Get your ticket to that wheel in space
While there's time
The fix is inYou'll be a witness to that game of chance in the sky
You know we've got to win
Here at home we'll play in the city
Powered by the sun
Perfect weather for a streamlined world
There'll be spandex jackets one for everyone
I.G.Y (What a Beautiful World)
Dan Fagen
I'm not sure who had the worse week -- Rob Ford, mayor of Toronto and King of all jerks in the Great White North, or Barack Obama, President of the United States and King of the new healthcare law.
Ford's problems, if you're not counting the first time he picked up a crack pipe or was excused for being a pompous ass, began when his crack dealer was shot a couple months ago.
President Obama's current crisis began with determination to ram through a law with zero bipartisan support in order to claim a historic victory and platform to complete the fundamental transformation of America... but at what cost?
The "fix" is in but it's another in a long series of sad jokes from the law that doesn't stop disappointing. In the end, the goal was never about healthcare or economics but rather controlling another large swath of the economy that impacts every single person in the country.
All the commonsense questions from the outset, dismissed by the administration and media, are now echoing loud and clear. If you can't keep your policy, do you really think you'll keep your doctor? And, if millions more are pouring into the system, will the quality of care get better or worse? And, finally, if people get subsidies for healthcare it's going to be expensive, so where does that money come from?
Not Really Sorry
On Friday 39 Democrats voted with Republicans to revisit the healthcare law. That's a shocking rebuke of the law by the same party that ran on its success in the last election cycle. President Obama has already promised to veto any such bill that comes across his desk.Just as Rob Ford refuses to step down from office, President Obama refuses to let Americans choose the insurance they want making the so-called fix as sincere as the would-be apology when pressed by Chuck Todd last week.
In the meantime, insurance commissioners are saying they can't or will not go along with the silly game of letting people keep their plan for just one more year after spending three years putting in the piece to comply with the law in the first place.
The DC insurance commissioner was fired for speaking out publicly and echoing the statement from the national association of insurance commissioners (see sidebar). There is no sincerity on either side of the US-Canadian borders but at least Ford is only destroying himself.
When Nancy Pelosi said we'd love the new healthcare law once we got to understand it, "away from the fog", I really think she thought we'd be okay with all the lies and mishaps because of the celebrity of President Obama. For elitists the ends justify the means... a grand utopia powered by the sun, where everyone gets a spandex jacket and a conscientious President that makes sure you get the healthcare insurance he likes.
For some this would be a beautiful world; for me it's just more of a world gone mad.
The Biggest Bubble
Anyway, the biggest bubble I see is so many people on that particular bandwagon. Of course, markets go up and down and pullbacks happen but over the next year I think the perpetually angry crowd will only become angrier.
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