Wealth in America

The PGA tour is playing this week at a new course in Jersey City; Liberty National. The NY Times notes that it takes $ 500,000 to join-an initiation fee-with yearly dues of $ 25,000. My understanding of these types of courses is that a member-there are 90-also must pay each day they play golf for a caddie or cart and must also promise to spend a certain amount each month in the restaurant. The course is a 1000 yards from the Statue of Liberty and has "unobstructed views of the Manhattan skyline".

I have a difficult time comprehending this kind of wealth when you can pay this amount to play a game (and I am a golfer). It's bad enough that we pay men what we do to play a boys game, but for a hacker to pay yearly more than what social security will pay an elderly couple to live on is not a complement to our society. The NY Times article notes that Rudolph W. Giuliani is a member. Where does an ex-mayor of a city get that kind of money and how could he possibly understand the financial woes of the social security couple?

Conservatives and health care

Why are neo-cons so worked up about the health care issue? My own brother has told me "I have my head up my ass" because of something to do with the issue. And I haven't even expressed a position yet. I doubt that they are concerned about what is good for most of us or about health care. They know that if democrats or liberals produce a health care plan that covers the 40 million not now covered and the program works, their (neo-cons) ideology will have suffered a major defeat similiar to that of the passage of Social Security. Democrats have produced Social Security and Medicare and if they add to that list of achievements the creation of a health care for all program, republicans-their ideology a bankrupt sham-will be cast into the political wilderness for a generation or more. Neo-cons know that they must defeat the democrats on this issue or they will find it exceedingly difficult to get back into power on the national level. The republicans are pulling out all the stops and sinking to even lower levels of deception and falsehood not seen since the days of McCarthy. They were successful in 1993 against the Clinton health care effort. Can they do it again?

Winston Churchill 2009

August 19, 2009 was the 69the anniversary of one of WC's most famous statements. He said back in 1940 after the "Battle of Britain" that "never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few". Today with government bail-outs and executive pay raises it might be said that "never in the field of economic policy has so much been given by so many to so few". And the bastards think they deserve their bonuses.