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Who Spends The Most Dollars Lobbying Washington, DC?
Oil? Financials? Aerospace? When someone asks who the biggest sources of lobby dollars for DC's politicians-for-purchase are, these are the three usual suspects that come to mind. Some may, therefore, be surprised to learn according to the database kept by OpenSecrets between Pharmaceutical and health product industry, hospital and nursing homes, health professionals and health services, HMOs, or more broadly Pharma/Healthcare/HMO, the total lobby dollars spent between 1998 and 2012 was a staggering $5.3 billion, or nearly three times greater than the second most generous industry: insurance, and well above Oil and Gas at $1.4 billion, and Securities and Investment at $1.0 billion. Is it becoming clearer why the US government has few qualms about unsustainable taxpayer funded healthcare spending, especially when there are so many current benefits accruing to the politicians who see so many billions in benefits from passing lobby-friendly laws now (by which we mean generous taxpayer funding, the bulk of which benefits the healthcare industry's bottom line)?
As for the costs: who cares - just dump them on future generations. It's not like anyone expects the $16.7 trillion in US debt to be ever repaid.
Why is this important? Because as we showed nearly a year ago, the IRR on lobbying is by and far the highest of any investment return under the sun.
From: Presenting The Greatest ROI Opportunity Ever
The dream of virtually anyone who has ever traded even one share of stock has always been to generate above market returns, also known as alpha, preferably in a long-term horizon. Why? Because those who manage to return 30%, 20% even 10% above the S&P over the long run, become, all else equal (expert networks and collocated flow-frontrunning HFT boxes aside), legendary investors in the eyes of the general public, which brings the ancillary benefits of fame and fortune (usually in the form of 2 and 20). This is the ultimate goal of everyone who works on Wall Street. Yet, ironically, what most don't realize, is that these returns, or Returns On Investment (ROI), are absolutely meaningless when put side by side next to something few think about when considering investment returns.
Namely lobbying.
Because it is the ROIs for various forms of lobbying the put the compounded long-term returns of the market to absolute shame. As the following infographic demonstrates, ROIs on various lobbying efforts range from a whopping 5,900% (oil subsidies) to a gargantuan 77,500% (pharmaceuticals).
How are these mingboggling returns possible? Simple - because they appeal to the weakest link: the most corrupt, bribable, and infinitely greedy unit of modern society known as 'the politician'.
Yet who benefits from these tremendous arbitrage opportunities? Not you and I, that is for certain.
No - it is the faceless corporations - the IBM Stellar Sphere, the Microsoft Galaxy, Planet Starbucks - which are truly in the control nexus of modern society, and which, precisely courtesy of these lobbying "efforts", in which modest investments generate fantastic returns allowing the status quo to further entrench itself, take advantage of this biggest weakness of modern "developed" society to make the rich much richer (a/k/a that increasingly thinner sliver of society known as investors), who are the sole beneficiaries of this "Amazing ROI" - the stock market is merely one grand (and lately broken, and very much manipulated) distraction, to give everyone the impression the playing field is level.
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Lobbyist turds.
I'm looking for a cheap steroid injection. Anyone got a phone number?
Sorry, but may I recommend any MLB club? Spring training is going on, so there should be plenty of it.
Perhaps I was being a bit obtuse.
You DO know about the NECC scandal?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_England_Compounding_Center_meningitis_o...
What I love about this story is that they were running a "sterile compounding" business literally next door to a trash dump!
Who needs regulators these days when corporations are looking out for our best interest?
I hand the mike over to MDB...
The stupid sheeple thought HIPAA was for "patient privacy" but it was just the opposite; HIPAA guarantees insurance companies access to all pre-existing conditions and medical history so they may measure you as a risk. Providers are required by HIPAA to give all of your protected information to the health insurers.
Of the insurance companies, by the insurance companies, and for the insurance companies...just like Obama Care and its 80/20 rule that eliminates competition and GUARANTEES profits; it is exactly like the Federal Reserve Act of 1913.
And in a darkness bind them together!
Another idiotic post by libertardians. If the healthcare lobbyists are so powerful, then how did our congress manage to pas the affordable healthcare act, even though the act forces medical insurance companies to put peoples’ lives ahead of personal profit?
This is a trick question, right?
It's what's inside the door, not next door, that counts.
Your comment is like when the .gov raids a house and the "news reporter" says, "The owner was hoarding hundreds of rounds of ammunition and lived just blocks from an elementary school."
HH,
Perhaps you haven't read all the info.
1. The Compounding Lab and the Trash Dump processing facility shared a common building.
2. Both businesses are owned by the same guy, who withdrew $100,000s dollars from the business weeks prior to the news breaking the scandal.
3. Compounding Labs are required to have a prescription for each custom compound that they produce/deliver. In the case of NECC, they had 1000s of fake Rx with names like Bart Simpson (later changed to John Doe). This was similar to the robo-signing Ms. Green
So, I think this one is little bit different
I am more familiar with the case than you can ever imagine. There are no laws against having a sterile environment geographically, or architecturally, proximate to a contamination risk, and for good reasons. Think about it.
Yes, and we already have adequate laws on the books for these offenses.
Drug abusers are very resourceful. I, for one, do not want to pay for programs that attempt to prevent a drug abuser from using, if that is what they want to do.
Please clarify something for me.
Are you defending NECC and their fraudulent business practices?
No. I am calling you out on your fallacy of false cause.
Which of my statements were incorrect, misleading, etc?
Read any book on logic. Correlation does not equate to causation.
Your mention of the dump next door is pointless (in a sense). A cleanroom should have airfilters and what-not. In theory you could have a cleanroom in chernobyl
It's a fact, but not relevant to the story where things really went wrong (caused deaths) - NECC was knowingly committing a crime by accpeting fake prescriptions (which they were required to have). 60min only added the fact to further the flame of the story.
Basically it was a nice tid bit that a) shows how stupid or careless the owner was. b) looked good on tv. c) shows you how stupid 60min really is.
What they didn't mention are the numerous information requests the FDA made to the company, but never followed up with.
Pretty sure the FDA wouldn't have been on the show if they were asked to answer those questions.
Does anybody know what time it is?
Please - Don't act so smug.
I'm well aware of the difference between Causation and Correlation. Have you ever programmed any code to calculate this stuff? Do you know how to do it in one pass of the data?
Perhaps you should read up on the Ludic Phallacy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludic_fallacy
"Perhaps you should read up on the Ludic Phallacy" is that similar to the Phallic Lewdicity?:)
How about a Lucid Phallus?
or ... ?Falo Grande?
SAY WHAT AGAIN!
Gotta keep those Psyochotropics flowing into the hands of our Criminal Project Monarch Patsy's hands. How else can we keep the public in fear of our Government Black Op sponsers Flase Flags.
I have to hand to the Bankster/Rothchilds owned, controled and operated Lucerferian Intelligence/"Agent Smith" media Agencies.
They've completely PsyOp'd/Mind Fucked the American People's Psyche and perception of reality via Flase Flags coupled with media False Narratives.
1. Define an act of terrorism as warfare. (This was done by Bush after 9/11, and people let him get away with it. Even though terrorist acts have always been covered by U.S. laws. The Oklahoma City bombing was not treated as “warfare” but as a crime to investigate and prosecute as usual.)
2. Declare that those who carry out a terrorist act can be imprisoned without a trial, because it would be “dangerous” and a threat to national security to give them a trial. (Witness: Jose Padilla, the prisoners at Guantanamo, imprisoned for years without a trial, which is illegal.)
3. Declare that those who carry out a terrorist act can be killed without a trial, just like on the battlefield.
4. Widen the definition of terrorism to anyone who “gives support” to terrorists. As we have seen from no-fly lists, this includes anti-war people who have organized against the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. It also includes “right-wing extremists” who oppose the globalist agenda.
Done. Now you can do whatever you want.
When the dollar collapse comes, ordinary Americans who demonstrate against the globalist state can be disarmed, registered, harassed, have their employers called and questioned to scare them, have their leaders imprisoned without a trial, under the pretext that they are giving support to “the terrorists”. The way the globalists act, there will always be “terrorists” who strike back by force. This is useful for the globalists.
Reporter Ron Suskind nailed it to the wall when he got Carl Rove to blurt this out.
“We’re an empire now and when we act, we create our own reality and while you’re studying that reality, judiciously, as you will, we’ll act again, creating another new realities, which you can study too. And that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors, and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”
-Carl Rove
I fucking hate Carl Rove.
He's on the list.
Are we sure Rove really said this?
Sounds a lot like Steve Jobs.
(And it's "Karl", btw.)
NWO=ROTHSCHILDS BANK+GROUP=INTER-ALPHA=PLANNED WORLD DESTRUCTION
JOHN HOEFLE FROM LYNDON LAROCHE PAC EXPLAINS IN DETAIL ALL ABOUT THE NWO ROTHSCHILD INTER ALPHA BANKSTER GROUP CABALS AND THE BRITISH SYSTEM FOR WORLD EMPIRE.
WHO AND WHY THE NWO BANKSTER GLOBALIST ELITE CORPORATE STATE MUST CONTROL OUR NATIONS AND WORLD.
HE EXPOSES THE BRITISH EMPIRE SYSTEM AND ROTHSCHILDS BANKSTERS CABALS LAST 300 YEARS OF THEIR PLANNED ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL CONTROLED PONZI SCHEMES.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6SFs_O-7sw
AND WHO'S MANDATED AGENDAS ARE FOR THE TOTAL AND IRREVOCABLE DESTRUCTION OF ALL THE NATION STATES THAT EXSIST ON THE PLANET!!INTER ALPHA
3/10 this+ was posted day before:
yet d.c.'s AlphabetCity ain't nothin compared to INTER-ALPHA
http://theavalonforum.com/?p=771
The INTER-ALPHA GROUP is a ROTHSCHILD creation dating from
when the United States was taken off of the Gold Standard in 1971.
This group of Banking Corporations exercises control of 70 plus percent of the entire World Economy.
•AIB Group, Ireland
•Banco Espírito Santo, Portugal
•Commerzbank, Frankfurt am Main, Germany
•ING Bank, the Netherlands
•Intesa Sanpaolo, Italy
•KBC Bank, Belgium
•Nordea, Denmark, Finland and Sweden
•National Bank of Greece, Greece
•The Royal Bank of Scotland Group, UK
•Santander, Spain
•Société Générale, France
http://www.scribd.com/doc/82065577/The-Inter-Alpha-Group-Nation-Killers-for-Imperial-Genocide
"Drug abusers are very resourceful . I for one, do not want to pay for programs that attempt to prevent a drug abuser from using, if that is what they want to do."
Nor do I, HH, but the alternatives - prison or stealing from me - might very well be more expensive.
Just sayin
It is a BS ? that conveniently forgets to include how much money was spent by banksters lobbying for both to big to fail and to big to jail
Bubblicious!
In that vein (so to speak), If banker lobbyists were so powerful, then how did our congress manage to pass the Federal Reserve act, even though the act forced the banks to be heavily regulated by government? What a stupid line of reasoning. MDB - I expected better of you. You're slipping.
You're a SPECIAL kind of stupid, aren't you? How is charging people federal penalties for being too poor to afford private insurance putting people before profits IN ANY FUCKING RATIONAL SENSE OF THE WORD?
I expected better MDB - you're hearts just not in this one.
It's alright, everyone has an off day.
MDB has been having a lot of off days lately.
You put the ass in assumption.
22.9 billion dollars spent on graft and you say you live in the greatest country in the world, fuck that
united sycophants of america
drrrtt. aca will hasten our "liberation" from meat-suit stupor!
HAHAHAHA.
And the Patriot Act is Patriotic.
At least, that's what your counterpart idiots think on the other team.
So sick of the party cheerleaders still beleving every dropping out of the ass of the team leader is DA TRUTH. Health Insurance hasn't gotten cheaper. It's not more affordable. You are just required by law to pay for insurance now, no matter how useless or shitty it is, or have the government fine you.
So now, no matter how useless insurance becomes, you still have to pay for it. That's what we've all been signed up for.
We know that the _ at the end of your avatar name is a substitutie for <sarc> on every post, but keep up the good work anyways.
MDB, you don't want to be the last person in America to figure out that one has to invert the name of these "acts" in order to determine the real intent of the "act."
Americans are paying more and getting less.
But that's not the worst part.
The worst part is the service sector is already moving towards 28 hours weeks in order to offload the sick care costs from business onto the people.
That's 30% pay cut and an increase in sick care epxpenses that have to be borne by Joe 6 Pack.
Note that 28 x 2 = 56 = 7 x 8... so everyone who can't eat a 30% reduction in hours can gets a second job and work 7 days a week.
Mark these words, a miraculously smooth transition will be made so that two weekly shifts of 28 hours each will magically fall in line (because that's the plan!).
This bill is wicked for the average employed serf.
And this is why food stamp participation is at an all time high and percentage of workforce is at an all time low.
Yes, there are many sheeple, but when it comes down to nuts and bolts (and food, booze, cigarettes) the American people are still innovators. Milk the fucking system is what many are doing; and after the bailouts of the banks and no jail for bankers rigging rates and outright stealing people's savings you really can't blame them.
If you do, you had better in the same breath demand jail for Corzine, LIBOR riggers, MERS thieves, and the bailout bandits and FED taxpayer funded cotton candy for Wall Street or you deserve to hang.
eb, all the low end moochers are short sighted, though. Kickin' back will work until it doesn't - then they are really hosed... and the really hosed condition is sustainable, unlike their current "goodies" from Uncle Debt Money Tyrant.
I think you meant Corporate profit in your josh. Please, you were, right?
That's "liberturdians", twat waffle.
hedgeless: "HIPAA guarantees insurance companies access to all pre-existing conditions and medical history so they may measure you as a risk. "
Comment:
This is false. Any company (and I have worked in HC - specifically with BCBS) has contracts in which at some point you have to disclose your liabilities. The contract includes an exclusion of liability for not being forthright (think of fraud). For the health care industry, that would be your health status and history of medical problems. If anything, it has been the electronic transfer of medical records that has made health history more accessible. And that was done under HIPAA, but not for the reason you state.
You need to think outside the box.
The idea in health care is that eventually the Federal Government will take over. Those health care companies/employees would become government employees at some point. And the true access/danger is government having access to your health information. Health care companies already have your health history, most simply through billings or claim filings. Government is after those records.
Yes, but that still was not enough; patients were not disclosing negative history, despite scary exclusions of liability that, in practice, were ineffective (nobody reads the insurance contract) and rarely enforced.
Therefore, HIPAA takes the disclosure of your health history out of your control and makes it a Federal requirement for the healthcare provider to disclose your health history.
Fascism, your soaking in it.
And that digitizing and centralization of an individuals medical records is just working out swell ain't it? Was supposed to save consumers "billions", now, rife with fraud...and of course, naturally, costing "consumers" out the wazoo.
And...better than expected!
/////////////////
Much better to junk in anonymity than to admit you were fucking duped.
But but but...it'll be freeeee!!!..and more eeeficieeent!!!...lol...idiot.
I just lie to the mother fuckers every chance I get.
Smoking, drinking, diet, family history; you name it.
I can't fake the blood tests but I have the willpower to lower my cholesterol and be nicotine free for a weak.
This is war after all.
I've started to sign things with all sorts of different signatures, real one, doctor style, five year old, and random scribble.
Some days I'm a femaile from Detroit Michigan born in 1982 and sometimes I'm a male from Orlando Florida born in 1942.
Hey, are you the reason I got a bill from Green Bay, Wisc, this summer? I haven't been to a doctor since I blew out a disc from a car crash in, ohhh, 2005.
Sorry, that might have been me. So many random perona's, I've forgotten.
Of course, it could be that doctor fishing for money, or the collection agency or insurance company - as they are known to scare people into paying for services they never recieved or that insurance should cover.
It's a modern version of the beat-down, the Sherrif of Nottingham, Guido, or that pea-brained jock who shook you down for your lunch money back in the day.
No worries. I threw it away.
Been fighting a collection bill on an account I've been paying for years. They don't scare me. I've written enough letters to avoid court action for going on two years now on one account. Others, I don't ever hear from again after a few well-thought-out words.
Three collection agencies, three lawyers, and they keep passing me around. When I respond to a dunning notice, I reference my account as The Hot Potato.
I get a kick out of it, actually.
HIPAA privacy laws gives exclusive rights to (HomelandSecurity) emergency operators. YOU cant have your son's records, but the DHS can..and does.
Okay, so six years ago or so I wound up in the E.R. thinking I was having a heart attack. Turned out to be Pericarditis, an inflammation of the lining around the heart. Took them 14 hours to diagnose. They shot me up with two pain killers, then tried the morphine - still hurt like a son of a bitch (they could not believe I told them 8 out of 10 on the pain scale after they shot me up with morphine but that is how much it hurt).
Anyways, before they quite figured it out they did an MRI of my heart/aorta etc., and did an echo-cardiogram. The technician doing the echo-cardiogram would not let me see the images, nor would he say a word about it. Even the doctors would not tell me what it showed other than "you did not have a heart attack".
Let's see, my insurance premium, my 20% out of pocket exorbitant expenses to pay, my body under their probes and machinery and they would not tell me anything about what I was paying for or they were seeing. Yes, I felt like a lab rat getting shocked.
Privacy, yeah right, they had privacy to my body and scans and tests and images and I had no right to my own information or body - had to fight to get the hell out of the germ factory of a hospital even after they realized it wasn't a heart attack.
A 25+ year nurse was the one who figured out what was going on by using a stethoscope. Not the ER docs, not the regular Cardiologist, not the technicians manning the machinery and gadgets.
Nobody beats Wall Street.
From 1998 to 2011 cumul;ative lobbying expenses from the Finance, Insurance and Real Estate (FIRE) sector show to be even geater than the 'Healthcare' Industry.
http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=finance+lobbying&bav=on.2,o...
Finance, industry, and real estate cornered the CONgress and got their jizz in the crisis.
Big Pharma and Insurance are hammering the complicit criminals in Washington to make sure they can fuck over the citizenry via Obamacare in the years to come.
But yes, it is after all a part of Wall Street and the mawkets and the God of PROFIT.
lol
Doctors go to crappy compounding centers like NECC because of regulations. Please, do not ask for more regulations. Just hold these people accountable after their gross negligence gets someone killed instead of letting them file bankruptcy and sell the company and then ... start all over again. Regulators just fly cover for bad business and give people a false sense of security. Regulators by in large suck.
911.
The cops get all the steroids they want. And the stupid taxpayers pay for them.
This country is too fucked up to last much longer.
Jan "The Man" Napolitano could probably hook you up with some testosterone.
She likes to do shots of T-boost with a 9mm bullet in the bottom. That's why DHS is buying all that extra ammo.
Nevermind.... Good job SeaSmoke
Srsly? They sell steroids on the Silk Road.
Out of curiousity, does this include things like secret private plane rides for Senators to have sexual encounters with underage girls in the Dominican?
Making it in America 101
Filed under STD research.......
I never flew on the doctors private jet!...it was only one ride...ok, a couple flights. Alright, ok, fine, I'll reimburse the good doctor for his jet rides for A THIRD OF MY KNOWN LIQUID ASSETS....but not a penny more! The girls weren't that good anyways.
(Wait...what did I just say?)
And thats the lowball figger...
"So Menendez’s decision last month to use his personal funds to reimburse a prominent political contributor $58,500 for two flights to the Dominican Republic came at a major cost. The repayment amounts to between 32 percent and 87 percent of the assets Menendez reported holding in bank accounts and stock, according to his latest financial-disclosure form, which was filed last year."
http://www.nationaljournal.com/daily/senator-bob-menendez-spent-up-to-87-of-his-savings-to-repay-donor-for-dominican-republic-flights-20130205
Oh my ;-)
Key phrase:" reported assets"
Feed them garbage food with no nutrients and they need more meds. Vicious cycle. I wonder what the USA would look like as a society if all the anti gun folks were as concerned about GMOs
Kill a person selling them bad crack, life sentence
Kill 50k people selling them faulty FDA approved prescription drugs....just pull the drug off the streets i mean market and settle all lawsuits for 10 cents on the dollar or litigate untl the family gives up
Or kill 50k people by not approving a drug that had been approved in Europe for 10 years so US companies could have time to develop their own competing drugs.
That's good for an attaboy.
That's good for a +10.
...and duly supplied.
The government ASKS to be lobbied. There has been telecom legislation proposed just to cause the lobbying dollars to flow. Bush brought along drug companies for the prescription drug benefit by prohibiting Medicare from negotiating price. Obama bought off the insurance companies for Obamacare by promising many new customers. For the current gun control efforts, one of Obama's first stops was Walmart, the nation's largest gun retailer. Why? Obama wants to prohibit private gun sales. Less private sales, more Walmart sales.
We're in an oligarchy. This is where left and right can meet. Crony capitlists (corporate welfare) are as bad as Reagan's Welfare Queens. The Republican party has failed the country (but served themselves) by being pro-business when they should have been pro-market.
+1 "pro-business" instead of "pro-market"
Could that be the reason healthcare cost have risen much more than inflation?
Do you think it might be time for real healthcare reform?
Then first we will need to reform lobbying and government.
I beg to differ with the Author. The largest lobbyist for government money is government itself. Hop on any plane headed for DC and you'll find dozens of US government employees headed to DC to lobby for their department, lab, facility etc.
WHErE is the prison industrial complex? More Zanax NOW!
Aaaaannnnndddd.....it's gone.
Look at where your paycheck goes. Taxes, interest, energy, HEALTHCARE.
It's the wealth extraction engine of the next century.
They wrote Obamacare afterall.
Pharma/Healthcare/HMO's first and Insurance second, surprise.
The banks don't need to lobby as much because they own the FED.
Why is lobbying by corporations legal again, and why are corporations considered "individuals"?
Oh yeah, because the U.S.S.A. is a giant plantation (back to picking cotton).
I'm in favor of corporations being considered individuals . . . IF the CEO will be imprisioned when the corporation violates the law. And, as Tabbi said in his inimitable fashion, it would have to be a "real, pound-you-in-the-ass prison."
*
"Dollars"?
~~~
When it's joobux printed out of thin air, take a wild guess who [REALLY] spends the most...
vatican?
close ~ JESUIT faction thereof...
Where's AIPAC?
Or is it implied that it encompasses all of them?
They pretty much own the Government.
AIPAC doesn't have to stoop to lobbying.
AIPAC just throws a big annual convention and dinner, and half of Congress and the cabinet come to them to scrape and grovel.
'We love you long time!' promise the politicians. 'Israel's wish is our command!'
You have to ask yourself: 'Why is that"?
Well, for starters you might want to check out the first orginator of a fiat bank: The bank of London.
ZOG permeates the entire fabric - Congress takes an oath to uphold that fact while cabinet members (even the former HEAD of Homeland Security) hold Israeli Citizenship -- Israel: the last country on the planet to attack and murder American Sailors at Sea (The USS Liberty false-flag cover-up); with more ties to the events on Sept. 11th than any other government; the country who benefited more from the Bush Neocon doctrine than any other country.
http://stienster.blogspot.com/2011/05/us-congress-must-sign-oath-of-isra...
Health Insuance Co's raising rates furiously before Obamacare kicks in.
They have free reign to do so. Obamacare doesn't actually contain any cost control or caps on rates, humorously enough. It's a great, great thing to have a boogeyman though. Obamacare maybe adds 2-3% in total spend for big insurance companies. How much have your rates gone up?
The rate increases are necessary because of ZIRP. Investment revenue down=premiums up.
the truth is out there...great post
It's not like anyone expects the $16.7 trillion in US debt to be ever repaid.
The $123 trillion in unfunded liabilities, growing at $6.9 trillion a year, have not one chance in a trillion of being paid off unless they are paid off in Zimbabwean dollars.
Bernanke is doing his best - he may surpass Zimbabwe. Yes, we can.
US "Healthcare" has a surprise coming. All the unemployed and those with new no benefits part time jobs will steadily start to overwhelm the system. Obamacare does nothing, NOTHING to control costs.
Stay healthy folks.
Between Mark Sisson's "Primal Blueprint" and Dr. Davis' "Wheat Belly" I'm in the process of completely transforming my health.
ALL of my adult belly fat weight is coming right off, and I've never felt better.
http://www.marksdailyapple.com/
http://www.wheatbellyblog.com/
Interestingly enough, the MSM is attacking these lifestyles as "dangerous diet fads" so I know I'm on the right path.
Long story short, modern wheat is poison. There is NO SUCH THING AS A HEART HEALTHY GRAIN! Between it and all of the additives in processed foods, your body no longer has the OPPORTUNITY to function correctly, but is constantly in a panic mode trying to restore homeostasis. Which is behind both diabetes and the obesity epidemics.
Remember folks, the USDA is an organ of the lobbyists too. I would encourage everyone to read these books. The most bizarre aspect? Everything in them is simply common sense. So, of course, science would attack this unwanted competition.
Agreed! I jumped on both, and never looked back. Down 30 pounds, recovered from some major health issues, and just feel better. Add in an intense martial art, and your set. My only thing a bit different is that I try and eat 50-60% of my meals vegetarian, and when I eat meat, I strive for cruelty free meats. As Michael Pollen sumed it up - "Eat, not to much, and mostly plants."
Also, try and go barefoot, or get 0 drop shoes, you'll be better for it. Padded sole shoes were destroying my back.
I have an idea. Let's get the government to force people to pay for for-profit healthcare while putting no constraints on what it costs. Kinda like forcing everyone to go to college RIGHT NOW, regardless of the cost, financed by a government loan you can't even discharge in bankrupcy.
Ding! Wish granted.
Welcome to 2014!
Bullish.
When corporations lobby, they get what they want... when people lobby, they are told to go fuck themselves.
You just need to come up with $1 billion and they will listen to you.
Modern Democracy: $1 = 1 Vote
F'ing free loaders ... corporate welfare. Eliminate all welfare now.
More fluoride in my water please.
Is it becoming clearer why the US government has few qualms about unsustainable taxpayer funded healthcare spending, especially when there are so many current benefits accruing to the politicians who see so many billions in benefits from passing lobby-friendly laws...
Especially in light of the fact that they (in government) have exempted themselves from Obamacare which will be an absolute compliance, rent-seeking and denial of service shitstorm for everyone else.
The financial Pig Men have their lobbyists inside and running the Gubnut, so no as much outside lobbying required.
I'm puking after reading this. Will this never end? It's totally disgusting to screw us like this. They are truly sub-human and should be treated as traitors - both lobbyists and politicians.
15 categories, 14 years, 20 billion dollars. On average, that's low enough to give up politics and go into central banking.
You know what? I could print up that chart and show it to all my "educated" family members and they'd still think I was mad. Serves me right I suppose, I practice homeopathy.
I'm against all of this talk of people supporting homeopathic marriage. Marriage is between two insured adults, and nothing more, as it says in the highly edited Constituibible.
Thanks to Ben + algos the markets are doing great.
Jobs numbers are improving without any of us needing to actually turn up to these 'jobs'.
Consumer confidence is doing fine without any of us needing to be asked our opinion.
Politicians are getting all the votes and support they need without our help.
Heads of state are making policy decisions without any public input at all.
I do apologise for using up so much oxygen, I'll just go Fuck Off and Die somewhere, shall I?
OK, it's the MSM and it's CNN, but I still suggest you give it a watch: http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/health/escape-fire-documentary/index.html
This can't be right. Obama promised to put an end to lobbyists and special interest groups......
$90 Billion a year could be saved if we negotiated Rx prices ... Hmmmm
That's about two months of printing right there!
Impeach Obama Now!
Aaand life expectancy is down in the US...
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/21/us/life-expectancy-for-less-educated-w...
Gimme moar vaccines, GMO and fluoride!
But... but... I thought mercury was healthy to inject?
I call this issue terminal obesity.
Pharma was an easy first guess - I didn't even need to see the chart to know that. They're the #1 reason for this ACA fiasco.
It's going to be a bitch unwinding this law when people find out what it's like living with it.
serious question, would "Lobby Dollars Spent" include campaign contributions?
We are a stupid society of arrogant fools that proudly teaches its offspring so much rubbish. We think debts are harmless, especially the national debt of $16.7 trillion. We think the Constitution is worthless and therefore ignore it, or worse we think its harmful and therefore impugn it. We think Big Govt is benevolent and therefore support it and even worship it as a (false) god. We deserve to suffer the consequences of our decadence, stupidity, ignorance, apathy, and arrogance. And we will.
"We deserve to suffer the consequences of our decadence, stupidity, ignorance, apathy, and arrogance. And we will."
Most people will never know the real truths about mind control, MK Ultra, and how the nazi-bush crime family's big pharma mob plays into the central planers manipulations for control, and eventual population elimination agendas.
http://www.ssristories.com/index.php
What about Military Offense Spending ?
It is used to be called "defense spending" - but it's never been about defense.
El Presidente in Pill Pushers pocket.
Guess they don't call him Barry O'Pharma for nothing.
Yeah, I mean, I've argued for awhile that the USA is the single most corrupt country on the planet.
That doesn't mean we aren't powerful. We are. In fact the two go hand in hand...absolute power corrupts absolutely.
And that doesn't mean you can't have a reasonably decent life. You can.
But for the sheer scale, the enormity of corruption, there is no other country that comes close. China is trying to get there, they never will.
Where's Aerospace & Defense? Or no need to officially lobby, given the revolving door policy between DoD and the MIC?
Aren't lobbyists just lawyers by education? It seem that if an ambitious lawyer can't get into a decent law firm or into politics, you go into lobbying. /What did Napoleon say about lawyers? /sarc
another fucked-up aspect of this faustian bargain is that most pharma companies don't really care about the physical or mental side effects of these drugs... I'm in the industry, and some very big companies have very poorly vetted processes. That is, sometimes production and purification doesn't always go to plan in terms of the quality of the drug production. Most of these companies use microbes to manufacture their drug proteins. Many times they are on aggressive timelines, since the FDA flaming hoops are multi-year processes. I've personally worked in production sites where the process didn't go to plan - like the culture building up toxinsm, or misfolded proteins because of sub-optimal production conditions, as a couple examples. They do clean it up somewhat with filtration and chromatography, but many times, there is a lot of junk left over. And the clinical trials only focus on efficacy of drugs, not these impurities that can and do cause severe physical and mental side effects. Additionally, all the heavy metals that people ingest with these drugs either bioaccumulate in human bodies or is excreted into our waste water streams, that are not processing water for heavy metals. So anyone on city water is surely taking in residual Pharmaceuticals unless you filter the shit out of your water. (i'm talking the very expense units that can remove flouride and other metals).
The whole ball of wax poisons all sentient life on the planet, all the while making a tidy sum doing it.
I've kind of had it up to here with the greed of humans.
I knew it was health care, I mean sick care. Follow the money, Health Care is, as the Wall-Street Journal called it years ago, the engine that drives the US economy. And it has only grown since then. In fact, there is probably no institution on earth that is so profit intensive as US health care, I mean sick care.
Even that tool of the corporation, CNN, ran a damning report last night on the costs of sick care and how pathetic the results are. US health care has NOTHING to do with patient health, it has everything to do with treatment of cronic health problems and disease. The sicker the population the bigger the profits. Keep the patient alive and keep him under treatment.
I will admit I never thought I could praise the whores at CNN, but they actually had the courage to say that the biggest cost nightmare coming is the almost unlimited expense that military health care and veteran's health care is becoming. It is simply a disaster, and as the wars drag on, set to only grow. And before some hero gets on here and blasts me for picking on veterans, I am a veteran. As of yet I have had no need to go to the VA for any health care, as I have private health insurance now, and have not been sick anyways!
and there he is folks, crossing the finnish line with not a drip of sweat on his low`brow... said, forehead? the greatest marathon runner in history-- the honorable 'Tom Daschle'! http://www.muckety.com/Tom-Daschle/4400.muckety
I read somewhere the other day someone had the idea...
Mandatory dress code for government employees like NASCAR showing all the patches of the corporate sponsors so we know who owns them.
This might be some what palatable if we actually could receive care that we are insured for. I don't know about you, but these young doctors are the most spineless bunch that would gladly turn over all information (whether real or fabricated) to big brother in hopes of maintaining their licenses. These rodents will live in a state of constant black mail and their patients will pay the price. Fuck doctors!!
The State of Illinois should do some lobbying for free money.Try a debt of 96.8 billion in unfunded liabilities in pension funding and blatantly misleading their people.Top it off with the worst credit rating amongst all States in the Union.I wonder if some top former politicians(including one in the Whitehouse) new about that long and growing scandal?No,and you guessed right,the SEC never looked at that or how it came about.They whitewashed the whole scam and no penalties.
Pharma is kind of fucked. The entire "recession proof" industry is a "product pipeline" industry that lives and dies on 25 year patents.
Once the patents run out, the generics kill the margin and the brand sales die overnight.
So how does pharma keep going? Receptors - the molecule that binds the treatment to the cells. Well this is running out of steam too.
So what's left? Receptor vitamins (short term and ineffective financially), merging companies and bribing governments to make rules that fuck the patient and benefit pharma (and of course a few kickbacks to the doctors).
In short, don't get sick. And if you do, see alternatives as well. This industry is about treating symptons and NEVER curing problems - always has been, always will be.
I don't see "public employees" aka "the state" listed nor do I see lawyers.
AIPAC
Funny how they all think cutting health benefits is the answer. Coming home with a $250,000 bill for a hangnail isn't a problem?
Lobbying requires "two sides to the trade."
One side does not give a shit about you.
The other side is elected to give a shit, and you pay him to do so.
Where do you think the onus lies, as well should our attention?
There will always be scum -- the trick is to not let it rise to the top and sit there.
Just shows to go ya how much influence you can buy in DC, what with Obamacare literally handing these bastards millions of new "subscribers" with no upper limit on how much they can charge. What a scam!
The government itself spends more than anyone on promoting it's own interests and privileges ! The five wealthiest counties on a per capita basis surround Washington DC ! No corporation can compare to government when it comes to the percentage of employees making $100,000 + !
Another Orwellian warning: keep the people drunk or drugged, so the corporatists can use and abuse them.
Boomberg's ban on big sized drinks is a petty lie, hiding the bigger lie. Obesity = bad. Dead = good. For the corporatists.
Big Brother loves you. Do as he says. Take the alcohol and drugs. Stay quiet, deaf, dumb and poor...for the Party. Forward...to the gulags, eventually.
Big Brother and Big Pharma gain most, and ruin the Republic. That is their profit. Our downfall.
I can't believe the banksters are not on the list.
Red Pill Bankster
or
Blue Pill Bankster
Either way the pill poppers got the big dolla to keep the herd drinking da kool aid.
The bankers have their politicians bought and paid for before they get in the office. After that the Bernank takes care of the rest.
The list says nothing about the military industrial complex, nor Israel. This list is bogus.
All day, every day. Same as yesterday, looks like tomorrow. Boring
I was not surprised by those statistics. I already knew that money is backed by murder. I already knew that we have a profit from disease system, NOT a "health care system." I already knew that that profit from disease system kills at least an order of magnitude more people than the military industrial complex system does.
One can find strong correlations between the funding of politics, and the results of that political process. The funding of the political process is basically that less than 1% of the people fund everything, while 99% fund nothing, Therefore, our entire civilization is already almost completely corrupt and crazy, and that is getting worse, faster!
Insurance companies have to spend 80% of their premiums on services and not just keep more profits, which is a good thing, right?
Wrong.
What's the only way to increase profits in this scenario?
Raise premiums.
It's called fascism for short. Get used to it serfs.