Obama Budget Cuts to Medicare Will Close Rural Hospitals

The Obama Administration has proposed changes to Medicare reimbursement to Critical Access Hospital’s (CAH).  Critical Access Hospitals are medical facilities in rural areas that serve communities where there is no other option available and therefore Medicare reimbursements are higher for those hospitals.  Senator Tammy Baldwin is leading a fight against Obama’s proposed Medicare Reimbursement cuts.

Obama’s proposal would remove the CAH designation for hospitals within 10 miles of another hospital from 101 percent to 100 percent of reasonable costs in 2014 and in some cases hospital would lose their classification and would receive no Medicare reimbursement.  Obama’s proposal would save more than $2 billion over 10 years.  This could cut funding to 53 out of 58 Hospitals in Wisconsin currently designated as Critical Access Hospitals. 

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Nationwide there are more than 1,300 critical access hospitals.  The CAHs patient populations are largely elderly and low income without access to the larger, more expensive healthcare systems in urban areas and many have 25 or less hospital beds. In addition to providing basic outpatient care and inpatient care, they provide long term care for patients.

There are serious concerns that Obama’s requirement changes for designation as critical access hospitals will limit the care their patients receive, force layoffs of hospital workers in rural areas and lead to closures.  In other words, rural healthcare would be devastated.  According to Alan Morgan, CEO of the National Rural Health Association, “most CAHs operate with a negative operating margin, even with the current enhanced reimbursement’.  Terry Eisinger, president of the National Organization of State Offices of Rural Health said “rural health care is fragile as it is without any additional cuts.”

On the August 22^nd edition of ABC’s Nightline, Remote Area Medical (RAM) Facility’s annual visit to West Virginia was featured. 

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Remote Area Medical was started in 1985 by Stan Brock after years of working deep in the Amazon where medical care was 26 days away by foot. He began bringing healthcare to poor, under developed countries like Haiti, Africa, India and Guyana.  After setting up headquarters in Knoxville, Tennessee he realized that larges swaths of citizens of the United States had no access to healthcare.  

“You’ve got 40 or 50 million people that are in this category that don’t have insurance and can’t get the care that they need or can’t afford it.”

He’s held more than 700 RAM events around the world, and has helped more than 550,000 in the United States alone. 

Teresa Gardner, who runs the local free clinic, first invited Brock to Wise, West Virginia 14 years ago and now the RAM visit is an annual event.  

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"It's always an amazing sight, isn't it? That here in America at 5 o'clock in the morning, with rain threatening, there are 1,500 people out there," Brock said, standing by the entrance gate overlooking the crowd on the first morning. "It's sort of the one time opportunity that they know they can afford to get the care that they need. ... It's a pretty sad sight."

"The economy here has hit a downturn. We've had a lot of mining layoffs, which is really the only industry here," Gardner said. "It's just incredible the desperation that people have for health care."

Gardner first invited Stan Brock and RAM to Wise 14 years ago and helps organize the 1,400 dentists, eye specialists, doctors and volunteers who all donate their time and expertise. Approximately 80 dental chairs are fully manned, as well as 16 eye examination stations.

 At Wise, RAM has "all the different specialists, all the way from cardiology, OB-GYN, pulmonology, nephrology, dermatology," Gardner said. "It's a really good opportunity for the patients to come out and get some very good care that they wouldn't otherwise have access to."

"You find people having strokes, heart attacks, elevated blood sugars. We do a lot of emergency care here on sight," she said.

In fact, six people over the course of the weekend are found by the mobile X-ray unit to be walking around with broken limbs.

"Even though the care here is quality care, we don't need to be doing this in the world's richest country," Brock says. "I would rather be back in Haiti, in India and Africa, and where this organization began in the Amazon than doing it here in the world's richest country. But I don't see this ending anytime soon".

RAM is funded by donations and receives no government funding.  One of the major setbacks for RAM is that RAM has an army of volunteers, many of whom have volunteered for years and pay their own travel expenses to provide care.  A problem in providing care in the United States is that each state has requirements for volunteers to be licensed in that state to practice medicine. 

Brock said he would be able to hold more events around the country and help more patients if states would be less strict about allowing volunteer doctors from other states to practice temporarily within their borders.

"People come all the way from Florida, all the way from Michigan, all the way from Wisconsin, New Jersey ... because we're not allowed in those states because they won't allow doctors to cross state lines," he said.

It is the thought of having to turn away people that haunts Brock.

In a New York Times article dated May 13, 2011 entitled “Health Insurers Making Record Profits as Many Postpone Care” you can see who Obama is looking out for.

“The nation’s major health insurers are barreling into a third year of record profits, enriched in recent months by a lingering recessionary mind-set among Americans who are postponing or forgoing medical care”.

“The UnitedHealth Group, one of the largest commercial insurers, told analysts that so far this year, insured hospital stays actually decreased in some instances. In reporting its earnings last week, Cigna, another insurer, talked about the “low level” of medical use”.

“Yet the companies continue to press for higher premiums, even though their reserve coffers are flush with profits and shareholders have been rewarded with new dividends. Many defend proposed double-digit increases in the rates they charge, citing a need for protection against any sudden uptick in demand once people have more money to spend on their health, as well as the rising price of care”.

Yes, you read that right.  “The insurance companies continue to press for higher premiums, even though their reserve coffers are flush with profits and shareholders have been rewarded with new dividends”.  The insurance companies and their CEOs with their million dollar and some times billion dollar salaries just keep getting richer, while the American people travel for days in inclement weather hoping to get a coveted space on a gurney in a cattle stanchion to receive life saving medical care.  These greedy bastards are nothing more than merchants of death.

Make no mistake about it, Obamacare was written of, by and for the insurance industry.  When you hear that Healthcare is one-fifth of the economy, what they really are saying is that one-fifth of the profits on Wall Street come from our for profit healthcare system. 

This is the richest country in the World but the wealth is concentrated at the top.  Our congress has some of the richest people in it.  Darrell Issa’s net worth since he has been in congress is over $355 million dollars, and he’s not the only one. 

By Patricia Baeten

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Obama Screws Over the Egyptian People

I have had an affinity towards the Egyptian people and their fight for a government that is of, by and for the Egyptian people.  When Obama was on the campaign trail he gave a speech and stated:

“And understand this: If American workers are being denied their right to organize and collectively bargain when I’m in the White House, I will put on a comfortable pair of shoes myself, I will walk on that picket line with you as President of the United States of America. Because workers deserve to know that somebody is standing in their corner.”

In January 2011 the Egyptian people protested en masse calling for the removal of Hosni Mubarak as president and demanded free democratic elections for the president and the governing body of Egypt. 

Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State asked the Egyptian people to allow for the orderly transition from Mubarak’s regime to Democratic elections which were scheduled for September.

"We want to see this peaceful uprising on the part of the Egyptian people to demand their rights to be responded to in a very clear, unambiguous way by the government, and then a process of national dialogue that will lead to the changes that the Egyptian people seek and that they deserve,"

“Otherwise, she warned, protesters seeking better opportunity and a stronger political voice might end up facing further repression from new leaders instead of the democratic reforms they seek.”

Soon after Secretary Clinton’s remarks President Obama, with all the diplomacy of a drunk in a bar lunging at everyone with a broken beer bottle, said “Mubarak must go”.  It was evident early on that Obama’s people and the Clinton people had very different foreign policy. 

On February 11^th, 2011 the military removed Mubarak from power.

Later in mid-February, 2011 protests broke out in Madison, Wisconsin against the Republican Senate and Governor Scott Walker’s 2011 Wisconsin Act 10 or budget repair bill crafted by ALEC and the Koch Brothers to destroy collective bargaining in the State. 

Where were Obama and his comfortable shoes?  No where to be found.   But in spite of all the upheaval in Egypt, it was the Egyptian people who ordered pizza to feed the protesters in Madison.  Obama’s response was “screw you”, Egyptian people’s response “we are with you.”

Following the Egyptian Revolution of 2011, and the resignation of President Hosni Mubarak, executive power was assumed by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, which dissolved the parliament and suspended the constitution.

During 2011 tens of thousands of Egyptians protested in the streets against the continued military rule and Egypt’s military rulers agreed to form a new government and transfer power to a civilian body by July 2012; also the government would hold parliamentary elections on November 28 and a presidential election by the end of June 2012.

The rules for the election were released on January 30, 2012. Candidates had to be born in Egypt to Egyptian parents, may not have held dual nationality and may not have been married to a foreigner. To be nominated, they required the support of 30 Members of Parliament or 30,000 voters. The formal registration process for candidates started on March 10th and ended on April 8, 2012.

On 14 April 2012, the Supreme Presidential Electoral Commission (SPEC) announced the disqualification of ten candidates, mostly moderate to liberal.  Reasons for the disqualifications were not given, but the affected candidates were given 48 hours to appeal the decisions. Two of the disqualified candidates, Suleiman and El-Shater's campaigns stated they would file appeals.  All appeals were rejected.

Mohammed ElBaradei had withdrawn his bid in January of that year citing concerns about the undemocratic way the military was governing Egypt.  Mr. ElBaradei had wanted a new constitution to be drawn up from scratch before any elections took place.

In April 2012, he took to Twitter calling the transition to democracy "bungled" and criticizing the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces' approach to writing a new constitution.

On April 25^th the Supreme Presidential Electoral Commission accepted the appeal filed by Ahmed Shafik against its previous decision to exclude him from running for President. The appeal also requested the new Parliamentary law be brought before the Supreme Constitutional Court to determine its constitutionality, that didn’t happen.

The Egyptian people didn’t have a real choice in selecting the candidates for president, just like the American people did not have a choice in the selection of their candidates for president in 2008, which was decided by the two parties, Republican and Democrat. 

On June 24^th, Egypt’s election commission announced that Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohammed Morsi had won Egypt's presidential runoff. Morsi won by a narrow margin over Ahmed Shafik, who was the final prime minister under deposed President Hosni Mubarak.  The commission said Morsi took 51.7% of the vote versus 48.3% for Shafik.

There now was a gaping divide between the Muslim Brotherhood, and the rest of the country; about 48% of voters, according to the poll, which gave Morsi the presidency with close to 52% of the popular vote.

Little more than three months into the four-year term of Morsi's government, the economy was in shambles, the body politic was barely functioning and the Egyptian people were deeply polarized.  The 17 months after Mubarak’s exit had been unsettling for the Mubarak faithful. But the year since Morsi's inauguration had been even worse.

By March 2013, serious diplomatic efforts to convince Morsi to form a government of national unity had failed. Morsi went about making it even worse by maintaining a Muslim Brotherhood government run by newly promoted lower-grade officials with bad ideas. The last straw appeared to be the appointment of the culture minister.

Morsi fired five key cultural figures, and replaced them with Muslim Brotherhood members including the head of the opera house and the National Library and Archives.  It was evident he was trying to impose an Islamist agenda on cultural institutions which had always been secular.

"The economy was being wrecked by the movement. They were spending at least $1.5bn per month more than they should have. They were using months and months of reserves at a critical level. You couldn't deny the underlying trend that the government was heading for bankruptcy”.

"Whatever mess they had created was going to lead to civil revolt. Soon they wouldn't have been able to pay for civil servants' salaries."

Within a week, citizens experienced shortages of essentials, especially food and fuel. In Egypt, the military owns a significant stake in the gas and oil sector and was always a guarantor of supply, now there were long lines for fuel. 

On the evening of April 15, 2013 a man by the name of Mohammed Abdul Aziz and five other friends sat in a coffee shop in central Cairo to plot ways to invigorate Egypt’s tired civil opposition. 

"In the beginning all we wanted to do was gather petitions to renounce Morsi," he said. But the group soon got a name, Tamarod (Rebel). Within weeks it had also gained a momentum that propelled it to centre stage of a defining period in Egypt's modern history – the ousting of the country's first democratically elected leader.”

By mid-June, other state institutions were now sharing the military's alarm; the tide was clearly turning against Morsi. Tamarod claimed to have received more than 20 million petition signatures.

In late June millions of Egyptians took to the streets demanding that President Mohamed Morsi step down immediately in what one military source called "the biggest protest Egypt has seen in its history."

"It was becoming clear that everything that the state had built, everything that it had stood on, was coming crumbling down," said Ahmed Badawi, a mid-ranking police officer who was unhappy to see Mubarak go. "It was a case of 'my enemy's enemy is my friend, so we joined them in Tahrir Square this time'," he said of this week's revolts.

From every angle, Morsi was increasingly being seen as, a captive of his constituency, the Muslim Brotherhood.

Squares across the country were overwhelmed by the scale of popular participation and energy, which some say represented possibly the largest political assembly in world history. CNN reported over 33 million people were out in Egypt on Sunday, or nearly 40 percent of the country, according to satellite data.

June 30, the date of the first anniversary of Morsi’s swearing in, was chosen by Tamarod for a march to the place where it all began, Tahrir Square.  By now the shortages were especially severe.

By July 3^rd the army had given Morsi the first ultimatum: find ways to end the crisis within a week. Morsi was unable to meet that ultimatum and helplessly watched as the large crowds hoped for by the born-again opposition materialized.

After Morsi was removed from office by the military, things were relatively stable.  The Obama Administration stood by Morsi calling him democratically elected.  But the selection of the candidates to run for office was rigged.

In 2011, President Obama was quick to demand President Mubarak to step down and leave office.  Obama had supported Morsi’s close election even though it was rigged. 

On July 6^th, it was announced that Mohammed ElBaradei would be named interim prime minister.  The Obama Administration began pressuring the Egyptian Army to return Morsi to power as he was “democratically elected” and began threatening to call the overthrow a military coup, meaning aid to Egypt would be cut off unless Morsi was returned.

ElBaradei is a Nobel peace Laureate and a former director of the U.N. nuclear watchdog.  Mr. ElBaradei leads an alliance of liberal and left-wing parties, the National Salvation Front.

In 2012 he was running as a liberal, secular candidate in the presidential elections, but withdrew his bid in January of that year citing concerns about the undemocratic way the military was governing Egypt.

ElBaradei's nomination had been confirmed by several sources and state media but just before midnight a presidential spokesman told reporters that no prime minister had yet been chosen.

The intense pressure to reject ElBaradei as prime minister appeared to come from the Obama Administration.  President Obama had declined to press Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi to leave office, saying that his administration would continue to work with the “democratically elected government” amid violent protests in Cairo.

ElBaradei was later named interim Vice-President but resigned after an army crackdown on Pro Morsi violent protests resulted in the deaths of hundreds of Egyptians.  He is now to be tried for the “betrayal of trust” by the Egyptian army.

“Mohamed ElBaradei, the Nobel laureate who quit the Egyptian cabinet in protest over last week’s bloodshed, faces being hauled before the courts after being accused of a “betrayal of trust”.

Mr. ElBaradei was a co-leader of the National Salvation Front (NSF), a prominent coalition of liberal and secular forces which joined the nationwide demonstrations against the deposed President Mohamed Morsi.

“The case against him will be heard in a Cairo court next month and is being brought by Sayyed Ateeq, an Egyptian law professor, according to judicial sources who spoke to Reuters. 

“He was appointed in his capacity as a representative of the NSF and the majority of the people who signed the Tamarod declaration,” Mr. Ateeq told Reuters, referring to the grassroots petition movement that had called for Mr. Morsi to resign”.

“Mr. Ateeq said Mr. ElBaradei – who left Egypt earlier this week and traveled to Europe – could face three years in prison if found guilty. But judicial sources said the maximum sentence is a fine and suspended jail term”.

And now Mubarak has been freed and remains under house arrest.  It is so sad to see the Egyptian people, after all their bravery and sacrifices of life and limb to have Mubarak back.  It is an outrage that all the world should stand in shame on this day.

The Egyptian people deserve to have free and fair elections, and Mohammed ElBaradei would have ensured that would happen.  Obama is hated in Egypt and for good reason and he is quickly beginning to be hated in the U.S.

By Patricia Baeten

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Please Don’t Let My Daughter Die, Governor

“Please don’t let my daughter die, governor”.  These were the words of Brian Wilson, father of Vivian Wilson, a 2 year-old girl who suffers severe seizures from Dravet Syndrome, a form of epilepsy. 

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On Thursday August 15^th edition of “The Lead” on with host Jake Tapper, Mr. Wilson was a guest to discuss his confrontation with Governor Chris Christie.  New Jersey’s legislators approved the use of medical marijuana in that state and had sent the bill to the governor to sign it into law.  That was over two months ago.

According to Wilson, Vivian suffers seizures on average every four days and sleeps with a heart monitor, an oxygen mask and wears an eye patch because some patterns trigger the seizures.  Certain types of ingested cannabis strains which are low in THC have proven to be effective in children suffering from seizure disorders where conventional medications have failed. 

Wilson said, “the seizures can be life ending; they are taxing on organs like the heart, respiratory system and the brain.  Vivian’s seizures can last up to 60 minutes and her heart has stopped twice.”

The medical marijuana that the Wilson’s are seeking approval for has as low dosage of THC (tetrahydracannibinol) and comes in the form of lozenges or other edible delivery forms.

Christie vowed to make a decision on whether or not to veto the legislation by Friday, August 16^th. 

Dr. Sanjay Gupta’s documentary “Weed” on CNN had aired last Sunday.  In his article “Why I changed my mind on Weed”, CNN’s medical correspondent found that the Drug Enforcement agency’s listing of marijuana as a schedule 1 substance, meaning that it is on the list of the most dangerous drugs with no medical value and having a high potential for abuse, to be false.

In traveling around the world and interviewing medical experts, growers and patients, he was stunned by the misinformation that has been passed as scientific evidence in the U.S. for 70 years.

In his documentary, he highlights the case of Charlotte Figi a 6 year-old patient in Colorado, a state that has made medical marijuana legal.  Charlotte, who also suffers from Dravet Syndrome, started having seizures soon after birth and by the time she was 3, she had about 300 seizures a week and had been under a pharmaceutical regimen of 7 different medications.  After receiving medical marijuana the seizures were reduced to 2 or 3 per month. 

On Friday, August 16^th, Governor Christie exercised a conditional veto signaling he would sign the bill if the Legislature made two changes:  that edible forms of marijuana would be available to minors only and that both a pediatrician and a psychiatrist would have to sign off on the prescription.

Brian Wilson was again a guest of Jake Tapper on “The Lead” to discuss what Christie’s conditional veto meant.  According to Wilson, Christie’s decision maintains “one of the most unsafe medical marijuana programs in the country and inserts government between the parents and the doctors.” 

Prior to the New Jersey law, patients had to have a pediatrician and a psychiatrist and a doctor on the medical marijuana registry issue a card to a patient. 

Wilson said “The psychiatrist is a major hurdle; you are talking about sick kids who aren’t even capable of talking.”  “To keep in the psychiatric requirement is just telling parents who are suffering with these horrible diseases with children, I’m going to make if more difficult for you to get treatment for your child.”

While Wilson is happy with the decision to lift the number of marijuana strains and making edible forms of marijuana available to minors, what about all the adults?  The adults would have no other option but to smoke marijuana.

The Wilson’s had lobbied the New Jersey state legislators and they quickly passed the legislation to make it easier for kids to access the medical marijuana system, only to have the legislation sit on Christie’s desk for two months. 

Every delay has been excruciating for the Wilson’s and other families wanting access to the medical marijuana that has given children in Colorado and California a more peaceful, productive life. 

When Brian Wilson confronted Governor Christie with “Please don’t let my daughter die.

Governor, please don’t let my daughter die.”  Christie’s reply was “These are complicated issues; I know you think it’s simple and it’s not.”  Well Christie’s conditional veto has now made it more complicated and every delay is basically letting sick children die.

By:  Patricia Baeten

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Sanjay Gupta’s Evolution on Medical Marijuana Sparks Debate

On Sunday, August 11th CNN’s medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta hosted a documentary “Weed” in which he refuted his previous stand on the medicinal value of marijuana. For 70 years there has been a campaign of fear, smear and misinformation about marijuana labeling it as dangerous drug with no medicinal value.

 There has been a 40 year battle to remove marijuana from Schedule I classification of the Controlled Substance Act. Schedule I of the CSA lists drugs that have a high potential for abuse, are dangerous and have no medicinal value, a classification that holds marijuana more dangerous than cocaine, morphine, or methamphetamine; all listed in Schedule II of the CSA with accepted medical uses.

Under Federal Law only FDA-approved drugs are allowed to be prescribed by a physician. Marijuana is not FDA-approved. But let’s look at some FDA approved drugs such as Vioxx. Vioxx is an anti-inflammatory used primarily to treat arthritis. Over $100 million was spent to market the drug using spokespersons such as Olympians Bruce Jenner and Dorothy Hamill.

Because of the aggressive marketing campaign it was widely known to the public and prescribed by physicians for over a million people. Vioxx was pulled from the market after it was shown to double the risk for heart attack or stroke. The FDA estimates that Vioxx was responsible for 139,000 heart attacks and about 30,000 deaths from heart attacks and strokes.

And who could forget Fen-phen the diet drug. An advisory committee was convened by the FDA to discuss and debate the drug’s safety. Redux or Fen-phen was already on the European market when it was being considered for approval in the U.S. An International Primary Pulmonary Hypertension study linked the drug to causing Primary Pulmonary Hypertension (PPH).  PPH is a disease that thickens the capillaries in the lungs making it difficult to breathe, is fatal and incurable.

In spite of the warnings of the fatal, incurable disease caused in Europe and expert testimony from doctors, the FDA approved the drug for use in the United States in April 1996. Three months after the introduction of Redux, through a $53 million dollar advertising campaign, doctors were writing 85,000 prescriptions a week.

The drug was not only easily obtained through prescriptions, but was also available in weight-loss clinics and over the internet. Weight-loss clinics sprung up all over California and the US for the sole purpose of dispensing Fen-phen. The Wall Street Journal projected Redux profits could gross $1 billion for the company.

By August of 1997 an article in the New England Journal of Medicine by Mayo Clinic Dr. Heidi Connelly cited cases of treating women with PPH and heart valve abnormalities related to the use of Fen-phen. By September 1, 2003 Forbes reported Wyeth had paid $13 billion in claims related to the drug and by October 2003 The New York Times reported only a third of the 37,000 claims were addressed.

Darvocet and Darvon were the most popular pain killers in the U.S. until their recall in 2010. Although they were recalled in the U.K. in 2005 due to increased risk of suicide and overdose, the FDA allowed the sale of Darvocet and Darvon in the U.S. until a lawsuit was brought against the FDA in 2008. Darvon and Darvocet were linked to over 2,110 deaths between 1981 and 1999.

 Avandia a prescription drug used to control blood sugar in type 2 diabetes was banned in Europe in 2010 due to the increased risk of heart attack. The Glaxo-Smith-Kline drug is still available in the U.S. The FDA confirmed studies that Avandia increases risk of heart attack by 43% and cardiac related deaths by 64%.

In March, 2001 a class action lawsuit was filed by Parker and Waichman against manufactures of vaccines containing Thimerosal. Thimerosal is a mercury based preservative in vaccines that was FDA approved. According to medical researchers, Thimerosal is more toxic than mercury and no amount of Thimerosal is safe.

Just this year in July 2013 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a 5-4 decision that drug companies are exempt from lawsuits. Going forward 80 percent of all drugs are exempt from legal liability.  The decision was based on the lawsuit Karen Bartlett vs. Mutual Pharmaceutical Company. In 2004 Karen Bartlett was prescribed a generic anti-inflammatory drug Sulindac for shoulder pain. A lower court awarded her $21 million after she suffered from “toxic epidermal necrolysis” causing burns and flesh eating.

Last month the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the lower courts verdict and award. The justices cited all generic drugs and their manufactures, 80% of all drugs consumed in the U.S. are exempt from liability for side effects, mislabeling or virtually any other negative reactions caused by their drugs. The Court ruled that the FDA has ultimate authority over pharmaceuticals in the US and if the FDA says a drug is safe that takes precedence.

It has been a long held belief by the DEA that there are no "adequate and well-controlled studies" proving marijuana's efficacy. And yet, those kinds of studies have been done and are published in the peer-reviewed scientific literature. Medical marijuana is legal in 18 states and recreational use is legal in 2.

While I’m pleased that Dr. Sanjay Gupta has offered his mea culpa for his role in the misinformation, disinformation and fear driven campaign against medicinal marijuana, as a medical doctor you took the Hippocratic oath. Part of the oath is “is swearing to practice medicine honestly.”

Why not endorse the use of “God’s natural herb” to alleviate the pain and suffering caused by man-made drugs for those survivors who haven’t been killed by the drugs approved by the FDA merely for profit. As a medical doctor, is it not your duty to condemn the decision of the five Supreme Court justices who have exempted drug companies from any legal liability for death, disfigurement and harm of their faulty, mislabeled products to ensure Wall Street profits?

Doctor Gupta you owe the American people more than an apology, you need to condemn exemption for liability for the manufacturers of these horrific man-made drugs and advocate for God’s natural cure, medicinal marijuana.

By Patricia Baeten

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Larry Summers Wall Street and Obama’s Favorite to Head Central Bank

As Ben Bernanke’s term as chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank comes to an end, the Obama Administration favors the worst, most unqualified choice to lead the Central Bank, Larry Summers. 

The choices for Bernanke’s replacement have been narrowed down to two candidates.  Until recently, the odds on favorite to replace Bernanke as Chairman of the Central Bank had been Janet Yellen.  Yellen, an imminently qualified individual who has been president and chief executive officer of  the Twelfth District Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco since 2004 has been endorsed by many of the most respected economists. 

Dr Yellen has had a long, distinguished career and is highly respected having served in the 1990’s as a member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, and chair of the Economic Policy Committee of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. 

The Wall Street Banks and the Obama Administration have let it be known that their desired replacement for Chair of the Central Bank is none other than, Larry Summers.  Summer’s has a disgraceful record and it’s easy to see why Wall Street and the Wall Street financed Obama Administration would want to have Summers in charge and would reject Yellen who is the polar opposite of Summers.

During the time Summers served in the Clinton Administration, he and Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin (Goldman Sachs) pushed the repeal of the Glass Steagall Act in 1999 and the deregulation of commodities and derivatives trading in 2000, which lead to the banking collapse of 2008.

The Glass Steagall Act was a Depression Era law designed to prevent bank defaults and restore confidence in the banking system.  The U.S. government insured deposits of banking customers through the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC).  The insurance industry was also heavily regulated by Glass Steagall. 

Wall Street Investment Banks were required by law to post signs that they were not FDIC insured and any stocks, bonds, derivatives, etc. were at the investor’s own risk.  The rating agencies were paid by the investor to rate the risk of the Wall Street created products, to gauge the financial risk to investors so the investor could make an informed decision with regard to their financial investments.  Therefore the rating agencies had a fiduciary responsibility to the investors.  That changed after repeal of Glass Steagall; Wall Street now paid the rating agencies to rate their products.

Summers has had a long, well documented problem with smart women.  One case was his demeaning treatment of Brooksley Born.  Brooksley Born was appointed as head of the CFTC (Commodities Futures Trading Commission) in 1998 when the Rubin/Summers/Geithner wrecking crew was in a deregulation frenzy.   Born warned that unregulated derivatives trading, collateralized debt obligations and credit default swaps could pose grave risks to the economy.  She pushed for the CFTC to be the regulator to oversee the $33 trillion market but was shot down by Rubin and then Fed chair Alan Greenspan who preferred the Central Bank oversee that market.

Three quarters of a billion dollars was funneled into the Barack Obama campaign by Wall Street banks and once Obama was elected president, Rubin’s deregulating cabal was resurrected with Summers serving on Obama’s Economic Advisers Team and Geithner as Treasury Secretary.

Since the banking collapse of 2008 and the bailout of the Wall Street banks, the losses to Main Street in the form of jobs, pensions, municipalities, real estate, etc. was largely ignored.  Also on Obama’s Economic Advisers Team was Christina Roemer. 

Roemer fought for a $1.8 trillion dollar stimulus package to revitalize the economy and create jobs, but she was shot down by Larry Summers, who favored a much smaller stimulus package and continued deregulation of banks.  The economy has had the slowest recovery on record and unemployment is doggedly high today, with little sign of recovery in site.  Roemer left the Obama Administration due in part to a hostile work environment for women.

As we see dual headlines of record profits on Wall Street and cities such as Detroit headed for bankruptcy indebted to Wall Street Banks and facing further cannibalization of pensions and public assets; the result of the Rubin/Summers/Geithner bank coddling is painfully evident.

 Recently, the ex-head of the FDIC, Sheila Bair endorsed Janet Yellen for the head of the Central Bank.  Ms. Bair also served in the Clinton Administration with Brooksley Born and under the Obama Administration when Summers overruled Christina Roemer’s stimulus package in favor of Wall Street banks. It was Bair who as head of the FDIC unwound the insolvent banks with as little pain as possible to Main Street.

Larry Summers is by far the worst, most unqualified choice to head the Central Bank and his nomination should be shunned by all.

by Patricia Baeten

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