By Jim Hoover In the last ranking in 2000, The World Health Organization (WHO) has named the French health care system the best in the world. Who ranked the U.S. 37th, close behind Costa Rica, Dominica, and Chile. Statistics supporting this ranking seem to persist today. If you remove…
By Jim Hoover In August of 2011 at the Hollywood Bowl, Pianist Yuja Wang, the 24-year-old Chinese soloist, struck many glorious chords on the piano, chords that Sergei Rachmaninoff composed for his first tour of the United States as a pianist in 1909. Rachmaninoff’s Third Concerto is considered by…
By: Jim Hoover Matt Taibbi in Griftopia does an effective job of tracing the myriad of ways average Americans have been screwed by a wide network of what he calls grifters, or swindlers, in a confidence game that was blessed by government officials in all branches and at most…
By Jim Hoover Political campaigns -- long, cumbersome, intrinsically boring, and wordy – are covered by the media and bloggers, both having the job of making money first, and if their coverage informs the public, that’s an accident. Online especially, all media, including bloggers, thrust with titillating verbal cuts…
By Jim Hoover Republicans are trying to sabotage the economy for political gain. This is the only conclusion we can draw to explain Republican unwillingness to raise the debt ceiling unless Democrats cave to their demands of huge spending cuts. Even worse, Obama will be complicit in this sabotage…
By Jim Hoover If you think that our most influential institutions have not been compromised by the power elite’s money, you only need to look at the Standard and Poor (S&P) credit-rating agency that just downgraded the US’s credit rating from AAA to AA+. You would have to be…
By Jim Hoover Sadly, it is true. Plutocrats are winning the war against the people. And, yes, we should call it a war. Unlike the term’s use in other contexts (war on drugs, for example), it actually is a period of armed conflict between groups: the interests of the…
by Jim Hoover Incredibly, the media has been blaming both Republicans and Democrats for the bogus debt-ceiling crisis. Realistically the blame should be shared 90% Republican and 10% Democrat, basically because Republican debt-ceiling hostage-taking can only be successful if their opponents are cowardly. We are just now seeing some…
By Jim Hoover OK, we probably won’t default. Is it time for rejoicing? Not so much. We supposedly are close to a debt ceiling/budget-cut agreement. Republicans cocked the default gun and held it to Obama’s head. He blinked… again. Don’t worry. The agreement assures that he will blink again….and…
By Jim Hoover I wonder if Barack Obama has the backbone to utilize the 14th Amendment and independently raise the debt ceiling. This should be done – I would say – by Saturday (7/30/2011) at the latest. It is becoming increasingly clear that the Republican caucus in the House…