Why Do We Allow Profit From Other People’s Pain and Suffering?

I believe that making a profit on people’s pain and suffering is immoral, but in our capitalist society profit takes a high priority over anything else. To balance the two, profit and morality, is the crux of many problems in America.

The business of providing health care can still be profitable without destroying the lives of those who cannot afford to pay. The question becomes how much profit should be made? And if we begin talking about limiting profits are we really talking about socialism, a charge that is so generally tossed about today? This, I believe, is what scares many Americans today.

So what do we do? Do we provide free heath care to everyone? Of course not, someone has to pay. If we are to have an equitable system of health care for everyone then everyone is going to have to pay into the system. Does this mean that the federal government is actually going to run the health care system? No.

A reformed health care system will not look exactly as it does today, with people paying monthly premiums in hopes of building up a large enough bank to rely on in times of sickness. We will be able to visit a doctor when we need to and get the necessary care we can only wish for under the current system.

At this stage of our nation’s development the federal government is the only entity large enough to handle this venture. Is this socialism? Absolutely not.

Look, it behooves everyone, from the company owners to the workers, to have a healthy populace. What many anti health care reformers fear is paying for the health care of others. It is particularly distasteful to pay for the health care of those who simply refuse to care for themselves. This, I think, is a very valid point. If we begin caring only for those who care for themselves, i.e., proper diet, proper exercise, etc, then we have become exclusive. This then comes back to the moral issue.

Should the government pay people to stay healthy? Things could very well come to this. Especially if it is determined this long term expense is cheaper than if we wait until we have contracted diabetes or heart problems, something that would have been prevented by proper exercise and diet.

It is also beneficial to the country to eliminate bankruptcy due to medical bills. Something like 60% of the bankruptcies are due to medical expenses. This is outrageous.

We need to make it happen and we need to stop with the scare tactics and lies and the innuendos. The one thing that would help us all the most right now is if we had a main stream media that would actually report what the health care reform bill is and give us an accurate analysis of it instead of headlining rent-a-crowd antics at town hall meetings.

The bottom line is, trying to pass health care reform has been tried by both parties over the last 60 years, and the profit makers have always managed to shoot it down. When are we going to get out from under their thumb and do what is right for ourselves? I wish I could see it happen during my lifetime.

Big 3 Automakers Need to Change Course

Bailing out the auto industry, without making significant changes to how they do business and what they produce, is not in the best long term interest of America or the environment. Bankruptcy may “not be an option” for automakers but it may very well be the best thing that could happen for consumers.

We are facing difficult economic times and America needs to change its attitude concerning what is really necessary to maintain healthy, satisfied lives. Our excesses have finally caught up with us and we must learn to now become more frugal. We have adopted a destructive throw-away mentality in this country that has to be reversed. The automotive industry is no exception.

There are far too many cars on the market. A Long Beach California port is warehousing thousands of new cars due to lack of buyers. Detroit has housed thousands of unwanted American-made cars over the last two years at Michigan’s state fairground and in lots at its airports. Car lots across the country remain crowded with unsold new cars. We need to make our cars last longer. We will survive without a new car every year or even every three years. Automakers do not need to make new model changes every year.

What is wrong with driving a used car a little longer? The Big 3 likes to tell us that the after-market parts industry will suffer without new cars every year, this is simply a scare tactic. As their cars age, car owners will need to replace parts and this will keep the after-market parts industry alive. Automakers need to concern themselves with making a product that produces less pollution, gets better fuel economy and lasts longer than just a couple of years. All of this can be done by combining current and developing technologies.

Wages in the auto industry are out of whack with the rest of the nations work force. They need to be brought in-line with everyone else.

Automaker CEO’s will actually survive without their exorbitant multi-million dollar a year salaries and private jets. My advice to them is to get your heads out of the clouds and live amongst the consumers you claim to care so much about. Take this time and the money already given to you to build the new breed of cars that the environment needs and Americans truly want.

Flying private jets to Washington to ask for financial help and then defending the practice as ‘standard procedure’ shows that their ‘standard procedure’ leans towards excess that a financially troubled corporation should not be indulging in. Are they more concerned with hanging on to their exalted perch so they can continue to loot their respective corporations than they are in keeping millions of Americans employed? Extremely high executive salaries and membership in exclusive country clubs, use of private jets, and various other miscellaneous fluff that typically goes with being the figurehead of a large American corporation does not help the average American auto worker put food on their table.

Auto executives say they are going to streamline business operations, keeping in mind that their idea of streamlined business operations in the past was to layoff thousands of workers and move their operations overseas, I can’t help but think they are a bit disingenuous in trying to convince us that asking for our help is going to benefit us.

This request for help, from an industry that affects so many aspects of American life, comes at a pivotal point in our economic and environmental health. The concerns of both must be taken into account, for they can both benefit if we proceed responsibly.

Should we bail them out of a situation of their own making? The painful lesson of British Leyland must be heeded in the limited effectiveness of bailouts. The government got in the business of trying to make a winner out of a structurally flawed company. Is the U.S. auto industry structurally flawed? They have already proven they are willing to deprive U.S. auto workers of jobs by sending those jobs outside the U.S. Flint Michigan, and ultimately the entire state, has been devastated due to auto executives decisions to hire cheaper labor in Mexico. And GM is currently building a $300 million facility to build cars in Russia.

And when Americans began turning away from American made cars in favor of foreign made cars that got better gas mileage, the U.S. auto makers, instead of listening to the trend and retooling their industry to make what Americans obviously wanted, their answer was to increase the production of gas guzzling behemoths to help keep the price of their product down. By ignoring consumers U.S. auto makers took a path that led to an oversaturated market of ever larger vehicles that increased our dependence on fossil fuel which in turn increased pollution. Environmentalist have been demanding for decades to have access to vehicles that addressed these two major concerns. Auto executives chose to ignore these demands and that decision put them in their current situation.

I don’t think they can be trusted to put America’s best interest first. Their current business model of bleeding the industry dry to pad their executives’ lifestyle and let their employees fend for themselves needs to end. They need to listen to their consumers to produce a safer and more fuel efficient product and prove they are willing to put America first by keeping jobs here in America.

Bailing them out is not going to force changes that need to take place. Perhaps the humbling experience of a bankruptcy is exactly what is called for.