During a discussion of the possibility that Michael Moore's "Sicko" might win an Oscar, Stein argued that the rich should be willing to pay more taxes in order to facilitate better health coverage for those Americans who cannot afford it. He was vehemently - and angrily - rebutted by FOX Business regulars Neil Cavuto, Charles Payne and Tracy Burns. Guest Mark Lamont Hill agreed with Stein while another FOX expert, Adam Lashinsky, tried to take a middle road.
When Rupert Murdoch started the FOX Business Network, he said his objective was to reach out to "Main Street" Americans with happy, upbeat news about the greatness of American business.
I find it ironic that none of the FOX hosts seems to have a shred of respect for or knowledge about what it takes to make it - day to day - on the real Main Streets of America!
At one point Charles Payne says that the green movement has been a "godsend" for American business because, "all you have to do is take a shampoo, put 'green' on it and sell it for ten cents more."
Need I say more?
Posts
4 comments:
Interesting how they talk about how the rich want to be able to buy their Bentleys.
Bentleys are made in Europe (which is the company's main market).
Somehow, rich people in Europe are able to buy lots of Bentleys, despite Europe's universal health-care and higher taxes.
And as far as Stein's argument that the rich ought to pay more in taxes than the rest of us---hell, I'd just be glad if they paid as much of their income into taxes as working class people.
(Recall how Warren Buffett, the world's second-richest man, noted that he pays less of his income into taxes than does his secretary, who makes $60,000 a year).
Most debates about tax rates in this country completely ignore the fact that rich people enjoy loads of tax loopholes that the rest of us don't qualify for.
Marc McDonald
BeggarsCanBeChoosers.com
I'm amazed because in the past I've heard Ben Stein toeing the rightwing line on different economic matters, thinking he's too smart to regurgitate that crap. It's nice to know that he's thinking independently again.
I know that the right wing narrative against an Obama candidacy is that he's just made up of "words" without action. Well, after all these years of republican control, deregulation, and privatization that have produced nothing but a failed economy and a few destroyed cities at home and several destroyed nations abroad, I guess you can say that right wing rhetoric is demonstrably just "words" since their ideas don't work.
Of course, we've known that all along
I don't watch Fox anymore, at least not directly... Countdown and Blogs like yours bring me the Daily Digest of Outrage and I am sure that your post will lead that digest, maybe tonight as KO likes to be current.
An 'obvious truthbomb' was dropped in the middle of Cavuto's little gathering of lightweight flacks from the Corptocracy, prompting one panelist to actually get honest and agree and another to jump headlong into his semi-religious paean to the 'work ethic', giving Cavuto his opening to suggest that this travesty could be justified as contrary to rock solid Reagan Conservative Principles... We can't feed the hungry or heal the afflicted, that would mean 'big government' and would undermine the 'work ethic', this 'free' health care, it could be the End of Capitalism As We Know It...
Poor Ben Stein... There was usually an intelligent edge to his positions, and one could at least say he thought about them himself, as opposed to having adopted them and the specious, repetitive, cyclical talking points used to defend them as one would use a protective mantra... A canned chant in Latin or ancient Amharic should be heard every time someone like Ben drops an 'obvious truthbomb' on a Fox approved chat fest, like the Gong Show... Neil or Bill can hit the button and the ungracious guest who would stoop to this is silenced and replaced by one of those nice studio laugh tracks, no more cut to commercial... Why have a 'technical difficulty", when your pretense to objectivity is already so tattered and just plain see through worn out that no one who thinks really believes you anyway. Why pretend to inform, why not just get to the meat of the thing, have a little fun with it, I'm sure it would help the ratings... In fact it's just too bad most of these 'truthbombers' aren't in the actual studio where you could get at 'em...
But like 'Charles' said on the show..."I'm a small businessman and right now, health care is difficult..." Really Charles... Difficult? You mean non-existent or merely sponsored by your firm and paid for by the employee's themselves..., that kind of "difficult"? That's what you meant to say, that stuff about the work ethic, that was mantra, "difficult", now that was reality. "Difficult" as in maybe dead if early diagnosis and preventive medicine aren't around to save you, if you can't feed your kids and insure them too... If you do little googlin' you will find that I am a small businessman too, that's a small 's'... Health care? We got health care for the kids; most of the employees are covered one way or another for something... I wouldn't want to test it though..., not too hard anyway, oh, and the owners are not covered. One of our partners passed away 3 months ago at age 52, after long 3 ICU stays fighting an infection born and bred in our nation's hospitals, he owed the County over $300,000.00 but was spared having to sell his possessions by death.
Kallyfornia’s Governor has proposed that the Medi-Cal program reevaluate the eligibility of it's clients, expecting to lose 122,000 of them and save 94 million dollars. It was called cynical, but I call it manslaughter by legislative proxy... Everyone knows that people will die, but hey... $94 million... And it's not like these folks are 'productive', least not now, or they would have health care, right?
Health care is not a right.
It is an obligation, one owed by the many and the blessed to the sick and injured. This is not a religious principle, it is not related to God or any of His many messengers, and it is not a battle about left or right, just right, no left about it... Not a Right, but about right as opposed to wrong. Wrong can never be right, no matter what constructed lens of ideology is used to view it. Rational people who are capable of speaking the truth recognize this; Ben Stein is therefore merely a rational person... He can still be a Republican if he wants to but he won't deny the plain obvious rational truth and is therefore uncomfortable with those who are well paid to do so...
Poor Ben Stein, may he drone on forever...
RGJ/Dallas112263
In large part, we already do have the equivilant of universal health care. County hospitals can not deny care to anyone, can not even ask if they are legally here, must provide interpreters in over 100 languages AND, if the patient has not transportation; a cab ride home.
Also, I know of one person personally, who has had millions of dollars of treatment for cancer on the State, for years. She was a contributer for many years and I am glad it is there for her. That said the cost to averabe Americans bears no relationship to reality and should be addressed. That is where the solution lies. Not in a nanny state. With Medicare and Social Security so deeply in the red, and thngs like the recent inclusion of patient's social security numbers on the OUTSIDE of their envelopes, exposing to indentity theft; is the Government really who you want to handle health care?
Post a Comment