Healthcare Reform: Let's Play Good Cop/Bad Cop!

(Special thanks to the immortal Man in Black)

“...we are a country that chooses the harder right over the easy wrong."

-President Barack Obama, on healthcare “reform”

Will Obama Choose the "Hard Right"?

Haha! Barry speaks in ominous parables...

Will the “harder Right” prevail in this life or death struggle for over eighty million Americans without access to quality healthcare? While Obama demands Congress move quickly on healthcare reform, he revealed today that “we are a country that chooses the harder right over the easy wrong.” The man either got that right or he speaks with forked tongue. In this case, the “easy wrong” would likely be Single Payer or any form of universal healthcare that would benefit U.S. citizens and stick it to an industry (Insurance and EHR) that profits off of the death and demise of Americans and the costly, privacy invasive gov't. mandated record/data mining technology that forces Americans to subsidize fat technocrats. (BTW - corporations developing Electronic Health Records (EHRs) are notorious outsourcers/insoucers.)

As LWOH reported here and here and here, The Obama healthcare “reform” plan is a costly payday for Stimulus bill, AARA sucking technocrats and DOES NOTHING to provide smart, affordable healthcare to American citizens as would Single Payer, as discussed by Ralph Nader in his recent essay Single Payer Taboo.

The “harder Right” is indeed holding fast in the Senate debate against healthcare reform, and Obama's bipartisan, One Big Party of Money healthcare reform plan to enrich his techno-elite buddies at Micrsoft, Google and Oracle et.al to develop patient record snoop technology DOES NOT PROVIDE HEALTHCARE for our citizenry. If only Obama would ditch those Old Colonial sleazoids, but nooooo...

Steve Lendeman also explains who Obama is truly looking out for in his recent article Obamacare - A Health Care Rationing Scheme to Enrich Insurers, Drug Companies and Large Hospital Chains and lifts the veil behind what he describes as the “facade of reform”:

“Obama and leading Democrats ruled universal, single-payer coverage off the table before debate even began. Instead they've focused on taxing more, rationing care, placing profits above human need, disdaining vital change, shifting the cost burden to individuals and requiring everyone to be insured; imposing fines up to $1000 for non-compliance, and making a broken system even worse.

On June 10, Physicians for a National Health Program advisor Walter Tsou told the House Education and Labor Committee:

"Attempting to reconcile the dual imperatives of universal coverage and cost control through alternative methods besides single payer is an exercise in futility. When some congressional leaders declare that single payer is off the table, they are in effect saying that insurers will be protected, leaving the pain to patients, taxpayers and health care providers."”

There are TWO crucial changes that must be implemented in the U.S. for America's white collar middle class to survive:

1. Stop outsourcing/insourcing American jobs to India (If Americans had good paying jobs adjusted with rising costs, affording healthcare would not be a problem)

2. Provide Single Payer heathcare for U.S. citizens – everybody in, nobody out

Is Obama committed to standing up for the citizens of this country or he just another crooked president, ready and willing to serve his elitist, technocrat frat boys club at the expense of America's middle class?

THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF “EAT SHIT AND DIE” is pulling out all the stops this week on healthcare “reform.” Let the good cop/bad cop games begin! This week, the healthcare reform pro-con TV ads begin, while the Dems roll out the concerned 'mommy' with abused housewife denial syndrome (see Ted Kennedy's moving plea for healthcare reform) and the GOP plays the fiscally conservative 'daddy' who would rather hold onto his wallet and watch his grown, unemployed son die of AIDS than admit access to jobs and preventative care could have saved him. By now, the plebes are onto the fact that the BOSS (Pharma/Insurance/Tech lobbies and their global paymasters) says “no way, you whiny, middle class Americans – get over yourselves...From the LA Times (emphasis mine“good cop/bad cop”) article below:

GOOD COP (President Obama, D-White House): "We always knew that passing healthcare reform wouldn't be easy," he (Obama) said today. "There is a tendency toward inertia in this town. . . . But we are a country that chooses the harder right over the easy wrong."

And

BAD COP (GOP): “The Republican National Committee, airing a new TV ad opposing the president's healthcare plans and launching a website accusing Obama of experimenting with the nation's economy -- www.barackobamaexperiment.com -- is waging a campaign of its own.

"We do not allow one political leader to risk our healthcare system," RNC Chairman Michael Steele said in an address today at the National Press Club in Washington. "It is time to hit the pause button on this administration's reckless experiment with America's economy and our healthcare system."

Got that? Mommy talks a good game, but daddy just has to say “no” while poor Barry walks away after four years with lousy approval ratings and a boatload of goodies...Meanwhile, what will the Dems do now? Where will all of their disillusioned, unemployed, sick and huddled masses at the Kool-Aid stands without access to quality healthcare go? The GOP? HA!

If Obama were truly serious about making healthcare available to all, he would demand it and stand up for it. But it looks more like business as usual, with U.S. taxpayer, leeching, global elites (and deft facilitation by U.S. Dem and Repub politicans who profit) have decided to kill off what's left of America's white collar middle class by denying them real access to affordable, quality health care. While Hillary is likely profiteering from her 24/7 Mumbai Monsoon Moves visit to India by giving away what's left of American white collar jobs to India, Obama's approval ratings are simultaneously plummeting.

And Americans are waking up to smell this sewer of good cop/bad cop tactics against middle class Americans from the One Big Money Party - the Democrats and their craven twin, the GOP. Despite the fact that now, more than ever would be the BEST political moment for the Dems to seize the day by standing up for U.S. workers and for U.S. healthcare, is the smart money on that play?

Wouldn't it be grand if Obama would tell these backbiters to all go to hell? It's not like he doesn't have the people of America behind him or anything...

Party on, plebes! Keep on throwing roses at those adorable kissing cousins, HilBama!

-2Truthy

Obama Tells American Workers to Go to Hell

-Fascism You Can Use-

Why Obama Wants to Outsource American White Collar Job$

For Immediate Release

Obama's Goldman Sachs “Advisors”, the NYSE, Softbank and Cisco Heart India and Hate (Non-Elitist) Americans

Warren, MI – This week Obama told the citizens of the greater Detroit region to basically get over themselves as he and his Goldman Sachs pals, Softbank VCs, and Cisco Systems and the NYSE have cooked up a scheme to funnel American jobs to Indian workers and line billions of dollars into their insider pockets and political enablers.

How insulting and degrading and fascism wielding is this? King Obama graced the residents of Warren, MI this week to announce his flagrant disregard for American workers, and the Mayor of Warren, Jim Fouts, wasn't even invited as he couldn't pass a so-called security check! Hello, America?

Fouts has been justifiably critical of the Obama administration and feels the president “isn’t doing enough to keep auto manufacturing jobs in the U.S.” And how could Fouts possibly agree with Obama's disingenuous and cynical “goals speech” for training American workers, many who already hold undergraduate and graduate degrees from this nation's finest universities:

"Job retraining is kind of a joke if you're going to retrain people for jobs that no longer exist. If you're going to retrain jobs for people in Michigan related to the auto industry, those jobs have already been hijacked by the fact the federal government has allowed them to move to China or Mexico," Fouts said to WWJ Newsradio."

Oh! Job retraining will be the "change we can use!"

The Obama administration hearts Indian workers so much more than American citizens enough to tell American workers to go to hell. This week, he broke the wonderful news to the people of Michigan, a state with an unemployment rate of 15% and rapidly climbing. Obama deceptively suggested that they all go to (hell) school – to community college – when local community colleges, which are not calibrated to absorb the massive numbers of corporate sponsored visa holders are already overcrowded, forcing citizens to be wait listed due to U.S. corporations like Microsoft importing contractors from India and their families, courtesy Joe Taxpayer. Corporate America is hell-bent on ditching Americans and importing the caste system over here:

“A little-noticed measure passed by the Legislature and signed into law by the governor will extend in-state tuition rates at Washington state colleges and universities to foreign professionals at companies such as Microsoft and Amazon, as well as to their children and spouses.

Under House Bill 1487, which takes effect July 1, the foreign workers would qualify for the same tuition rate as state residents if they have been in the state at least a year on certain kinds of temporary work visas, such as the H-1B.”

Softbank btw, is the Sugar Daddy to the so-called “progressive” blog the Huffington Post, which coincidentally never, ever mentions the real reason behind disappearing American white collar jobs. Why is this? By now, Kool-Aid addled readers should already know that if it were not for greedy corporate America's steamy lust for cheap Indian outsourced/insourced labor and rigging the NYSE to get it, our Economy would not be in the shitter today and white collar Americans would be working and not heaped on the Slagheap of History. (h/t David Sirota.)

The Cash Cow of Indian Outsourcing is what's preventing white collar, middle class Americans from contributing to the prosperity and growth of this economy. And don't count on reading about it from Arianna's Kool-Aid dispensery at HuffPo, as this new HuffPo Managing Editor selection would suggest a personal stake it keeping this global elitist, cash cow secret hush-hush...

In 2007 a “consortium” including Softbank, the NYSE, Goldman Sachs (remember Obama's GS Economic Advisory team pals, Geithner & Co. not to mention Paulson and Kashkari, etc.?) and Cisco Systems, a tech company that has not only replaced the bulk of its former American workers with cheap labor from India but is now “offering” its employees to dig their own graves ala Hitler style or move to exotic India, it is no wonder that the HuffPo is primed to be the exclusive One World Propaganda Arm by and for greedy corporate elites:

“NYSE-led Consortium Buys 20% of India's NSE
The New York Stock Exchange, Goldman Sachs, General Atlantic and the Softbank Asia Infrastructure Fund each bought a 5% stake in the National Stock Exchange of India. The 20% stake was sold by several Indian bank and insurance companies that backed the formation of the NSE. The 5% is the most that any single foreign investor is permitted to own in the exchange, according to rules set by the Securities and Exchange Board of India. The NYSE said in a statement that the deal would allow it to participate in the NSE’s growth and encourage Indian companies to list their shares on the NYSE. The NSE ranks among the largest equity derivatives markets in Asia and one of the fastest growing derivatives exchanges in the world. Goldman Sachs already owns 7% of the National Commodity & Derivatives Exchange, one of India's largest commodity futures exchanges. General Atlantic, a venture capital firm, is one of the top five investors in the NYSE and bought 10% of the New York Mercantile Exchange in 2006. The Softbank fund is a joint venture between Softbank, a Japanese investment company focused on technology ventures, and Cisco Systems, the Internet networking equipment company. The fund invests in technology, media and telecommunications companies operating in the Asia-Pacific region.”

Now, I don't know anyone in the greater Detroit region (other than my old pal CC) but Obama's terrifying and shameless speech to Michigan about ditching the U.S. worker neglected to mention how he and his GS, Softbank, Cisco and NYSE insider pals and pols fabulously profit by kicking American workers to the curb and this has to make any non-sociopath in the U.S. feel for their neighbors and local economies. Where is the community indignant outrage?

If Obama's shameless edict against the American worker isn't a wake up call for Michigan residents (whose "official" unemployment rate is at 15% and climbing rapidly towards 50%) and all U.S. citizens, what is?

In an economic depression such as this one, now is the perfect time for Obama to seize the moment and tell the India lobby where to shove it. Either Obama is a fabulous person yet a hopeless, clueless tool of a politician, or he is a diabolical figure on the national stage of the burgeoning U.S. fascism that's shrouded in happy talk that hates the non-portfolio class American.

Which one is it?

This country has had it's fill of divide and conquer under the banner of failed “globalization” that has capsized all boats except for a few sociopaths.

Even the Pope says globalization is not working out for anyone but the likes of Obama & Co. and it has to stop. So what does Obama do? He goes to Detroit anyway and tells Americans to EAT GASKETS.

This war on America's white collar middle class is not one of race, ethnicity or creed or gender, but of class.

It's time for the Kool-Aid addled, PC Dems to wake up and wean off the dope blogs and quit supporting the One Big Money Party.

Obama promised “change” for Americans – so far, it's looking like change of the elitist, sociopathic 'haha' persuasion. “Change” to Obama = 'Go from thriving to dying, American white collar middle class! Me and my tech/beltway lobby homies got slaves from India, suckas.'

Still down with that?

-2Truthy

G8 Summit Roundup

"Yeah, Baby!"

Today's story is all about the 2009 G8 summit which focused on cap and trade, along with that hot lady's ass in the photo above. (Read Stephen Lendman's excellent analysis Obama's Cap and Trade Carbon Emissions Bill - A Stealth Scheme to License Pollution and Fraud.)

The G8 summit in Italy this week concluded with a “flurry of developments” according to this Environmental Leader report which highlighted a “pledge to cut global emissions by 50 percent by 2050, a goal that before the meeting seemed unattainable.” However, all is not well in the global castle.

The report has disclosed that the summit also resulted in BRIC nations (Brazil, Russia, India and China) wanting rich, industrialized nations to provide “incentives” to prop up carbon cutting initiatives elsewhere, according to a senior adviser for the energy and national security program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington, D.C., think tank. What kind of “incentives” could those be?

“Indeed, the G8 took wording out of its declaration that had promised $400 million in funding to help poor countries convert to a low-carbon economy, reports Bloomberg. The G8 also removed language contained in prior draft documents that called for emissions to peak by 2020.

Additionally, the rest of the world is waiting for rich nations to commit to mid-term carbon cuts by 2020 or 2025, a consensus that has not yet been reached.”

This, naturally, really pissed off China and India:

“Angered by the lack of progress on this front, some nations such as China and India have decided against committing to numerical targets July 9, as they had previously indicated, WSJonline reports.”

So, now, everybody is changing their minds! Not unlike G.W. Bush's infamous declaration that “the Constitution is only a fu*^ing piece of paper”, some BRIC nations, too, are reneging on their compact to stop the planet earth from becoming the celestial dumpster of this solar system. In fact, China got so pissed off that President Hu Jintao walked out on July 8, totally blowing off “meaningful dialogue with President Barack Obama” and the rest of the gang, using the convenient excuse of having to return to China to deal with rioting Muslims in western provinces, reports WSJonline.

Not to mention Russia...”You are part of the G8, right?” Get a load of this commitment to clean up this place:

“Despite signing the commitment to reduce greenhouse gases 80 percent by 2050, Russia will not be able to meet the target, Reuters reports.”

Hahaha! Oh, these silly agreements...Russia to G8: “Why, certainly, we will sign this document but we can do no such thing!” Might explain why Russia enjoys both BRIC status and G8...

There are fair and equitable ways to head off global climate change disasters, such as a global climate tax, as Ralph Nader has suggested in this Newser report to Obama:

“The cap-and-trade system Barack Obama favors to deal with climate change won’t work, Ralph Nader and Toby Heaps write in the Wall Street Journal, and it’ll lead to “trade anarchy.” Any unilateral action we take must be global; otherwise, companies will simply relocate, taking jobs and emissions with them. China and other developing nations will never accept a cap-and-trade system, but they might be OK with a global carbon tax.

The tax would be more appealing to developing nations, because they could pay as they go, without fear of growing too fast and hitting a hard cap. “Key people in China read our newspapers,” and know that if they do nothing, we’ll implement protectionist measures against their imports. Yes, the tax would initially hurt consumers, but it “would pave the way for cheaper, cleaner energy.”

But that would make sense.

Party on, plebs!

-2Truthy

Obama's Happy Talk: Jobs For Americans Disappear

(Special thanks to Bloody Mary and the cast and crew of South Pacific)

Happy talk, keep talkin' happy talk,
Talk about things you'd like to do.
You got to have a dream,
If you don't have a dream,
How you gonna have a dream come true?

Happy Talk!

Load of Hooeyville, USA – Still clinging to that happy-talk old saw which deceptively dictates that educated American citizens deserve to watch their wages (sans healthcare) plummet due to outsourcing/insourcing (h/t Toni Bowers at TechRepublic) AND owe what's left of this country's jobs to imported workers from India, courtesy a few profiteering CEOs and enabling politicians joined at the hip?

The Capital Times reports this week how Obama's “pretty-close-to-clueless economic team peddled the absurd spin” that the current “recession” MIGHT be easing. But the zillion dollar bailout question is this: How do U.S. CEOs and politicians sleep at night when they sell off U.S. jobs to foreign workers for reduced quality and personal profit?

According to the Times, the Obama team is now down to plying the plebs with happy talk:

“A month ago, when the jobless rate was edging toward 9 percent, it was clear that the most serious challenge facing the Obama administration was rising unemployment.

Unfortunately, Obama's pretty-close-to-clueless economic team peddled the absurd spin that because the rate of increase in the official total of out-of-work Americans had slowed somewhat in May, the current recession might be easing. That happy talk dulled the sense of urgency, and the White House let another month pass without focusing seriously.
That was a bad mistake.

During the month of June, 467,000 more Americans lost their jobs.”

Oh, the happy talk couldn't come at a better time (channeling Sam Kinneson, here) as Computerworld's Patrick Thibodeau today reports Electrical Engineers See Job Losses At Record Levels (8.6% and climbing) while WashTech reminds us how millions of unemployed, educated Americans are kicked to the curb as IBM Abandons US Workforce for more burnt fries!

Rob Sanchez's latest Job Destruction Newsletter provides an excellent analysis of Thibodeau's article below as he explains the relationship between how rapidly rising EE unemployment and the importation of foreign engineers to take American jobs is related to H-1B visa and green card holders alike. In other words, call it what you will – call it the 'Fog a Mirror' Visa – but eliminating the disastrous H-1B visa program will not halt American job losses if it is replaced exclusively with green card holders taking jobs as long as U.S. CEOs and politicians continue to profit. Sanchez writes:

“Patrick Thibodeau got in a good jab at IEEE in the last paragraph of his

new Computerworld article. His remark is a bit misleading though, because

the IEEE has criticized H-1B in the past while at the same time supporting

unlimited importation of foreign engineers with instant green cards visas.

They refuse to make any connection at all between EE unemployment and the

importation of foreign engineers.

It's interesting to note that there are still plenty of H-1B visas

available for fiscal year 2010. As many as 20,000 visas are up for grabs

that count towards the cap. It seems that companies aren't even hiring

H-1Bs!”

http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/uscis/menuitem.5af9bb95919f35e66f614176543f

6d1a/?vgnextoid=138b6138f898d010VgnVCM10000048f3d6a1RCRD

“As of July 3, 2009, approximately 45,000 H-1B cap-subject petitions

and approximately 20,000 petitions qualifying for the advanced

degree cap exemption had been filed. USCIS will continue to accept

both cap-subject petitions and advanced degree petitions until a

sufficient number of H-1B petitions have been received to reach the

statutory limits, taking into account the fact that some of these

petitions may be denied, revoked, or withdrawn.

Last year it took just a few days to give out all 65,000 visas, and in FY

2008 it took only a day. So far the stampede for visas that H-1B advocates

were predicting hasn't happened -- and yet corporations continue to claim

that the cap must be raised in order to avoid a national emergency.

So, is the slowdown in H-1B hiring good news or bad for American engineers?

In my opinion the trend doesn't bode well for American high tech workers

because they usually have to wait in the back of the line for jobs until

all of the H-1B visas are used up. If employers aren't hiring H-1Bs they

aren't hiring American engineers either. Last year high-tech workers

started to find job opportunities -- but only after the cap was reached.”

American high tech workers have to wait in the back of the line for jobs until all of the foreign workers are recruited BECAUSE? There is no better political moment than during this Depression 2.0 for the Democrats and Obama to take a page from Donald Trump and inform India, Inc. that THEY'RE FIRED!

Talk about the boy sayin' to the girl:
"Golly, baby, I'm a lucky cuss"
Talk about the girl sayin' to the boy:
"You an' me is lucky to be us!"

-2Truthy

“It's NOT the Economy, Stupid. It's YOUR JOB!”

Rahm's Placebo Healthcare Silver Bullet

Rahm's Placebo Healthcare Silver Bullet at Odds with Barry's “Give 'Em All Tylenol” Option

Washington – When the King is away, the mice will get into the truth serum...

While President Obama is vacationing on business in Russia this week with his family, all hell broke loose over here as Middle Class Czar Joe Biden spilled the beans about the truly disastrous state of the economy and Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel soberly gave his honest lowdown on healthcare reform. This inconvenience forced Obama to spank from inside the halls of his host's ornate Russian kingdom.

Emanuel “suggested” to the press that the overwhelming favored public option is “triggered” in much the same way a locked n' loaded luger is aimed at the heads of over fifty million Americans without access to healthcare. Emanuel stated that the White House “would be comfortable with legislation that had a public plan "triggered" in only by worsening economic conditions” here:

"The goal is to have a means and a mechanism to keep the private insurers honest," Emanuel told the Wall Street Journal. "The goal is non-negotiable; the path is negotiable.”

Oh-ho-ho, let's keep these Insurance industry dealer$ of death “honest” by continuing to hang with the lobbyists, cave to GOP ideologues, and provide catastrophic, non-negotiable, non-access to healthcare for all!

As Sam Stein notes in his article entitled With Franken Seated No Need for Compromise on Public Option will Al Franken, now in the senate, be the catalyst to pass the favored public option and prevent the Republicans from revolting? Stein writes:

"If you did a consensus within the Democratic Party, you would find the level-playing-field public option to be the answer," said Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. "And now that we have 60 votes, it seems to me like we don't have to turn it inside out for something we don't like."

Here's a cheery, inspiring thought from one commenter:

“If congress can not pass a robust public option with at least 51 votes and all robust minimum requirements, congress should immediately move to scrap healthcare reform and request that President Obama declare a state of NATIONAL HEALTHCARE EMERGENCY! Seizing and replacing all PRIVATE FOR PROFIT health insurance plans with the immediate implementation of National Healthcare for all Americans under the provisions of HR676 (A Single-payer National Healthcare Plan For All).”

-2Truthy

Biden: "We Misread How Bad the Economy Was"

The Gay Swami Times

Welcome to The Gay Swami Times NEW twitter edition, where keeping it brief means our noses are snugly positioned in yours with 140 characters or less! (you can now tweet me @thegayswami).

Today's exhilarating feature story Russia, India Question Dollar Reliance Before Summit proves India to be the victorious Vedic villain that a growing number of U.S. critics say it is! Mwahahahahahahaha!

“Russia and India said the world economy is too reliant on the U.S. dollar and called for changes in how $6.5 trillion in currency reserves are managed, as Group of Eight leaders prepare to meet this week.

“The dollar system or the system based on the dollar and euro have shown that they are flawed,” Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said in an interview with Corriere della Sera, repeating his proposal for a new international reserve currency.”

India is going to take their American jobs and then crush the U.S. currency and will replace it with curry and more mangoes! Hahahahahahahahahaha! India is THE SUPREME MASTER OF THE UNIVERSE, who shall crush the dollar AND steal U.S. jobs, too! India is now the tyrannous, thief -in-the-night country that most of America can't see because it has very, very good friends in Congress and the White House to conceal this truth as we ply their traitorous masters with our special tantric treasures...

Even their Middle Class Czar, Joe Biden, is now going “ooooooooopsy...” with this headline story “We misread how bad the economy was” on ABC's THIS WEEK that leaks the good news about American unemployment going up, and up and up! And the story hides the celestial truth that India is winning by stealing Americans jobs AND THEIR CURRENCY through stealth operation 'Kundalini' where we infiltrate their corporations like the coiled sleeping serpent, ready to deploy our latent energy located at the base of the spine. Especially on their lusty CEO's. Joe Biden told ABC that the Stimulus is working, and we know how to stimulate their politicians in all the right places!

We couldn't accomplish this wealth transfer without their politicians and the CEO's and especially the help of Hillary Clinton (D-Punjab), and this Administration! And our special friend, Tom Friedman, who actually made everybody believe for a little while that the WORLD WAS FLAT! Hahahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

Now, let's all take out our Bikram yoga rugs and pray hard to Lord Vishnu to keep all of these guys on our side since U.S. citizen's jobs are migrating to us faster than fruit flies on leftover butter chicken, now would be a good political time for Obama and Biden (if they dared, hahahahhahha) to tell us what to do with our yoga mats and mangoes!

Ohmmmmmmmmmmmmm,

The Gay Swami

Tom Friedman Trashes Cap n' Trade, Then Promotes it

Tom Friedman Trashes Cap n' Trade, Then Promotes it

Two commendable articles by former billionaire turned millionaire Tom Friedman – yes, that Tom Friedman – he of Hot, Smelly, Flat, Overcrowded, One World fame – are on the LWOH menu today, as yours truly does an about face and lavishes actual praise (mostly) on the notorious NY Times columnist and author who has, up until these two recent, uncharacteristically substantive and amusing articles, fully lived up to his reputation as “Mr. Fingernails on the Blackborad” for his unabashed, condescending, arrogant and hubris soaked elitist-evangelism of all things globo-corporate. (After all, no one could ever accuse the carbon-market enthusiast of outing his offshoring/inshoring loving corporate pals for living large at the expense of a growing body of unemployed, white collar Americans.)

Jay Yarrow's April 8, 2009 article entitled Tom Friedman Trashes Cap And Trade at the Business Insider references Friedman's intelligent preference for a carbon tax instead of this “Rube Goldberg contraption” of a cap and trade bill that Congress recently passed that “stinks.” He correctly explains that “most people” will understand a carbon tax but may not know what the hell “cap and trade” even means in the following NYT OpEd:

NYT: “Americans will be willing to pay a tax for their children to be less threatened, breathe cleaner air and live in a more sustainable world with a stronger America. They are much less likely to support a firm in London trading offsets from an electric bill in Boston with a derivatives firm in New York in order to help fund an aluminum smelter in Beijing, which is what cap-and-trade is all about. People won’t support what they can’t explain.”

But in his July 4th article yesterday entitled China poised to lead U.S. behind in clean energy (just a nit here, but did he mean “China poised to LEAVE U.S. behind...or has Pinchy outsourced all the copy editing to Mexico or India?) Friedman now says that he favors the climate/energy bill passed by the House. How did he go from trashing cap and trade in April to supporting a bill that includes it a mere three months later? For one thing, Friedman expresses deep concern that China has gotten on board the clean energy bandwagon — “big-time” and is genuinely worried that “China will clean our clock in E.T. (energy technologies)” if the U.S. doesn't commit to cleaning China's clock first by driving clean-tech innovation:

“This is a major reason I favor the climate/energy bill passed by the House. If we do not impose on ourselves the necessity to drive innovation in clean-technology — by imposing the right prices on carbon emissions and the right regulations to promote energy efficiency — we will be laggards in the next great global industry.”

Friedman now would suggest that the U.S. cap and trade system “drive” clean tech innovation in place of the straightforward carbon tax and cites what he describes as “key points” in his decision from this draft report of the president's Economic Recovery Advisory Board:

"If the U.S. fails to adopt an economywide carbon abatement program, we will continue to cede leadership in new energy technology. The U.S. is now home to only two of the 10 largest solar photovoltaic producers in the world, two of the top 10 wind turbine producers and one of the top 10 advanced battery manufacturers. That is, only one-sixth of the world's top renewable energy manufacturers are based in the United States. "... Sustainable technologies in solar, wind, electric vehicles, nuclear and other innovations will drive the future global economy. We can either invest in policies to build U.S. leadership in these new industries and jobs today, or we can continue with business as usual and buy windmills from Europe, batteries from Japan and solar panels from Asia."

So which is it? Manufacturing or “carbon abatement”? Both? Is Friedman suggesting that we become a nation of coolies by reverting back to our manufacturing era days when the U.S. polluted big time before we cooked up the brilliant idea to turn China into our backyard dump by shipping all of our manufacturing over there? Is he really suggesting that we should now compete with China's infinitely cheap labor pool by producing these clean technologies here or does this sound more like he understands that there is some serious gold in them thar cap and trade hills for a few global insiders to turn a relatively quick ROI in a brand spanking new financial “bubble” market created virtually out of thin air that will make the dot.com bust look like a ride on the teacups at Disneyland?

For all of his well-addressed concern about the need to develop alternative energy solutions, why is Friedman now hedging his bets on what he admits is a flawed cap and trade bill? Once the regulation of carbon emissions is taken away from the EPA and placed into the capable hands of Wall Street – you know, those Goldman Sach$ guys and VC's on Obama's advisory bailout board – will the sky be the limit for a few insider profiteers? But Wall Street thrives on speculation... It does seem like an interesting fork in the road when combined with the bailout of insurance companies like AIG, among others.

Oregon Congressman Pete DeFazio astutely observes:

"An unregulated cap-and-trade system could be the next subprime mortgage bubble...It is just infinitely game-able," he said, relating how Europe is now trading in "carbon futures" that give industries additional emission permits now in exchange for, say, trees that may or may not be planted in the future. "These financial people, I mean, they are very smart people and they can figure out a way to monetize anything and it would just be nuts to go down that path.
It should be done with "old fashioned" regulation, of the same kind that reduced smog over our cities and cleaned the filth out of our rivers.
I am a very old-fashioned guy. First you inventory the sources of pollution, then you cap them. You get people a schedule to reduce. You monitor them, and you fine the heck out of them if they don’t meet them [the standards]."

Back to Tom Friedman and why I believe his latest article on the subject of cap and trade qualifies him for a temporary pass out of 2Truthy's doghouse... he mentions what may well be the link to getting Obama's healthcare reform off the ground to the energy/climate bill. Does he know something we don't about the shadowy Insurance players who could be willing to allow the transfer of funds to gradually slosh into the nascent carbon trading market? After all, money is just little electrons running around somebody else's computer – considerably less tangible than wampum -- and right now, the Insurance Lobby is feeling the heat from a sitting president who appears to be dead serious in his attempt to make healthcare available to all in the U.S. Now, what if Single Payer were passed (I know, this is not likely to happen but what if) and the Insurance industry collapsed? Where would all that money go?

Friedman writes:

“And this is why I disagree with President Barack Obama when he signals that he has to focus on extending health care and put the energy/climate bill — now in the Senate — on the back burner.

Health care and the energy/climate bill go together. We need both now. Imagine how poor we would be today if U.S. firms did not dominate the top 10 Internet companies. Well, if we don't dominate the top 10 E.T. rankings, there is no way we are going to be able to afford decent health care for every American. No way."

Aside from his obsession with U.S. globo-corporate domination, could Friedman be on to something by recognizing that the energy/climate bill and healthcare go together? I do, however, question his logic about needing to dominate the “top 10 E.T. Rankings” in order to be able to afford “decent health care” for every American. I mean, if other countries far less wealthy than ours, like Venezuela can do it – I see no reason to conclude this. (h/t The Rag Blog.)

I read somewhere recently that cap and trade would pay for U.S. healthcare reform. By allowing the evil health insurance industry which profits wildly through the calculated screwing of its paying customers to die on the vine, would this release funds to support a universal healthcare system supported by the creation of a dominant U.S. controlled global carbon market?

If so, then this would make me have to take Obama out of my doghouse, too. Or, I' just don't know what the hell I'm talking about and I am, for some mysterious reason, feeling more generous than necessary towards the usual suspects who might – just might – in a million years --- finally see that most of us really want to clean up this place and deserve the right to healthcare and to the right to contribute to the prosperity of our local economies that has been greedily denied to so many for far too long.

-2Truthy