Citizens greeted that with mixed reviews and determined that a change in administration was needed to preserve ‘entitlement’ programs. We chose to add medical care to the list of essentials which should not be referred to as ‘commodities’ to be purchased by consumers. In a society able to generate the needed revenue, Americans want to consider food, clothing, shelter and medical care to be basic necessities of life and something to grant one another wherever possible. This philosophy doesn’t require the word ‘socialism’ to be slapped onto our label, describing how we operate as a nation. Capitalism is about how we treat commodities, those goods and services we opt to acquire.

Since the constitution grants us the right to ‘life’, goods and services necessary to existence would seem to lose their classification as commodities. The Clean Air Act states that breathing is also a ‘right’ and we continue to struggle with enforcing its provisions. Does anyone really wish to state that legislative accomplishment is ‘socialist’ in nature? Is ‘air’ a commodity to be bought and sold or an aspect of the environment which is essential to our survival? Somehow the marketplace seems to be a rather bizarre arena in which to discuss such an urgent issue which is really dictated by our biological characteristics. The clean-up of serious pollution from various sources requires residents to trace the sources and mandate change through the available venues.

Once upon a time, jobs came with some degree of security and upward mobility for those with sufficient privilege to obtain them. We needn’t pretend that just anyone can succeed as our history continues to struggle with the failure of women and minorities to attain equality and justice. However, the employed had some expectations of longevity in their employment and the chance to put away some of their salaries when housing costs did not take up such a huge chunk of our incomes. With constant changes in the workforce keeping people from pensions, health care benefits and living wages, we have no option but to fund such programs through the public sector to make up for it.

Debate over ‘entitlement’ programs and the addition of medical care to that list of essential services, does not automatically change society into a ‘socialist’ construct. It does alter society from the perspective of our ‘social contract’ with one another, regardless of individual political and economic viewpoints.

Economics, misunderstood, can kill. Boring as you may think it, economics is the stuff which dictates whether or not YOU become a manager of employees or merely their overseer; whether a skilled worker will be sought out by employers to better their quality of production or merely another disposable commodity to be picked off the shelves for an indeterminate period of employment. It’s about whether or not there is a penalty to be paid in reduced sales for risking the lives of your workers or customers. Unfortunately we are told by all concerned that we don’t need to know product ingredients or how to diagnose related ailments. Since product bans aren’t permitted under NAFTA rules anyway, there is no penalty to be paid by disgruntled consumers. The number one premise of capitalism is that the rewards go to he who builds a better mousetrap. Instead, the reward goes to he who can buy out the better mousetrap company and then discard the product in favor of inferior commodities with higher profit margins. There won’t be much in the way of competition and if other companies spring up, trade associations can ensure no one leads the pack in innovation leaving the others behind.

It is easy to throw around the concept of an either/or system of economics—everything that isn’t capitalism is socialism. We haven’t progressed very far since McCarthy was our King and the worst epithet of the 1950′s was the term, ‘communist’. We’ve recently adopted ‘socialism’ as our buzz work for today, labeling everything and everything that might be considered a right or necessity for life to be a commodity for sale to the fiscally solvent. Would you charge someone for air necessary to breathing? Then why penalize them for needing additional oxygen if they lack healthcare coverage? Do you object to controls upon air pollution? The cost of reducing it to ‘safer’ levels is actually socialism at work as taxes are directed to making the air breathable and the water, potable.

Unless you believe in the ‘polluter pays’ policy, being zealously opposed by industry when congress considers the huge savings obtained through such a policy.

Avoiding the label of socialism is more important to everyone than determining the best label for a product or service. Is it a commodity or a necessity? Do you want heart attack victims being turned away from the ER door for lack of insurance? If not, then health care is a right and not a commodity. Hence, it is exempt at some basic level from being unobtainable to anyone. There will always be premium levels of goods and services for the well-heeled but that doesn’t mean everyone in society doesn’t benefit from healthy neighbors and productive workers. This is why property taxes of individuals without children go to pay the costs of educating all children.

It’s a case of ‘Sticks and stones may break YOUR bones but I will not let others call me a socialist!”. Peer pressure and semantics shouldn’t constitute a moral basis for depriving any citizen of antibiotics for pneumonia or blood pressure medicine for the elderly. True, people are deprived of life for heinous criminal actions in places practicing capital punishment. Is poverty among those listed as capital crimes?

Another ‘label’ war is the misuse of the ‘free market’ term. Who can object to anything with the word ‘free’ attached to it (well, other than healthcare)? Yet it is the antithesis to capitalism which allows consumers to determine ‘the winner and champion’, rather than who can borrow the most money and crush other vendors of similar products until you have a monopoly on that market. Any big dog can best a smaller one. Anti-trust laws, long ignored, were put into effect to restrict such abuses and protect small businesses. Socialism? Perhaps but it’s about evolving a society to match its vision for itself regardless of the label. It ensures competition lives.

Government will never be irrelevant to business. Particularly when we learn that businesses sometimes lie to us. Would you believe Monsanto if they said Round Up herbicide was a safe poison? Hopefully not because the courts in France, and in our own state of New York, examined those claims and found them false. The fines were paid and business not much disrupted. But it should have been. Maya Angelou said “”The first time someone shows you who they are, believe them.”

Krugman graded the speech here, unimpressed with the lack of specifics but then the President wasn’t addressing a classroom of Princeton students studying the economy. Still, the statements made about competitiveness were referencing the kind which takes the form of individual achievement and flexibility, in an age of changing employment patterns and reduced scholastic accomplishments by our young people. The President did not equate business with ‘free markets’ and went as far as noting that Big Oil could afford to do quite nicely without government subsidies.

It’s a beginning.

My comment:

80.
HIGHLIGHT (what’s this?)
Barbara Rubin
Ca.
January 24th, 2011
11:06 am

Forgive my economic naivete, but it would appear that ‘competitiveness’ is effectively being quashed by industry itself. The monopolization of major industries by transnational corporations appears to view the world as a single trough from which only their approved subsidiaries can feed. Trade associations agree to offer inferior products of a uniform nature to the public at prices set for declining levels of income. Falling wages are arranged by the same groups which serve as major employers around the world. If true competitiveness were the goal, wages would reflect the desire for consumers to have more disposable income.

Until farmers can re-use seeds and their own crops (potatoes are grown from potatoes), they aren’t able to compete with one another. Their revenues are always going to belong largely to the vendor of those seeds and attendant technologies required to bring them to ‘fruition’ in chemically laden fields. Feudalism lives in modern times.

As agribusiness and energy cartels dictate changes to our very eco-system, other industries deal with that ‘fall-out’. Developers are dealing with contaminated lands and diminishing supplies of clean water. Building trades are dependent upon inexpensive toxic construction materials from the US and China to house increasingly impoverished populations with low budgets for housing units. These materials can’t be exported to Europe where they’ve learned the costs of ignoring safety (largely through providing universal health care).

Clothing manufacturers, producers of processed foods – what industry can actually boast a large array of competitive businesses falling under these major umbrellas? Competition lies in who can pay the least to workers, offer the fewest benefits and substitute cost-saving chemical treatments to make products look shiny. Worker benefits are provided by the public in medicaid and housing vouchers for working families! Low ‘competitive’ prices of toxic goods and services are made up with costs paid in physician offices and tax funded disability insurance.

I hope President Obama speaks to competitiveness among ‘modest’ businesses which will benefit from employing local residents. Seeing that transnational corporations pay taxes in every nation offering them markets is a start. Ending NAFTA requirements that nations pay companies for losses of profits, if harmful products are banned, is another way to end the stranglehold of monopolies ready to sue nations for such reasonable measures.

Competitiveness lies with dreams of earning a mere million in profits rather than billions. Companies used to compete to achieve sustainability of their operations for future generations. Now a golden parachute rewards those aiming to make a ‘quick killing’ and get out while they can do so.

Quick killing indeed. The cemeteries are filling up quite nicely.

Barbara Rubin
www.armchairactivist.us
Recommended by 240 Readers

The comments left by readers posted below that NY Times Op-Ed are certainly proof of the conditioning that the mega-corporatocracy (as opposed to actual businesses which compete to offer goods and services in the marketplace) has imposed on our society. How many hours of radio do they buy up for the Limbaughs and Becks whose vast fund of well-compensated hatred is only exceeded by the absence of logic in their statements. Who was it that equated the practices of ‘Capitalism” with the phrase, “Free Market Economy”? A marketing genius, no doubt since the two are not at all the same. However, the term, “Free” is a buzz-word that automatically spurs positive feelings and condemnation of those who spurn the misuse of the term in that context.

Capitalism is an economic practice with governmental restrictions upon it to ensure fair competition. Monopolies and trusts (the actual inhabitants of the Free Market zone) are forbidden, not that anyone bothers to enforce anti-trust laws any longer. Capitalism is neither a form of government nor is it a replacement for government. The constitution for our Republic actually empowers Congress to intervene in business to preserve constitutional freedoms for citizens. The framers were well able to conceive of robber barons gaining undue influence over government and trampling the rights of citizens.

Capitalism carries a lot of responsibilities for both businesses and for consumers. It’s a contract through which satisfied customers reward good businesses with their hard earned dollars. Bad businesses are supposed to fail as good ones expand and can take on the losses of workers created in a changing marketplace. However, when bad businesses form agreements to conform to policies which place them in adversarial roles with labor, the contract with capitalism has failed. Multiple businesses may be technically separate entities but competition has effectively ended. It represents a decision that the trough is large enough for all to feed. Trough, indeed.

But what happens when the drive to rake in another penny per unit for the sellers, ends up decimating suppliers? What happens when the seller is such a large entity that their profits become losses for the population at large, mesmerized by low costs and hidden ingredients? We wind up with a market full of hazardous products which harm the workers who make them and the consumers who buy them. It leads to low wages, importing illegal labor and exporting local jobs into the hands of people who will not in turn, be consumers of US businesses by and large. It means increased underemployment and unemployment to be remedied by tax funded means to prevent starvation and homelessness. It means poor educational experiences for children living in poverty, diminishing hopes of future generations to surpass the last one.

Everyone is a consumer, including our mega-corporations. What happens when the largest institutions refuse to examine the practices of the smaller ones with whom they trade? Here, the firing of janitorial staff earning under $14 per hour, was of no interest to the giant who referred to the matter as belonging only to another ‘vendor’. Too many providers of essential services (such as cleaning) are forced to sacrifice their more experienced employees for cheaper workers in order to underbid for a contract which further threatens their stability as a business. This practice ensures a smaller pool of trained, secure workers which makes up a stable society. It basically renders the entire workforce a disposable commodity. Were we less of a capitalist society when good workers enjoyed longevity and advancement within their employment settings? Now that the workforce has increased in diversity, the fund of useful knowledge and willing hands is larger than ever. It eradicates the independence of labor which is essential to the growth of a large (politically active) middle class.

There is one circumstance in which “trickle-down” economic theory does work. If the upper echelons of the business world refuse to think about the source of their wealth, mindlessness proceeds the rest of the way down the chain.

How can a violation of sound business practices be made to sound acceptable in society? Simple. You begin to use the term ‘Free Market Economy’. That makes it seem as if corporations work alone in creating a healthy marketplace. If someone refers to capitalism at all, just throw out that ‘other’ phrase, “Socialism” and be sure you sneer as you say it. It can misdirect the conversation admirably and no one has to learn anything new. Ever. Let people infer that if business were just free of all regulation and taxes, there would be two jobs in every pot. Or some such rhetoric (I’m not old enough to recall the New Deal). We’ve had that for quite awhile now. How’d that turn out? Anyone? Bueller? Despite incentives to hire, businesses kept the profits from those incentives and got more for less out of their workers. As we already know, you get ‘less’ for ‘less’ and this has led to a slower recovery and poorer quality of production practices and merchandise.

In the meantime, make business work for their money. To the largest extent possible, patronize ethical businesses which pay a living wage while producing quality products and services with full disclosure of ingredients. Mindlessness may work for industry moguls with golden parachutes but citizens have to eat today and plan for tomorrow. There is a reason why we refer to working as ‘making a living’. The demand that one work only so that others can live (high on the hog if we go back to the trough analogy), is against every principle of capitalism. Unless mindlessness is contagious, citizens should think of the consequences for their consumer choices.

My commentary on this article:

179.
Barbara Rubin, Ca.
September 4th, 2010

Mr. Herbert,

Thank you for bringing this to the attention of NY Times readers. This would have been a bit more effective if the information offered at the end of the column had been stated first. We have been left in the dark about the reasons for the lay-offs of janitorial staff at this huge enterprise.

Once businesses accepted a closer relationship with the general public, (e.g. issuing stock, accepting public monies for bail-outs or relying upon provision of public services for under-employed or underpaid employees), a need for greater transparency arose.

The public should not have the right to demand any company retain incompetent employees or hire more individuals than are needed for their employment rolls. However, what we have seen is that corporations are freely dispensing with necessary jobs and satisfactory workers in order to inflate the bottom line from ‘healthy’ into a form of corporate obesity which harms all consumers and tax payers. Businesses taking advantage of leaner times have seen additional profits in maintaining low staffing levels while requiring unrealistic levels of productivity for remaining workers.

Fearful of losing their minimal incomes or protesting the absence of benefits, protests are few as employees are reduced to the level of serf. Some part time work schedules are always changing, preventing many workers from obtaining second jobs, ensuring consistent child/family care practices or allowing for schedules to accommodate those seeking higher education and job training.

It is nice to think that a free market economy requires no awareness of such internal corporate workings. Unfortunately, the truth is that the corporations look to the public sector to provide health care, housing vouchers and other vital services which used to be part of the reward for putting in a day’s good labor. Does anyone know the high rate of asthma and occupational illness among janitors? It is quite high and tax payers have been paying the price for the use of harmful cleaning and maintenance products janitors are required to use because they are cheap and reduce the time which is actually needed to effectively and safely manage occupied properties.

The Free Market Economy has termed workers to be commodities instead of integral parts of the business culture. No one denies the rewards at the top will rightfully surpass the rewards of lower echelon workers with less training and responsibility. However, there are no unimportant jobs and none which should require any worker to live below the poverty line, depending upon public assistance for the basic necessities of life.

The Free Market Economy has become another code word for feudalism with a larger castle and deeper moat. Worker ‘ownership’ can only be stopped by public awareness of company policies so we can put the more obese corporations on diets of integrity and fairness.

Most of you likely think this substance has been banned by now. Many of us recall the scandal of so many military personnel exposed to it at naval bases, on ships etc. Flame resistant, we chose it as a form of insulation for hot water pipes. School teachers recall ceiling tiles composed of the stuff. No, it has not been banned. Its use in this country has been greatly reduced but is still likely to be found in the brakes of your car or some other product you’ve not suspected. In fact, you may have it in your home but not realize it because many real estate deals included indemnification clauses (“I don’t know if it’s there and you can’t sue me later on if it turns up or you get cancer. So there!”).

Perhaps you know its encasing your older pipes but don’t realize it’s reached the friable stage requiring removal. I once rented a house on Long Island, only to find it all over the basement on my first day there. I camped out in the yard that month until I got a new place. Conditions were such that the home couldn’t be rented again until professional remediation was performed and the owner was very regretful. Probably more for her expense than my enforced period of camping but that’s the real estate game for you. Luckily for me, it was high summer. And it was just a little hurricane. I’ve never looked at the phrase, “Shelter from the storm”, in quite the same way since then.

This isn’t in the least funny. Nothing is more vital to our well-being than our dwellings. The substances in our homes, offices, schools and libraries; our clothing, food, fuels and other accouterments to our lives can contain some appalling materials. When are we going to take it seriously enough to hear all of those voices calling to us that they are literally ‘sick to death’ of vendors being allowed to sell frankly lethal products? We pay the costs of the associated losses in health care expenses, lost work productivity and benefits to survivors of those who die in the cause of what is mistakenly referred to as a ‘free marketplace’. NOTHING comes free. Everything comes with some responsibility attached to it and freedom of choice isn’t one of them when you are forced to ingest, breathe and absorb toxic materials.

While this post interrupts the thread on litigation, just look at what Jim Morris has to say about the legal costs of asbestos related suits. Not quite so unrelated as it might seem.

My commentary on this pieces was as follows:

Thank you for this analysis which infers a great deal about what Americans are prepared to tolerate in this country at our own expense. First, why is any asbestos still being sold today when we’ve known of its lethal properties since the sixties? Few consumers even know this substance is in current use in their cars. Apart from risk to workers, are fibers entering cars through vents or being inhaled on the streets by pedestrians?

Many real estate rental/sale agreements include indemnities for asbestos and chlordane contamination in a property. Why wouldn’t an owner be required to know about these two, potentially lethal conditions in their homes? I’ve personally tested residences with high levels of chlordane shown to be present and asbestos has no safe level of exposure at all. If consumers shared responsibility for acquiring property contaminated with such substances, a ban would be in high demand. Mortgage companies should be asking for proofs of this type just as they do for termite inspections. Invisible property damage exists if building conditions will produce illness in some of its occupants.

We must also ask the identities of those companies still marketing asbestos ‘aggressively’ overseas so we can boycott them. Such willful imposition of harm upon their customers would seem to make any of their products suspect in terms of safety. Under capitalism, consumer dollars should only reward the makers of the best products which means we all have an obligation in such matters.

Another trail of money to follow is in legal costs. This article cites industry losses of 70 billion in total, with 49 billion to victims and lawyers. Why don’t we have a registry for claims requiring medical proof alone and a basic judicial review? This would end costly court battles as lawyers are currently occupied with re-try the same cases over and over again and take large percentages of awards from needy victims. Lawyers would then be available to take more complex claims for those who might be excluded from the expedited process as well as fight new battles on the consumer health front.

That would save billions of dollars and likely make bans on patently harmful products more desirable.

Barbara Rubin

(Part 1, ‘Forgetting the Principles’ is here and Part 3, ‘Enforcing the Principles’ is here)

By now, you’ve gotten your cup of hot, McDonald’s coffee as suggested at the end of my last post on litigation. Our court system was designed to compensate victims and rectify social injustices in America. These principles have been immortalized in songs like Neil Young’s “Southern Man”. However, the latest views of litigants has been concisely expressed in a country song written by West and Pahanish, (and sung by Toby Keith). This proclaims that America is so quirky, one can ‘Spill a cup of coffee and make a million dollars‘. Has litigation come to this? Instead of resolving society’s ills, it represents nothing more than greed? Since my specialized diet doesn’t permit me to eat in restaurants, I just made a call to a local branch of the McDonald’s restaurant chain. This company, sued when a woman suffered burns from spilling a cup of their coffee, does have warnings on their coffee cups. The employee answering the call humored me and read it out over the phone. It says, “Caution: Handle with Care – I’m Hot”. Here it is, captured in glorious technicolor.

Well, “D’uh”, as the kids say, appears to be the only appropriate response to that statement.

If you’re like millions of typical consumers, you’ve probably heard that a woman was burned when her coffee spilled and filed a law suit, an effort for which she was richly rewarded. That sparse, partial truth would tend to make us believe this was just another sign of greed on the part of litigants; slackers who search the globe for incidents they can take to court for personal gain. However, laughing at this suit before reviewing the actual facts is akin to drinking another beverage. That one is called ‘Kool Aid‘—a drink forever associated with people buying into harmful myths about their cultural groups.

Interestingly , the facts about this infamous suit against McDonald’s were presented for our consumption the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), well versed in the American corporate culture. Their account was written in defense of this litigant and against the company deemed by the court as having been reckless. Considering the WSJ to be a highly reputable source for these facts, their 1994 review of this matter was my primary source for this discussion and additional confirmations/details are offered by attorney Jon Mitchell Jackson, here.

To summarize: An elderly woman suffered extensive third degree burns within seconds of her coffee hitting her lap while seated behind the wheel of her car. Most adults would have a reasonable expectation of discomfort from the spillage of a hot beverage and accept mild to moderate burns as the natural consequence for such carelessness. However, such a spill should not cause the kind of damage seen in this case, requiring hospitalization and skin grafts. Patrons of this establishment have no idea that their brew is supposed to be maintained at or above 180 degrees, well above the temperature required to cause severe burns in very little time.

The article revealed that McDonald’s acknowledged this fact but considered the number of people who would be injured as insignificant. In keeping with this casual view of their casualties, they doled out more than a half million dollars in settlements to those customers deemed ‘deserving’ among the 700-plus complaints received about their coffee temperatures. In one startling bit of insight into this kind of corporate stance, the defense felt the woman’s advanced age made her skin more likely to sustain severe damage, thereby mitigating their responsibility. Isn’t the whole, ‘blame the victim’ thing going too far when you consign genetic diversity, age, and sex to the status of faulty human engineering (how dare that woman grow old!)? Perhaps the warning on the cup should read, “Caution: Contents potentially damaging to people over 70. Drink it while young and in full possession of your recuperative powers.”

Are you still waiting in line to purchase this particular brand of corporate Kool Aid?

Myths cannot support a population yet they are created because someone profits from them. Sustainable social and economic development requires an acceptance of reality. We prefer our myths even though their origins don’t rest in divinely inspired prose. Madison Avenue appears to have inspired most of this rhetoric. The myth of the free marketplace is just that, because markets were meant to serve humans in all our glorious strengths and weaknesses. Instead, human characteristics are ignored by corporations engaging in bad behavior for reasons of frank greed. Wasn’t McDonald’s able to generate healthy profits from a more temperate brew? Profits made from companies imposing heavy risks to their consumers can inflate those profits and yield a form of corporate obesity. Boards of directors may find it satisfying but the general population sustains inordinate levels of damage from hazardous goods and services when corporations choose to grow fat instead of strong. The culture of ‘never enough’, affects us all.

Risk taking behavior by our human citizenry should certainly be acknowledged. Perhaps we ought to consider whether it is careless to drink hot beverages in one’s car where movement and divided attention increases the probability of a spill. The jury reduced this woman’s award by twenty percent in recognition of individual responsibility. However, when you purchase a cup of coffee via the ‘drive-through’ window of a restaurant, one assumes the safety concerns to be no different than prior experience would indicate. The company could discourage such activity by informing customers of the unusually high beverage temperature or simply by requiring consumers to buy their coffee indoors.

The current warning on their cups insultingly maintains the joke that consumers are too dumb to apprise their own risks. It takes some degree of self-confidence and educational background to register a complaint when everyone around you is saying, “Of COURSE it’s hot, Stupid!” So this warning doesn’t educate but rather humiliates genuine victims and prevents us from demanding the information being intentionally withheld from us in commerce. We deserve to know what it is we are paying for in any transaction. Otherwise the commercial contract should be considered invalid because the terms aren’t clearly delineated. Cite the temperature on the cup or menu listing and then we’ll take it from there in terms of choosing safety or opting for optimal aromatic value. Frankly, I’d want also want to hear from a specialist in gastrointestinal medicine about the wisdom of ingesting foods above certain temperatures. However, that is for me to research once I’ve been ‘warned’ of unexpectedly high cooking temperatures.

Consumers are fortunate this woman didn’t suffer in silence. That is the custom of many stoic Americans, accustomed to being dismissed as whining wimps for needing access to medical care or objecting to the inclusion of carcinogens in our soaps. This is particularly true of women and members of minority groups. Complaining is yet another invitation to the dismissal of our competency to participate fully in American culture. Nor did this woman settle for the dismissal of her most reasonable request for compensation by the company before filing her law suit. That modest eight hundred dollars requested to cover medical bills and some of her suffering would also have left us in ignorance of how corporations have become the model of American citizenship. It is a testament to the fact that reasonable adults are willing to negotiate their problems outside of a court room. However, in this case, the other ‘party’ was made of paper, lacking the same anatomical vulnerabilities as the plaintiff, couldn’t ‘empathize’.

Thank goodness an experienced lawyer was willing to conduct a competent investigation into the problem. Professional competence overtook the overconfidence of privilege in the matter lacking any rational foundation for it’s policy and for failing to recognize the harm they brought to this particular person. This lawyer’s careful scrutiny of the circumstances enlightens all of us about our need to scrutinize companies for their role in providing us with needed goods and services in good faith that the benefits and risks are clearly understood by their customers. Since we can’t trust our institutions to be honest with us, having public records of legal settlements would certainly reduce the number of people who are injured through hazardous products or non-disclosure of avoidable risks when enjoying one’s purchase. It would also benefit industry by allowing them to discount frivolous suits. If their policies are within the bounds of acceptable practice, good companies need not be pushed into making ‘pay-offs’ from baseless legal actions just to avoid adverse publicity.

The WSJ article has a wonderful discussion of jaded jurors who were prepared to laugh at this case themselves – before seeing the evidence. Jury duty is quite a wake-up call to our collective consciences. McDonald’s apparently refused a reasonable offer of settlement by the plaintiff’s attorney and then a proposed resolution in a court-ordered mediation. Their faith in the willingness of jurors to drink this brand of verbal Kool Aid was boundless, yet misplaced. We must again be grateful for that hubris because any sealed settlement would have resulted in further injuries. There is much to be learned from this case about corporations following such a path versus the respect that the owners, managers and employees of well-run, sustainable corporate entities are due for making the world turn.

A wake up call is required to counteract those ‘fast food’ misrepresentations of reality just as many municipalities are now requiring disclosure of fat and salt content for fast food to show how it differs from real or ‘slow’ food. We see many inexplicable positions dispensed in tweets, sound bytes, slogans on placards and on coffee cups, appealing to a fast food form of philosophy. Corporate deceptions about life-style choices being the cause of all ills is belied by their misbranding of many medications and foods as reasonable selections. The NY Times pointed out the “Smart Choice” label appearing on boxes of Fruit Loops cereal, despite sugar being the largest percentage of ingredients in that ‘food’. That certainly makes me wonder why it isn’t stocked on the shelves of the candy aisle of grocery stores instead of taking up space in the cereal aisle. Women are learning that statins don’t work well for them, despite the huge number of prescriptions given to both sexes for their ‘health’. Yet all we hear is how cholesterol is the enemy rather than the drugs used to fight it which may not be compatible with every patient’s physiology.

This NY Times article explains the use of settlements to induce makers of generic drugs to refrain from producing competing products with holders of expiring patents. The price of the original drug remains high while profits are shared among those whose very existence is based on the concept of competition in the marketplace. Consumers are damaged in multiple ways through this misuse of the legal process. If precedents in patent law for drugs were set through trials on these admittedly complex matters, this repetitive process harming the public would end. Leaving the question of patent expirations unanswered means consumer dollars pay for a ‘win’ negotiated by both sides. Under what system of government does a court decision harm individuals who aren’t even part of the process? The law genie has escaped from it’s constitutional wrappings and become another tool for earning money instead of setting guidelines for civilized behavior between ‘individuals’ if one wishes to refer to corporations as such.

Our justice system requires our full participation. Settlements are certainly preferable to prolonged and expensive trial ventures but not when they extend or institutionalize bad practices. Secrecy allows companies to pass these costs onto all their consumers. The McDonald’s trial might not have been necessary if any of their multiple settlements with other burn victims had become a part of the public record. Just a few of those made public might have been enough to prompt consumer watch-dog groups to warn citizens of that hazard. Perhaps multiple settlements might have led to an investigation into this industry practice. Of course, publicly recorded settlements might just have led this company to solicit professional advice and go on a moral diet, trimming some of the fatty profits derived from superheated beverages sold without disclosure of risk.

Having settlements entered into the public record would result in a change in our culture which has come to believe that anything, eaten in secret, has no calories. Corporate citizens suffer from obesity just as our human citizens but that can only happen in the ‘dark’.

Part III (Enforcing the Principles) will highlight my personal interest in these matters. I am not just an ‘Acceptable Risk‘, but also a litigant. I am the plaintiff in the following action:

Queens Civil Supreme
Index Number:  014425/2002
Case Name: RUBIN, BARBARA 3/P vs. MARATHON JEWISH COMMUNITY CENTER/PRO-TECH PEST CONTROL
Case Type:Negligence
Track: Complex

Yes, complex indeed but the principle at the heart of the suit – full disclosure—is far from complex. TBC

Postscript: Interesting article here at the NY Times describing new commitment to justice on the part of lawyers. An encouraging read.

Postscript: A documentary named “Hot Coffee” was made on cases like that one. A summation of the case is given here by relatives of that coffee case litigant and makes for a very eye-opening account of that story. (You-Tube)

In war, you know the identity of your enemy. Nicholas Kristoff asks an excellent question in this Op Ed piece for the NY Times, “Do We Really Want the Status Quo on Health Care?“. It identified lack of health care as part of the current status quo. The next question to ask here is just who or what is the enemy, taking out so many non-combatants each year? Is it health care costs? Certainly a single payer system would go far towards cost containment since the private sector is guilty of price fixing in setting values upon products and services – be it a mortgage or an MRI. Health care constitutes more than 17% of our gross domestic product for other reasons.

It’s a bit ridiculous to claim it is ‘overuse’ of services as we hear from the ‘party of No’. The last time I checked, people in the market for entertainment chose Disneyland over a visit to an orthopedist. Services are certainly not ‘overused’ by those without insurance and the many people who are ‘under-insured’. The latter individuals forgo many exams and medications due to co-pays and the need to cover that next health insurance premium which is really retained for catastrophic coverage. Nor are services ‘overused’ in the quest for a proper diagnosis in a culture of health care that is oriented to the control of symptoms instead identification of their source. Drugs may be ineffective for their intended purpose and many lead to serious adverse effects as well. Seeking out multiple physician opinions to obtain health care with a good outcome is not ‘over-use’ but a necessity until medicine matures sufficiently to return to cure-oriented treatments. This is well understood – and feared – by many Americans. I personally know one, very well insured person, who suffered a stroke rather than see a physician for check-ups to learn about having chronically high blood pressure and silent kidney damage.

If it is ‘just’ about sickness, then we need to utilize the renewed Patriot Act in order to force Congress to legislate universal health care. The enemy must find it incredibly comforting to know that Americans require huge amounts of health care because we are an exceedingly ill nation.

• One quarter of children have a chronic health condition.
• Nearly half of all adults have a chronic health condition.
• Our seniors, comprising more than 12% percent of our population will predictably require care and ‘end of life’ services. Medicare exists to provide them with a considerable degree of coverage for their conditions without the attendant blame for needing health insurance which is accorded to younger Americans without the funds to pay for it.

We are a nation of patients. Debating about caring for the sick is entirely based upon a premise that our country is first an economic system rather than a constitutional entity. The health care debate centers around the notion that offering a cost-effective public system of medical coverage to its citizens is unfair to industry because it removes a share of potential consumers from the marketplace. All discussion of competition between insurers (not even providers of care) relegates the science of medicine to an equal rung on the marketplace ladder with, say, that mysterious metal coil we call a ‘Slinky’. Are these really products and services we wish to consider identical to the marketing of toys within the marketplace?

If you can’t afford bread, it will be provided to you. However, you may have to ration those loaves carefully to last you for the requisite period necessary. Can a lesser tier of insurance provide a ‘half-cure’ for a disease? Ask any physician if you should take seven days of antibiotics for an infection which requires fourteen days of medication to achieve a cure. Patients have been known to cut short the length of treatment time for many infections in the hope that rationing their medication for their current illness will save costs for new prescriptions for their next illness. We know now that this approach merely leads to the growth of antibiotic resistant infections and far greater illness (not to mention costs) than had we assisted them with the full price of earlier treatments. Seizures are quite difficult to control in many patients without a minimum level of drug support and often combinations of drugs. The nervous system may not recognize the notion of ‘compromise’ based upon income. Should the acquisition of seizure medications be dependent upon the same economic system that markets Slinky toys? Does our national identity become so lost if medical care is provided to all that it is better to consign 45,000 people each year to death for lack of medical insurance? Any war with that level of annual casualties would have the public taking to the streets in protest. Of course, this figure doesn’t even factor in deaths due to being ‘under-insured’. Again, how much compromise can one safely make with costly high blood pressure medications?

As with most issues which appear to be full of contradictions, philosophy dictates that we must check our assumptions. The ‘right’ side of the legislative debate (or the wrong side for purposes of this blog post) relegates the art and science of medicine to a commodity instead of a life preserving or life-saving practice. If medicine is strictly a commodity then it will remain available only to those with sufficient income for a comprehensive tier of medical insurance. The minimum wage only offers sufficient income to deprive earners of federal medical coverage granted to the ‘legally’ poor. The majority of insured Americans will eventually find themselves ‘under-insured’ in a marketplace where every buyer is guaranteed to need their full investment back when they get sick. With the escalating numbers of sick and disabled Americans, no insurance company can be considered a sustainable entity as fewer healthy people purchase their policies.

Since capitalism invites unsustainable businesses to go out of business, should medical care be considered part of that process at all? Medical care for humans isn’t a ‘choice’ as it is with veterinary care for pets. One can put down a sick Doberman or withhold treatment but is that option open to you with Aunt Edith? It would seem that regarding medical care as a commodity is the surest way to create death panels based upon income levels alone. Only the poorest, the elderly and the wealthy will be able to access care unless the insurance risk pool grows to include everyone AND we begin to deal with the excessive rates of illness. Controlling environmentally induced ailments will not just slow the rate of inflation but reverse it.

Let’s move on to another radical assumption about ourselves as Americans. Requiring a basic level of wealth in order to access health care services says that we are first and foremost consumers, rather than citizens. Our last administration was fond of terming us, “consumers” and the presidency as akin to the CEO of America. As consumers, we become subservient to corporations which claim they must not be required to compete with a government capable of offering the same essential medical services to its legal residents at a lower cost, i.e. Medicare. Why can’t they compete? Is there some reason corporations are supposed to be underwritten by the government to ensure the availability of customers or a particular profit margin? If the products and services of a company are out of range of most consumer’s wallets, wouldn’t any company naturally diversify or go out of business? Isn’t it corporate welfare to consign American citizens to the mercies of private insurers with no other options? Does that even guarantee any level of competition will exist?

By the time G.W. Bush left the gubernatorial chair of Texas, medicaid payments were so reduced that doctors could not afford to maintain a practice in poorer areas. United States ‘consumers’ were crossing the Mexican border to obtain services from clinics in Mexico. The government failed to meet even the meanest corporate standard of payment for essential services and certainly health care professionals are entitled to a living wage! A definite end to any government challenge to business.

No economic system should be confused with determinations of basic morals and ethics. Canada and European nations don’t classify medicine in the same category as other commodities. For the average commodity such as housing, food and clothing, one budgets according to one’s income. Those who can’t own, rent. Those who can afford to do so choose lobster over tuna. The cost differences between various brands of clothing is quite broad. Consumers choose accordingly but still remain housed, fed and clothed for the most part. Citizens in dire straits however, do receive food, clothing and housing. Why then is medicine assigned a lower rung on the ladder of necessary products and services? National identity is at the heart of this debate, not capitalism and competition. Further erasing the notion of competition being at the heart of this debate – revealing as such a position may be – true competition no longer appears to be part of our major industries. Price fixing is common today, as I recently found when looking at independent and assisted living facilities. Astonished by the notion that a small room in such a facility was deserving of a monthly, $2,100 price tag, even with a meal plan. I was informed by one manager that it was only fair not to undercut the prices of their competition too greatly. The presence of government options with little or no profit margin restores an absolute value to such products and services once more. All we’ve known in recent decades is relative value – the minimum profits agreed upon by trade associations without regard for demand in relation to production costs (varying according to quality).

Price fixing is the purposeful undermining of capitalism in order to restrict ‘fairness’ to corporate entities instead of the consumer. It restricts efforts to promote increased quality among similarly priced services wherever there appears to be sufficient numbers available to feed at the shared trough. Only when the numbers of ‘consumers’ available to take these small rooms in senior communities decreases, can a fall in charges can be expected. These ‘homes’ have many rooms going empty which is not, apparently, a threat to their continued operation. This is not a function of competition but of tacit agreement between corporate entities that one must take every last penny from a consumer’s wallet before declaring one’s profit to be at an acceptable level. Rooms go empty rather than be accorded an actual value which would be within the means of far more consumers and still be profitable for the vendor.

I had a similar experience with used car dealers. None would disclose what a car was worth until they learned of how much money I had to spend – carefully calculated by them according to my income. The worth of the car appeared to change with each successive journey the salesman made into his boss’s office during negotiations. I believe Saturn became a popular car based upon its sales policy of one price for all customers. Imagine that – a product with a singe value accorded to it regardless of consumer income. Comparing that view to that of the salesman in that assisted living facility is the best illustration of how capitalism has mutated into a form of gangster capitalism. When politicians begin expounding about maintaining a ‘free marketplace’, we must remember that the marketplace is never free when profit margins are pre-determined by official or unofficial trade associations. Instead of increasing quality and advancing new technology, vendors band together to break any newcomer so foolish as to actually exceed their level of service quality for the money in a sustainable manner.

Capitalism was supposed to spur the pursuit of excellence in industry. Progress depends upon it instead of solely relying upon tax incentives for industry to embrace new developments as older – and often hazardous – products and services are banned.

We must further go to the nature of our justice system which promises injuries can be redressed. With so much illness either known or suspected to be the result of pollution – a byproduct of industry which is largely ignored by government regulators – how can we permit it to go untreated? How can we wrest the costs from the victims of pollution? We’ve seen lead removed from paint and the outrage over of imported toys possessing that toxic ingredient. We’ve seen anti-smoking legislation reduce cardiac events by one third in participating municipalities. Pollution emanating from many uncontrolled sources is also causing asthma, heart disease, autoimmune disorders and cancers among other disorders. Why is the individual held responsible for their medical treatments when causation goes undeterred? This is an issue of justice as much as it is one of national identity. Are we citizens or consumers? If the elderly are allowed medical care, it is ageism to declare younger citizens to be dispensable in all matters medical.

Obviously, the real enemy is sickness. We have consistently failed to meet it on the honorable battlefield of medicine because – that’s right – we left the field of battle to lobbyists and their corporate sponsors telling dying people that it is better to be dead than participate in ‘socialist’ medicine. What, pray tell, should we do when reaching retirement age? Commit hara-kiri rather than accept evil, government-sponsored Medicare?

We know that voters began demanding universal health care, preferring a single payer option just one year ago, before slogans and tea parties began to frighten the average person into believing they are better off without health care than with an incomplete plan of action – as if any taxes paid towards that effort would ever even approach the charges of the average health care plan in America. That would not be the case if healthy Americans were paying reasonable premiums to, say, Medicare instead of a private insurer where overhead would automatically be greater lest an American CEO be left behind. Paul Krugman gives an excellent synopsis of the insurance game lest anyone remain in denial of how this process works.

Sickness may be the enemy but ignorance and denial leaves us without the weapons to fight it. We are thus far unarmed in a battle which is not about life. It is about ideologies which are counter to both the ideological basis upon which we are governed and to capitalism, our presumed economic system. There isn’t much more you can get wrong in politics.

Once the public realizes that freedom of speech does not ensure accuracy of content, we may begin to take our personal responsibilities more seriously, having fiddled while the District of Columbia burned. But don’t expect treatment at your local ER for your wounds unless you have great insurance. When Massachusetts voters decided that, having attained universal health care for their fellow Bay Staters, the remainder of the country could go without lest any part of that cost devolve upon them, it was clear that Americans no longer wondered about what was to happen the day AFTER tomorrow.

Perhaps the new conservatives they elected will be happy to suspend their health care once their state’s allotments no longer cover their citizens. Pretending you aren’t part of a larger nation is always a mistake. It takes an entire nation, not a village. Villages are razed all around the globe daily by the bullies and their minions- who also don’t think about the day after tomorrow.