Tag Archives: u.s.

Business/Economics, International, U.S.

Don’t want to die? Stay out of hospitals in Canada, United States and Europe! Another reason for increased health care costs

“If you were admitted to hospital tomorrow in any country … your chances of being subjected to an error in your care would be something like 1 in 10. Your chances of dying due to an error in health care would be 1 in 300.”-Professor Liam Donaldson, World Health Organization envoy

The United Nations released a study saying that hospitals in the ‘western’ world are sure places to catch a deadly disease, or die from mistakes made by medical personnel.

The UN World Health Organization discovered that your chances of dying in a hospital, by medical errors, are far greater than dying in a plane crash.

More interestingly, Canada takes the number one spot for worst hospital related infections, at an 11.6% infection rate.  The European Union has a 7% rate, followed by the United States with 4.5%.

But lets put that U.S. rate of 4.5%, which sounds low, into real numbers.  According to the research 1.7 million infections are acquired in U.S. hospitals, which leads to 100,000 deaths each year.  That’s 100,000 people in the U.S. being killed because of hospital uncleanliness.

Catching an infection while in the hospital means a longer stay and more treatment.  The study suggests that the increased infection rate while being in the hospital, along with medical mistakes, are partly to blame for increasing medical costs.

To be sure most health care systems around the world are in trouble, but, what surprised the WHO researchers is that the developed ‘western’ world has made no progress in improving medical care inside hospitals.  Former United Kingdom chief medical officer Liam Donaldson, said this: “It shows that health care in general worldwide still has a long way to go.  Health care has not achieved the level of safety of many other high-risk industries.”

 

Business/Economics, Opinion, U.S.

TARP a TRAP for taxpayers: Treasury Dept. scamming taxpayers, banks paying off loans with loans, is there any real money left in the U.S.?

An organization called Project on Government Oversight discovered the U.S. Treasury Department is letting big banks, and corporations, pay off their taxpayer funded loans with new taxpayer funded loans meant for small banks.

On paper it looks like big banks who took out TARP bailout loans are paying those loans off.  It turns out that many of those payoffs came from new loans also offered through the Treasury Department.

The new loans are being made with a program that was meant for smaller banks, to lend money to small businesses.  The program is called Small Business Lending Fund.

What this means is the U.S. Treasury is not really getting the taxpayer funded TARP bailout money back.  Instead the Treasury is allowing the big banks to rob Peter to pay Paul.  The problem here is that both Peter and Paul are one in the same, the U.S. taxpayer!

This isn’t the first time claims were made that TARP money was being paid back with loans.  In April 2010, Senator Charles Grassley, of Iowa, claimed that General Motors paid back their TARP loan, with another TARP loan: “It looks like [GM’s] announcement is really just an elaborate TARP money shuffle. The repayment dollars haven’t come from GM selling cars but, instead, from a TARP [escrow] account at the Treasury Department.”

Now the question is why can’t the big banks, and other corporations, pay back their taxpayer TRAP (I mean TARP) loans?  After all many have reported big profits. Is this a case of no real money left in the United States?



International, U.S.

Study confirms U.S. combat vets coming home with incurable lung disease, no help from the VA

“This is a very rare condition in otherwise healthy individuals and is generally untreatable. We believe that it is caused by an inhalational exposure with which they have contact while in southwest Asia.”-Dr. Matthew S. King

The New England Journal of Medicine published a study, which was conducted by a team of medical personnel including Doctor Matthew S. King.  They concluded that military personnel, in Iraq and Afghanistan, are contracting incurable lung diseases, possibly from exposure to chemicals.

In one case 38 U.S. troops were exposed to smoke from a sulfur mine fire in Iraq.

Doctor King said the symptoms of the lung disorders are many, and severe:  “Respiratory disorders are emerging as a major consequence of service in southwest Asia. In addition to our study, there have been studies showing increases in asthma, obstructive lung disease, allergic rhinitis and a general increase in reports of respiratory symptoms.”

Medical experts are now trying to convince the Veterans Administration to recognize and treat the disorders.

You can get a copy of the New England Journal of Medicine article (Constrictive Bronchiolitis in Soldiers Returning from Iraq and Afghanistan) by emailing; [email protected]

Fukushima

Corporate Incompetence: Fukushima Daiichi power outage due to incorrect wiring, TEPCo putting blame on Yakuza?

On 22 July 2011, the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant lost external electrical power to reactors 3 and 4.  This affected cooling operations, but they were able to get back up generators working.

Tokyo Electric Power Company announced that the power loss was due to an incorrectly wired circuit breaker.  They say the circuit breaker was set up to handle only one third the amount of electricity that was actually needed to run the reactor’s cooling systems.

This comes after TEPCo officials held a conference claiming that Yakuza (organized crime; aka gokudō, aka bōryokudan or aka ninkyō dantai) could be infiltrating the ranks of employees at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.  TEPCo also says they think Yakuza are taking over rebuilding efforts in the quake and tsunami damaged parts of Japan.  TEPCo offered no proof.  They implied that Yakuza were causing the delays in controlling the damaged nuke plant, and other problems.   Again, Tokyo Electric offered no proof of their claim, and it sounds more like they’re trying to use Yakuza as scape goats for their own incompetence.

Business/Economics, Opinion, U.S.

Idiot! CNN commentator says $14 billion loss for U.S. taxpayers is a good thing

Some idiot at CNN called the huge billion dollar car maker bailout loss for U.S. taxpayers “Excellent!”.

He justifies his statement by saying it’s better than the originally projected loss of $40 billion.  What this idiot doesn’t seem to realize is that most taxpayers were against the bailouts, because they knew they would lose.

In total, between Chrysler and GM, the U.S. taxpayers lost $14 billion dollars in the auto maker bailout joke.  But this guy at CNN thinks it’s great, calling it “…a mere $14 billion”.

The idiot goes on to claim that the U.S. government (taxpayers) would have lost huge tax revenues if Chrysler and GM went out of business.  Hello, most of their sales are now outside the U.S., which means they’re not paying U.S. taxes on those sales.

 

Business/Economics, International, U.S.

No Economic Recovery for U.S.: China offers U.S. college students free education

“We hope the scholarships will encourage American students to delve into China studies and other subjects in China in earnest.”-Zhang Jin, education exchange program

China’s Ministry of Education is ready to offer full university scholarships to  students from the United States.  The program actually started last year, and was officially announced in April of this year.

China has a plan to attract 500,000 foreign students to its universities by 2020.  The plan also supports U.S. President Obama’s desire to send 100,000 U.S. students to China (so much for Obama’s support of U.S. higher education).

If you want to check out the full scholarship go to www.studyinchina.edu.cn , click on “english” to get the English version of the site.

 

 

International, Technology, U.S.

No Economic Recovery for U.S.: Desperate for sales, Lockheed pushes Japan to buy controversal F-35 jet

Steve O’Bryan, vice president for F-35 business development at Lockheed Martin Aeronautics, was in Japan, trying to push them to buy the controversial jet.

The main reason the F-35 is so controversial is that it’s taken far longer to develop, and it has cost U.S. taxpayers far more than originally estimated.

O’Bryan is hoping Japan will buy the F-35 to replace it’s aging F-4 Phantom 2 jets.  Japan is one of the last countries still using the F-4.  Also, some of Japan’s newer F-2 jets (a bigger version of the F-16) were destroyed by the March 11 tsunami.

Japan also uses the F-15 Eagle.  In 2009 U.S. officials tried to convince Japan to buy the F-22 Raptor, but that deal fell through.

Lockheed Martin is selling the F-35 on the grounds that Japan needs to meet the growing threat from China’s latest aircraft designs.  The problem is that Japan is already developing a stealth fighter of its own.

Lieutenant General Hideyuki Yoshioka says Japan’s prototype stealth fighter is expected to make its first test flight in 2014, about the same time that Lockheed Martin thinks it will be ready to finally mass produce the F-35.  So much for the U.S. trying to sell the F-35 to Japan.

 

Fukushima

Government Incompetence: Professor demands that Japanese government check for cesium even hundreds of miles from Fukushima Daiichi!

22 July 2011, the Japanese government is only conducting radiation checks in the Fukushima area, but one professor says they need to check the whole of Japan.  Especially after it’s become clear that cows and cattle feed are contaminated with extremely high levels of cesium.

Niigata University Professor Nonaka Masanori, says radiation levels were never checked in farmland, especially those areas that produce rice straw for cattle feed.

Nonaka says the cesium is spread by snow and rain, which is being absorbed into the soil and taken up by plants.  The government needs to check for contamination no matter how far away from Fukushima Daiichi.

 

Fukushima

Corporate Incompetence: Electric power to damaged Fukushima Daiichi has been cut!

22 July 2011, Tokyo Electric Power Company says external power, needed to support efforts to control the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuke plant, has been cut.

There was a sudden surge of electricity which tripped a breaker controlling power to reactors 3 and 4.  They are now using back up generators, and they are trying to find out why external electric power failed.

Business/Economics, U.S.

What Economic Recovery? Weekly first time unemployment claims go up, “experts” surprised (again), unemployment really at 20%

The U.S. Department of Labor reported that first time state unemployment claims jumped by 10,000, to 418,000.  The numbers are for the week ending July 16.

The previous week’s drop in first time claims is due to the shortened work week (July 4 holiday).  That means it’s very likely that the first week of July could have seen an increase in unemployment as well.

Once again, many “expert” employment annalists did not expect such a large increase in unemployment claims, for the week ending July 16.

The latest weekly first time unemployment claims numbers, continues a trend, now 15 weeks on.  15 weeks in a row that first time unemployment claims is above 400,000.

The current official unemployment rate is 9.2%.  If our government was using the same unemployment rating system that was used during the time Bill Clinton was President, then official unemployment would be at 20%!