Category Archives: Politics

Who owns America? Hint: It’s not China – BlackListedNews.com

The U.S. Treasury / Federal Reserve: $1.63 trillion (11.3 percent)

Hong Kong: $121.9 billion (0.9 percent)

Caribbean banking centers: $148.3 (1 percent)

Taiwan: $153.4 billion (1.1 percent)

Brazil: $211.4 billion (1.5 percent)

Oil exporting countries: $229.8 billion (1.6 percent)

Mutual funds: $300.5 billion (2 percent)

Commercial banks: $301.8 billion (2.1 percent)

State, local and federal retirement funds: $320.9 billion (2.2 percent)

Money market mutual funds: $337.7 billion (2.4 percent)

United Kingdom: $346.5 billion (2.4 percent)

Private pension funds: $504.7 billion (3.5 percent)

State and local governments: $506.1 billion (3.5 percent)

Japan: $912.4 billion (6.4 percent)

U.S. households: $959.4 billion (6.6 percent)

China: $1.16 trillion (8 percent)

Social Security trust fund: $2.67 trillion (19 percent)

So America owes foreigners about $4.5 trillion in debt. But America owes America $9.8 trillion.

via Who owns America? Hint: It’s not China – BlackListedNews.com.

Intellectual Property is Murder (or why pharmacuetical companies aren’t “free market”)

via Intellectual Property is Murder.

Those who claim that drug patents are necessary to recoup the expenses of developing drugs are wrong. The patent system skews R&D toward gaming the patent system rather than developing the most effective drugs. First of all, there has been a dramatic shift away from fundamentally new kinds of blockbuster drugs, because it’s much more cost-effective to put money into tweaking the formulas of drugs whose patents are about to expire just enough to qualify for repatenting them — so-called “me, too drugs.” Second, a great deal of the basic research on which drug development is based is carried out at government expense in publicly funded universities. Around half of the overall cost of drug R&D is taxpayer-funded. And in the United States, under the terms of legislation passed in the 1980s, the patents on drugs developed entirely at taxpayer expense are given away — free of charge — to the drug companies that produce and market them. Third, most of the actual R&D cost for developing drugs comes, not from testing the version of a drug actually marketed, but from securing patent lockdown on all the other major possible variants.

The Government Doesn’t Really Want to Help You with Your Medical Care

STATE SLAPS DR. DO-GOOD

The state is trying to shut down a New York City doctor’s ambitious plan to treat uninsured patients for around $1,000 a year.

Dr. John Muney offers his patients everything from mammograms to mole removal at his AMG Medical Group clinics, which operate in all five boroughs.

“I’m trying to help uninsured people here,” he said.

His patients agree to pay $79 a month for a year in return for unlimited office visits with a $10 co-pay.

But his plan landed him in the crosshairs of the state Insurance Department, which ordered him to drop his fixed-rate plan – which it claims is equivalent to an insurance policy.

Muney insists it is not insurance because it doesn’t cover anything that he can’t do in his offices, like complicated surgery. He points out his offices do not operate 24/7 so they can’t function like emergency rooms.

“I’m not doing an insurance business,” he said. “I’m just providing my services at my place during certain hours.”

He says he can afford to charge such a small amount because he doesn’t have to process mountains of paperwork and spend hours on billing….

Another reason not to use Facebook?

Is FACEBOOK run by D.A.R.P.A’s Information Awareness Office? | Daily Newscaster

Is FACEBOOK a Department of Defense data mining scheme run by the CIA and D.A.R.P.A.? Should you be trusting all your personal data to FACEBOOK’s management?

FACEBOOK was initially conceived by Mark Zuckerberg but the venture was first funded with $500,000.00 in capital from PayPal founder Peter Thiel. With millions more to come from sources with close ties to D.A.R.P.A, the Central Intelligence Agency and the Department of Defense….

Is this paranoid, or maybe true? God, I love a good conspiracy theory. I always say be careful what you hang out there on the web. Personall, after last week’s Term of Service fiasco at Facebook, I wouldn’t be trusting them much anyways.