BloggeRhythms

Steve Forbes posted an article today, @FoxNews.com, titled: “My advice for 2016 GOP presidential hopefuls. If you want to win, here's how."

  

While many of Mr. Forbes' suggestions are already being addressed in many, if not most, current Republican candidates platforms, his putting the information concisely together helps illustrate clearly what’s hampering the nation’s economy. And what needs to be done to correct the mistakes of the current administration, and Democrats in general.  

Mr. Forbes explains that: “What drives rising health care prices is our government-dominated "third-party payer" system, whereby employers, government, private insurers--but not the patient--are the ones that pay for most of health care.” 

As a result, the market is therefore tailored to provider’s needs and not the health care consumer. “While the left pins the blame on greed and free markets, the real problem is just the opposite--too much regulation and a lack of true, free markets.” 

Since the key is putting patients in charge of healthcare, not third-party payers, in addition to ObamaCare's repeal, critical changes would include: “Require that health care providers, particularly hospitals and clinics, post prices for all procedures and services; create a national market for insurance by allowing consumers to shop for coverage across state lines; require that hospitals post each month how many patients have died from hospital-based infections; and eliminate costly coverage mandates for health insurance. We should also encourage the growth of tax-free health savings accounts and let states make their own decisions about how to best allocate Medicaid funds.” 

Next, is the burdensome monster the tax code, and its enforcer the IRS has become as “an immensely powerful and abusive agency.” In this case, Mr. Forbes suggests implementing a simple flat tax that is also a tax cut, which “would reduce the burden on productive work, risk-taking and success, stimulating a genuine boom of historic proportions. Individuals and businesses could literally file their returns on a single sheet of paper or with a few computer keystrokes. The inflated influence of lobbyists would end. The IRS as we know and fear it today would end.” 

What’s most astounding, though, are the statistics he presented to support his proposal. “Taxpayer’s spend over 6 billion hours a year filling out tax forms and over $300 billion to comply with the code. Imagine if over the years all that brainpower and all those billions of hours and trillions of dollars had gone to producing new products and services, new medical devices and new cures for diseases, how much better our lives would be today. The flat tax already exists in more than 30 countries around the world. It really works.”   

And finally, he supports the return to a gold standard to provide stability to the economy, writing: “Similar to clocks, rulers and scales, money works best when it has a fixed value. The best route to dollar stability is to restore its link to gold. Ultimately we must create a new gold standard, which served this country well from the time of George Washington's presidency to the early 1970s.” 

What's most interesting about Mr. Forbes presentation is that while it’s quite simple and straightforward, it also explains why big government doesn’t work and why it can’t. It also shows why Democrats in particular, strive to insure their futures by growing a system that depends on their own employment. Regardless of the costs to the taxpayers that support them for no real, practical, reason.  

On another issue: As the global-warming talks heat up in Paris, a critical phase is about to begin. This week, rich nations plan to pledge more to poor ones than they did at a 2009 climate summit, which was $100 billion a year by 2020. 

While the spending spree is being planned, Seth Borenstein and Karl Ritter of the Associated Press, dug up some information on how previous “climate” donations were spent. 

The writer’s quoted University of Zurich's Axel Michaelowa, who studies climate aid grants, who found "there was a huge misrepresentation. Governments were actually really not able to report properly" on aid that was supposed to help countries reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

Michaelowa’s study, “conducted on specific climate grants four years ago, showed a list of "projects without any conceivable climate change connotation," such as Belgium funding for a "love movie festival" in the early 2000s in Africa, a U.S.-funded study on Savannah elephant sounds, and uniforms for park guardians in Central America with aid from Spain. 

“For their website, Adaptation Watch, Weikmans and Brown University environmental studies professor Timmons Roberts studied 5,201 projects mentioned by developed nations and found that 3,444 of them "did not explicitly link project activities to addressing climate vulnerability.”

In conclusion, Roberts said, "Climate finance accounting is the wild west.” Two other experts used the same "wild west" phrase, which some developed nations' representatives object to. 

What’s most remarkable, and despicable, is that while the global-warming fraud continues, the administration happily commits taxpayer’s dollars to this little-disguised transfer of wealth. Which is nothing more than supporting socialism in other nations with funds Americans earned intending to support themselves and their families. 

Which brings us to today’s update on Bill Clinton’s wife.

Anupreeta Das @wsj.com/washwire reports: “On Wednesday night, Blackstone Group LP President and COO Hamilton “Tony” James held a fundraiser at his Manhattan home for Mrs. Clinton. Mrs. Clinton wasn’t in attendance, but there was another draw: Warren Buffett.

“Mr. Buffett isn’t the biggest fan of Wall Street, but he is a big supporter of Mrs. Clinton. The billionaire investor met with a group of 12 Wall Street executives, including bankers and private-equity partners, according to people familiar with the matter. The price of entry was $33,400, with the proceeds of around $400,000 going to  the Hillary Victory Fund, which is split between the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee.”

The best summation of Buffet’s interests in the Clinton campaign can be found in two reader’s comments.

Amy wrote: “Warren Buffet has been dancing to the tune of the Democrats, and is not about to stop. He is completely tied to Obama, since Obama and his sycophants allowed Buffet to make billions off of transporting oil on rail cars instead of much safer pipelines. 

“Just another of the many mega-rich who are in it for themselves, and to the Devil with America.” 

Bad Man added: “Further proof that Buffett is just another rich investor that will cozy up to one of the most vile and deceitful woman in America. Also looks like time to liquidate several investment positions run by people that support the corrupt Clintons.”

Thus, evidence continues to mount that a growing number of voters are far more aware today of what politicians actually do, despite their efforts to disclaim, as well as the motives of their self-serving supporters. And, what’s most interesting here, is that Bill’s wife’s campaigning hard about curbing major moneyed interests as she tries to move to the left of Sanders. Yet, those same money-driven interests have been at the heart of her efforts from the start, and will always be.

Which means that, with so much information now immediately available, it’s going to be extremely hard for her to sell her truth distortions to the voting-public today. And, of course, brings up the continual question: Joe Biden, Mayor Bloomberg, Jerry Brown, and Starbuck’s chairman and CEO, Howard Schultz, are you guys reading this?    

        

In closing, a couple of timely items, posted by friends on Facebook.

And, here’s an example that proves they’re right!



That's it for today folks.

Adios