Saturday, January 16, 2010

Our Country can't see it's own Crisis!


I was saddened to see all the pictures of Haiti. That country has been in such turmoil for so long and this catastrophe is just unimaginable. Our country ran to aid them. We sent troupes and I hear 100 million dollars worth of help. I am glad to see this type of humanitarian efforts. We may be able to provide some relief while rebuilding the infrastructure of this country. This could actually be a turning point to come out of this devastation with a positive new beginning. The loss of lives would at the least bring something good to the people who survived if the help that comes their way can truly rebuild and dramatically change the current woes of this country. With all that said I feel like our country is in denial about it's own situation. Sending all this help and money is like having your neighbor who in the midst of bankruptcy giving you a gift of money! How can we save the world if we don't save ourselves first! Why can't we look at what is going on in this country, loss of jobs and homes, corporate corruption, health care for only the lucky and rich, and loss of retirement benefits just to mention a few. We need to see our country as if it were in a crisis too. There is an email going around that really seemed to make some sense. It said that there are 40 million people over the age of 50. If the government gave each of those people one million dollars under the following conditions we could fix our own problems.
1. Must retire this would open 40 million jobs fixing the employment crisis.
2. Must buy an American made car. Auto industry fixed!
3. Must pay off mortgage or buy a house. Housing crisis fixed!
4. Every American to get the same health care coverage, health care crisis fixed
This would cost 4 trillion dollars. We spent 3 trillion to bail out the banks. Wouldn't you rather see this happen? You know that it would actually work!
Back to health care. I think it should be a right just like and education (to grade twelve) is a right in this country. Maybe we need regulation? The hospitals are making huge money while bankrupting it's clients! Isn't that somehow a humanitarian crime.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hey, Sandy - I wanted to comment on the "government retirement" blog that you posted.

I worked for the State of Ohio for 28 years. 14% of my pay check every month went into my retirement account. It was matched by my employer.

So, my "government" retirement is no different from your 401K -- it's my money that was invested during the time I was working.

The problem -- greedy governments have begun tapping MY money to use it for other purposes, putting my retirement in jeopardy.

The solution - keep the government's hands out of MY retirement, then nobody will have to bail anybody out.

Kaye Grospitch