August 02, 2012

Invention           

One day, a few decades ago, I had a little invention, only it turned out later that a Swiss engineer had had it first. patented it and sold it in EU. Several countries, mainly the Scandinavian ones, had made use of it.  It enabled them to generate electricity as a fringe benefit of heating their homes with natural gas, cutting the total cost nearly in half, but what spoke to them most was that the homes pretty nearly totally insured each other against power failure. It would have saved not only the money, but also precious fuel. I tried to interest MGE in promoting the idea for Madison, but they weren’t up for it. I never really understood it, but it might have had something to do with their investment in the new grid. 

Maybe they were more interested in a bigger profit than in serving the needs of the public. Today, whenever the weather or an accident causes a power outage, I feel sorry that the People are suffering the needless loss.  When private profit stands in the way of pubic needs, we are all the victims of institutionalized Greed. The Scandinavian democratic socialists are much better at putting new technology into the service of the People.

July 27, 2012

Perjury             

The controversy over Romney’s false statements on federal forms has become quite toxic over whether his knowingly false

statements to the SEC constituted perjury, which would surely be a

crime, very likely a felony.  Those of us who have applied for federal grants are familiar with the warning that false claims

intended to mislead federal officials could constitute that crime,

and all are familiar with a similar warning on the annual income tax form.  It seems apparent that there were such misstatements by

Romney on several SEC forms, and the question of whether they

were deliberate is one that might well be decided by a jury. So Mr. Romney’s huffing and puffing amount to the claim that anyone as

rich and important as he is must be above that law, despite the fact

that a naïve appraisal of his behavior could well arouse suspicion of a deliberate deception. In that case, his claim to be above

suspicion rings with a similarity to the claim that banking

improprieties must be ignored because the banks are too big to fail. So Romney’s claim to be above the law on perjury is like the

bankers’ claim on the right to clearly illegally mistreat their

customers. The claim that being rich and important gives Romney the right to lie under oath plainly disqualifies him from any office of trust in our Democracy

Medicaid - July 5th, 2012

Medicaid                          WORT                                    A. Beck                                        7/5/2012

Today WI, like all other states, has been required by the newly confirmed health law to make provision for certain groups in the structure of Medicaid for those whose incomes are below the poverty line to have health insurance at the Federal expense and also the same for those between poverty and 130% of that to have it with payment of 90% from Uncle Sam. The latter number drops to 80% after 2 years.  Fortunately, WI has a perfect model to follow in the health insurance provision for State employees. Those familiar with that program know that the cost to the State and the participants is quite modest compared to modest-sized group insurance plans, and the service is excellent. If the state would open the employees’ plan or copy it for companies that would pay all the remaining costs, if any, that would be an excellent pattern for meeting the Medicaid needs.  Of course, it appears that would not meet the ideology of the billionaires that own Scott Walker, so he is holding off enacting any program there until he knows who will be the President in about 6 months.  Meanwhile, some of those not yet covered will become ill, some of those seriously, and some of those might die while Walker awaits the orders from his masters.  The health, and even

the lives, of the little people, some of whom were foolish enough to vote  for him, are obviously a matter of no concern to the puppet of the billionaires.