Electric Vehicles

Friday, July 02, 2010

LIFE: BALANCE, CORUPTION AND OUR POLITICAL WAY

Life is about balance. When balance leaves, corruption fills in. Washington has totally been corrupted. As soon as a politician is elected or re-elected, they start running for the next election. They stop thinking about America and its needs from a broad sense and look for financial support (a lot from lobbyists) from people who want to influence the politicians stand, support their re-election and put their lobbying needs into everything. You talk about healthcare reform and you leave out a major, major lobbying group, the American Trail Lawyers who changed their name to American Association of Justice. Why? Most people put lawyers about as low on the respected occupations as politicians. They are spending about $34M on lobbying every year to prevent tort reform every where. They are especially concerned about health care because the ambulances they chase are very profitable for them. There has been no concern in Washington among mostly the Democrats about health care costs reductions. Why has health care costs gone up? Why are US drugs so expensive? Not all, but a lot of it has to do with money hungry trail lawyers suing companies with deep pockets, and doctors and hospitals. The costs to do "everything under the sun in diagnosing problems" have been driving costs up, not by the judgment of doctors, but the lawyers looking for reasons to sue a doctor or hospital.

Now where is the corruption? Probably 90% of Congress is lawyers by education. They are deeply tied to the legal industry in this country. Tort reform is not on their agenda. I am from the auto industry, and a major driver in what we do is to protect ourselves from ambulance chasers. The bulk of the Toyota problem is caused by the press and the trail lawyers. Have you yet heard any "facts" bought out, other than by Toyota? Obama is a lawyer and don't you think he is looking after his friends? The legal profession is needed, but you need to recognize that it adds no value to our economy, it is a re-distributor of money. The legal professional needs major reform.

Suggestions, yes limit lobbying, but more importantly is getting in new representatives in Washington who come because it is a privilege to serve and not a permanent job. Term limits are absolutely necessary. With term limits you will get a better cross section of America than a bunch of lawyers who could not make it as lawyers. It is impossible for an average business man to say, I think I can help and I want to run for that office and serve a term. He has no chance in today's system because of the corruption in our political system. We do not have a cross section of America in Washington. We have a bunch of lawyers. Lawyers because of their education and training do not understand cause and effect in a scientific way, nor do they have the vision of what to do today to fix tomorrow. Lawyers go by one case or problem at a time and the result does not even have to be correct to be considered a "win." They do not think about much beyond today which is going to be our death.

As far as Green initiatives are concerned, what we need today is a Congress in Washingtion with business people, scientists and lawyers who see what is needed, such as a direct carbon tax that will change people's wasteful habits and make alternative energy lower cost than status quo. Cap and trade is stupid (look at Al Gore and his firm that is going to play in cap and trade to make billions!). It saves the politicians, who pass it, from any responsibility. It will make consumers pay more but they will believe that it is the utilities and oil companies soaking them in name of profit and the public will not change their bad energy habits. If you pay directly with a greater tax on the gas you buy, and know that the tax will increase every year for next 10 years, you will want to buy a smaller more fuel efficient vehicle (look at Europe), might even demand better mass transit, want the cities revitalized to move closer to work, and actually conserve energy rather than waste it. And yes, I have an answer to where those tax dollars go. They are allocated to be spent on alternative energy R&D, mass transit, rebuilding our cities, revitalize our crumbling transportation infrastructures and help people in transition from oil dependent systems to others AND with public oversight.

But nothing can happen without throwing out the current Washington and State legislative systems and starting back where we were in 1776! That was how our forefathers thought it would work, not what we have evolved to.
And yes it is currently very corrupt and has no balance. Get rid of them all!!! It is about time to reinvent ourselves and the 1776 model will do it.

Labels: , , ,