People enjoying the Capital Mall

The Faces of Poverty

I just finished a night's sleep (off and on) in the youth room of a local church. My wife is a committed participant in the Salem Hospitality Network. Network rules require volunteers to spend the night with the clients, just in case there should be any emergencies. Currently, they are serving three families with a fourth, a family of five, about to arrive. Obviously, I can't reveal anything about the families currently being served. I can say, however, that they don't fit the stereotype of the poor I often hear about from some of my friends. They see panhandlers by the road side or in public places and conclude “this is the face of poverty in America. And since I can reform them, I am free to enjoy my wealth and pass by on the other side.”

What is the true face of poverty in America?

Well, over 25 million of them are working.

I discuss this in a review of Shifler's book, The Working Poor. These are the people who qualify for the earned income tax credit. In fact, my 25 million estimate is likely low because as neighbor pointed out that when you reach 65 you can still work, but you will no longer qualify for the credit. How many people over sixty five work at least part time out of necessity? A lot, including my neighbor.

Often the poor are younger families with children. In fact, if you are a woman, having a child is risking a life of poverty. Making it in a two adult family is hard enough. But if your marriage ends in divorce, you will find it very difficult to escape poverty.

The Rise of the Pharmaceutical Monster

We grew up trusting doctors and believing in the value of pharmaceuticals. When we got sick or suffered injury, we went to the doctor. After a brief examination, he reached for the prescription pad. We went to the drug store, bought the medication, used it and get better. The doctor was often the most educated man a rural American town. And we went to him in time of crisis; --birth, serious illness, accidents, impending death. Pharmaceuticals allow many people to live a normal lives. Diabetics get their insulin. Around the world, due to the pharmaceutical industry major diseases have been wiped out. How could this system go wrong?

How did the system go wrong? I suppose it was because of the availability of money. Social security started up in 1935. Wages were good during the war years and thereafter. People on social security started retiring and drawing their regular monthly benefits. And those same people started living longer and needing more medical attention. The labor movement contributed health insurance. And then Medicare came along. So people with health care needs were also people who had money.
So the major unintended consequence was the creation of the pharmaceutical industry. Now it has become a case of the tail wagging the dog.
Pharmaceutical profits, $200 billion annually, are huge. They are more interested in maintaining their profitability than in the public health. profits. They have bribed congress and infiltrated the FDA so that regulations don’t protect Americans. The drug companies have also infiltrated national organizations designed to inform and protect the nation. This includes the American Medical Association, The American Heart Association, and the American Diabetes Association. The same people are also in collusion with the American Dairy Association and the meat industry.

Pharmaceuticals are a $200 billion industry
They don’t really spend that much on R &D, nor are they very innovative.
They are looking for blockbuster drugs and often all they
product are Me Too” drugs
They bribe and buy doctors

The Rendering Industry

"Rest in peace." We feel that way about animals as well as humans who have died.
But that's not the way it works in the business world. Cattle, hogs, sheep, chickens, turkeys, fish are processed into the food we buy in stores. What's left over is rendered into useful products. This includes all kinds things like brains, spinal cords, intestines, and other things we consider disgusting. They can be processed into pet foods or into animal feed. It seems that no animal gets spared the rendering process.

The Greyhound Protection League complains about 4-D meat. The four D's stand for animals, primarily cattle and horses, that are dead, dying, diseased or down (disabled) at slaughter. Meat from these animals are often processed into feed for racing greyhounds and I suppose other animals we would consider pets. Owners of dying animals try to save them by pumping them full of drugs like penicillin, procaine, and trimethoprim. The drugs and the pathogens that killed the animal are still in the meat after slaughter. According to Dr. Arthur Strohbehn, DVM
Former Track Veterinarian, Council Bluffs, Iowa, "The meat rendered from them can also carry anthrax, botulism, lockjaw, tuberculosis, salmonella, and other diseases."

Another major use of slaughter house rendering and 4-D meat is the making of animal feed. Anything that was once a living creature is a a source of protein. After death, the meat and bones are processed into animal feed as protein supplement. What Dr. Strohbehn complains about above is also true of this protein supplement. It contains traces of drugs and pathogens. This is why people worry about mad cow disease.

How Now, Mad Cow?

I quit eating meat after Easter 2000. Early that year, I underwent quadruple bypass surgery. I was also concerned about the danger of having a stroke, so I asked my doctor if there was any way to get the plaque out of my arteries. He suggested reading Dr. Dean Ornish's book, Reversing Heart Disease. Dr. Ornish lays it on the line. Your body makes cholesterol out of the meat and fat one eats. Therefore his diet allows for no meat, no dairy. Until that time like most Americans, I was a true believer. I believed that meat, milk and other dairy products were good for a person. I now know that I was very wrong.
Since that time, I've learned there are lots of other reasons not to eat meat or use dairy products. Milk is a subject I have taken up elsewhere. However, the two are linked together because after a cow is no longer able to produce milk, it is sold for meat.
Bovine spongiform encephalopathy, BSE, is the technical name for Mad Cow Disease. It eats holes in the brains of cattle. It sprang up in Britain in 1986 and spread through countries in Europe and Asia, prompting massive destruction of herds and decimating the European beef industry.

A human illness, variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, is related to mad cow disease and doctors believe humans get it from eating meat containing infected tissue. Veneman said the apparently diseased cow was found at a farm in Mabton, Wash., about 40 miles southeast of Yakima. She said the farm has been quarantined.

The Iraqi War and its Unintended Consequence

The Party of phony war, phony news conference questions, and phony reporters will probaby have to deal the unintended consequences of that war. The Unintended Consequence of the Election is the creation of a new Iran.
Here's more.

Unintended Consequences verses Serendipity

Check here for the Law of Unintended Consequences. One might contrast unintended consequences with serendipity. The unintended consequences are what often results when we are trying to fix something. Serendipity is a happy discovery of something good, but not a result of something other than the search. More information.

How Corporate Welfare Corrupts Oregon

The corrupting nature of corporate welfare is the topic of this article. When a state is a strapped for money as the State of Oregon is, why are they paying corporate welfare in terms of promotional activities on behalf of industries that could pay for these things themselves?
According to Dr. Zenon X. Zygmont:

"Corporate welfare is inherently unnecessary, wasteful, and costly. It is an unnecessary expenditure because it results in businesses receiving support to engage in activities they would conduct even without such transfers. Also, because businesses often view transfers from the government as “free money,” it encourages them to engage in riskier and less profitable investments. Further, such transfers come at a cost; businesses engage in lobbying and related activities to capture the transfers, and bureaucracies must be funded to serve as pipelines for such transfers. The role of government in a free society is that of a referee, not a player; it must not politically favor one industry, or one business, over another. If Oregon legislators want to improve Oregon’s business climate they should create a consistent and common sense regulatory climate, and reduce taxes across the board. This would go a long way toward a stable and prosperous economy. Likewise, legislators should level the playing field and eliminate corporate welfare programs. Businesses can fulfill their own needs without being on the government dole."

Dr. Zenon X. Zygmont is an assistant professor of economics at Western Oregon
University, and an academic advisor to Cascade Policy Institute, a Portland,
Oregon based think tank. His paper, “Playing favorites: Corporate welfare in
Oregon,” is available at www.cascadepolicy.org, or by calling (503) 242-0900.

Oregon's Dairy Industry

Street people seeking handouts who just won't learn? I suppose. Guess what. Got Milk? In the period of 1995 to 2003, 710 Oregon dairy farmers received $27,018,000 in dairy program subsidies! Not only that, there's a milk price support program which pays dairy farmers should prices fall too low. Talk about people who have learned to depend on hand outs! Or, does being in the dairy industry somehow make you worthy where living on the street does not?