HEALTH CARE AND ENTITLEMENTS

Problem: The USA has the worst healthcare system among rich, developed nations.

How can a family without healthcare hope to have their children in a healthy enough state to be able to go to school and study hard?

They can't because of our decrepit health care system

Today the USA has 50 million uninsured Americans and the number of uninsured citizens grows each year.
Life expectancy in the USA is lower that in most developed European nations. This statistic among many other shows a poor level of health care. In addition the cost of our healthcare is double the cost of most European nations: such as France and Germany whose cost is around $3000 per capita when the USA's cost is around $6000 per capita for much lower quality in care.

Solution: Implement a true and meaningful public option.

Dedicated doctors whose motivation is not greed will able to offer their services at affordable prices, and consumers will be able to buy drugs from modern European countries who have a great health care system and through constant bargaining with the drug industry giant have lowered drug prices.
Entitlements such as Medicare will be maintained at similar levels

Funding: A higher tax on capital gains, a portion of the gas tax and a portion of the new consumer taxes.

FIFTH ACTION: LANDING ON THE MOON.

Problem
The USA is loosing its aura of invincibility and dominance and is being looked down on by many if not most of the world.

The USA is not a rock star or a giant as it was as recently as during the Clinton Presidency.

This perception of weakness is detrimental to the USA on all fronts.

Solution: FIX IT ALL BY LANDING ON THE MOON AGAIN
Landing on the moon was a feat that only a mega-power like the USA could achieve more than 40 years ago July 20, 1969.

Landing on the moon again will frame the USA as a giant again, and it will make people now under the Islamic Fundamentalist yoke think about the strength of a democracy that interacts with a celestial object that controls their calendars. In addition such a show of strength and demonstration of cutting edge science will send a message to ambitious and aggressive countries such as China and Russia. The message is: The USA is still the leader in scientific exploration and a Gentle giant way ahead of you.

It will also be a giant advertisement for American products no competitor can yet match.

Letting China which is working hard at landing on the moon lands before the US returns is pure folly
Funding: Already funded but on a wrong direction plus money from the Department of Defense.

CONCLUSION: VITAL ACTION

This wonderful program that could rebuild the USA will be made possible only if President Obama makes the following pledge.

The author of this fictitious interview was able to whisper to President Obama's ear the actions he should take for the New year

I hope President Obama will take the following pledge:

I President Obama reneged on almost all of my sound campaign promises, but after more soul searching I will sign a contract with the American people and live up to my promises.

From the desk of Eric Lafayette September 7th 2010
For www.fordemocracy.com and http://www.meetup.com/French-Language-Friends/

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Our latest Book - Audiobook review.
Big Think Strategy by Bernard H Schmitt

It is a book about nurturing new ideas, philosophical leadership, vision of the future and a self help book on management all wrapped in a nicely written volume also available as an Audiobook.

After Katrina when it was decided to rebuild New Orleans the authorities never mentioned transforming New Orleans into an American Venice with Canals and Gondolas.
If you want to be a part of this changing world I have news for you: Big New Ideas have become the new quest and the new standards for excellence, you are going to love reading a book or listening to an audiobook named BigThink Strategy. written by Bernard H Schmitt

In our modern world, thanks to the Internet, Imagination is Boundless, new Ideas are created every second.

After the Katrina disaster CNN organized a contest among its viewers and the question was,
What could be done to rebuild a prosperous New Orleans?
One interesting answer was.
We should rebuild New Orleans as an American Venice.
That is Big Thinking.
In addition it is very feasible because other countries have done that before.
Nederland has many lands under sea level, many, many levies, its largest city, Amsterdam, has many canals.
More importantly Nederland has the know-how to build such a city on a land under sea level and consultants from this country could have been hired.

In this book the author shows you methods useful to generate Big Ideas.
His methods are very precise and step by step.
In addition the book will guide you in the implementation of these Big Ideas, a very crucial part of achieving success.

Another example of Big Ideas in the hands of a master at implementing the steps to make this idea successful is Steve Jobs who steered the Ipod then the Iphone into two runaway success.
Gone are the years of the Conservative Republican Businessmen:
Microsoft, Steve Balmer (his departure is long overdue), GE ( General electric), Jack Welch, the previous CEO, (he was lucky he left before he was seen as obsolete).
Now are the years of the new Business leaders building empires on Big New Ideas all progressive Big Thinkers:
Google: Sergey Brin, Larry Page; Apple, Steve Jobs; GE, Jeff Immelt the new CEO whose new slogan is " Imagination at work."
The future of America depends on Big Thinkers capable of coming up with New Ideas and not on backward thinkers such as the Conservative Leaders who are doing all they can to drag the USA into the bottomless pit of backward behavior and obsolete thinking. I am not exaggerating. Remember their big Thinking about energy is: , "Drill, Drill, Drill!"
The other misguided Republican Mantra is let the Market be the absolute ruler and America will be great.
Wrong again: the two greatest achievements by the USA and I am taliking of gigantic success were achieved with taxpayer money:
American astronauts landing on the moon on July 20 1969
The building in the sixties of a Gigantic network of freeways across the USA.
Talk about big ideas! Since this glorious achievments I have not seen Market driven private investment go back to the moon or even repair the poorly maintained bridges and freeways in poor condition.

Don't misunderstand me I am profoundly against extreme socialism-communism even the relatively mild French socialism but also against extreme capitalism favored by Republicans whose leaders keep repeating and showing that letting starve poor people is a perfectly sound option in rich America
If we follow the small mediocre ideas of the Republicans we will be faced with a grave threat because the rest of the world is every day coming up with new Big Ideas.
Big Think Strategy is one of the books you have to read to keep your brain rich and prolific even if you are not in business. It is a book for anybody eager to broaden his or her vision.
Eric Lafayette
More essays at
www.fordemocracy.com

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THE DANGER WILL COME FROM IRAQ NOT FROM AFGHANISTAN.

Mr. President
I have the unfortunate mission to tell you that you have made another mistake:
You seem to be satisfied and proud that the US will stop conducting combat missions in Iraq and that we are on a path to reduce significantly our presence in Iraq.
You should not be satisfied. Iraq is still a powder keg.
It is a powder keg in part because the Iraqi government has not been able to function since the last elections as they were not able to form a coalition majority, what is left is an assembly that was able to conduct the business of the Iraqi people for less than 20 minutes during the last 6 months, a world record of inefficiency. In addition Iran is ready to wreck havoc as soon as the American troops show weakness
I am more worried about Iraq than I am worried about Afghanistan. Afghanistan is on the road to recovery because it is a much simpler problem to solve and because the right approach has been designed by the Petreaus school of military philosophy. If the President has the willpower to stay the course the progress is going to be impressive.

Iraq has many big cities where multiple bombs can create horrifying carnage.
If the Americans do not retain their ability to conduct combat missions, the whole Iraqi country will crumble into chaos again and all the successes gained after the abominably incompetent and dangerous Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney and Bush Junior were evicted from the chain of command are going to be lost.
There has been almost no American combat casualties in Iraq for the last twelve months. It is in my personal opinion one of the best benchmarks in defining the success of any American operation anywhere.
The Iraqi people themselves are afraid by the void that the withdrawal of the American soldiers will create knowing full well that their nation will return to Chaos with Iran flaming the fire of terrorism in Iraq.
Mister President please keep the actual combat latitude the American soldiers have in Iraq. It is your only way to Win the Iraq war ( winning means a relatively stable Iraq with less that 12 bomb attacks per year and less than 120 Iraqi civilians killed per year. -Extremely difficult to achieve-)
Hopefully the Iraqi people will ask you to give back the ability for the US soldiers to continue to assist Iraqi soldiers in Combat even if helping only with air support, artillery, intelligence and mission organization.
Respectfully yours
Eric Lafayette
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