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Prosperity Amidst the Ruins
Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith of OfTwoMinds blog,
The fundamental problem facing the global economy is not slow economic growth but political inequality.
It's striking: as economies stagnate, the top tier is living even larger while the low-income masses sink further into marginalized poverty. I call this widening divide between the vested interests/wealthy and the rest of society prosperity amidst the ruins.
How can the top slice prosper while the rest of the populace suffers from higher taxes, stagnant wages and a collapse of employment/enterprise opportunities?
Just as Greece led the way in the sovereign debt crisis a few years ago, it is also leading the way in showing how oligarchies can expand their wealth and power even as their populace slides deeper into poverty. A recent article, Misrule of the Few: How the Oligarchs Ruined Greece, lays out the key dynamics.
It is self-evident that these same dynamics are playing out in the rest of Europe, the U.S., Japan, China and most if not all of the developing world.
Writer Pavlos Eleftheriadis pulls no punches:
"Greece has failed to address (rising wealth/income inequality) because the country’s elites have a vested interest in keeping things as they are. Since the early 1990s, a handful of wealthy families -- an oligarchy in all but name -- has dominated Greek politics. These elites have preserved their positions through control of the media and through old-fashioned favoritism, sharing the spoils of power with the country’s politicians. Greek legislators, in turn, have held on to power by rewarding a small number of professional associations and public-sector unions that support the status quo. Even as European lenders have put the country’s finances under a microscope, this arrangement has held."
This is the same script being used by vested interests everywhere:
1. Control the media so it focuses exclusively on manufactured "good news" ("the stock market hit a new high today, blah blah blah") and ignores the perverse incentives built into the system and the destructive consequences of crony-capitalism/crony socialism.
Anything that undermines the dominant narrative (i.e. thanks to your political-financial elites marvelous management, we have self-sustaining "growth") is buried, discredited or ignored.
2. Buy political favors and influence to insure that "reforms" are superficial public relations exercises rather than than actual reforms that change the power structure.
3. Rig the accounting, regulations and reporting so any scrutiny is misdirected or blunted. This enables the status quo to continue on unfazed, despite the erosion of the economy's fundamentals and the widening gap between those with power and those who are powerless, i.e. the middle class and the marginalized poor.
This simple script is working in China, the U.S. Japan--everywhere.
The vested interests have obscured the cold reality of rising inequality by focusing obsessively on "growth" as the fix-all to inequality.
But this is exactly backward. As Eleftheriadis observes:
"The fundamental problem facing Greece is not slow economic growth but political inequality. To the benefit of a favored few, cumbersome regulations and dysfunctional institutions remain largely unchanged, even as the country’s infrastructure crumbles, poverty increases, and corruption persists. Greek society also faces new dangers. Overall unemployment stands at 27 percent, and youth unemployment exceeds 50 percent, providing an ideal recruiting ground for extremist groups on both the left and the right. Meanwhile, the oligarchs are still profiting at the expense of the country -- and the rest of Europe."
All the blather about "growth" and GDP is just propaganda to misdirect our attention from the real problem: the total domination of governance and finance by a class of vested interests and mega-wealthy cartels/oligarchies.
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heard it
"Hey, who ya gonna believe, me or yer lying eyes?"
It's getting so bad they're gonna have to force the banks to take some more money....our money of course.
We robbed some folks...
It was a matter of time before the international bankers got around to the US. They stole the Gold and left us a bill for their service.
Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded — here and there, now and then — are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty.
This is known as “bad luck.” -Robert A. Heinlein
But the people that make these advances are not the oligarchs. They are usually people faced with some problem in need of a solution, hands on people that like to solve problems. Then the oligarchs take advantage or right out rob them.
We are those people, this is our problem, let's find the solution.
As it is, with 99% headed toward poverty with little to no access to the resources needed to create solutions, we are doomed. How much human potential is going to waste? This is the good thing about a resource based economy in that we could fully realize that human potential as a whole. If that number is 30%, that is a lot better than the 0% that we have now, innovation is being squandered and drowned in oligarchy.
Inequality is the wrong word to use for me. I have had enough 'equality' shoved down my throat by the gov. Inequality is not the problem it is a natural outcome for most everything. Government force is the problem.
Is "Government Force" what has put control of all broadcast media in the hands of five corporations? Is Government Force what has outsourced most of the military to contractors? Is Government Force what is acting to cut back benefits to the poor and further enrich the wealthy?
I don't think you know where the "force" is coming from. The Waltons and the Koch brothers have the force, and their rented flunkies in the Government are just the targets for your misdirected rage.
Lack of fair oversight or any enforcement of anti-trust and market manipulation laws.
"Is "Government Force" what has put control of all broadcast media in the hands of five corporations? Is Government Force what has outsourced most of the military to contractors? Is Government Force what is acting to cut back benefits to the poor and further enrich the wealthy?"
Don't know where to start.
Government: is the creator of corporations, is the regulator of media, creates and operates the military, and uses force to steal wealth to hook people on the welfare drug.
The problem IS government - and its idiot supporters.
In a way you are both right. Government was used as a tool for the oligarchs to gain control. They are in control now and they are the government, we have corporate fascism. Without government they would have never accomplished their goals of control.
One concern I have with a pure capitalism no government solution is what prevents monopolies from forming and the same thing happening over again? What makes you confident that the oligarchs will not be able to stifle competition that would naturally prevent monopolies/oligopolies? I feel it would be safer to establish glass ceilings on the size of business to ensure competition. It seems no matter what sort of structure we have, the oligarchs find a way to ruin it.
Alternatively, if we could have a resource based economy based on, rather than greed, the good human quality of empathy, with open source, would there be a way to do this without having centralized government? In theory it works if we can find a money source that is naturally evenly distributed. Fingernails maybe? It may sound silly, but think about it. They have a relatively even distribution and natural rate of decay, so you need no government to issue or monitor. Since evenly distributed naturally, there would be abundance for everyone. The very small minority that can not grow fingernails, in a society with abundance based on empathy, would easily be cared for through charity. No one could corner the market either, because they would be unable to garner enough power due to not being able to limit people's access to resources. But what doesn't work ~in theory~?
Pure capitalism assumes unlimited resources, which may not be a reality. That would be a problem, wouldn't it? One thing for certain, history tells us when things become too big, they also become corrupted. I like the idea of anarchy, but I don't want to live in the wild wild west.
Anarchy (everyone responsible for themselves) != Chaos (wild, wild west)
Doesn't mean it isn't peaceful.
http://www.amazon.com/Law-Elephant-Property-Behavior-Overland/dp/0873281...
For most of their journey, travelers on the overland trail to California in the 1840s and 1850s were beyond the reach of the law and its enforcers, the police and the courts. Yet, not only did the law play a large role in life on the trail, it was a law hardly distinguishable from the one the emigrants had left behind. John Phillip Reid demonstrates how seriously overlanders regarded the rights of property and personal ownership when they went west as he explores their diaries, letters, and memoirs, giving an unusually rich and vivid picture of life on the overland trail.
Thanks, I'll check that book out.
Monopolies are enforced by government, itself a monopoly. If there isn't a government, who enforces a monopoly?
Which is one of the reasons it is hard to dislodge it from society. It takes resources from its victims and uses them to maintain its monopoly.
"Pure capitalism" only assumes that innovation is almost unlimited.
BTW, the wild wild west was basically a myth.
If someone were to get some edge over others, perhaps through innovation. and then drive everyone else out of business. That part might be fair dealing, but after that they could use that advantage to prevent smaller start ups was what I was thinking.
True, that behavior is probably innate but the longterm advantage comes from using the force of government.
Mary Ruwart had a great example of how absence of government interference allows innovation to overcome a natural monopoly created by a previous innovation: the production of kerosene in the 19th century.
Kantbelieveit,
Dud/ette, your ZH moniker says it all: You believe. Instead, you should know.
Before, we had 5 media corporations, and outsourcing our military to contractors. Conversely to what you believe, before, we had less welfare spending on the poor (Obama is an ideological redistributionist). Yet, we didn't have the problem.
What's the difference. Bigger gov't with more force, and more willingness to exercise that force.
Read Risen's book, "Pay Any Price," and you will understand why the Terror War will never end. Over 1,000 companies are sucking down hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars without producing anything. Their government flunkies pump fear into the public media, and anyone who says there is no serious terrorist threat is branded as insane or a traitor.
Follow the money and it leads to the mercenary plutocrats who control our government.
The very existence of government is the problem and it only exists because of those who want it.
Four hundred millions deaths caused by government in the 20th century.
Anyone who supports government is not human, they are still animals. Look in a mirror.
No government = no law. You will need more than the ten commandments to protect you if you pull down all civil authority. What happens when government disappears in a natural disaster or war zone? Looting and chaos. "Order" is restored when mobsters and warlords move in and create many "local governments."
Government is everywhere that laws and rules are enforced. In the family, in the tribe, in a business, there is government whenever people consent to be governed for the common good.
Do you associate with murders, rapists, child molesters, thieves, and all kinds of other scum? If not, then the problem is that government allows those types entry into civilized society and the simple solution is to exclude them permanently. Without government, they could be shot on sight. Non-predators greatly outnumber predators so excluding them and then eradicating them is completely doable.
The simple fact of privatizing all roads would mean that road companies would continuously monitor their customers and be well aware of the presence of any outcasts. A simple disable switch would stop their travels, then they could be killed.
What a brilliant scheme! Just look for people wearing an "I am a predator" T-Shirt and kill them. Why hasn't anyone thought of this before? You have a great future in American politics!
You are a stupid asshole.
That is how the current government justice system works - after the fact.
Too, there would be the problem of disputes. People have disagreements all of the time and sometimes people get mad enough to shoot each other. What then? I dislike government as well and I support the 2nd amendment, I ask in earnest.
Introduction to a Stateless Society...
Thanks for the reading material, I'll check that out.
Arbitration, or a shooter would be expelled from society and the threat of that would cool a lot of hotheads.
If they lose it, they have demonstrated low cerebral control. Let them live as the savage they are, in the wild.
Thanks and that would work, but who establishes these guidelines with no government?
With a choice between people trying to live their lives peacefully and the elite special interests running government, I'll take the people. Remember, government is a con and demos has virtually no control over it. Like a casino, the rules are set so the government 'house' always wins.
Morality is basically natural law and without the initiation of force by government, the morality of a specific group or society would reach a much less violent equilibrium. Right now we live under government created morality and it is a disaster.
“Chaos is found in greatest abundance wherever order is being sought. It always defeats order, because it is better organized.”
- Terry Pratchett, Interesting Times: The Play
Yes We Kant,
... there is government whenever people consent to be governed for the common good.
We the People did not consent to be governned by the authoritarian Progressive bureaucracy.
The FSA would probably disagree with yer second sentence.
I never consented to be ruled by anyone or anything.
In other words: Small number of rich, large number of poor and just enough middle class to service the rich. As it has been in most societies throughout most of human history. One giant reversion to the mean.
I guess we were exceptional for a little while anyway.
Yea. It was sure nice while it lasted. Now, we're just one failed nation-state among many.
How do I get on THE list?
Greece: The European growth miracle...coming to an oligarchy near you.
Hang all the shiney heads for Treason
This is what worship of the Market God creates: markets rigged by the most powerful players. What is the remedy? The hated and reviled GOVERNMENT has to bust up these concentrations of power, as it did in Teddy Roosevelt's time.
If we break up gov't first (which protects the crony capitalists) and let the free market decide, the problem goes away.
Teddy R was the first Progressive. As a result, he helped create the cancer that is destroying this country. The disease is Big Gov't Authoritarian Progressivism. The cure is less of it.
Looking back over the last 60 years of progressive dominance in the US government, I would say it was a complete failure. The progressive Democrats have been giving welfare recipients fish, rather than teaching them how to fish for decades. Some families have grown up on the public dole for generations and the idea of self sufficiency is a distant memory. A return to local, self-reliant government is what’s needed.
Did the government create the steel and railroad trusts? You have a fairy tale notion of the dynamics of business development. Business leaders HATE uncertainty. That is why they will undermine the market as soon as they have sufficient monopoly power and start fixing prices. Without periodic breakups of business monopolies, by GOVERNMENT. you will pay whatever the monopolist wants. (Check your cable bill.)
Your precious free market economy depends on enforcement of contracts. Who does this enforcing? Who creates the laws and enforces them? The Better Business Bureau? The Koch Brothers? The Waltons?
But dude, enforcement of contracts is basic law in any capitalist society. Why the need to expand Gov control into centrally planning the economy, which is what your asking for. That's what we have now. Those capitalist strawmen are not your enemy and that mythical fair Gov you're hoping for doesn't exist.
Thanks. About as concise as the truth can be.
The big lie....that somehow people who purposefully place themselves into government service are somehow more moral, less self obsessed, than anyone in the free market. The primary difference is that those in government have no competition, no self regulating mechanism. They serve themselves while dominating over those who fund them with the threat of law or at the very least last in consideration over others better "in tune" with our masters. It galls me to no end to have to kneel subserviently to the DMV employee to get a license renewal, and it only gets worse going up the chain. These people are supposed to work for us but instead work for the elite's ideals of what is supposedly our best interests, regardless of how much they need to lie or abuse us.
I would rather take my chances against the Koch brothers any day than Obama, and while I understand the concerns of wealth buying government influence, it is still the government that is the hammer here. The government sets the rules, and then interprets the rules based on their whims of the day, be it ideology, greed, malice or simple politics. We have laws against monopoly and legally there are only two exemptions from this law, government itself and unions. Now tell me where the trouble starts and ends....
"I would rather take my chances against the Koch brothers."
Thanks to the Citizens United decision, you may get your wish. I'm sure the billionaire elite will look out for your interests better than some ex-community organizer. After all, you are just like the billionaires, except for the money.
Conservative billionairres will look out for We the People's interest. Liberal billionnaires will seek to expand crony capitalism, and destroy what's left of our republic.
Look at how well the Waltons are taking care of their workers. They even help them apply for food stamps and welfare benefits! Those conservative billionaires care deeply about common people because the more money and power they accumulate, the more generous and compassionate they become - unless they are "progressive," in which case the more money and power they accumulate, the more evil they become. It makes perfect sense.
If we just let those kind-hearted conservative billionaires run the United States, everything would be fine. They might even give us a turkey for Christmas.
Yep. Conservative billionaires invest in the private sector, which grows the economy and employment, and which enriches the middle class.
Liberal billionaries invest in the public sector, which stifles the economy and employement, and which erodes the middle class but enriches the 0.1%.
Basic (ie, decidely non-Progressive) Economics 101.
Take away the Govt's guns!
"Government is not reason; it is not eloquence; it is force! Like fire, it is
a dangerous servant and a fearful master." -- George Washington
We have diametrically opposed world views. You believe that big gov't is best, and I know small gov't is best.
The authoritarian Progressive dream is a gov't run by experts; aka, unaccountable Progressive bureaucrats. In the Progressive nirvana, We the People basically cede our sovereignty to these experts, and allow them (As in, "Fuck you. We're going to do whatever we are going to do, and you can't stop us, mother-fuckers") to make our decisions for us; eg, Obamacare.
Due to Obama's rewriting of immigration law, we're having a discussion on the separation of powers between Congress and the Executive. What we're not having is a discussion on the creation of the 4th branch of gov't: The authoritarian Progressive bureaucracy.
Re this 4th branch, the term "separation of powers" means that powers formerly invested in the Legislative, Executive, and Judicial branches have been separated from these branches, and bestowed on the 4th branch.
And you lust and crave to bestow even more power on these authoritarian Progressives. Thus, either you expose your hidden agenda in so lusting or craving, or you are a useful idiot. There are no other choices.
The real monopoly is the unaccountable 4th branch of gov't.
You live in a dream world of destructive simplification, in which regulatory needs don't exist because you don't understand them. Government regulation has expanded because the scope and complexity of society have expanded. You don't need an FAA if you don't have airplanes. You don't need an FCC if you don't have radio communication.
Please list the government functions or agencies you wish to abolish to achieve your dream of "small government." Please also explain why advanced nations like Norway, Sweden, and Germany have heavier taxation, more extensive regulation, and a high quality of life for their citizens. Finally, point to nations that have less government than the USA and demonstrate their superior results.
You live in a dream world of destructive simplification, in which regulatory needs don't exist because you don't understand them.
Straw man argument. I never argued that regulatory needs don't exist.
Government regulation has expanded because the scope and complexity of society have expanded. You don't need an FAA if you don't have airplanes. You don't need an FCC if you don't have radio communication.
But gov't regulators now essentially make laws, and do not ask for the consent of the governed as they make them. You're the one living in a dream world where all gov't actions are benevolent. Fuck that shit. Gov't bureaucrats are scum.
Please list the government functions or agencies you wish to abolish to achieve your dream of "small government.
Good question. Worth a considered answer. Don't have time now, but will answer later. Wife wants to go shopping.
Please also explain why advanced nations like Norway, Sweden, and Germany have heavier taxation, more extensive regulation, and a high quality of life for their citizens.
The EU as constituted is not sustainable. For proof, I advise you to become a member of Zerohedge and read their articles on why Europe is farther along on the road to perdition than the US.
Finally, point to nations that have less government than the USA and demonstrate their superior results.
The USA during the Clinton administration.
Us small gov't types find it easy to posit affirmatives. You big gov't types can't defend the existence of the unaccountable 4th branch of gov't.
"Gov't bureaucrats are scum!"
The great thing about the Internet is that barbaric sentiments like this reveal what many Americans really believe. So here are some examples of the government "scum"
The NIH administrators working to develop cures to major diseases
The EPA administrators working to prevent toxic disasters and reduce polluction
The OSHA administrators working to protect workers from injuries
The NTSB administrators working to keep transport systems safe
These are the scum working to constrain the saintly Koch brothers and their fellow billionaires. These are the people who are preventing the plutocrats from giving you the society you deserve.
Authoritarian Progressives in the fed'l gov't are governing us without our consent. They are scum.
.
.
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[quote]
The Stimulus Plan The National Institutes of Health spending more than $400,000 in taxpayer money by paying researchers to cruise six bars in Buenos Aires to find out why gay men engage in risky sexual behavior while drunk -- and just what can be done about it.
The U.S. government is spending $2.6 million to make sure prostitutes in China consume less alcohol while working. As part of the five-year study that the National Institutes of Health bankrolled, researchers are visiting more than 100 houses of prostitution to monitor their employees, designated as FSWs, or female sex workers.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is funding a study on the use of ecstasy, LSD and other “party drugs” in Porto Alegre, Brazil. To do this, U.S. taxpayers will invest $117,876 for the three-year study, conducted by researchers from the University of Delaware, who will work in collaboration with researchers from Brazil's Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul.
Federal employees wasted at least $146 million over a one-year period in business- or first-class airline tickets bought in violation of travel policies, congressional investigators say.
[/quote] -- from: http://www.boycottliberalism.com/Governmentwaste.htm
Do I really have to go on? Let's ask the poor toddler that caught a flash-bang grenade down in GA.
Everything (except national defence) can be better done by the private sector.
http://pixel420.com/pixel420/stateless/
Here's one good plan to downsize gov't. Here's another one.. There are dozens more.
Much more importantly, though, we need to neuter those agencies which are the worst offendors, insofar as coopting the powers of the other 3 branches. Good candidates are: The EPA, IRS, DOE, DOJ, and DOD; any agency which manages corporate welfare; any agency which managers welfare entitlements, etc.
Yes, we need gov't, but smaller gov't. How much smaller? The metric that I use (which you should Google) is "government expenditures as percent of GDP". Click on the 2nd hit, the charts. Find the chart that spans the 1969 to present time frame. Note that, just before 2000, this percentage was 18%, a very laudable burden. At the beginning of the Obama era, note that this percentage soared to 25%, a total fucking indefensible amount. We need to return to the 18%, and cut whatever Congress can agree upon to reach that 18%.
Congress can't even agree about which way is fastest to crawl out of a wet paper bag!
How many people live in Norway, Sweden and Germany? Their FSAs are tiny in comparison to the USA. It's easier to have a social safety net when it doesn't have to cover so many freeloaders!
Or We the People could general boycott and force "their" force.
It took me 30 years to figure it all out. So in a nutshell for those without enough spare time on their hands to 'get it':
High finance is in cahoots with the mainstream media to 1) dumb down the population 2) force 'policital correctnes' down our throats.
Remember the whole Zero Population Growth thing in the 80s? Haven' heard anything from that since. Guess why? The powers that be want more slaves, not less. If you were king, wouldn't you want more servants rather than less?
The NSA along with ATT and others is and has been spying on the US population for decades. Even the CIA has had operations within the USA.
The entire ponzi western financial system is at the mercy of (Jewish controlled) investment bankers. Guess why Europe incl. the UK have openend the immigration flood doors? Well, because those bankers want their money plus interest, and without growth, even bogus growth, they aint gonna get it. But since that proved not to be enough either, the strategically placed ex-Goldman, ex-JPM, es-Rothhshild goons make sure the central banks keep printing money and feeding it to the zombie banking system.
A side benefit of mass immigration for the Jewish oligarchs is the sundering of traditional ethnic cohesion in European countries.
As soon as singularity is achieved and artificial intelligence is at high enough level, your assumption will no longer be valid.
Great, how many Human bodies is it gonna take to keep those electricity generators (running the artificial brainz) humming along? You're sadly mistaken if you think you're any where near the front of the line when the Singularity gets here (2029, give or take).
Yeah....this applies to the USA too...
Rivers of Blood, NO LESS.
Fake,Fake,Fake.
I just hope no one in my family gets sick. This Obama health care bill threw all of us off our private insurance plan [which we paid out of our own pockets] into his Obamacare plans with much higher premiums and worse yet, higher deductibles.
I'm not sure why Barry hates the Middle Class so much. There's not much of us left.
'Cause you are White ?
Government decided that religious charities were unacceptable because they required a person to accept God in their life a prerequisite to receive help.
So now, government will only extend subsidies to pay for your Obamacare if you kneel before them and pledge your allegiance and dependence.
Income levels are such that to qualify for assistance you will need to reduce your income, and to do so ensures even greater dependence upon THEM.
Ultimately, we are either "with" them, or against them.
You must have had junk insurance with loopholes big enough to deny major claims. Almost every case of supposed inferior coverage under Obamacare turns out to be a misrepresentation of crappy "bargain" insurance that was replaced by a better and more expensive policy under Obamacare.
Would I truly need coverage for foot cancer if I have no legs? WHY are single guys forced to accept coverage for birth-control pills, ObGyn, and breast-cancer exams?
Organized lies based on enforced frauds backed by legalized violence. I'm on a learning curve. : )
gswifty, welcome to
the bobsled ride!
Thanks man. I thought you might appreciate your work being plagiarized. My pleasure being here commiserating with you fine folks.
Same as it ever was. What we have now is what we had at the turn of the 20th century. Less and less people owning more and more "wealth" created by huge amounts of fiat, being printed and stagnating in one investment class. Until the CB's of the world stop debasing "their" money, its won't stop. JP Morgan, William Randolph Hearst, JD Rockefeller, and Andrew Carnegie would fit in with this new normal very well. The CB of the world (lets face it FED ends QE, and within a week Japan and China announce QE) has become a one trick pony, conjuring up 25 trillion dollars (more or less) in the last 6 years alone, and the vast amount of fiat has gone into stocks. So the banks print money to buy stocks. Lend money to corporations to buy back stocks, and the next crash we get, will print more fiat to buy stocks from the corporations that at the time will be selling stock to raise money. Within the next 20 years the CB will own pretty much everything.
Here's a look at what could turn out to be the next group of high frequency trading programmers. San Quentin now feels it's a good idea to teach prisoners to code and they have a group started. You can't make this stuff up, so here we go with jobs again, what's a coder to do when there's free labor at prisons now (grin). I had to laugh when I read this as the article goes even further to say that there could be job placements for them with the State of California so here we go, one more call to begin answering the jobs issue:)
http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2014/11/training-prisoners-to-code-at-san.html
If your code has too many bugs, would you end up in solitary confinement, one could ask?
Meanwhile, back at the ranch we have Fortune 500 companies running a marketing schmooze to get hard working young folks living at home to write code for them for free, United health care here so they have more opportunities to bag some more data to sell with the 50+ crowd and they are stating on their marketing "this is for the good"..right is' more like for "for the good money of United"..keep that shareholder value going as well and those buy backs. AARP is in this and they want some free code too.
http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2014/10/aarp-and-united-healthcare-form.html
So welcome to the new world of softare development:) Want to learn how to write code and develop for free, go rob a bank:) This is indicative of to what's happening to the middle class.
Try reading a few quotes from Henry Wallich circa fall of 1979. Incredible what fucking dip shits those asshats were.
Alot of folks are getting fucked.