Single Payer Health Care

I too have experienced the Canadian healthcare system.

All countries ration healthcare: America does it by price; other countries through waitlists.

At least in Canada, everyone has a chance to get on a waitlist, unlike the United States with 47 million uninsured.

Sent to Wall Street Journal

The Quagmire Ahead

There is much to agree with in David Brooks' column (The Quagmire Ahead, New York Times, June 2, 2009: A21). It will be very hard to change the GM culture.

I must object to his sneers against the UAW for it having negotiated the job bank and 'out at 50' deals. He has forgotten their rationale.

In the past, the big automakers used to close down for a couple of months each year in order to retool for the next model year. The union negotiated that the 10 month wage should be spread over 12 months. That is the genesis of the job bank.

Assembly line work is backbreaking and debilitating. The cycle time at Lordstown was about 63 seconds. That is, a worker faced a new car assembly every minute and had to undertake his or her assigned operation, that is sixty times an hour, and about 500 times a day. And that is for your whole working life, day in and day out. That is why the retirement at 50 deal was negotiated.

A better understanding of labor history would enable us to realize that these labor practices were not insane.

Sent to New York Times

Republican Call for an Inquiry On Pelosi Claim is Rejected

As a left-wing Democrat, I am sorry that the House defeated the Republican call for an inquiry into what Congresswoman Pelosi knew and when she knew it (Republican Call for Inquiry On Pelosi Claim Is Rejected. New York Times, May 22, 2009: A15).

The more we know about who was responsible for approving, signing off on, and protesting the torture memoranda the better.

This has been a horrible period in America's life. We cannot just move forward without looking back; unless we do, we will be complicit in the torture done in our names.

Only by rejecting the actions of everyone involved and by holding them to account can we put this behind us.

We need a full investigation now of the White House leaders and the Congressional leaders who were enablers of the actions undertaken in Iraq, in Afghanistan, and at Guantanamo.


Sent to New York Times

U.S.Tells Banks They Need $75 billion More in Capital

Your discussion of the Bank's capital requirements suggest that they will be allowed to improve their debt equity ratios by converting government owned preferred stock into common stock. (U.S.Tells Banks They Need $75 billion More in Capital, Friday, May 8: A1, A3).

This is absurd. As Mr. Ely, quoted in your article, states: Such conversion will not add one penny to the banks' ability to pay lenders if there is a run on the bank. The accounting ratios may be improved through a stroke of the pen, but they are a fiction. In the real world, government owned preferred stock, though perhaps not privately owned preferred stock, is as good as an equity position because it is inconceivable that the government would call in that debt if the bank got into difficulty.

Let's be real: force the banks to raise the needed capital in the private markets, or with an additional infusion of government money. Only new money will really strengthen the banks' position.

Corporations taking advantage of the taxman, watchdog reports

I am not sure what outrages me more about the latest revelation by the Auditor General (Corporations taking advantage of the taxman, watchdog reports, Globe and Mail, May 13, 2009).

I am surprised that the hapless tax department felt unable to adjust its interest rate to reflect falling market rates.

But I am appalled at the failure in Corporate Citizenship exhibited by the 50 unnamed companies who took arbitrage advantage of the government. They should be named.

Sen t to Toronto Globe and Mail

Electoral Reform

Letter responding to an attack on fair elections. Boston Globe, May 11, 2009

A Reality Check on Mortgage Modification

Letter in Sunday Business, May 10, 2009
New York Times