On Brod's Bridge Burning

A few days ago I posted Andrew Brod Burns His Last Bridge in which I highlighted these words from local economist and expert witness, Andrew Brod:

"In nearly 21 years of ups and downs, the Greensboro-High Point metropolitan statistical area experienced zero net job growth." 

This morning an astute reader sends me the following numbers:

"Guilford County: 2000 Census = 421,048
2010 census = 488,406 which is an increase of 67,358 - 16%

2018 estimate = 533,670, which is another 45,264.

So I guess the increase of over 100,000 during the past 18 years is offset by a decline of 100,000 in 1999, or since there is no change in jobs, a huge change in unemployed."

Now mind you that Brod was referencing the entire Greensboro-High Point Metro Area which includes several counties and my reader's numbers are for Guilford County alone.

What are we going to find if we run the numbers for every county in the metro area?

I smell fire.

Andrew Brod Burns His Last Bridge

"In nearly 21 years of ups and downs, the Greensboro-High Point metropolitan statistical area experienced zero net job growth." -Andrew Brod, Triad Business Journal

https://www.bizjournals.com/triad/news/2019/05/31/viewpoint-lets-dive-into-the-triad-s-payroll.html

Might I remind you that over the course of those 21 years, Andrew Brod has, almost without exception, supported every boneheaded spending package the City of Greensboro has disguised as economic development.

Andrew Brod spent years under the wing of Greensboro leaders like Jim Melvin, helping to move public opinion in whatever direction Mr Melvin and his associates wished to see it go, making $Billions for corrupt developers while Greensboro's working classes struggled to survive.

And now he finally owns up to the fact that everything were were told for all those years was a lie.

Thank you, Mr Brod, now perhaps you can finally become an asset to our community and the kind of father your young children can look up to.

You see, I'd like to think, and it is my hope, that becoming a father really does open one's eyes about how important it is to be see as someone who believes in honesty over ideology, no matter what that ideology might be. Your ideology, be it motivated by religion, spiritualism, politics, or money, is nothing without honesty.

At least it was for me.

"NC Blue Cross announces rate increase of 24.3 percent for ACA marketplace plans"

"Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina has announced it will increase premiums for Affordable Care Act plans on the individual market by an average 24.3 percent for 2017. Some consumers will pay more and some will pay less.

That is higher than the company’s original rate request filed in May for an 18.8 percent increase. The rate was approved by the state Department of Insurance

It's silly to say that the ACA is "mathematically unsustainable."

ACA is quite sustainable.

The ACA will (slightly) reduce the federal deficit

because "how we pay for it" has already been nailed down in the law.

Dr. Andrew Brod

...Blue Cross received an average 32.5 percent rate increase for 2016 – one of the highest in the country.

...According to the Blue Cross blog, the bigger rate increase was necessary because UnitedHealthcare and Aetna both are withdrawing from the state’s ACA marketplace for 2017.

The ACA as a whole, including Medicaid expansion, 

will slightly reduce the deficit during the next 10 years, 

precisely because it includes various taxes and fees. 

Expanding Medicaid might mean bigger government, 

but not a bigger deficit.

Andrew Brod

March 28, 2014

Like its competitors, Blue Cross also has reported losses on its ACA business – $405 million in 2014 and 2015.

Most Democrats are just as guilty as many Republicans 

for allowing our health care system 

to become what appears to be a Ponzi like skimming operation.

...Premiums without the subsidy will be a “significant challenge for many people” who buy plans through the ACA marketplace, Blue Cross said. “The 24.3 percent average rate increase for 2017, on top of a 32 percent rate that took effect this year, is evidence that rising costs are not sustainable for the long term.”

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/living/health-family/karen-garloch/article108764207.html#storylink=cpy

It's silly to say that the ACA is "mathematically unsustainable."

ACA is quite sustainable.

The ACA will (slightly) reduce the federal deficit

because "how we pay for it" has already been nailed down in the law.

Dr. Andrew Brod

Thanks Andrew Brod and Ed Cone; "Obamacare premiums are skyrocketing out of sight"

http://greensboroperformingarts.blogspot.com/2016/10/thanks-andrew-brod-and-ed-cone.html

Our local and state governments get pressure and lots of money

from companies who overcharge for prescriptions in North Carolina

to let Big Pharma continue to rip off taxpayers and patients

"...the most fabulously overpriced health care system in the world delivers notably poor life expectancy outcomes"...

http://greensboroperformingarts.blogspot.com/2016/08/the-most-fabulously-overpriced-health.html

Both sides in North Carolina get the same campaign checks 

from health care industry lobbyists to maintain the pilfering of our citizens

Ed Cone and Andrew Brod's Legacy, part 13; Aetna out of North Carolina ACA

http://greensboroperformingarts.blogspot.com/2016/08/ed-cone-and-andrew-brods-legacy-part-13.html

A good chunk of Greensboro's health care industry is comprised of thieves

supported and condoned by the 'government'

How about Ed Cone and Andrew Brod explain why North Carolina's 20.6% Obamacare premium growth

http://greensboroperformingarts.blogspot.com/2016/08/how-about-ed-cone-and-andrew-brod.html

Local physicians and providers who play dumb about skyrocketing costs 

are backed by apologists like Andrew Brod and Ed Cone

Dear Ed Cone and Andrew Brod

http://greensboroperformingarts.blogspot.com/2016/08/dear-ed-cone-and-andrew-brod.html

How many families did Cone Health force into bankruptcy last year Ed?

How much did you and Andrew lie about the ACA Ed?

Ed Cone on Cone Health's success at stealing from patients and bankrupting families within our local overpriced healthcare monopoly

http://greensboroperformingarts.blogspot.com/2016/08/ed-cone-on-cone-healths-success-at.html

Our healthcare system is a legal theft racket

What Warren Buffett's outlets won't report; "Colombia Fears U.S. May Reject Peace Plan To Protect Pharma Profits", and what Ed Cone and Andrew Brod don't want to talk about

http://greensboroperformingarts.blogspot.com/2016/05/what-warren-buffetts-outlets-wont.html

Andrew Brod's Legacy; "Blue Cross projects $400M loss in NC on ACA in just 2 years"

http://greensboroperformingarts.blogspot.com/2016/02/andrew-brods-legacy-blue-cross-projects.html

ACA premiums in NC to rise sharply in 2016; Thanks Andrew Brod

http://greensboroperformingarts.blogspot.com/2015/11/aca-premiums-in-nc-to-rise-sharply-in.html

Thanks for letting the healthcare industry rape even more consumers

and destroy the financial lives of thousands in our community

Dear Greensboro's Andrew Brod, On the Affordable Care Act (ACA) (Obamacare) and Deficit Projections, of which Dr. Brod was Incorrect

http://hartzman.blogspot.com/2014/06/dear-greensboros-andrew-brod-on.html

Dr. Andrew Brod, my deadline for this article is Monday morning at 10am.

http://hartzman.blogspot.com/2014/03/dr-andrew-brod-my-deadline-for-this.html

Thanks Andrew Brod and Ed Cone; "Obamacare premiums are skyrocketing out of sight"

“The reason the premiums are where they are is that the people we are covering have serious conditions and they’re using a lot of medical services because of their chronic illnesses. That’s clear. And there’s not enough young, healthy people to balance out those costs.”

...The danger for insurers and supporters of the law now is that high prices and limited choices further deter low-risk people from signing up, and that the increases continue and become irreversible.

Approved Hikes;

Approved Hikes Just Under 20%: Colorado, Florida and Idaho

Approved Hikes 20% to 29%: Connecticut, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland

Approved Hikes 30% to 49%: Alabama, Delaware, Hawaii, Kansas, Mississippi, Texas

Approved Hikes 50% to 92%: Arizona, Illinois, Montana, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Tennessee

Approved hikes 93%: New Mexico

...The reality is the Affordable Care Act is no longer affordable for increasing numbers of people,”...

This just a week after former President Bill Clinton blasted ObamaCare as “the craziest thing in the world,” adding that “it doesn’t make sense.”

An S&P Global Ratings forecast warns that, for the first time since ObamaCare got rolling, participation in the program will actually shrink by up to 8 percent.

...ObamaCare is collapsing. Its utter failures become more obvious by the day.

We all remember the promises of ObamaCare, chief among them that the “Affordable Care Act” would lower health care costs. The opposite has occurred.

...In his 2008 campaign for president, then-candidate Sen. Barack Obama repeatedly promised to cut annual health insurance premiums by $2,500. When he took office in 2009, annual family premiums for employer-provided coverage, the most common of private insurance coverage, cost $13,375 according to Kaiser. In 2016, those premiums are $18,142. That’s an increase of $4,767.

...there are 50 percent more enrollees at a cost of 50 percent more per person than originally projected.

...Additional dishonorable mentions include the president’s illegal bailouts of big health insurance companies, as well as a finding by the Government Accountability Office that 100 percent of their investigators with fake documents were able to fraudulently enroll in ObamaCare.

You can’t make this stuff up."

https://mishtalk.com/2016/10/20/obamacare-premiums-up-30-in-tx-ms-ks-50-in-il-az-pa-93-in-nm-when-does-the-death-spiral-blow-up/

What's Wrong With Greensboro?

Our local economic development "gurus" and elected "leaders" will be quick to give you all kinds of excuses as to what has gone wrong in Greensboro. Some will say it is the loss of tobacco, textiles, furniture.... you name it, whatever we used to do here that is no longer done here.

But when you look at total employment since January 2008 as shown in this graph by local economist Andrew Brod, it becomes apparent that our part of North Carolina lags behind not only the rest of the nation but the rest of the state as well.

So what happened locally? To figure that out we must first ask ourselves what happened nationally.

In an article titled, ‘X’ Marks the Spot Where Inequality Took Root: Dig Here. Stan Sorscher. Board Member of the Economic Opportunity Institute writes:

"The Depression and World War II defined that generation’s collective identity. Our national heroes were the millions of workers, soldiers, families and communities who sacrificed. We owed a national debt to those who had saved Democracy and restored prosperity. The New Deal policies reflected that national purpose, honoring a social safety net, increasing bargaining power for workers and bringing public interest into balance with corporate power.

In that period, the prevailing social contract said, “We all do better when we all do better.” My prosperity depends on your well-being. In that period of history, you were my co-worker, neighbor or customer. Opportunity and fairness drove the upward spiral (with some glaring exceptions). Work had dignity. Workers earned a share of the wealth they created. We built Detroit (for instance) by hard work and productivity.

Our popular media father-figures were Walter Cronkite, Chet Huntley, David Brinkley, and others, liberal and conservative, who were devoted to an America of opportunity and fair play.

The sudden change in the mid-70’s was not economic. First it was moral, then social, then political, ….. then economic.

In the mid-70’s, we traded in our post-World War II social contract for a new one, where “greed is good.” In the new moral narrative I can succeed at your expense. I will take a bigger piece of a smaller pie. Our new heroes are billionaires, hedge fund managers, and CEO’s."

Mr Sorscher goes on to write with a couple of well done graphics of his own:

"In this narrative, they deserve more wealth so they can create more jobs, even as they lay off workers, close factories and invest new capital in low-wage countries. Their values and their interests come first in education, retirement security, and certainly in labor law.

We express these same distorted moral, social and political priorities in our trade policies. As bad as these priorities are for our domestic policies, they are worse if they define the way we manage globalization.
The key to the treasure buried in Figure 1 is power relationships. To understand what happened, ask, “Who has the power to take 93% of all new wealth and how did they get that power? The new moral and social values give legitimacy to policies that favor those at the top of our economy.
We give more bargaining power and influence to the wealthy, who already have plenty of both, while reducing bargaining power for workers. In this new narrative, workers and unions destroyed Detroit (for instance) by not lowering our living standards fast enough.
In the new moral view, anyone making “poor choices” is responsible for his or her own ruin. The unfortunate are seen as unworthy moochers and parasites. We disparage teachers, government workers, the long-term unemployed, and immigrants.

In this era, popular media figures are spiteful and divisive."

He also writes:

"Our policies have made all workers feel contingent, at risk, and powerless. Millions of part-time workers must please their employer to get hours. Millions more in the gig economy work without benefits and have no job security at all. Recent college graduates carry so much debt that they cannot invest, take risk on a new career, or rock the boat. Millions of undocumented workers are completely powerless in the labor market, and subject to wage theft. They have negative power in the labor market!

We are creating a new American aristocracy, with less opportunity – less social mobility and weaker social cohesion than any other advanced country. We are falling behind in many measures of well-being."

So what happened to Greensboro? We just got a bigger dose of the illness Mr Sorscher describes than the rest of the country did. Our local elites are more entrenched and have greater control than in most other parts of the country and therefore push us farther down as shown by the graph supplied by Andrew Brod.

And finally, Mr Sorscher closes with:

"X marks the spot. In this case, “X” is our choice of national values. We abandoned traditional American values that built a great and prosperous nation. Our power relationships are sour.

We can start rebuilding our social cohesion when we say all work has dignity. Workers earn a share of the wealth we create. We all do better, when we all do better. My prosperity depends on a prosperous community with opportunity and fairness."

Funny, that's exactly what my platform for Mayor of Greensboro is all about.

Money from nothing; "ECB's QE bond buying hits €1 trillion milestone"

Regardless of the dollar price involved,

one ounce of gold would purchase a good-quality man's suit

at the conclusion of the Revolutionary War, the Civil War,

the presidency of Franklin Roosevelt, and today.

Peter A. Burshre

"The European Central Bank's quantitative easing program passed a milestone last week, topping 1 trillion euros in purchases after 18 months of aggressive bond buying. ECB figures for the week ended Sept. 2 show the central bank has now bought €1,001 billion in sovereign debt."

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/ecbs-qe-bond-buying-hits-1-trillion-milestone-2016-09-05

Where did the ECB get the money?

"These programs, one after another, are simply designed to somehow pacify
and hoping to keep [prices] going up,
and that somehow that will fool the people into thinking they are wealthier
and they will spend money.

When you tell politicians they can issue $100 billion of debt a month for free,
how do you expect them to do the right thing,
and ask their constituents to sacrifice?

I think the [ECB, BOJ etc... are] injecting high grade monetary heroin
into the financial system of the world,
and one of these days it is going to kill the patient."


David Stockman

Why did the Athenians create more money by decreasing gold and silver coin content

during the Peloponnesian war?

Athenian money…defined a pattern
which was to repeat in other empires which were to follow,
dominance of trade, influx of gold to balance exports, public wealth,
liberty, overconfidence, the discovery of loosely managed money
as a stimulating solution to stagnation in an economy near its zenith…,
before finally the emptiness of the monetary promise was exposed,
leading to rapid national collapse.

Paul Tustain

Does earn today, spend tomorrow, conflict with borrow to spend today

and hope to earn enough tomorrow, or that someone else does?

"Why did the Roman Empire reduce currency size and silver content
to increase the quantity of money during war against Hannibal?

Where under the [Roman] Principate the strategy had been
to tax the future to pay for the present,
the Dominate paid for the present by undermining the future’s ability to pay taxes.

The Empire emerged from the third century crisis,
but at a cost that weakened its ability to meet future crises."

Joseph Tainter

Did Spanish money become worth less

after the Emperor borrowed against 100 years of future tax revenue

to pay for war against England?

Did France execute relatively the same strategy

with similar consequences not long after?

By the time the great bullion inflow had ended in the mid-seventeenth century,
the Spanish crown was deep in debt, with bankruptcies in 1557, 1575 and 1597.

The country entered upon a long decline.

…one might draw a moral: Easy money is bad for you.

It represents short-run gain
that will be paid for in immediate distortions and later regrets.

The Wealth and Poverty of Nations

Why did the Continental Congress issue paper money

backed by anticipated tax revenues to pay for war against theocratic England?

"Nations are not ruined by one act of violence
but quite often, gradually, and almost imperceptibly
by the depreciation of their currency through excessive quantity"

Nicolas Copernicus
Discovered Earth was not the center of the Universe

If a nation prints more money

like cutting a 16 inch pizza into 12 slices instead of 8

is each slice worth less?

What if the pizza shrinks while the number of slices rise?

Little by little, business is enlarged with easy money

With the exhaustless reservoir
of the Government of the United States furnishing easy money
the sales increase, the businesses enlarge, more new enterprises are started
the spirit of optimism pervades the community

Everyone is making money, everyone is growing rich

It goes up and up…until finally someone whose judgment was bad
someone whose capacity for business was small, breaks
 and as he falls he hits the next brick in the row, and then another
… and down comes the whole structure

That is what happened to greater or less degree
before the panic of 1837, of 1857, of 1873, of 1893 and of 1907

Elihu Root

If less than 1% of at least 15,000 professional American Economists

foresaw the financial crisis, and many work to keep investors invested

for their industry paymasters, 

should many financial industry prognosticators be relied on for anything?

"No State shall… make any Thing but gold and silver Coin
 a Tender in Payment of Debts"

Article I, Section 10, Clause 1
The Constitution of the United States

Have the world's central banks abused currencies

to avoid overtly raising domestic taxation

by covertly taxing assets by over-printing money

for the benefit of the rich and powerful,

at the expense of the poor and future generations who will be stuck with cleaning up the mess?

Yes

Donald Trump, who has previously accused the Federal Reserve 

of keeping interest rates low to help President Barack Obama, 

said on Monday that the U.S. central bank has created a "false economy"

The Fed has been a target of some conservative critics in the U.S. Congress, 

who say the bank risked sparking inflation with its easy monetary policies 

in response to the global financial crisis.

Steve Holland

No one went to jail

Misleading Richard M. Barron on why Greensboro's job market sucks in Greensboro's News and Record

"we’re losing the kinds of jobs that support a middle class lifestyle — manufacturing, skilled trades and services...

Because 'free trade' agreements supported by Warren Buffett and friends

sent our best jobs oversees for the benefit of our elite 

who control the political establishment 

They continue to decline as the economy shifts away from one that makes things in vast factories to one that makes advanced goods and provides services.

Supported in part by the News and Record's editorial board

The most educated service providers, professionals, information technology workers and managers, are in the minority while thousands of less-educated workers are trapped in low-wage and often part-time service jobs.

Most of Greensboro's working poor

...“The largest growth in jobs we’ve seen have come from the lowest wage occupations,” ...

“On the other end we have also seen significant growth in high-wage occupations. It’s a lot harder to break into those occupations. You need a lot of education and that education costs a lot of money that those low-wage workers just don’t have. So, too many workers will be locked into low-wage occupations.”

...In the Greensboro-High Point metro, which includes Guilford, Rockingham and Randolph counties, health care occupations grew by 18 percent, adding 5,900 jobs, from early 2007 through July, without a pause for the recession.

High paying health care occupations are government subsidized 

via taxpayer wealth transfer through theft

for the benefit of the parasitic credentialed class

Goods-producing jobs, by comparison, dropped by 21 percent, or 11,200 jobs.

While the even higher profits from the lower waged outsourced jobs remained with those who own the companies who shafted American workers

and made more money than they were making before,

like Warren Buffett who owns the News and Record

Doctors, the best-paid nurses and other personnel are at the top of the health care industry, but thousands of people who might have worked middle-class jobs a generation ago in manufacturing face lower-wage, often part-time work in many health care jobs.

So the highest paid employees in the health care industry 

ran up prices so high, hundreds of local families at the bottom went bankrupt 

by not being able to pay government sponsored, artificially high costs

On a broader level, Greensboro-High Point’s number of employed people..., has recovered since the worst months of the recession, but remains lower by 10,000 jobs, from 370,000 jobs to about 360,000 jobs from July 2007 until this July.

How are 10,000 fewer jobs nine years later a recovery Richard,

if there are more people living here since then?

A different survey of people who say they are working or looking for work was almost the same in July as it was in July 2007, at about 370,000 people.

Population estimates, July 1, 2015; 517,600

Population estimates base, April 1, 2010; 488,406

http://www.census.gov/quickfacts/table/PST045215/37081

By comparison, the Research Triangle city of Raleigh saw total employment grow from 514,400 in July 2007 to 600,000 this July, a rate of 17 percent.

That means Greensboro’s economy is essentially stagnant compared with Raleigh’s education and tech economy...

Contact Richard M. Barron at (336) 373-7371, and follow @BarronBizNR on Twitter.

http://www.greensboro.com/business/local-recovery-follows-trend-of-more-jobs-for-lower-pay/article_a5b02c3c-64c5-57a1-88c1-5ebe1c0ba076.html
.
.
517,600 - 488,406 = 29,124 more people with 10,000 fewer 'looking' for jobs
between 2010 and 2015, 
meaning Richard Barron is a propagandist at best
and is definitely a shitty journalist who doesn't mind lying to his readers
who ignores simple math

https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=guilford+county+nc+population+2007

517,600 - 464,924 = 52,676 more people with 10,000 fewer jobs
between 2007 and 2015

Our population grew by 11%, while actual jobs fell 10,000,
which is terrible, but they won't tell anyone the actual facts
to keep most in line and supporting the status quo

Who does bullshit information like this help?

Our elected officials and their cronies who skim off the rents of the poor

while bribes, kickbacks and 'contributions' flow to the public overseers

of this economic catastrophe

Let's build a Performing Arts Center!

The more distracted and stupid most are, the longer they rule as oligarchy,

and the News and Record and most other local media are in on it

Binge watch some tv and forget about it
.
.
Professor Andrew Brod Steals George Hartzman's Ideas

http://greensboroperformingarts.blogspot.com/2013/02/professor-andrew-brod-steals-george.html

The Greensboro Car: Greensboro's Next Big Thing?

http://greensboroperformingarts.blogspot.com/2012/08/the-greensboro-car-greensboros-next-big.html

A Better Idea For Greensboro Bonds

http://greensboroperformingarts.blogspot.com/2012/08/a-better-idea-for-greensboro-bonds.html

Why not design and build cars on the Piedmont Triad's 1,000 acres around the airport?

http://hartzman.blogspot.com/2014/02/why-not-design-and-build-cars-on.html

Trojan Horse Scam, the Aquatic and Performing Arts Centers?

http://hartzman.blogspot.com/2012/01/trojan-horse-scam-aquatic-and.html

Winning...

EpiPen

"The EpiPen isn’t new; it has been in use since 1977. Research and development costs were recouped long ago. Nine years ago, it was bought by the pharmaceutical company Mylan, which then began to sell the device. When Mylan bought it, EpiPens cost about $57 each.

Few competitors existed, and for various reasons, that has remained the case. The device actually worked and saved lives. People needed it. Mylan raised the price. It also began to raise awareness.

"Raise the price" is sure a decent description... 

if you consider a 500% increase a "raise"...

Why?

No competition.

Or is there?

...You can buy these over the counter virtually anywhere in Europe for about $20 each.  You can buy insulin over the counter in France for about the same price for a month's worth of supply.

And yet if you bring just one of either back over said border with you then you are breaking the law.

Many/most or our elected officials are complicit

...note very carefully that absent government force it is blatantly illegal under 15 USC, with a ten year per count felony prison term, to attempt to monopolize, restrain trade or price-fix.  Therefore it is only because of the explicit, intentional and outrageous conduct of your own government that you are getting raped like this on a literal daily basis, and this issue, as I've repeatedly pointed out is not limited to EpiPens -- in fact, Mylan has raised prices on dozens of off-patent, generic medications by about the same 500% in the last few years and the only reason they get away with any of it is the above use of government force.

...That is exactly where they, and all of Congress, damn well ought to be facing right here, right now.

If you want to know why medical care is so expensive and you need the fraud called "insurance", if you want to know why Obamacare was "sold" to people and is now going to collapse, if you want to know why Medicare and Medicaid were sold as "necessary" and yet continue to bankrupt the nation the answer is right here.

You are paying roughly five times what virtually everything ought to cost when it comes to medicine, and the reason you are paying it is because every firm and person in the business either is wantonly violating the law (and nobody ever gets indicted or goes to prison despite doing so) or even worse they've conspired with the government so they can enforce what is an otherwise-illegal act of restraint of trade under penalty of throwing your ass in jail instead of theirs and yet the're still quite-arguably violating the law themselves!.."

http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=231480

"...the most fabulously overpriced health care system in the world delivers notably poor life expectancy outcomes"...

"...the driver of the high cost of end of life care often amounts to “Insert tube, extract rents” of sheer looting.

The press will occasionally feature stories about how an aged parent goes into a hospital or other institutional setting, and despite the relatives having a medical power of attorney plus clear, legally well documented instructions that the patient does not want high cost interventions with limited life extension potential, that the medical professionals come close to or actually do threaten the family with litigation if they attempt to remove the patient or restrict care.

Another issue for patients is the way that they’ve been conditioned to believe that Something Can Be Done when they have a condition that is pretty much a permanent impairment. This is particularly common with orthopedic procedures [who've] been over-treated for no or negative benefit.

"...the US spends far more on health than any other country, yet the life expectancy of the American population is not longer but actually shorter than in other countries that spend far less..

The graph shows the relationship between what a country spends on health per person and life expectancy in that country between 1970 and 2014 for a number of rich countries.

...the US stands out as the the country is following a much flatter trajectory; gains in life expectancy from additional health spending in the U.S. were much smaller than in the other high-income countries, particularly since the mid-1980s.

...In the US health spending per capita is often more than three-times higher than in other rich countries, yet the populations of countries with much lower health spending than the US enjoy considerably longer lives. In the most extreme case we see that Americans spend 5-times more than Chileans, but the population of Chile actually lives longer than Americans.;

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/08/the-link-between-health-spending-and-life-expectancy-the-us-is-an-outlier.html

...administrative costs in the health sector are higher in the US than in other countries;

...One of the reasons for the underachievement of the US is the large inequality in health spending. The chart above showed that average per capita spending on health is exceptionally high, but the average does not tell you about how much each individual in the US receives. The US healthcare system is characterized by little access to care for some and very high expenditure on health by others.

The following graph shows this inequality. The top 5% of spenders accounts for almost half of all health care spending in the US.

...The data corresponds to ‘personal healthcare services’, in the sense that they exclude administrative costs, research, capital investments and many other public and private programs such as school health and worksite wellness.

Ed Cone and Andrew Brod's Legacy, part 13; Aetna out of North Carolina ACA

http://greensboroperformingarts.blogspot.com/2016/08/ed-cone-and-andrew-brods-legacy-part-13.html

"Senior Obama administration officials" "no legal basis" "illegal" "unlawful" "contrived" 2013 "unappropriated" $7 billion payments to Obamacare insurers

http://greensboroperformingarts.blogspot.com/2016/07/senior-obama-administration-officials.html

Textbooks, Tuition, Child and Health Care is Theft

http://greensboroperformingarts.blogspot.com/2016/08/textbooks-tuition-child-and-health-care.html

The Healthcare Industry is a legal racket

http://greensboroperformingarts.blogspot.com/2016/08/the-healthcare-industry-is-legal-racket.html

How about Ed Cone and Andrew Brod explain why North Carolina's 20.6% Obamacare premium growth

http://greensboroperformingarts.blogspot.com/2016/08/how-about-ed-cone-and-andrew-brod.html

Ed Cone on Cone Health's success at stealing from patients and bankrupting families within our local overpriced healthcare monopoly

http://greensboroperformingarts.blogspot.com/2016/08/ed-cone-on-cone-healths-success-at.html

"Break the medical monopolies"

http://greensboroperformingarts.blogspot.com/2016/05/break-medical-monopolies.html

UnitedHealth won't sell individual ACA plans for 2017 in North Carolina

Doctors need to make less

Medical device makers need to make less

Hospitals

Big Pharma

The legalized theft by the above needs to stop

They are bankrupting America's middle class to line their pockets with the help of all the politicians they bought

If you didn't make any money on it, you have been robbed

http://greensboroperformingarts.blogspot.com/2016/04/unitedhealth-wont-sell-individual-aca.html

"Blue Cross projects $400M loss in NC on ACA in just 2 years"

http://greensboroperformingarts.blogspot.com/2016/02/andrew-brods-legacy-blue-cross-projects.html

ACA premiums in NC to rise sharply in 2016; Thanks Andrew Brod

http://greensboroperformingarts.blogspot.com/2015/11/aca-premiums-in-nc-to-rise-sharply-in.html

Textbooks, Tuition, Child and Health Care is Theft

Ed Cone and Andrew Brod's Legacy, part 13; Aetna out of North Carolina ACA

"...Aetna announced Monday it will stop selling individual plans through the ACA next year in 11 of the 15 states where it had been participating, including North Carolina and South Carolina.

...Aetna, which sold individual health insurance coverage in 39 North Carolina counties, has said it expects to lose $300 million on plans sold through the ACA. Aetna will continue to sell individual health insurance in North Carolina, but not through the ACA marketplace.

While health insurance premiums increase almost every year, losing Aetna and United will leave consumers with few choices in 2017, insurance brokers and agents said.

...Aetna’s decision is the latest blow to President Barack Obama’s signature domestic policy. While the ACA has brought coverage to millions – and reduced the number of uninsured North Carolinians by nearly a half million, the new markets have proven volatile for some of the largest insurers.

UnitedHealthcare, the nation’s largest insurer, announced this spring that it would shrink its ACA participation in 2017 to only a few states because it expects losses from that business nationwide to total more than $1 billion for 2015 and 2016.

Blue Cross, the state’s biggest insurer, has lost about $1 billion on ACA plans in the past two years, but the losses were reduced to $405 million after compensation from federally-created assistance programs...

"Senior Obama administration officials" "no legal basis"

 "illegal" "unlawful" "contrived" 2013 "unappropriated" 

$7 billion payments to Obamacare insurers

...[North Carolina's] insurance department approved a 32.5 percent rate increase for Blue Cross for 2016 as the company reeled from expenses incurred by sicker and older customers on ACA policies.

Earlier this year, [NC] warned federal health officials that the ACA has destabilized the state’s insurance market...

...the law is driving up insurance costs, reducing consumer options and generating unsustainable financial losses for the insurers...

Next year will be the fourth year for the Affordable Care Act markets that officials touted as a way to provide affordable options for individuals who aren’t covered by employer-sponsored plans...

“People coming in with expiring Aetna plans (will be) getting a depressing sticker-shock price increase when Blue Cross is the only offering,”...

...about 95 percent of the policies he sold through the ACA were with Aetna because Aetna’s least expensive plans were $300 to $400 a month cheaper than the least expensive Blue Cross plans.

...agents said they won’t be surprised if Blue Cross drops out of the individual health insurance market too.

...some ...will have to choose whether to pay the premium or pay the fine for not having insurance. For tax year 2017, the fine is 2.5 percent of total household adjusted gross income, or $695 per adult and $347.50 per child, to a maximum of $2,085.

...a policy with a premium of $1,200 per month, but after the subsidy, the customer paid $52 a month. The policy had a $5,000 deductible, so each time the customer went to the doctor, until he met the high deductible, he would have had to pay the full price.

“He said, ‘I’ve got to pay $52 a month and I still can’t go to the doctor?’ And we the taxpayers were fortunate enough to pay $1,150 a month (the subsidy) for a man to get insurance but he couldn’t even go to the doctor.…That is ridiculous,”...

http://www.greensboro.com/ap/business/aetna-s-move-to-drop-n-c-insurance-market-will/article_8d59a1d3-7362-5c35-a6ee-66e155e6ee70.html
.
.
How about Ed Cone and Andrew Brod explain why North Carolina's 20.6% Obamacare premium growth

http://greensboroperformingarts.blogspot.com/2016/08/how-about-ed-cone-and-andrew-brod.html

Ed Cone on Cone Health's success at stealing from patients and bankrupting families within our local overpriced healthcare monopoly

http://greensboroperformingarts.blogspot.com/2016/08/ed-cone-on-cone-healths-success-at.html

"Break the medical monopolies"

http://greensboroperformingarts.blogspot.com/2016/05/break-medical-monopolies.html

UnitedHealth won't sell individual ACA plans for 2017 in North Carolina

Doctors need to make less

Medical device makers need to make less

Hospitals

Big Pharma

The legalized theft by the above needs to stop

They are bankrupting America's middle class to line their pockets with the help of all the politicians they bought

If you didn't make any money on it, you have been robbed

http://greensboroperformingarts.blogspot.com/2016/04/unitedhealth-wont-sell-individual-aca.html

"Blue Cross projects $400M loss in NC on ACA in just 2 years"

http://greensboroperformingarts.blogspot.com/2016/02/andrew-brods-legacy-blue-cross-projects.html

ACA premiums in NC to rise sharply in 2016; Thanks Andrew Brod

http://greensboroperformingarts.blogspot.com/2015/11/aca-premiums-in-nc-to-rise-sharply-in.html

Andrew Brod And Allen Johnson Call Commissioner Conrad A Wacko Conspiracy Theorist

On August 13, 2016, Guilford County Commissioner Justin Conrad posted the above to his Facebook pageThose who click on the link will see it got quite a bit of conversation including some very abstract explanations from N&R Editors Allen Johnson and Doug Clark.



On August 15, 2016 we see the following post by Allen Johnson:

 To which the famed local UNCG Economist and N&R Editor promptly open mouths and insert feet?

Don't worry, Folks, we'll not be pulling this off-line... ever. And we here at EzGreensboro.com hope you'll share it so everyone can see what goes on when they think no one is watching or no one cares.

Andrew Brod gets paid a lot of money to be right in his opinions. Unfortunately, Andrew Brod has a long history of being wrong in his opinions and a vast body of work in which to prove it.

 
Update: Allen Johnson digs himself a deeper hole:

Not too bright, those college boys.

If I Were Mayor Of Greensboro: Part 22

This is part of an ongoing series of posts that begins with If I Were Mayor Of Greensboro and is linked in succession back to here. If you haven't already I recommend you read them all.

Today I want to share with you a Facebook post by a North Carolina teacher named Anca Stefan and tell you what I would do as Mayor of Greensboro to help to solve the problem:

"They picked me up last. 

They tied my wrists together behind my back, and scooped me up by the elbows. 

When I was a child, I'd seen my grandmother pick up hens that way, gathering their wings into one hand, with speed and force, before she made them into soup for dinner. 

There was no more space in the two vans they'd sent for us, so they pushed me into a separate police car by myself. My crime was that, along with 13 other educators from all across the state, I'd formed a human chain that, for 20 minutes at rush hour, cut diagonally through the intersection of Morgan and Fayetteville Streets, in front of Governor McCrory's office. 

When the governor, again, failed to prioritize my students' suffering, I blocked traffic in protest.
When despite a well-publicized request, our governor disrespected our profession by refusing to meet with leading educators in a civil dialog about the wellbeing of our state's children, I stood in protest.
I stood in protest of the neglect Governor McCrory has continuously shown our children. Repeatedly refusing to address kids' most urgent needs and returning, unbothered, to campaigning for another term in office, was an unconscionable reality to me - so I refused to move. 

(I didn't start in that intersection.

Over the past 4 years, I'd spoken out many times about the alarming conditions my students have to fight their way through in order to learn. 

When I say our schools lack basic supplies, I mean paper - both printing paper and toilet paper -, whiteboard markers, working computers, science lab materials, equipment for art or gym class. 

We don't have textbooks in history class.
We don't have textbooks in history class.
We don't have textbooks in history class.
I've taught World and U.S. history without a textbook for the past 4 years.
My students can only receive medical care if they get injured Tuesday morning between 9 and 12 because we have a part time nurse.
My students need school counselors and psychologists to teach them how to process their emotions in healthy ways during the overwhelming time of their adolescence; they don't need armed guards in uniform to throw them around and dehumanize them. 

A week before the day Mr. McCrory had me arrested, I'd spoken to the press about the suffering of thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of our students. I'd listed conditions of abject poverty, and of continued loss of resources, stability and security in the daily lives of our youth.
Alongside many other professional educators in my state, I'd asked for an hour of the Governor's time, and promised that we'd march on foot from our classrooms to his office to prove our dedication to meeting with him and working together in the interest of our students.
We did exactly as promised.
60-some people of all ages, from all over North Carolina, took to walking along highways, in the high heat of mid-June, to meet with our Governor.
I walked next to incredible people - law-abiding, polite, compassionate educators and parents.
I walked beside a 23-year classroom veteran teacher.
I walked with 14-year old former student.
I walked next to a dear colleague and her 12-year old son who marched every single mile his mother and his teachers marched and never once complained.
I walked beside so many people who are so important in the lives of so many younger folks, and I carried with me the names and memories of so many of my students. 

Along the way, cars stopped to thank us, churches opened their doors and blessed us with good food and beds overnight, friends called, emailed or texted us with words of support and gratitude.
None of that support and none of the richness we carried with us mattered to Governor McCrory at 5 on Wednesday. He didn't come. He didn't invite us in for a glass of water the way Souther hospitality would have anyone treat people who've journeyed on foot for 23 miles in the summer heat.
Instead, Mr. McCrory locked his doors before 5. We know because we knocked on every single one.)

When they put me in the arrest car, my body was shaking.
I felt guilty for being nervous because, unlike so many others, I had a team. My child was cared for and safe, and they had not used force to subdue my body or spirit.
But I could not stop shaking. I could not stop my handcuffs from cutting into my twisted wrists. I could not stop from feeling like my existence was only a subject of good fortune -- not a guarantee, not a right.
I felt the way I do at takeoff on a plane - that no matter my accomplishments, my intentions, my talents, the only thing that matters is gravity: if we fall, we fall, and there's no defending against it, there's no argument to be made for my life.
And yet, at my most vulnerable, I was safer than our kids.

Inside the jail I was first to go through fingerprinting and searches.
The officer who processed me, said that what I'd done sounded like the noblest thing anyone's been arrested for. The one next to him said his mother and his sister were both teachers, and he thanked me in their name. I teach their kids. We love the same people. And here we were, forced to stand on opposing sides of a wall, all of us feeling none of this was just. 

I sat down next to two girls. They were my students' age. At 16 and 17, they had just finished their sophomore and junior years in high school and they could've been my students.
We talked and they thanked us for standing up for them.
They were scared. They were alone. They'd been picked up for something stupid, they said, for something they were embarrassed to tell me about. They were humble and sweet, honest and young.
I asked them if they felt they had everything they needed to learn in their schools. One of them laughed at the question, the other hang her head, shaking it softly in resignation. They told me how they can't study at home because there are no textbooks, and they don't have wi-fi. They told me how their teachers point them to the public library, but how nobody seemed to understand they didn't have reliable transportation.
That's why I'd gotten arrested - because these kids didn't belong here. Because they were only here for being poor and Black in a state where their existence is only a subject of good fortune - not a guarantee, not a right. Their lives were being attacked, and they were being punished for believing what they'd been taught - that they didn't matter, that they didn't deserve. They had been given no chance to defend their lives, no chance to argue for the value of their lives.
They had been scooped up by the tips of their wings, with haste and force, and they'd been thrown into this place, to be made into nothing. 

I saw them again, on my way to the magistrate's office in the jail. They were sitting next to each other, more tired and colder now, alone in that freezing room with metal benches, hungry and scared of being abandoned, unable to reach anyone who could come free them. I felt so helpless and so angry at my helplessness. These were my students, my kids, and I would block 100 intersections to get them the warmth and food and books that they deserve.

Why, Governor McCrory - why is it so controversial to argue that ‪#‎StudentsDeserveMore‬ ? Why do you paint us as dangerous when the only thing we want to do is teach our students so that they can learn?

SUPPORT OUR WORK:
Learn more about ORGANIZE 2020 at http://www.organize2020.com/donate/ and give if you can."

As Mayor of Greensboro I will not be able to solve North Carolina's education problems but if I were elected Mayor of Greensboro I would see to it that Greensboro goes full steam ahead to built the free City wide CityFi Wireless System the City of Greensboro has already paid for the exclusive rights to use.

After all, what good are those free laptops given away by the Guilford County Schools if Greensboro's students can't connect them to the Internet?

In If I Were Mayor Of Greensboro: Part 23 we'll discuss City employee retirement packages.

Matheny. Lomax, Hammer, Barber and Vaughan; Greensboro is Corrupt; An Adaptation as our press has been compromised

"Four qualities have distinguished republican government from ancient Athens forward: the sovereignty of the people; a sense of the common good; government dedicated to the commonwealth; and resistance to corruption.

It was okay Allen Johnson and the News and Record

and John Hammer and Roy's Rhino

for Zack to have pushed for Tom Phillips

as Matheny's replacement

to vote for Zack's salary at DGI 

while Tom was dating Zack's mom.

Measured against the standards established for republics from ancient times, Greensboro's government is massively corrupt.

From Plato and Aristotle forward, corruption was meant to describe actions and decisions that put a narrow, special, or personal interest ahead of the interest of the public or commonwealth.

Like Roy Carroll's Water and Sewer 

for his AMEX data center under the table incentive

which the News and Record didn't and won't report.

Corruption did not have to stoop to money under the table, vote buying, or even renting out the Lincoln bedroom. In the governing of a republic, corruption was self-interest placed above the interest of all—the public interest.

By that standard, can anyone seriously doubt that Greensboro's government is corrupt?

It was okay for Nancy Hoffmann 

to vote for some taxpayer money

for her real estate and business partners

and compete for DGI's taxpayer subsidized lease
which she voted to fund.

There has never been a time when Greensboro's government was so perversely and systematically dedicated to special interests, earmarks, side deals, log-rolling, vote-trading and sweetheart deals of one kind or another.

Zack Matheny guiding incentives to his contributors
Sam Simpson and John Lomax
who are also good friends of his.

What brought us to this? A sinister system combining staggering campaign costs, political contributions, political action committees, special interest payments for access, and, most of all, the rise of the lobbying class.

Ivan Saul Cutler, Roy Carroll, Andrew Brod, Amanda Lehmert

Marty Kotis, David McLean, David Craft etc...

Greensboro's law firms, 'non-profit' lobbyists and compromised news outlets of the right, left, and an amalgam of both, now take on former members of the press, City executives, Council members and connected staff members.

It's okay for Greensboro's Mayor Nancy Vaughan 

to cover for Don's White Street landfill methane income

from Wilbur Ross' ITG

which the Rhino and News and Record won't report.

The key word is not quid-pro-quo bribery, the key word is access. In exchange for a few moments of City Council's and many more moments of Greensboro's executive management's time, fund-raising events with the promise of thousands of dollars are delivered.

It is okay for Mike Barber to abuse his position

to get taxpayer funded golf course time from which he personally profits
voted for by his fellow Council Members
who apparently think Mike's Melvin funded skimming is a good idea.

Corruption such as ours operates vertically as well as horizontally. Seeing how business is conducted in Greensboro, it did not take long for the connected of both parties to subscribe to the desires of special-interests like Roy Carroll, Marty Kotis and Jim Melvin.

Andrew Brod's involvement in misleading GPAC endevours, 

asking for a loan for a mattress recycling company

and then asking for CityFi money along with Roch Smith Jr.,

who helps Candidates for money.

Frustrated, irate discussions of this legalized corruption are met in the News and Record and Rhino Times with a shrug.  So what?  Didn’t we just have dinner with Mark Brazil, David Powell and Jim Melvin at that well-known RLF lobbyist's house whose husband covers City politics only two nights ago?  Fine lady, and she used to cover the City and the State for the same paper.

The News and Record's Joe Killian's wife Amanda Lehmert

now works at Monty Hagler's RLF communications, 

indirectly funded by Greensboro City Council votes

covered in the press by her husband.

I gather she is using her Rolodex rather skillfully on behalf of her new clients.

Illegal?   Not at all.   Just smart . . . and so charming.

There is little wonder that Greensboro's middle and bottom are apoplectic at their government and absolutely, and rightly, convinced that the game of government is rigged in favor of the elite and the powerful.  Few in our City can see the wealth rising to the top at the expense of the poor and the middle class, as our press is in on the game.

Our tax dollars are going to well-organized corporate welfare parasites, real estate developers/landlords and campaign contributors.

It was okay for Mike Barber and Zack Matheny 

to break the law to get Zack his DGI job
without repercussion from Guilford County DA Doug Henderson.

The ultimate victims of the corruption of the democratic process are not defeated candidates and parties but Greensboro’s citizens.

Whomever has enough money to purchase a Greensboro City Council candidate from the endless reserve bench of 'want to be' politicians and make him or her a star, a mouthpiece for any cause or purpose however questionable, and that candidate will mouth the script in endless political debates and through as many television spots as their patrons/contributors are willing to pay for.

Marty Kotis and his millions in benefits
voted for by his purchased City Council minions
whose faces will soon occupy his and Roy Carroll's billboards
with campaign signs on their commercial properties 
all over the city.

The bought-and-paid-for Greensboro's City Council members should wear sponsor labels on their suits as stock-car drivers do.  Though, for the time being, sponsored candidates will not be openly promoted by Roy Carroll and friends but by phony “committees for good government PAC” smokescreens and garbage journalism.

The City's population has swallowed the messages of public relations, advertising, and lobbying outfits, along with dozens of smaller players of Greensboro's lucrative special interest and influence-manipulation scene.

Shovel Ready Loans for Samet and David Howard.

Why pay for a Councilman here or there when you can buy a newspaper which endorses who you want, and takes campaign cash for advertising in exchange?

Roy Carroll and his millions in benefits
voted for by his purchased City Council minions. 

Think of the protection from scrutiny that can be paid for and the economic incentive policies that can be manipulated.

Jim Melvin and the Megasite
voted for by his purchased City Council minions.

Dawn Chaney and Nancy Hoffmann's Iron Hen/Lee Comer money.

Marty Kotis' free street and illegally obtained water and sewer.

Roy Carroll's free street and water and sewer

We have gone way beyond mere vote buying now.

The converging Public-Private Partnership con represents nothing less than an unofficial but enormously powerful fourth branch of government, which is Greensboro's connected elite.

Jim Melvin's Megasite deal,

of which Mayor Nancy Vaughan refuses to disclose details 

of which private interests stand to profit.

To whom is this branch of government accountable?  Who sets the agenda for its rising army of influence marketers?  How easy will it be to not only go from office to a lucrative lobbying job but, more important, from lucrative lobbying job to holding office?

Zack Matheny

America’s founders knew one thing: The republics of history all died when narrow interests overwhelmed the common good and the interests of the commonwealth.

Welcome to Greensboro's Vanity politics and campaigns-for-hire featuring candidates who repeat their sponsored messages like ice-cream-truck vendors passing through the neighborhood.

Mayor Nancy Vaughan

Greensboro's mayor Nancy Vaughan responds to her patron's contributions with compliant legislative action doling out taxpayer monies to cronies with the help of City Manager Jim Westmoreland.

The scope and scale of this genuine scandal is absolutely incompatible with the principles and ideals upon which America was founded.

How can public service be promoted as an ideal to young people when this sewer corrupts our City?

The greatest service our City’s young people could provide is to lead an army of outraged youth armed with brooms on a crusade to sweep out the rascals and rid our government of the money changers, rent seekers, revolving door dancers, and special interest deal makers and power brokers and send them packing.

For all practical political purposes, the government of Greensboro is for sale to the highest bidder.

It is impossible to claim to love one’s City and not be outraged at how corrupt it has become. For former Council-members to trade a title given them by the voters for cash is beyond shameful.

It is outrageous.

Mike Barber, whose grossly over-sized personal profits from First Tee,

the City of Greensboro and Jim Melvin's Bryan Foundation 

has never been reported by the News and Record,

the Rhino Times, Triad City Beat or Yes Weekly.

It is an error of serious proportion to dismiss this corruption on the grounds that this has all been going on from the beginning, that boys will be boys, that politicians are always on the take. Past incidents of the violation of public ethics provide no argument for accepting the systemic and cancerous commercialization of our politics.

Nancy Hoffmann

Political office, public service, and engagement in governance must not be monetized.  Even if no laws are broken, even if a public servant can walk out the door one day and cash in his or her experience and title for cash the next, that does not make it right.

Everything strictly legal is not therefore ethical.

Monty Hagler

Virtue as applied to public service is a powerful standard. It genuinely does require having no personal interest in the public’s business, not only at the time one is involved in decision making but also thereafter.

Zack Matheny 

Virtue, the disinterestedness of our elected officials, must replace political careerism and special interests. The best interests of Greensboro must replace struggles for power, bitter partisanship, and ideological rigidity.

Nancy and Don Vaughan's White Street Landfill methane
never reported by any Greensboro for-profit news outlet.

This is not dreamy idealism; it is an idealism rooted in the original purpose of this nation.

Bad politics drives out good politics.  Legalized corruption drives men and women of stature, honor, and dignity out of the halls of government.

Roch Smith Jr. and Andrew Brod

Self-respecting individuals cannot long tolerate a system of election and reelection so dependent on cultivating the favor of those known to expect access in return.  Such a system is corrosive to our community's soul.

Campaign funds now go to feed an army of consultants (or “strategists” in the coinage of the day), media advisors, media producers, television-time buyers, speechwriters, schedulers, advance specialists and crowd raisers.  Almost all of the money goes to the media, the same media whose commentators regularly deplore the costs of campaigns, and then endorse whomever is electable, compliant and spent the most for advertising.

If the News and Record 

has been misleading Greensboro's population on redistricting,

what difference does it make if there is a referendum or not,

if they lie and omit, like multiple times before

to rig the outcome of the vote?

Major changes must be made in the way we elect our leaders."

http://time.com/3937860/gary-hart-america-corruption/