* When you were a child, primary care health insurance companies were required to be NOT-FOR-PROFIT. That has changed. As a result, health insurance companies are able to charge whatever the market will bear, without devoting most of that revenue to actual care. This allows an insurance company to funnel into the pockets of investor class members, large chunks of money that it extorts from patients, instead of paying for patient care. It also allows an insurance company to pay its high-level executives lotto-level salaries and bonuses. Insurance companies then also act as umbrellas, shielding care givers, and enabling them to charge much higher fees to cash paying customers than would be the case if primary care medical insurance companies were, once again, required to operate as non-profit organizations.

* The Obama stimulus plan would have been better and more effective, had it required that TARIFFS be imposed on goods and services imported from China and India, thus stimulating businesses to relocate production TO the United States, the way things used to be, before President Ronald Reagan signed MFN status with China into law. The Obama “stimulus” bill only stimulated retail level sales, which may have given Walmart a temporary boost, but after that, the money was instantly shunted to China and India, where the production of most goods and services has been relocated, because of the inducements of unfair, unfettered trade agreements.

* When a natural monopoly exists, like in cases where a single wire carries electricity, phone, or TV into one’s house, or where one pipe carries natural gas into one’s house, or where a limited number of electromagnetic frequencies are allocated to just a few mobile phone carriers, those services should be subject to reasonable price regulation by the PEOPLE who OWN those rights of way. Pathways through which electricity, natural gas, and communications flow, are part of our commonwealth. They are owned by WE THE PEOPLE. Thus, they ARE subject to OUR control. Companies that do not want to do business with WE THE PEOPLE can dissolve themselves and let others take their places.

* About drug prices: Medicare should be permitted to NEGOTIATE prices for drugs. Presently, Medicare is required to pay whatever retail price a drug company demands. Moreover, drugs made by American drug companies are sold at much lower prices in places like Canada. As such, it should be legal to repatriate those drugs to the United States, thus circumventing domestic price fixing by drug companies.

* About banks and fees: frankly, there should *NOT* have been a bankster bailout in 2008/2009, to begin with. Instead, FDIC should have done what FSLIC did with savings and loans in 1988/1989. FDIC should have taken control of banks, such as Bank of America, that had blown it. FDIC should have liquidated those banks. FDIC should have funded FDIC insured deposit accounts at FDIC insured banks that were subject to liquidation, allowing depositors access to THEIR MONEY that they had deposited into those failing banks. Then, guess what? Bank of America (which isn’t really Bank of America, anymore, the way that AT&T is not AT&T, anymore), would have been liquidated, and the issue of debit card fees at Bank of America would never have been an issue in the first place.

Your world view seems a bit narrow – like a 1951 San Jose resident, if you ask me. You should consider going to SJSU (and paying its exorbitant fees) and obtain your MBA (assuming that you have an undergrad degree), so that you can widen your world view, a bit.

-Peter Wexler, M.A., OCST, summa cum laude

That said, the shameless promotion of this tragedy is something in which no one should participate. And besides, the right is using 9-11 to instill fear in all of us.

I suggest listening to Thom Hartmann, The Young Turks, Sam Seder (http://www.majorityreport.fm), Randi Rhodes, and others, in lieu of the junk on TV. Maybe, you should read a good book, via your iPad, which I am sure is what you own, ’cause you love Apple. Not to put too many knives into you, but you remind me of my good friend, Darrell, who loves everything, Apple, even if you can’t change the battery out, there are no places to put external memory, there are no interfaces to attach external peripherals, and there’s no way to run Flash applications.

But I digress: dump TV; pick up a book or an iPad and read or listen to some smart progressive talk radio!

Cisco, like LSI, acquires other companies within what it considers its business space. Then it fires half of the employees from the acquired firm, and throws in a few “under performers” from its core business for good measure.

It’s all about accumulation and consolidation with Cisco. Always watch the company when it acquires a new business unit. Within nine months, there will be a round of layoffs.

Cisco, like LSI, is a POS of a company that has little creativity. Its idea of doing business, nowadays, is M’s & A’s, and that’s it.

Kat