Hospitals & Asylums
October 2008
US election day is nearing. We will soon know who will be unable to pronounce the phrase, “balanced budget” for the next four years. While the prospect of electing a black man to the White House is charming, one does not wish for the black man’s worst enemy as one’s vice. On the other hand, military dictatorship is probably the least effective form of government. Philosophers have been decrying military dictators since they first started writing instead of fighting and the polls reflect this view. It is too bad that we don’t really have a multi-party system so that a black leader could be elected from a party, like the Green party, whose interests do not forbid the President from performing his or her one duty, balance the budget. Without a balanced budget the government, and indirectly, all of the economy, becomes untrue. The economic shocks that we are seeing these days are the result of the public sector selling insured government bonds to raise money to invest the risky private sector. It is not so much a matter of stealing from Peter to pay Paul as stealing from Paulson to pay Paulson, less consultant fees. They say their manipulations has kept third quarter economic growth at only -0.3% rather than -0.5% but if they had heeded my counsel to balance the budget, instead of running off with the robber barons, the United States and their European cronies, might still be positive. Another quarter of negative growth and the US will be officially in a recession.
Excessive speculation on credit is what triggered the stock market crash of 1929. The cause of the current economic crisis is more similar to the Mexican peso crisis of 1994 when the real estate price bubble burst and loans became un-repayable and the peso was forced to devaluate by angry US investors. The cyclical burst of the housing bubble in the United States and Europe was complicated by the countervailing increases in oil, energy and transportation prices. Enabled by the bribery of high government offices the energy investors accumulated an enormous investment capital that went mostly into stock market speculation creating artificial highs in the financial markets. When regulators stepped in and oil prices fell there was a flight of this capital to safer investments, namely government bonds, unwisely printed as graft for the privilege of doing their constitutional duty to regulate the private sector and insure depositors. What should now occur is that the US dollar and Euro will be devaluated against the currencies of developing nations whose economies are, at least so far, relatively unaffected by the financial crisis. However, the US dollar appreciated in defiance to economic law, because bankers and home builders, the clients of the bailout, like a strong currency, although exporters and economic statisticians of the last eight years, think the US economy would perform better if it were devaluated.
In November the course of study will be the currency exchange ramification of the bailout, ie. bailing out the bailout, and on a more academic note, whether the federal government has a role in the setting of educational curriculum. The press is prescribing placebos, ie. Halloween candy, instead of drug research this October, that diehard health nuts devoted to Breast Cancer Awareness month. The final results are that women should learn the warning signs and don’t worry be happy in regards to self checks and mammograms. I for one have resolved to do an increasing number of push ups and sit ups, every day, until my breasts are larger than my stomach. 100 a day seems to be the number where muscle growth wins the battle with fat deposits. Pectoral and abdominal muscle fitness is vital to organ health. The precise muscular stimulation of the pectoral region is very likely to improve the body’s immune response to breast cancer. A diet high in anti-oxidant, green vegetable and whole grains and low in fat, is also helpful in fighting cancer, ie. beans and rice make a complete protein that is fat free.
The Moral Bankruptcy
of FY2009 and 2010 HA-10-4-08
The three page $700 billion Legislative Proposal for Treasury Authority to Purchase Mortgage-Related Assets introduced on September 20, 2008 by Treasury Secretary, former Golman-Sachs CEO, Paulson quickly grew to a 109 page Emergency Economic Stabilization Act H.R. 3997 that failed to pass in the House by a vote of 205 to 228. Following this defeat, the stock market lost $1.2 trillion in a single day, some of which was restored. The Senate passed the measure earlier in the week on a bipartisan vote of 74-25. On Friday October 3, 2008 the House passed a second version, titled A bill to provide authority for the Federal Government to purchase and insure certain types of troubled assets for the purposes of providing stability to and preventing disruption in the economy and financial system and protecting taxpayers, to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to provide incentives for energy production and conservation, to extend certain expiring provisions, to provide individual income tax relief, and for other purposes H.R. 1424, by a vote of 263 to 171, it is 451 pages. Investor concerns regarding the U.S. budget deficit pushed the dollar down 2.3 percent in the biggest decline since creation of the euro in 1999. The dollar then strengthened to $1.4658 per euro from $1.4774. For FY 2008, the deficit is projected to be $407 billion. This estimate includes $117 billion from individual rebates and other effects of the enacted economic stimulus legislation, without which the deficit would have been $272 billion. As a percent of GDP, the 2008 deficit is projected to be 2.7 percent. As a percent of GDP, the $489 billion 2009 deficit is projected to be 3.3 percent, not including the cost of mortgage assets that would drive the deficit up as high as $932 billion, a record, 6.3 percent. The $178 billion deficit is projected to fall to 1.1 percent of GDP in 2010, not including the cost of the mortgage bailout that brings it as high as $528 billion 3.4 percent, and then is expected to fall to $103 billion, 0.6 percent of GDP in 2011, and to reach balance in 2012. The legislation Congress passed to rescue Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac boosted the limit on the national debt by $800 billion to $10.6 trillion. The new legislation will boost that debt limit to $11.315 trillion. The economy is predicted to grow 1.5 percent this year, in real terms, and slip to just 1.1 percent growth in 2009. Unemployment is predicted to average 6.2 percent in 2009. Some 600,000 fewer jobs are listed on the nation's payrolls than were there last year. Inflation was estimated a 5 percent in the first half of 2008. Over the long run, growing budget deficits are the underlying cause of slower economic growth and financial insecurity as the economy also adopts unsustainable policies regarding debt. Were it not for the emergency spending the federal budget deficit could be eliminated. We must not let the unfixable deficit deter us from limiting defense spending to $400 billion.
CHAPTER
8 Drug Administration (DA)
To amend Chapter 8 Gorgas Hospital §300-320 and transfer the DEA to the DHHS. It can be estimated that the global market for drugs is roughly $1 trillion with $600 billion in global pharmaceutical drug sales and $400 billion in illicit drug sales. Global per capita expenditure for both pharmaceutical and illicit drugs of $150. In the US pharmaceutical consumption is estimated at $160 billion and another $65 billion of illicit drug consumption. Per capita expenditure on drugs can be estimated at $750. An estimated 10 billion prescriptions are filled every year globally; 3.6 billion in the United States, nearly everyone consumes some sort of illicit, over the counter drugs, or prescription drugs. There are an estimated 180 million consumers of illicit drugs. Prohibition of narcotic drugs has oppressed the drug market for 75 years, drug arrests are down and it is time to free 500,000 US detainees to the substance abuse treatment community and permit the limited sale of cannabis by licensed cultivators and distributors. Patented drugs are reported to have led to a 25 year increase of life expectancy in developed countries and there is great hope that developing countries will also have access to life saving treatment without regard for their ability to pay. Greater than 5% of prescriptions result in adverse drug reactions of which 100,000 are fatal in the USA. To realize higher academic achievement in the regulation of drugs, the legitimate pursuit of medicine and science, the INCB and DEA must be adopted by their health agency respectively, the WHO and DHHS. For peace Afghanistan and Columbia need National Opium Agencies (NOA) under Arts. 23 and 24 of the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs.