His recent article for the Huffington Post, Time to Just Say No to Giant Corporate "Parasites" -- and Recognize Them for What They Are, is a brilliant commentary on the state of business and government relationships in the modern age. He gives several examples of huge bureaucratic entities that exist for no other purposes than to create billable hours and to suck down tax money while performing simple government functions that the government should in fact be doing, and doing with much greater efficacy.

Of course, one of the examples happens to be private health insurance, the worst parasite of all.

Read more.

Sounds like a movie script. Giant parasites stalk the American landscape disguised as benign upstanding participants in the "free market."

[...]

In fact, there are a number of major corporations in America who do very little productive work -- never making products or delivering services that benefit their consumers. Instead, the profits they earn and the big CEO salaries they pay are derived by sucking or skimming a portion of the dollars they have convinced the Government to send through their corporate accounts -- generally to perform a function that is or ought to be an inherently governmental function.

Ironically, many of these corporate parasites are the loudest defenders of "free markets" and the most vociferous opponents of "government takeovers," when in fact they exist by feeding off the taxpayers.

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-creamer/time-to-just-say-no-to-gi_b_291102.html

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-creamer/time-to-just-say-no-to-gi_b_291102.html

The idea that humans are changing the global climate system was first developed, elaborated and demonstrated by natural scientists. The scientific evidence backing this basic idea is now overwhelming, even if scientific predictions of future climate changes are still shrouded in uncertainty.

But although science is very good at revealing how things are, and suggesting what physical manifestations might follow a particular course of action, it has limited relevance and reach when deciding what should be done in the face of complex dilemmas — such as climate change.

Taxing the rich may be popular with many Americans, but some experts warn that a proposed tax on the wealthy to pay for an overhaul of health care could be bad economic medicine.

He substantiates this by mentioning and quoting Joseph Thorndike:

Joseph Thorndike, a historian with the Tax History Project, said broadening the tax base to more Americans — though it may be less politically popular — might be better policy. In part, a broader tax could be less easy to repeal in the future.

"If you ask people to pay something then they have an ownership stake in it," Thorndike said, citing Social Security as an example. "The narrow, soak-the-rich approach is real short-sighted politics."

Thorndike is probably right. Strategically speaking, it's more sound to have everyone contribute.

But you know what, Frank? I say fuck it.

We've taxed the hell out of both the poor and middle class. The rich have had their asses carted around and treated like royalty. Only to have their banks bailed out and car companies salvaged (kinda) by the poo(er) after being mismanaged by the rich. Halliburton overcharges the governement--who get most of their money from the non-rich.

Enron and Maddoff and the like liquidate the retirement accounts of the poor and middle class. Well, really, I guess Maddoff screwed anyone he could, regardless of richness. I retract him.

So, yeah, anyway. What the hell. Let the rich pay for facilitating healthcare change. At least for a couple years.

I'm good with that.

And if/when I'm making that kind of money, I'd be happy to kick down a couple extra grand a year to help and make sure people on the street have access to care.

Are you kidding me? If this was a truly civilized society, this would not even be an issue. As Thorndike says, we'd all pay for it.

Democracy Now! interviews:

Via USNews & World Report:

President Obama's announcement of a $80 billion deal with the pharmaceutical industry to cut prescription drug costs received favorable media coverage from a wide range of sources, but was only briefly mentioned by one network, ABC. Some coverage, however, noting the fine print of the deal, is cast in somewhat negative terms.

Officials in America and Britain report on how a changing climate could batter their countries

IF YOU want to persuade voters to make difficult choices in order to tackle climate change, it helps to make clear precisely how their own homes might be affected by shifting weather patterns. Although climate change is widely expected to do most damage in poor countries, where large and vulnerable populations are most likely to be battered and displaced in the coming decades, rich ones will be affected too. This week two governments, in America and in Britain, set forth reports detailing what changes might be in store at home.

• Follow #IranElection on Twitter.
• Check out the HuffPost's ongoing updates. Nico Pitney is live-blogging the election fallout and HuffPo is getting dense info sent to it from local citizens in Tehran, including the following photos.