When your policies are death and destruction, just talk about freedom and democracy. What else can they do? Talk about finishing the job in Palestine? Talk about bombing more countries? They only have platitudes, and I will be shocked if that nonsense works on anyone.
The number of drugs with negotiated prices available will accumulate over time. Believe me, there will be loopholes. One of the first drugs is Eliquis, a blood thinner by our friends from Pfizer which is used primarily for Afib of the heart.
Afib has increased since Covid, some blame Covid, others blame the vaccine for heart issues. Doesn't matter what your take is on that. Pfizer's got it covered!
I take Eliquis for this condition and it is expensive once you reach "the donut hole" in Part D for prescription drug prices. There is no generic available through Medicare plans, although there is a generic available and used in Canada. I was told this by a pharmacist, who said that that was due to previous negotiations with Medicare that there would be no substitute ( generic ). So there you have it on how the negotiations might go in the future.
I agree with Bill in Criticizing Biden’s poorly written pitch letter as I also received one.
But TomG ‘s typical hollow MAGA response does not consider facts: (1) In 2023 the economy grew 3.1 %. (2) Inflation fell from a Trump/Republican high of 9.1% to 3.4% in November of ‘23. (3) Unemployment fell to 3.7% in January, 2024. (4) Consumer confidence went up 29% from the disastrous Trump years.
Grocery prices need to come down and Biden needs to put pressure on the Corporates for this.
The devil is in the details, though, Dennis. Take the unemployment figure, for example: it only counts new claims filed. It doesn't include:
- people who've fallen off the rolls after exhausting benefits
- people who've had to settle for part-time or contract positions or gig work
- people who've had to accept big wage cuts to get (or, sometimes, keep) jobs; as in, going from corporate middle management to big-box-store clerk
- people who've had to forego benefits to get a job, or keep a job
- people who've been down-sized due to age bias and can't find anything else for the same reason
- people who have to work multiple jobs to survive
- new grads who've never been in the workforce, so can't file claims, even if they can't find jobs
I have no idea how many people fall into the above categories. There have been four in the last several years, just among my small circle, so I'm guessing the true unemployed/underemployed numbers are significantly higher than the current statistic. That’s been true to some extent ever since the numbers began to be reported, but I'd bet the discrepancy is much larger now than it used to be.
I agree with you Denise. The picture is much brighter though than 4 years ago when the exact same things you identify were also happening. Those negatives have, and will be, present in any U S economy; it is just the way the game is played.
I honestly don't know if it's brighter now than four years ago, Dennis. For one thing, food was much cheaper then, relative to wages, at least from a personal observation. Our grocery bills have skyrocketed, while wages are flat. Not saying Biden is responsible for the increase, just stating a fact.
In terms of job hunting, four years ago, employers were still generally offering decent benefits. Conditions were tightening, but not like now. There was a lot of talk about workers' having a great deal of leverage during the pandemic. If that was the case, I didn't see it anywhere I went. Now, it's absolutely crazy---"We're hiring," signs are everywhere, but pay, working conditions, and benefits are horrible. I realize this is anecdotal, but I got an offer to work 37.5 hours a week, with no benefits whatsoever, not even paid holidays, and was told up front I'd have to agree to never request to move even laterally in the organization, let alone attempt to move up. I know that's not an isolated example, and I've gotten more than one such hitherto unheard-of offer. Again, though, purely local and anecdotal to me, but not, I suspect, unusual these days.
What kind of an employer would want employees who would accept no promotion opportunities? Not even a lateral move? You'd truly have to be desperate to accept those terms--and I guess more than a few people are.
Their stated rationale was that it took a long time to train a hiree for that position, and even longer for the person to be really good at the job, so they didn't want to have to keep going through the process. It sorta, kinda, made sense, IF the benefits would have been good. But to expect someone to work essentially full-time, plus commuting time, at a responsible job, for $15 an hour and zero benefits??? Uh, no. I really wanted the job itself, and needed it, but fortunately, wasn't totally desperate. Evidently, they did find someone who was more needy than I was, because the posting came down. BTW, it was considered a county job. But they told me I wouldn't be able to participate in the county employees' pension plan!
One of the ~ and the weakest~ possible objection to voting "None Of These Candidates: could be from those who would claim that NOTC would undercut efforts by Third, Fourth, Fifth, etc Parties to have a real impact in elections, and thus government and governance, by taking support and votes away from them, their candidates, and their agendas.
At this point~ and with very, very few exceptions as far as actually, really impacting the outcome of any election over the past 120 years~ any votes for any and all Third Party Candidates are essentially wasted, other than providing the voter with the personal satisfaction of voting her or his conscience, and of, somehow, "sending a message." That is a principal reason that the Puling Political Class would be so quick to claim it.
And in present day America, no Third Party built on any particular ideology and focused on any specific issues, by itself, is in a position to have any effective impact whatsoever on any election whatsoever, let alone on how the government is run after the election.
If, on the other hand, NOTC was a choice on all ballots; and if all Third Party voters would add their vote to all those Americans who reject both of the major party's candidates by voting NOTC; and if the RPC had to then go back to the drawing board for another election with different candidates and a different set of promises: If all that happened, Third Partiers would have a much bigger say in how things are run in this country than they do now, or have ever had in the past.
Fear and hatred are effective organizing principles. Recall the 2-minute hate sessions in George Orwell's "1984". Talking points should be limited as to fit on a bumper sticker, if anyone can remember what those were.
Politics and Religion always "Send more Money" More like the Man/ Myth; Kamala & Joe Biden Staggering forward to me! Happy Groundhog Day!--Looking forward to that early Spring prognostication...
Good thing I haven't eaten yet today. Seeing those two framing themselves as some MLK Jr torch bearings would have brought my eggs right back up! And as for “let’s finish the job," if they mean turning the US into a complete bankrupt and pariah state, then I have every confidence in the Biden team.
One merely has to look at the fact that Biden has been in Swampland since Nixon was President to know and understand where he is coming from and why he is still there.
There are a lot of real threats to US Nat'l Security (though none that I think of are caused by any foreign state). Yet probably none as serious or measurable as the unsustainable national debt that is in large part attributable to so-called "national defense" spending. And you're right- the bought politicians and MSM don't want to begin to discuss this because they're all in for 'whatever it takes' to try to maintain (and if possible, still expand) the Empire. Such spending and debt buildup is the biggest threat because it's not just theoretical (like, say, the imagined threat of military attack from China or Russia); but more akin to a mathematical inevitability. It isn't a question of IF; only one of when. And when the US loses its advantage of effective dollar hegemony, due both to the active efforts of BRICS nations and others to break free, the U.S. will no longer be able to just use the printing presses to insulate it from the effects of that debt.
The "Decline" of the American Empire has ended; and the "Fall" has begun.
And with the Fall of The Empire, so will fail the Experiment that was America: a democratically-elected Constitutional republic under a Rule of Law, before which all Human Beings ~ regardless of sex, age, race, wealth, sexuality, physical or mental infirmity, and political and/or religious views ~ all Human Beings are not only created Equal, but Are Equal, and treated as such.
Every Empire that has ever existed has ~ after peaking ~ begun the process of dying, and ultimately has died. Does American "exceptionalism" include that?
One of the Real Questions confronting every American still capable of thinking for her or himself needs to start asking themselves, their family and loved ones, their friends and neighbors, their colleagues, cohorts, and compeers is as follows:
Even as the Empire falls, can the Experiment be continued? And what changes to the current systems of government and governance of this nation need to be changed in order for the Experiment to continue?
And how are those changes to be brought about as The Empire ~ which the Experiment spawned ~ begins its Fall?
Jeff, your observations and questions are spot on. History suggests that all Empires are likely transient, and usually, a victim of their own success / excesses. Of course, an Empire's "fall" , is itself a process (i.e. someone/ thing is falling, and then, SPLAT - they / it has fallen (and maybe died). At any rate, our own observations suggest the Washington-centered Empire is in more rapid decline, with lots of moments when dissolution seems near if not imminent. I can't really speculate as to the timing of the moment when it is broadly recognized- especially internally- that we have been living in the middle of an Empire that has now fallen. Those closest to its center, i.e. those who've been managing it, are probably the last to recognize that its over; perhaps because they're so desperately engaged with trying to keep it from unraveling (and/or to keep it growing), which possibly explains why they're acting so desperately, denying the realities of changes in the world, resorting more frequently to brute force, all the while lying incessantly about their reasons for that brutality - even denying it.
You ask if the "American Experiment" can continue even as the Empire that it produced falls. Perhaps I don't fully grasp what the American Experiment was. I mean, I understand the ideals that we thought were embodied in the Constitution, which was somewhat a departure at its time (at least from the recognized nations). In varying degrees, those ideals were reflected in the improvements made via, for example, the Bill of Rights, and related legislation reflecting those democratic principles that include equal treatment under the law, "one person one vote", etc.
But as we've come to learn over time, there were also limits to democracy; seemingly deliberate impediments to democracy, the most obvious of which was perhaps the U.S. Senate- a concession to Southern landowners to overcome the "majority rule" that proportionate representation supported. And the framework seems, in retrospect to have almost guaranteed that concentrated private capital would ultimately result in a bought, unrepresentative government.
This begs the question: were those deficiencies also an intended part of the American Experiment?
But the main point of our questions seems to be, "What next, after the "splat" of the Empire?" Can we retain those best attributes and somehow reconfigure the systems to better implement the fine ideals that we've always thought we represented? And what would it take?
I confess, I can't see that far. I think the system (i.e. political/economic/social) is so corrupted that very many people if not most have lost any sense of empowerment needed to encourage the kinds of changes needed; As we've all noted, most of the voting electorate is hopelessly tied to one Party or another, convinced that they must be so in order to hold off the greater of evils. And they seem to be so petrified that they dare not hold their own to account or voice any displeasure or criticism.
But though I'm a realist and acknowledge that the trend lines are not hopeful for Americans, much less for the rest of humanity (or, indeed, much of the species with which we've co-evolved), I must say that there are glimpses, here and there, that give me some hope. I certainly have met plenty of younger people who have already (to some extent) chosen to live their values more closely; who consciously strive in their daily lives to foster community and to live responsibly, rejecting to a greater extent than their parents, perhaps, the abject materialism and status-seeking that were sold to most in my generation.
Among them are my two tenants- nearing-40s sisters, with whom I can happily mock Hillary or Genocide Joe, et al, and who, even as renters have established themselves in their community, consciously supporting the local, sharing, etc.
It's that spirit and such examples that give me some bits of hopefulness amid the frequent reminders of social dysfunction and the sense of societal devolution.
Do we simply have to await and accept what seems to be the inevitable? Maybe, but i still have other seeds of hope that perhaps as conditions begin to deteriorate enough that people are shocked out of their comfort zones, maybe they will learn to work together to use what I think are our only remaining powers to organize and 'perturb' the system enough to force changes before it totally collapses of its own weight.
When your policies are death and destruction, just talk about freedom and democracy. What else can they do? Talk about finishing the job in Palestine? Talk about bombing more countries? They only have platitudes, and I will be shocked if that nonsense works on anyone.
Biden bragging about lowering drug prices for Medicare Part D is basically "BS". The first 10 drugs they chose aren't even being negotiated with the drug companies until 2026, two more years. The number of drugs subject to price negotiation will increase in future years: 15 Medicare Part D drugs for 2027, another 15 drugs covered under Medicare Part D or Part B for 2028, and another 20 drugs covered under Part D or Part B drugs for 2029 and later years. - https://www.kff.org/medicare/issue-brief/faqs-about-the-inflation-reduction-acts-medicare-drug-price-negotiation-program/#drugs_selected_for_price_negotiation
The number of drugs with negotiated prices available will accumulate over time. Believe me, there will be loopholes. One of the first drugs is Eliquis, a blood thinner by our friends from Pfizer which is used primarily for Afib of the heart.
Afib has increased since Covid, some blame Covid, others blame the vaccine for heart issues. Doesn't matter what your take is on that. Pfizer's got it covered!
I take Eliquis for this condition and it is expensive once you reach "the donut hole" in Part D for prescription drug prices. There is no generic available through Medicare plans, although there is a generic available and used in Canada. I was told this by a pharmacist, who said that that was due to previous negotiations with Medicare that there would be no substitute ( generic ). So there you have it on how the negotiations might go in the future.
In the meantime, I recently read an article where the drug companies have already raised the price on over 500 drugs starting on the first of the year. - https://www.cnbc.com/2023/12/29/drugmakers-set-to-raise-us-prices-on-at-least-500-drugs-in-january.html
Thanks for this info.
I agree with Bill in Criticizing Biden’s poorly written pitch letter as I also received one.
But TomG ‘s typical hollow MAGA response does not consider facts: (1) In 2023 the economy grew 3.1 %. (2) Inflation fell from a Trump/Republican high of 9.1% to 3.4% in November of ‘23. (3) Unemployment fell to 3.7% in January, 2024. (4) Consumer confidence went up 29% from the disastrous Trump years.
Grocery prices need to come down and Biden needs to put pressure on the Corporates for this.
The devil is in the details, though, Dennis. Take the unemployment figure, for example: it only counts new claims filed. It doesn't include:
- people who've fallen off the rolls after exhausting benefits
- people who've had to settle for part-time or contract positions or gig work
- people who've had to accept big wage cuts to get (or, sometimes, keep) jobs; as in, going from corporate middle management to big-box-store clerk
- people who've had to forego benefits to get a job, or keep a job
- people who've been down-sized due to age bias and can't find anything else for the same reason
- people who have to work multiple jobs to survive
- new grads who've never been in the workforce, so can't file claims, even if they can't find jobs
I have no idea how many people fall into the above categories. There have been four in the last several years, just among my small circle, so I'm guessing the true unemployed/underemployed numbers are significantly higher than the current statistic. That’s been true to some extent ever since the numbers began to be reported, but I'd bet the discrepancy is much larger now than it used to be.
I agree with you Denise. The picture is much brighter though than 4 years ago when the exact same things you identify were also happening. Those negatives have, and will be, present in any U S economy; it is just the way the game is played.
I honestly don't know if it's brighter now than four years ago, Dennis. For one thing, food was much cheaper then, relative to wages, at least from a personal observation. Our grocery bills have skyrocketed, while wages are flat. Not saying Biden is responsible for the increase, just stating a fact.
In terms of job hunting, four years ago, employers were still generally offering decent benefits. Conditions were tightening, but not like now. There was a lot of talk about workers' having a great deal of leverage during the pandemic. If that was the case, I didn't see it anywhere I went. Now, it's absolutely crazy---"We're hiring," signs are everywhere, but pay, working conditions, and benefits are horrible. I realize this is anecdotal, but I got an offer to work 37.5 hours a week, with no benefits whatsoever, not even paid holidays, and was told up front I'd have to agree to never request to move even laterally in the organization, let alone attempt to move up. I know that's not an isolated example, and I've gotten more than one such hitherto unheard-of offer. Again, though, purely local and anecdotal to me, but not, I suspect, unusual these days.
What kind of an employer would want employees who would accept no promotion opportunities? Not even a lateral move? You'd truly have to be desperate to accept those terms--and I guess more than a few people are.
Their stated rationale was that it took a long time to train a hiree for that position, and even longer for the person to be really good at the job, so they didn't want to have to keep going through the process. It sorta, kinda, made sense, IF the benefits would have been good. But to expect someone to work essentially full-time, plus commuting time, at a responsible job, for $15 an hour and zero benefits??? Uh, no. I really wanted the job itself, and needed it, but fortunately, wasn't totally desperate. Evidently, they did find someone who was more needy than I was, because the posting came down. BTW, it was considered a county job. But they told me I wouldn't be able to participate in the county employees' pension plan!
Sounds like they were looking for a robot. Or a slave.
My 6th grade teacher used to tell us "figures never lie, but liars figure." That phrase has stuck with me through my life. Thank you, Daniel E. Rile.
"There are lies, damned lies, and statistics."
- popularized in the U.S. by Mark Twain
Hi Dennis. Can You direct me to TomG's response that didn't consider the facts? i cannot locate it. Thankee. ~ jeff
It’s the very last comment in this thread.
Ahhh. Thank You. That's what threw me off.
i'm not sure how being concerned about turning the US into bankrupt and pariah state is typically "hollow MAGA."
Because the US is well on its way to becoming bankrupt, and already is a pariah state to some people in some parts of the world.
And one doesn't need to be a Trumpatista to clearly see and then openly say that.
Third party Presidential candidates on the 2024 ballot: https://reason.com/2024/02/02/presidential-ballot-will-be-crowded-with-third-party-candidates/
Vote NOTC: None Of These Candidates.
One of the ~ and the weakest~ possible objection to voting "None Of These Candidates: could be from those who would claim that NOTC would undercut efforts by Third, Fourth, Fifth, etc Parties to have a real impact in elections, and thus government and governance, by taking support and votes away from them, their candidates, and their agendas.
At this point~ and with very, very few exceptions as far as actually, really impacting the outcome of any election over the past 120 years~ any votes for any and all Third Party Candidates are essentially wasted, other than providing the voter with the personal satisfaction of voting her or his conscience, and of, somehow, "sending a message." That is a principal reason that the Puling Political Class would be so quick to claim it.
And in present day America, no Third Party built on any particular ideology and focused on any specific issues, by itself, is in a position to have any effective impact whatsoever on any election whatsoever, let alone on how the government is run after the election.
If, on the other hand, NOTC was a choice on all ballots; and if all Third Party voters would add their vote to all those Americans who reject both of the major party's candidates by voting NOTC; and if the RPC had to then go back to the drawing board for another election with different candidates and a different set of promises: If all that happened, Third Partiers would have a much bigger say in how things are run in this country than they do now, or have ever had in the past.
Fear and hatred are effective organizing principles. Recall the 2-minute hate sessions in George Orwell's "1984". Talking points should be limited as to fit on a bumper sticker, if anyone can remember what those were.
Politics and Religion always "Send more Money" More like the Man/ Myth; Kamala & Joe Biden Staggering forward to me! Happy Groundhog Day!--Looking forward to that early Spring prognostication...
Good thing I haven't eaten yet today. Seeing those two framing themselves as some MLK Jr torch bearings would have brought my eggs right back up! And as for “let’s finish the job," if they mean turning the US into a complete bankrupt and pariah state, then I have every confidence in the Biden team.
One merely has to look at the fact that Biden has been in Swampland since Nixon was President to know and understand where he is coming from and why he is still there.
There are a lot of real threats to US Nat'l Security (though none that I think of are caused by any foreign state). Yet probably none as serious or measurable as the unsustainable national debt that is in large part attributable to so-called "national defense" spending. And you're right- the bought politicians and MSM don't want to begin to discuss this because they're all in for 'whatever it takes' to try to maintain (and if possible, still expand) the Empire. Such spending and debt buildup is the biggest threat because it's not just theoretical (like, say, the imagined threat of military attack from China or Russia); but more akin to a mathematical inevitability. It isn't a question of IF; only one of when. And when the US loses its advantage of effective dollar hegemony, due both to the active efforts of BRICS nations and others to break free, the U.S. will no longer be able to just use the printing presses to insulate it from the effects of that debt.
The "Decline" of the American Empire has ended; and the "Fall" has begun.
And with the Fall of The Empire, so will fail the Experiment that was America: a democratically-elected Constitutional republic under a Rule of Law, before which all Human Beings ~ regardless of sex, age, race, wealth, sexuality, physical or mental infirmity, and political and/or religious views ~ all Human Beings are not only created Equal, but Are Equal, and treated as such.
Every Empire that has ever existed has ~ after peaking ~ begun the process of dying, and ultimately has died. Does American "exceptionalism" include that?
One of the Real Questions confronting every American still capable of thinking for her or himself needs to start asking themselves, their family and loved ones, their friends and neighbors, their colleagues, cohorts, and compeers is as follows:
Even as the Empire falls, can the Experiment be continued? And what changes to the current systems of government and governance of this nation need to be changed in order for the Experiment to continue?
And how are those changes to be brought about as The Empire ~ which the Experiment spawned ~ begins its Fall?
Jeff, your observations and questions are spot on. History suggests that all Empires are likely transient, and usually, a victim of their own success / excesses. Of course, an Empire's "fall" , is itself a process (i.e. someone/ thing is falling, and then, SPLAT - they / it has fallen (and maybe died). At any rate, our own observations suggest the Washington-centered Empire is in more rapid decline, with lots of moments when dissolution seems near if not imminent. I can't really speculate as to the timing of the moment when it is broadly recognized- especially internally- that we have been living in the middle of an Empire that has now fallen. Those closest to its center, i.e. those who've been managing it, are probably the last to recognize that its over; perhaps because they're so desperately engaged with trying to keep it from unraveling (and/or to keep it growing), which possibly explains why they're acting so desperately, denying the realities of changes in the world, resorting more frequently to brute force, all the while lying incessantly about their reasons for that brutality - even denying it.
You ask if the "American Experiment" can continue even as the Empire that it produced falls. Perhaps I don't fully grasp what the American Experiment was. I mean, I understand the ideals that we thought were embodied in the Constitution, which was somewhat a departure at its time (at least from the recognized nations). In varying degrees, those ideals were reflected in the improvements made via, for example, the Bill of Rights, and related legislation reflecting those democratic principles that include equal treatment under the law, "one person one vote", etc.
But as we've come to learn over time, there were also limits to democracy; seemingly deliberate impediments to democracy, the most obvious of which was perhaps the U.S. Senate- a concession to Southern landowners to overcome the "majority rule" that proportionate representation supported. And the framework seems, in retrospect to have almost guaranteed that concentrated private capital would ultimately result in a bought, unrepresentative government.
This begs the question: were those deficiencies also an intended part of the American Experiment?
But the main point of our questions seems to be, "What next, after the "splat" of the Empire?" Can we retain those best attributes and somehow reconfigure the systems to better implement the fine ideals that we've always thought we represented? And what would it take?
I confess, I can't see that far. I think the system (i.e. political/economic/social) is so corrupted that very many people if not most have lost any sense of empowerment needed to encourage the kinds of changes needed; As we've all noted, most of the voting electorate is hopelessly tied to one Party or another, convinced that they must be so in order to hold off the greater of evils. And they seem to be so petrified that they dare not hold their own to account or voice any displeasure or criticism.
But though I'm a realist and acknowledge that the trend lines are not hopeful for Americans, much less for the rest of humanity (or, indeed, much of the species with which we've co-evolved), I must say that there are glimpses, here and there, that give me some hope. I certainly have met plenty of younger people who have already (to some extent) chosen to live their values more closely; who consciously strive in their daily lives to foster community and to live responsibly, rejecting to a greater extent than their parents, perhaps, the abject materialism and status-seeking that were sold to most in my generation.
Among them are my two tenants- nearing-40s sisters, with whom I can happily mock Hillary or Genocide Joe, et al, and who, even as renters have established themselves in their community, consciously supporting the local, sharing, etc.
It's that spirit and such examples that give me some bits of hopefulness amid the frequent reminders of social dysfunction and the sense of societal devolution.
Do we simply have to await and accept what seems to be the inevitable? Maybe, but i still have other seeds of hope that perhaps as conditions begin to deteriorate enough that people are shocked out of their comfort zones, maybe they will learn to work together to use what I think are our only remaining powers to organize and 'perturb' the system enough to force changes before it totally collapses of its own weight.