Successful Soviets - an oxymoron?

I call this breakdown.

Or how NOT to decrease the size of government.

What happened after the Enron debacle? The Congress passed the Sarbanes/Oxley act which added a large accounting expense via new regulations.

Whatever happened to Republicans being for de-regulation?

I watched CSPAN during this period and much of the testimony too Congress. One theme came loud and clear from both the SEC and Wall Street. That theme was "Please do not add more regulation, just enforce the ones already in place."

Same could be said for illegal immigration. We do not need new laws. We just need enforcement of existing laws. If the important laws were enforced we could probably gut 90% of the regulation out there.

But, ironically, not only did the Republican Congress increase regulation via Sarbanes-Oxley, but Bush CUT THE NUMBER OF ENFORCEMENT OFFICERS IN THE SEC.

Frick. I don't like to swear but when that happened I felt like the Republican party had sold me down the river.

The problem with the Health Care industry is similar to the Enron debacle leading upto when En ron busted. Before Enron, everyone knew that companies were gaming the system. Well, as a Republican if you know people are gaming the system, ENFORCE THE D**N LAW. Start locking people up before the big disaster like Enron happens because when the BIG D happens Congress will feel compelled to do something and what do they do? Pass laws.

I have a friend who works for Well Point. He works in the computing industry as a programmer reconciling insurance payments with industry invoices.

The system is being gamed. Every capitalist should be strongly against cheating the system. The insurance companies are gaming the system. How? The bill the customer gets for $30,000 for an operation is not what the Insurance company is paying. They get a bulk discount.

Ok, I'm hip with that. When I buy an Intel CPU for $400 on the open market, I understand that Dell computers will a price perhaps 1/2 that, say $200.

That's not what is going on. The mark-up in the Insurance business is anywhere between 10-100. I'm serious as a race horse. An Insurance company may in reality only pay $300 for a surgery billed at $30,000 to the client.

Clearly the Insurance companies are gaming the system to lock in the market.

There has to be existing regulation on the books to prevent price gauging or whatever you want to call it.

But because the Insurance compaines are in cohoots with the Medical providers to lock out individual buyers, Universal Health Care is now a real discussion.

We do not need Universal Health Care. We did not need Sarbanes Oxley. What we need is for this country to start enforcing in a serious way the laws that guarantee a fair playing field in the free market. The wrist slap that ADM got for price fixing lysine was a joke.

I'm always astounded and baffled about how strongly the Republicans are with crime enforcement at the violent crime level and how reversely tolerant Republicans are of white collar crime. Especially crime that erodes the confidence in the capitalist markets.

Capitlism should be minimally regulated but those minimal regulations enforced with a vengenance. That is not what's happening. Instead, upteen million laws are on the books to present the public with a facade that Congress is being responsible meanwhile millions of cheaters are rigging the system.

Republicans need to be seen strong on law enforcement, albeith violent crime or capitism crime. Confidence in captilism must come from confidence by the consumer. When consumers lose that confidence things like Universal Health Care become a reality.

Restore the confidence and the communist/socialist Democrats will not be taken seriously. The only reason Democrats are getting the time of day on this issue is that the Insurance companies are gaming the system to lock out individudal buyers.

Republicans need to champion this issue. Bust up some Insurance companies and get the pricing back to reasonable. You want a grouip discount? Fine, you get 1/2. But not this 1/10 or 1/100th price fixing.

I think you've got something going voice, but I'd suggest a different tack than communism.

Why? Well, first off the reality of communists has never materialised. The communist party has no politicians in Congress. Republicans are left with saying the communist party endores this Democratic candidate, etc.

In effect communism is like Big Foot. Republicans keep trying to show the public doctored photos.

The fact is that the general public is going to tune you out as a wacky conspiracy theorist once you inject the words "communism" and "communist" into your essays.

Let's explore the American Dream, rather than failed Communism.

Who are the millions rising from the poor and middle-class today?

I can name two companies that have created a huge amount of millionaires. Microsoft and Google.

Techies, by and large, are liberals. Techies are living today the American dream by rising from the poor and middle-class to the rich.

Try and get a job at Google. Google really does have things that Republicans value. 1.) Meritacracy and 2.) competition.

Republicans are distancing themselves from the future of politics by NOT engaging the tech industry.

I hold two degrees from U.C. Berkeley. I can say two things with great certainty. Berkeley is extremely liberal and extremely competitive. Try and graduate from Berkeley by ignoring the competitiveness. Won't happen. You can tune out the liberal politics if you try. As an Engineering school Berkeley is in the top three. In fact, if you look at the top three you'll see MIT, Berkeley and Stanford. Stanford is in the heart of Silicon Valley and should not be mistaken for a conservative institution even though the likes of Condi Rice have come their.

The communist label for the new generation of liberals does not apply because these people

1.) believe in competition
2.) believe in capitalism and getting rich through meritocracy

These people in some respects have the same values as Republicans. But they live in very liberal states, in very liberal areas.

When these 20 and 30 something millionaires of today start influencing politics in 10-20 years they will be nothing like the throw back, communist hippy types.

To conclude, I would suggest using a different vehicle than communism. For two reasons, 1.) the public views any Republican touting anti-communism arguments as a Big Foot chaser and 2.) the next generation of American Dream liberals are highly competitive and got that dream via Capitalism. Two traits they will not give up or give up on lightly.