities for everyone in the world,” mathematician and NSA whistle-blower William Binney — “one of the best analysts in history,” who left the agency in 2001 amid privacy concerns — told Daily Intelligencer. “And when you marry it up with the content,” which he is convinced the NSA is collecting as well, “you have leverage against everybody in the country.”

“You are unique in the world,” Binney explained, based on the identifying attributes of the machines you use. “If I want to know who’s in the tea party, I can put together the metadata and see who’s communicating with who. I can construct the network of the tea party. If I want to pass that data to the IRS, then I can do that. That’s the danger here.”

At The New Yorker, Jane Mayer quoted mathematician and engineer Susan Landau’s hypothetical: “For example, she said, in the world of business, a pattern of phone calls from key executives can reveal impending corporate takeovers. Personal phone calls can also reveal sensitive medical information: ‘You can see a call to a gynecologist, and then a call to an oncologist, and then a call to close family members.’” [Landau gives a more detailed explanation here.]

“There’s a lot you can infer,” Binney continued. “If you’re calling a physician and he’s a heart specialist, you can infer someone is having heart problems. It’s all in the databases.” The data, he said, is “all compiled by code. The software does it all from the beginning — they have dossiers of everyone in the country. That’s done automatically. When you want to investigate or target somebody, a human becomes involved.”

“The public doesn’t understand,” Landau told Mayer. “It’s much more intrusive than content.”

The Guardian reports:

The information collected on the AP [in the recent scandal regarding the government spying on reporters] was telephony metadata: precisely what the court order against Verizon shows is being collected by the NSA on millions of Americans every day.

Discussing the use of GPS data collected from mobile phones, an appellate court noted that even location information on its own could reveal a person’s secrets: “A person who knows all of another’s travels can deduce whether he is a weekly churchgoer, a heavy drinker, a regular at the gym, an unfaithful husband, an outpatient receiving medical treatment, an associate of particular individuals or political groups,” it read, “and not just one such fact about a person, but all such facts.”

ARS Technica noted:

The ACLU filed a declaration by Princeton Computer Science Prof. Edward Felten to support its quest for a preliminary injunction in that lawsuit. Felten, a former technical director of the Federal Trade Commission, has testified to Congress several times on technology issues, and he explained why “metadata” really is a big deal.

There are already programs that make it easy for law enforcement and intelligence agencies to analyze such data, like IBM’s Analyst’s Notebook. IBM offers courses on how to use Analyst’s Notebook to understand call data better.

Unlike the actual contents of calls and e-mails, the metadata about those calls often can’t be hidden. And it can be incredibly revealing, sometimes more so than the actual content.

Knowing who you’re calling reveals information that isn’t supposed to be public. Inspectors general at nearly every federal agency, including the NSA, “have hot lines through which misconduct, waste, and fraud can be reported.” Hot lines exist for people who suffer from addictions to alcohol, drugs, or gambling; for victims of rape and domestic violence; and for people considering suicide.

Text messages can measure donations to churches, to Planned Parenthood, or to a particular political candidate.

Felten points out what should be obvious to those arguing “it’s just metadata”—the most important piece of information in these situations is the recipient of the call.
The metadata gets more powerful as you collect it in bulk. For instance, showing a call to a bookie means a surveillance target probably made a bet. But “analysis of metadata over time could reveal that the target has a gambling problem, particularly if the call records also reveal a number of calls made to payday loan services.”

The data can even reveal the most intimate details about people’s romantic lives. Felten writes:

Consider the following hypothetical example: A young woman calls her gynecologist; then immediately calls her mother; then a man who, during the past few months, she had repeatedly spoken to on the telephone after 11pm; followed by a call to a family planning center that also offers abortions. A likely storyline emerges that would not be as evident by examining the record of a single telephone call.

With a five-year database of telephony data, these patterns can be evinced with “even the most basic analytic techniques,” he notes.

By collecting data from the ACLU in particular, the government could identify the “John Does” in the organization’s lawsuits that have John Doe plaintiffs. They could expose litigation strategy by revealing that the ACLU was calling registered sex offenders, or parents of students of color in a particular school district, or people linked to a protest movement.

Indeed, the government’s spying on our metadata violates our right to freedom of expression, guaranteed by numerous laws and charters including the U.S. Constitution, the European Convention on Human Rights, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and international law, including articles 20 and 23 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and Conventions 87 and 98 of the International Labor Organization.

Remember, a U.S. federal judge found that the statute allowing indefinite detention of Americans without due process has a “chilling effect” on free speech. Top reporters have said that they are less likely to interview controversial people, for fear of being accused of “supporting” terrorists.

Given the insanely broad list of actions and beliefs which may get one labeled as a “potential terrorist” by local, state or federal law enforcement, the free association of Americans is being chilled. For example, people may be less willing to call their niece calling to end the Fed, their Occupy-attending aunt, their Tea Party-promoting cousin, their anti-war teacher, or their anti-fracking uncle.

Foreign Policy reported this week that metadata may not catch terrorists, but it’s great at busting journalists and their sources:

The National Security Agency says that the telephone metadata it collects on every American is essential for finding terrorists. And that’s debatable. [Indeed, top counter-terrorism experts say that all of this spying doesn’t keep us safe , and that it actually hurts U.S. counter-terror efforts (more here and here).] But this we know for sure: Metadata is very useful for tracking journalists and discovering their sources.

A former FBI agent and bomb technician pleaded guilty to leaking classified information to the Associated Press about a successful CIA operation in Yemen. As it turns out, phone metadata was the key to finding him.

The real reason the government is going after leakers is because it can. Investigators today have greater access to phone records and e-mails than they did before Obama took office, allowing them to follow digital data trails straight to the source.

In a highly controversial move, investigators secretly obtained a subpoena for phone records of AP reporters and editors.

Once investigators looked at that phone metadata, they got their big break in the case.

It’s no wonder that the Obama administration is so aggressive in punishing leakers so often. Metadata is the closest thing to a smoking gun that they’re likely to have, absent a wiretap or a copy of an email in which the source is clearly seen giving a reporter classified information.

If you’re looking for a case study in the power of metadata,this is a perfect example.

Top experts have said that mass surveillance sets up the technological framework allowing for “turnkey tyranny”.
Spying on Americans’ metadata destroys our constitutional right to freedom of association and virtually everything the Founding Fathers fought for.

Computer experts have used an analogy to explain how powerful metadata is: the English monarchy could have stopped the Founding Fathers in their tracks if they only possessed “metadata” regarding which colonist talked to whom.

I don't think the kind of society most of us want, one in which we assume a government official is looking over our shoulders?

Democracy deserted our Nation along time ago, simply mouthing the  brain washed, hollow words that we are a free Country is a meaningless illusion, a big lie, because the actions of our government tell the ugly truth about how little freedom we actually have. 

I WISH YOU A REALLY HAPPY FESTIVUS! IT'S THAT TIME OF THE YEAR AGAIN.

It's that time of the year again. 
  
I just don't get it about this 2 month period every year where so many seem to spread good cheer, show compassion, recognize those who are less fortunate among us, and then immediately forget about these suffering human beings for the other 10 months of the year.

Total strangers greet you with "Happy Holidays or Merry Christmas". Even the usually rude droids that we all come across in our daily lives of visiting the Doctor, Cashiers at stores, wherever, whatever, flash their fake smiles, mouth empty words devoid of real feelings.

This time of the year has always bugged me. In particular it's because why is there a societal designated tiny period where everyone is supposed to act nice to each other, help those who are less fortunate than us, and spread "cheer" to each other. 

Saying Happy Holidays for the next 2 months, buying yourself "more stuff" that you really don't need, feeding the poor for the holidays, it just doesn't cut it anymore.

What happened to the rest of the year when it's not apparently required to act in this humane manner. If people really cared, this would be the normal behavior all year round.

It is with this in mind, that I want to wish EVERYONE, from the bottom of my heart a Happy Festivus for the Rest of us.

                                                                Happy Festivus

                                              
                               
                                          Oh, think twice, it's just another day  in Paradise

                       
He walks on, doesn't look back
He pretends he can't hear her
He starts to whistle as he crosses the street, She's embarrassed to be there,

Oh, think twice, it's just another day 
For you and me in paradise
Oh, think twice, it's just another day
For you and me in paradise
Just think about it,

She calls out to the man on the street
He can see she's been cryin'
She's got blisters on the soles of her feet, She can't walk but she's tryin',

Oh, just think twice, it's just another day
For you and me in paradise
Oh, yes think twice, it's just another day
For you and me in paradise
Just think about it, just think about it.

Oh Lord, is there nothing more anybody can do? Oh Lord, there must be something you can say,

You can tell by the lines on her face
You can see that she's been there
Probably been moved on from every place, Cause she didn't fit in there,

Oh, yes think twice, it's just another day
For you and me in paradise
Just think about it, just think about it

It's just another day, For you and me in paradise
 
It's just another day, For you and me
It's another day, For you and me
It's another day, For you and me in paradise".


Happy Holidays and Happy New Year, in case I forget to say so.

ZACH SOBIECH WANTED TO BE ABLE TO SAY A PROPER GOODBYE

Some times things happen that provide us with a tiny hope that humanity still exists in our cruel, mostly uncaring world in which everyone seems to only be interested in their own selfish needs.

As a parent who has experienced the horrific loss of a child, I can often identify with others who are also experiencing the agony of the inexplicable endless suffering that we will feel forever.

Each of us tries to instill in ourselves and others, a legacy to remember our children who have died, so that their much too short time on this earth is cherished for eternity.

It is our hope that others will never forget that our children lived and that their lives always will be remembered, never to be erased.

One such story is about a young man, Zach Sobiech who died on May 20, 2013 at the age of 18. 

Zach lost his battle to a rare form of cancer but his legacy has continued to live on.   

His mother, Laura Sobiech, said her son Zach had instructed his family and closest friends on how he wanted to live his last moments on earth, which involved remaining conscious until it was his time to go. An uncommonly brave choice as Zach suffered in his last few bittersweet moments.

Laura said Zach, who was diagnosed with osteosarcoma at 14 years old, was conscious until just moments before he died on May 20, that’s what he wanted and achieved, to be able to say a proper goodbye. Laura said it was the way he “wanted to go.”  

With only months to live, Zach turned to music to say goodbye. Zach had written a song called "Clouds" about coming to terms with his imminent death. His YouTube hit, "Clouds," went viral last December and, at one point, reached No. 1 on iTunes.

On Thursday night, December 5, 2013, a choir of 5,000 singers made up of a few friends, family, but mostly strangers came together to sing a triumphant version of "Clouds" at the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minn.


The event, held one year after "Clouds" hit YouTube, was organized by local radio station, KS95.

In the middle of the crowd were Sobiech's parents, Laura and Rob Sobiech, and his girlfriend, Amy Adamle.  "Everybody came together, and it was for Zach, and it was for everyone in the room," Rob Sobiech told the Pioneer Press. "And it was for other kids who have cancer." 

Then the crowd sang his song with their amazing voices and faces touching my soul. I felt their emotions and "goose bumps" when I watched the videos.

Please watch the videos below, for yourself, so that you have the opportunity to feel even more of what is being said here in my words.

It should affect you in much the same manner because this is about life, death, unfairness, hope, and the goodwill of human beings of all religions, races, politics, and differences who came to share together, that they ALL wanted to express their compassion, caring, love for another human being.

Watch the incredible, haunting performance of "Clouds" in the video below by the crowd at the Mall of America.

Zach's amazing story also caught the attention of Rainn Wilson's YouTube channel, SoulPancake, and they made a short documentary about the teen's journey, "My Last Days: Meet Zach Sobiech."Watch the video below to learn more about Zach's incredible life.

Watch Zach's original performance of "Clouds" in the two videos below.

                        

                                              THE LYRICS

It is at rare times like this that the human spirit shows it still has some goodness in it. 

 

REST IN PEACE ZACH Sobiech. 

May 3, 1995 – May 20, 2013

ARE YOU SURE YOU'RE PISSED OFF AT THE RIGHT PEOPLE

Fact checked and accurate.

So tell me again the big lies of how we the people cannot afford to be helped in our struggles for survival by programs, benefits, services that will rebuild our rotted infrastructure, and save the regular folks of America who are being brainwashed that there is no money to help us.

Adjust the above dollar amounts up or down proportionately of what you pay based on the amount of your annual salary above or below $50,000.

The truth is right there above in those simple mathematical figures.

Open your eyes and stop being dumb sheep.

HEALTH CARE ALOT OF SPLAININ TO DO.

This is not about the Affordable Health Care Act (AKA Obamacare) or to engage in any political debate. This is about facts, you might still remember what that is about, telling the truth.

Many like to say that the United States has the best health care system in the world.  The problem is we don’t.  Not even close.  In fact, the only way you can get the best health care in the world, is if you are willing and able to pay for it.

The U.S. has to pay twice the amount per capita as the next most costly system in the world (Norway’s), and we still do not cover millions of our citizens. A Harvard Medical School study states that at least 45,000 Americans die each year from treatable diseases because they cannot afford to get treatment.


That equals 5 Americans that die every hour, of every day, of every year because of a preventable illness that was not taken care of due to lack of access and means.

Our Declaration of Independence states, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”  How can somebody have life and happiness, without their health? 

The US spends significantly more per person on health care than others, but has lower life expectancy rates than its peers. That's the message from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's (OECD) Health at a Glance 2013 report (CLICK HERE), which highlights the state of health in its 34 member countries. The report runs hundreds of pages long, detailing the most recent data in key areas of health and countries' health systems. One section looks into life expectancy gains over the past few decades, and, for many Americans, it makes for a worrying read.

What's embarrassing is that even though we live in a country where over 40 million people are uninsured, we pay more for health care than any other nation, and yet pathetically rank 26th in life expectancy, behind Slovenia

As supporters and opponents of the Affordable Care Act debate the best way to overhaul a clearly broken health care system, it's perhaps helpful to put American medicine in a global perspective.

The U.S. may spend the most on health care but this is not translating in high life expectancy. The U.S. also lags in comparison to its peers in providing universal health care. (Credit: OECD Health Statistics 2013)

To paraphrase Ricky Ricardo, the American health care system has a lot of 'splainin' to do.So what can the U.S. learn from the many countries that get more bang for their health care buck? Unsurprisingly, there is no one formula for success when it comes to efficient medical care.

The systems that rank highly are as diverse as the nations to which they belong. The unifying factor seems to be tight government control over a universal system, which may take many shapes and forms, a fact evident in the top-three most efficient health care systems in the world: Hong Kong, Singapore, and Japan.

Our biggest problem is that aspects of our culture are so backward. We’ll gladly spend all of the money, ever on national defense, to the point where the Pentagon can waste billions but still get far more funding than any other area of the government.

Although life expectancy in the United States has been growing in the last several decades, it has done so more slowly than other countries due to gaps in health insurance, poor living conditions, and poor health behaviors, according to a report released Wednesday from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

The OECD'S Report (Click Here) shows that life expectancy in the United States increased by about eight years since 1970, to 78.7 years in 2011. But life expectancy grew more rapidly in other OECD countries, which saw averages of 10-year gains since 1970. Now, the United States is more than a year below the OECD average life expectancy of 80.1 years.

Remember, in our political arena, if you support military funding, you’re a patriot. If you want more of that money to go toward health care, you’re a dirty socialist.

As far as I’m concerned, it’s money toward the same thing, protecting your population. For some reason, protecting them from external threats is important, but protecting their health is not.

A more detailed look shows that the US falls behind the rest of the world in every category:

1. Americans pay three times more for health care:

United States = $4,178
Switzerland = $2,794
Germany =$2,424
Canada =$2,312
Norway = $2,215
Denmark=$2,133
Austria = $2,043
France =$2,077
Japan = $1,822
Italy =$1,783
Sweden =$1,746
Finland= $1,502

2. But Americans get worse care. The US is

- 45th in Infant Mortality

- 14th in Heart Attack Survival, is behind Japan, France, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Italy, Greece, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Poland, Canada, Denmark and Germany,

- 15th in mortality from preventable diseases behind, France, Japan, Spain, Sweden, Italy, Australia, Canada, Norway, Netherlands, Greece, Germany, Austria, New Zealand, and Denmark.

- Worst of G6 countries for supplying Urgent care,

- Worst in medical errors.

- Behind France in Lung, Colon and Breast cancer survival. And the French pay half as much for their care.

- 5th in timely care

3. Insurance Costs Go To Overhead. Every year, Health insurance Companies are spending less and less on claims and more overhead. The amount insurance companies spend on medical claims has decreased by 28%. While profits for companies like United Health Care rose by 11%.

Percentage of premiums spent on claims:

1993: 95%
2006: 80%
2008: 67%

Some states were even worse:

North Dakota: 55%
WY, MA:       60%
KY,ME,MN,SD:  65%

Of Course our most efficient medical system in the United States is the Government operated Medicare Health Care Program of which 97.9% of premiums were spent covering claims and a tiny 2.1% for overhead in operating Medicare.

When confused people scream out "I don't want government-run health care. I don't want socialized medicine. And don't touch my Medicare", it is clear that they have no clue what they are talking about.

It's not about senior citizens. It's about anyone who doesn't think about what they're being told and can be easily manipulated. That includes many people younger than myself.

It's about the fear tactics that worked so well for the past eight years because so many people tend to believe what they're told rather than thinking it out for themselves.
 

The point is that our private system of health care in the United States sucks. Change it or live with it, but understand that the current system rips us all off.

POLITICIANS HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH PEOPLE

The vast majority of us are ruled by a powerful few, and we know about virtually NONE of it.

We stopped being a democracy a long time ago and anyone who believes otherwise is beyond naive.

America is an oligarchy ( a government in which a small group exercises control over a country especially for corrupt and selfish purposes). 

  

Big government and big corporations alone would be bad enough, but when they work in tandem with each other, looking out for each other’s interests, that’s where it gets super scary.

The modern, seamlessly sophisticated  "revolving door" syndrome is one of the most successful, overtly corrupt incestuous systems that exists under most Federal, State, County, and Local forms of Government, among all political parties in the United States.

Although the influence powerhouses that line Washington's K Street are just a few miles from the U.S. Capitol building, the most direct path between the two doesn't necessarily involve public transportation. Instead, it's through a door,this revolving door that shuffles former federal employees into jobs as lobbyists, consultants and strategists, just as the door pulls former hired guns into government careers. 

While officials in the executive branch, Congress and senior congressional staffers spin in and out of the private and public sectors, so too does privilege, power, access and, of course, money.

Revolving Door: Former Members

Dick Armey,Tom Daschle,Trent Lott, Jon Kyl, Howard Berman. etc. Once, these politicos ranked among Congress' most powerful members. Today, they share another distinction: They're lobbyists (or "senior advisors" performing very similar work). And they're hardly alone. 

Dozens of former members of Congress now receive handsome compensation from corporations and special interests as they influence the very federal government in which they used to serve. See where members of the 112th Congress (CLICK HERE) and the 111th Congress (CLICK HERE) have gone.

In fact according to Bloomberg News-CLICK HERE-Since the November elections, at least 22 members of the last Congress took jobs with lobbying firms, running trade associations or handling government relations for organizations. That is an increase of 14 percent over 2012 in the number of former lawmakers now in the lobbying business, according to the Washington-based Center for Responsive Politics,which tracks ex-lawmakers’ employment. Since 1998, a total of 338 former members of Congress have worked as lobbyists or joined such firms for at least some of their time since leaving office.

The data above and below shows in painstaking detail just how corrupted our political system in the United States has become.

These are perfect visual representations of how what should be our government has become a government that serves corporate interests to the detriment of the American people.

Special Interest Groups

Sector Totals, 2013-2014

Rank	Sector	Amount	Dems	Repubs	To DEMS To REPUBS
1	Finance/Insur/RealEst	$86,807,627	34.5%	57.4%
2	Other	$53,170,301	49.8%	39.8%
3	Ideology/Single-Issue	$46,344,049	38.1%	40.8%
4	Misc Business	$45,601,415	37.2%	55.9%
5	Health	$33,501,701	41.0%	55.4%
6	Lawyers & Lobbyists	$32,538,353	63.5%	33.6%
7	Labor	$24,911,797	57.3%	8.3%
8	Communic/Electronics	$24,250,960	54.4%	38.3%
9	Energy/Nat Resource	$21,305,062	22.1%	75.4%
10	Agribusiness	$15,495,565	26.5%	70.3%
11	Construction	$14,577,176	24.8%	64.7%
12	Transportation	$14,047,545	27.3%	70.8%
13	Defense	$8,548,697	40.0%	59.8%

The above data was obtained from the Center For Responsive Politics (CLICK HERE).

When I look at the the above financial connections of Corporate America it makes me wonder how anyone thought that people actually had the brazenness to claim that those pointing out the revolving door between Wall Street and Washington are conspiracy theorists.

Take the White House’s move to block the release of a Monsanto-linked lobbyist’s e-mail, for instance. This is hardly shocking when one considers the numerous connections the global corporation enjoys on Capitol Hill shown below.

Even when the products they are hawking are linked to birth defects and necrosis, these individuals seem to have no problem with actively circumventing everything democracy is supposed to be in order to pursue their corporate interests.

Just like the thoroughly reprehensible activities of the war profiteers who knowingly profit off of death, destruction and suffering, those who lobby for corporations like Monsanto are actively contributing to the problems of the many for the benefit of the few.

It’s truly disturbing to see all of this laid out in such an easily comprehensible manner, especially when one observes the high level positions many of these individuals either once held or currently hold.

Of course, this is only a small portion of the individuals involved in the widespread corporatist corruption that has infected so much of the United States.

There are countless connections to be explored and exposed, especially those which are thrown right in our faces, as is the case with the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).

Corporatism, which can also be called crony capitalism is one of the most dangerous forces at work in the United States and the world.

It works to turn governments against the people they are supposed to be working for while not only reducing the standard of living for those who aren’t manipulating the system but also destroying the environment for future generations.

Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address has gone down in history as one of the most quoted speeches in American history.

Lincoln's lines at the conclusion, that "government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth" has been extensively quoted and cited as the essence of the American system of government.

In brutal reality what we have here in the United States is:
Government of the corporations, by the corporations, for the corporations.