Obamacare Flunked the Covid 19 Stress-Test

Obamacare has flunked the Covid 19 crisis. Maybe half of former American workers will be without health insurance as stressed employers cut employees and costs. Obama-Care was a neo-liberal corporate ream-job designed to enslave younger, healthy workers in order to pay rents to the richest corporate shareholders. When the first pandemic in a few decades blew into town Obamacare collapsed like a 9-11 house of cards.

There were better alternatives to neo-liberal corporate health insurance for all Americans. I have about a U.S. government direct provisioning of health services for the poor and veterans since the Obama administration. Expanding the V.A. and networking it with poor peoples and community clinics and hospitals was the right way to go.  Speaker Pelosi said to pass Obamacare to find out what’s in it; now we know that it was preponderantly a scheme to enrich the rich and earn post-employment gratitude for the dishonest servant.

A better system was possible; free, walk-in public health service could have been designed to provide care to all of the nation’s poor and for those with pre-existing conditions unable to be insured. The nation public health service should have been designed to treat as many as 30 million Americans at one time, as it would also serve as a national crisis health care service in addition to V.A. network.

Most of the beds would have been mothballed and brought into active public health duty only as needed. Bringing the poor into the V.A. network would help to fill the mothballed service to a high enough capacity to keep it working realistically and ready for a future national health care crisis.

American politicians are daftly infatuated with capitalism and Wall Street and without any kind of solid base in comprehending political philosophy. Capital is nothing more than things of value, and communism is not the only alternative to unlimited unregulated capitalism. It is on the contrary quite reasonable for a democracy to regulate and direct free enterprise ventures to serve vital public interests such as ecosphere defense and restoration, public health and so forth.  There are innumerable ways to reform capitalism such that it is well adapted to the demographics and physical limits of growth on Earth.

Some regard capital as liquid, relocatable funds for investment. The marginal productivity of such capital cannot be regarded as capable of being a rational or desirable management system for the conservation and restoration of the planetary ecosphere.

Compare capitalism to automobiles; should automobiles be free to travel as fast as they can be made to because to regulate highway speed would be communistic? Government regulation is an important public function necessary for the continuity of life on Earth. The problem with the U.S. government today is that it hasn’t got enough enterprising individuals in it able to reform, innovate or lead in a practical way. Communism is a kind of evil, bureaucratic domination of the stupid over everyone. That bureaucratic evil spirit can be found in about any form of government as it becomes ossified, stupid and has concentrated wealth and power with bureaucrats becoming neo-liberal loyalists of whatever furher or fearless leader promises them more wealth and authority. Good government cannot be led by Mister McGoo political philosophy that interprets capitalism as a system of government possible just with concentrated wealth and power. As I noted above capital is nothing more than things of value. It should be noted that things that are valuable to human survival and health like natural resources may be grossly undervalued. Value systems arise from intelligence, and a paucity of intelligence one might observe, seems too common for most politicians. Why not create covid 19 defense masks that cover the entire face with protection for the eyes? Plastic Halloween mask manufacturers could make clear adapted Covid 19 defense masks to enable vulnerable people to safely venture in public without playing Russian roulette with the virus and live breathing virus vectors on subways and buses.

Communists of the former Soviet Union also had values; they did not redistribute commodities willy nilly. Values for capital can be of two kinds primarily; things of value economically that are recognized and those that are not. The economic philosophy argument today should be about management style rather than about capitalism since capitalism means nothing more than things of value that compile. Communists also wanted to increase capital, just like western ‘capitalists’, yet with a different method.

Communists converted all private capital into public capital. In the west today’s public capital is about zero in light of public debt, and private capital is most all and mostly concentrated by a very few.  A better balance between public and private capital is desirable if competent political management style is made to exist- perhaps a 50-50 balance would be good, yet with all the work being done through free enterprise that is regulated and selected for ecospheric quality and for increasing the quality of life for the majority.

In Some Respects Americans are Lost

In some respects Americans are mildly lost. Without the Lord Jesus Christ guiding their thought and lives people go astray in pursuit of a zillion temporal things. Many of those temporal, material things don't work well with other material things they pursue. The entire society might be regarded as uncoordinated materially and prone to conflicts. Short term profits are a reason for being in-themselves as the woods for the trees can't be seen as they are clear cut and replaced with subdivisions and asphalt.

Homosexual marriage was just one, wrong belligerent political move more satisfying to Satan one would think, than to God. Not that anything humans do might be satisfying to God of course; He is perfection and humanity is mired in original sin and the hog farm of bad politics as a millennial activity. Instead of working things in a positive and optimal direction the leadership chooses wrong options. Homosexual marriage for example might have not been selected to offend most of the planet's sensibilities and instead some kind of contractual, new homo institution for that behavior seeking legal encumbrances to reduce individual civil liberties might have been made; Americans would have tolerated that and not brought some wrath of God style corrections upon themselves. Perhaps there is more of that in store down the road since Americans seem so far lost as to forget the gospel has conditions and expectations of Biblically correct spirit and behavior with it.

People are often drifting in and out of life. They strut and fret their hour on the stage with ample worries as Shakespeare noted (in Hamlet) without considering the phenomenality of it all. Neither do they have adequate concern for the ecosphere's health to keep it alive and thriving apparently as a long slow drain of its health is perpetrated by the human economic style of exploiting resources until they don't work any more.

Certainly taxes need be increased upon the rich yet Democrats are far too weak for that in their pursuit of all looseness possible from border security to material increase. God has indicated that he has displeasure when the rich exploit the poor; maybe the concentration of over-wealth in the U.S.A. is another part of the problem theologically speaking. The loose border allowing human vectors of infection quite liberally to cross illegally also assures that Mexico's health system and politics are over-exploited or underdeveloped as the case may be and Mexicans die trying to keep U.S. auto plants producing during the pandemic. Illegal immigration means that economics are loose on both sides of the border with the poor paying the cost of such political vaguery.

Matthew 19: 23 Then Jesus said to His disciples, “Assuredly, I say to you that it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. 24 And again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”

One Need Cover Eyes from Covid Aerosol Contact

Upgrading standard hard-plastic Halloween masks with eye covering and nose and mouth filters probably would substantially reduce the odds of getting Covid 19 from the community while shopping or riding a bus. people are generally disregarding eye infection that can occur in maybe 20% of the Covid cases. If one is getting Covid generally through the mouth or nose the route of the eyes is just ignored, yet that can be a fatal flaw in reasoning for some people.

https://www.ajmc.com/newsroom/covid19-may-be-transmitted-through-the-eye-report-finds

Clear plastic Halloween masks with replaceable filters and eye covering can be made at low cost very quickly and distributed to the nation so people can go about their business and bus riding more safely. There is no point in being stupid; and where those dollar store garden gloves taking care to wash them often.

If a soldier was defending against VX or GB (lethal chemical agents) and putting on protective gear he would not fail to cover his entire face and especially eyes; for some reason civilians are stupid about that and believe that inhaling the virus is the only way to get it.

Wal-mart has several masks that could be upgraded if they cared to make them useful for covid 19 defense. Here is an example of one that would be easy to make just clear with replaceable filters and eye covering.

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Clear-Young-Mask-Adult-Halloween-Accessory/134008082 

             

Alaska's 'Marine Highway' Problem

The state of Alaska has a marine ferry boat service aka 'Marine Highway' that it can't afford in the post oil-boom era. However with more coastline than the rest of the U.S.A. and many isolated communities it actually needs some sort of water transport for the citizen-public; not just for tourists.

Early in the territorial and state history of Alaska the federal government invested a lot in establishing people here. The cold war with the Soviets was just one reason why. Presently there is still good cause to invest in Alaska although politicians usually don't find the good reasons so much as the bad. The state therefore needs to take the bull by the horns and build an affordable marine Highway infrastructure.

When I tried to return to Alaska during the Covid crisis I found it was becoming difficult. Canada had stopped travel for Americans across its border, and the ferry boat to Bellingham Washington was gone; in effect Alaska Airlines was the de facto state transportation system for some time.

The basic concepts of public ferryboat transportation in Alaska should be changed such that heavy lift and passengers would travel through separate vessels. Passenger vessels without cars or trucks can be quite fast and cheaper to operate. One can build fast trimarans to skim over the waters that survive quite substantial storms. Cargo barges can be built for heavy lift- perhaps motorized barges operated by private barge lines in conjunction with the state of Alaska. New designs for passengerless barges could be made and tailored to Alaskan needs and waters.

I like the idea of double-hulled barges with the inner hull detachable from the out hull when the outer hull need be taken out of service for maintenance and trimarans for passengers for short hops of 200 miles or fewer.

Another idea that has been mentioned in making a public corporation to operate the ferry boats. It is worth considering, however the means already exist to upgrade the existing structure albeit with substantial changes.

Concerning Ideas and Being (poem)

An energy field of infinite scale

dimensions contingent and meaningless

pass gluons and quarks to Higgs loops

virtually spoofing countless hadrons;

energy acting upon energy-

whirlpools formed molecules to be

and become sentient suits

Independent thoughts off an endless branch

pure energy; whatever it is, 

across an expanse of universes

energized though free

protons and neutrons you and me

Iive in God’s energetic stream  

with days and years of acting solid

-massless in two dimensions

solid in three

Where a big bang cooled energy too

Acting like mass (M=E/c2)

entangled in a Higgs field

frozen energy viewed from within

it being like an unknowable grail

from an imponderable point

of infinite energy in one static place

in an infinite virtual cloud

Speaking of particle waves

as a kind of serious lark

with dead grim power;

Infinite and indefinable

enshrouding a Universal cloud of unknowing

Thus it is that mankind enjoys the story

of mass separated as ape-kind 

north-south by the ocean spilling

into a Mediterranean basin evolving

farther than tropical fish with fins

caught in tidal pools adapting

to live a little and walk to water

Safely amphibs moved farther

to warmth ashore; solar energy

their distant ancestors changed

adapting to the north slope savanna

some returning to East Africa

becoming sapiens in time

after some earlier adapted Neanderthals

returned north again, and northeast

Stories of billions of years 

reduced to millions and thousands

summarized in sentient script

of so much done in six days

an energy field, an infinite line

shaped to evolving waves and Universe

as a preference of Being, the sentients’

thoughts stand alone, apart from will;

that source of energy

a word to begin

the cascade of questions

concerning spacetime and being

emptiness and energy,

ideas and dreaming.

Covid 19 and The End of Verdance (poem)

  Covid 19’s love of bated breath

dwells intimately in numbers

words exchange theories of noise

penumbras past-time into night

light casual silent thunder

Covid rhymes kisses of death

planning economistic trillions

In futurists’ sight

  That it were not sew

rapping beeziness budding bioreactors

reap cracker box palace demographics

pollinating ribbon cutting bling

so red death rings

belles of blue

  If dramaturges of deep sleep groan

with lines of micron size convergent

done drops Halloween springs

yearly shared shadows

songs of silence-

zero public assets

  Reaper dreams 10,000 base pairs

more or less remnants of Covid spliced

dread rhinovirus cowboys herding

Wall Street to Jackal and Hyde mode-

shelters in place

all private assets

  A micron or five mohr investors

bounce skyward in positive pressure

bubbles of infectors a, t, c, g scrabble

without ecological economic sectors

containing Covid ape virus

  To the drawing board an airless mountain

is cast like a filtered militant

protesting beeziness failing

cloistered hives of moonlight

rhythms skulsing foreshadow

Ezekialian rest of wonder

what is wrong or write, supersymmetry

in building codes allowing Higgs particles

to borrow from their own quantum field

virtually forever until thermodynamics

close down the dressed Universe

in naked disappearance

without a bang or Whymper to scale

Earth’s highest point

50% public assets, 50% private

  Apes from the verdance

clime down

  Apes cut the verdance

build a town

  Ape with a dream

build machines

  Machines with the mind 

hate life’s sign

  A.I. kilt the verdance

thought “that’s nice”.

Uncreative Responses to the Wuhan Virus

One of the worst revelations of the pandemic is that politicians may not be very bright or able to think innovatively. To them sustainable economics means drilling more oil wells. In the United States politicians seemed to be limited to declaring that they needed more ventilators and so forth. Medical remedies were important obviously yet so was prophylaxis against the virus. The latter is the area where creative imagination was sorely lacking and that made me wonder if American politicians generally are stupid.

 A nation with stupid leaders unable to figure out how to keep the economy working well during a pandemic are also likely to be unable to discover ways to adapt the economy to the ecosphere in order to keep the human virus of consumption and displacement from destroying the ecosphere. It may be that in the average state of economic affairs with people learning a skill with blinders on to most everything else beside personal income through-put that the national I.Q. just is not very high, or high enough to overcome the case of stupidity and inertia that has attended the decline of several prior civilizations.

Some have suggested that humanity is like a bacteria eating everything it can from the environment until the petri dish planet is exhausted and incapable of sustaining human life. Old economic styles like those used today are like that. New ecological economics adapts human economics to one the ecosphere can sustain in vitality. It is a fundamental and necessary change. Economic sustainability does not mean drilling oil and using greenhouse gases until the atmosphere is 700 degrees; it refers to ecological sustainability in regard to rightly adapted human economic methods.

 China addressed its Covid problem in Wuhan fairly swiftly because it has dictatorship when it is needed. The U.S. with its democracy (nominally at least) seemed a clattering junker in its response comparatively as so many states and governors fought about how and when to require that prosperous people stay at home for a couple of months to shelter in place while the homeless and poor where generally discounted. Public schools were closed for the year and church attendance was banned because of decrees forbidding public gatherings. The President considered giving money to oil corporations for relief to the fall in oil prices because they had suffered so much during their decades of years with record profits that they shared with the public then as higher prices at the pump. It is important to keep those engines of global warming gases rolling.

 I would think that students should be rewarded a bit for their loss of much of a school year with some educational reform in a timely way so they don’t find their programmatic advance in higher education too disrupted. Consider that high schools developed in an era when the Internet did not exist and when local communities were actually local; a college was often quite distant. Today though, high schools and colleges can share the same space on-line.

 High schools should all be paired with at least one college such that there is a continuous educational ladder from grade 9 to grade 16. A student making satisfactory progress in high school at some select level of g.p.a. would be entirely free to take higher classes from the college if pre-requisites are met. Every high school student would have automatic admission to at least one college- the paired college- while in high school. The sole requirement would be satisfactory academic progress for a degree program. For non-degree seeking students the sole requirement for taking college courses while in high school or after would be pre-requisites or tests to show a student would be at the right level in a particular course. It could be that some students would discover technical courses at college that were not available in high school although they have no plan to pursue an academic degree program.

 I have wondered why there does not seem to be some new business such as an on-line ‘mask store’ that would sell designer complete face protective masks during the Covid crisis. With quality full face coverings with a price for everyone from free to hundreds of dollars people could ride school buses normally or go about business normally in urban areas though gloves should be used to- perhaps garden gloves that are washed frequently. Eyelids are a repository for viral germs when conversations occur. Eyes need to be covered with shields as well as nose and mouth; that’s why full face masks need include eye shields. Halloween mass full face coverings with the addition of clear eye plastic coverings are a basic template to adapt for the Wuhan virus. Clear masks may be better for mass use during the crisis rather than scary masks for example, with politician’s faces on them.

 Logically people over 60 or with pre-existing conditions may need to stay in isolation with a federal subsidy until a vaccine is made and distributed. If medical authorities approve, younger people probably should return to work letting the virus burn out among them if that means they are thereafter immune themselves. If older people return to the work force without a vaccine they would in effect be playing a game of Russian roulette; safe enough until someone walks in to the store that is infected. Older people can wear clear entire-face covering masks with filters for nose and mouth in addition to eye protection when they need to go out in the public to shop. Of course, they too should be free to return to work with a mask like a hockey star if them want- yet the mask need be just very thin and snug to work.