I just read an article on the NY Post website that drives me nuts. Some girl took out $70,000.00 in student loans but when she graduated she couldn’t find a job. Instead of taking whatever she could find, she decided to sue the college for $70k complaining that they didn’t do enough to find her a job.  Here’s the original article.

One thing that is encouraging is that the majority of the comments are ridiculing her for being opportunistic, generally lacking a good work ethic and pointing out that none of our founding documents talks about the “right to a job”.  One comment pointed out the irony that she’s looking for a job in IT, but due to this frivolous lawsuit she’s getting a ton of exposure on the internet.  Why would any company want to hire her now?

We need to get past all this entitlement if we want to recover from the current recession.  Get out and work whatever you can find.  If you really are  worth the money you want to make, people will take notice and you’ll find the progression from one position to another happens quite naturally.

I just read an article about flat rate health care that is now being offered in Seattle. Apparently they’re using a model similar to about 50 other clinics around the country and it seems very promising. They suggest that by eliminating the rigid demands for paperwork, contract negotiation and service levels which are imposed by the large insurance companies (such as United Health, Aetna, Cigna, WellPiont, etc. they can actually charge less to their patients and increase their own profits.

I suppose that makes sense when you consider the number of employees and facilities involved in contemporary healthcare that actually do nothing to support the actual medical needs of patients. In actuality, all they do is handle money and take their “fair share” off the top.

The approach of the Seattle clinic is to charge their patients a one time fee of $99 and then some monthly recurring fee that ranges from $39 – $199 or so. For that they get unlimited visits and care. They accept preexisting conditions too.

So why would I write about this on my blog about one Nation under God? I think that it’s important to recognize that God wants his children to be healthy and to have the freedom to exercise their talents. In this country we have enjoyed an explosion of knowledge, education and skill. That has been coupled with an unprecedented growth in technological support to enable new ideas. These are blessings that come to a God fearing Nation and which we observe missing in many nations that have less regard for God.

Wake up America and think up knew ways to prosper and thrive.

I read an article today that talked about some Chinese ships harassing a US boat. Most of the article discussed the tension and various reasons that it shouldn’t have happened and what everyone was doing about it… Whew! What that all seems to have come down to right before the last paragraph is that China is pushing on the US to determine how we’ll respond to their agression.

Then I read the last paragraph and got a little sick about the state of our country. Here’s the clip that I read:

While relations between Beijing and Washington are complex, any sense of military competitiveness is dwarfed by America’s need for China to continue buying US debt to fund its huge and growing deficit

Yikes! Do they mean to suggest that if a military conflict ever came up we would be so committed to keeping our standard of living high and our economy going, that we would prefer to maintain our current levels consumption and inflated economic outlook over maintaining our sovereignty?

It made me wonder how much of our Navy or Air Force they own with their billions of dollars of investment in our national debt. Maybe if the day comes that a military contest becomes necessary, China will just show us deed and title to our military and say “hand it over”

Or, we could stop right now and let our system fall before it recovers. At least then our recovery would have freed us from the oppressive burden of debt that we’ve taken on as consumers and as a country.

Tonight is President Obama’s first presidential address to congress tonight. President Obama is still new in the white house, but he seems a bit hurried and urgent in the things that he’s doing. I’m not sure that such haste creates a good environment for clear thinking and sound judgement. The address will be streamed and so you should be able to watch it here:

[address ended]

I just found this article which highlights some of the issues with rushing to pass and then spend and economic stimulus bill:

Economic Stimulus

Why don’t we slow down a bit.  The article points out that:

“We recall being told last September that if TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program) was not passed right now, this week, the economy would collapse next week. The economy didn’t collapse (granted it is still weak) and half the money has yet to be spent.”

So, whats the harm in slowing down for a minute and making more educated decisions as we go along our way.

What can we as American’s do to slow this train down?  You could start today by writing to your congressman:

https://writerep.house.gov/writerep/welcome.shtml