EPA.....GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN?

The House of Representatives is at it again. It is threatening a government shutdown October 1. It will refuse to approve funding for the government's new fiscal year. The House will refuse to fund all of the government, unless certain Enviromental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations recently adopted are withdrawn.

President Obama was discouraged by the failure of the House to pass legislation to deal with global warming. Obama had the EPA adopt new regulations that would mandate the cutback on carbon dioxide emissions from coal powered plants. The cutback would not be an immediate one. The new regs provide something like 15 years. The time frame provided a generous one so companies with carbon dioxide emissions will have more than adequate time to comply.

The House has for years refused to take any significant steps. Obama acted. The House countered with we will shut down the government! A typical my way or the highway response. 

The new EPA regulations will I assume be part of the lawsuit Speaker Boehner recently announced to curb  the President from issuing such orders. The House claims the President has exceeded his Constitutional powers. The President disagrees and says if Congress will not act, he must and will.

Some background.

The EPA interestingly came into being by Executive Order on December 2, 1970. A Republican, President Nixon created it. The creation was then ratified by Congressional hearings in both the House and Senate. I am not sure why nor whether such ratification was necessary.

The EPA is not a Cabinet position. However, it has been deemed important enough to have been given Cabinet rank.

The EPA's two major responsibilities are clean air and clean water. Easy to understand. 

We want the air we breathe to be free of any contaminant that might harm health. Included in the responsibility is global warming. Global warming from the perspective of most scientists is caused by emissions from coal burning factories. The emissions are harmful to breathe and also affect the atmosphere and earth re-warming and cooling.

Just as man cannot live without clean air, he cannot live without clean water. Contaminants, toxins, chemicals, that are harmful must be kept from the waterways.

Duke University recently published a study regarding air pollution in North Carolina. Twenty years ago North Carolina tightened its air quality standards. They elected to force compliance with federal laws and standards. Something few States do. The results were impressive. 

There has been a substantial decline in deaths from respiratory illnesses such as asthma and emphysema in North Carolina. The study also determined that the overall costs to society by not complying results in substantially higher medical costs that the cost of compliance.

There is a 2012 study concerning clean water. The study found that in 2012 alone, United States corporations dumped 206 million pounds of toxic chemicals into America's waterways. A big number. The biggest ever.

Interestingly, the largest dumper was Tyson Foods. 18.5 million pounds. Nine percent of the nationwide total.

Over the past 20 years, the House of Representatives had demoted the EPA by cutting back on EPA appropriations. Especially where clean water was involved. President Obama seeks an increase in the funding.

Whereas the cost to achieve clean air is with retooling plant machinery, the cost for clean water requires corporations to dispose of toxins in ways specified by law. More expensive than just dumping toxins into a stream. Corporate America at the present time is dumping chemicals into our waterways and/or burying 55 gallon drums of toxic chemicals in wetlands and caves. Whatever way, the chemicals eventually find their way into the water table. The waters we drink. These toxic chemicals cause all sorts of dreaded illness, including a number of cancers.

The study regarding the 206 million pounds of toxic chemicals dumped into American waterways made an interesting observation. Of the top ten polluters, four were were agribusiness corporations. The companies that are using in many instances GMO's. Whatever chemicals they are using to produce bigger and better looking foodstuffs is reflected in their chemical wastes ending up in the water supply. The four are Tyson already mentioned and Cargill, Perdue Farms, and Pilgrims Pride.

It is all money. The cost of retooling and the cost of proper disposal. Corporate America does not want to incur that cost. Everything is the bottom line. They are insensitive to the suffering and calamities their wrongdoing causes.

Resolution of the problem is for no other reason than to protect the American people. Simple and straight forward. Congress should be first in line to do it. The House of Representatives, especially. To fund necessary legislation to guarantee clean air and clean water. Where Congress fails in its responsibility, the President has no choice but to act. 

Recognize that the House's position protects the profit of major polluters.Congress is owned by the corporations. Corporations decide what legislation Washington passes in most instances. Our Presidents bear responsibility, also. Many have stood silently by and not taken the bull by the horns where Congress has failed. Obama is trying.

A question spins in my mind. What ever happened to government of the people, by the people, for the people?

BANK STORIES

Banks are pigs. They have an insatiable desire to make more and more money for themselves to the detriment of those they service. Whose money they hold, work with, and profit from.

Recent occurrences bear out the propensity of banks to overindulge for personal benefit while forgetting the people they were organized to service.

Chase Bank. One of America's oldest banking institutions. Due to numerous mergers the past decade, the bank today is JP Morgan Chase Bank doing business as Chase.

Although U.S. taxpayers bailed Chase and other banks out for their own wrongdoing in 2008 and saved their asses, the banks have not been thankful. To this day, the American people await Chase and other banks return to loaning monies to Main Street rather than Wall Street. 

The banks have survived and are making more money than ever. Major bank CEO's are being paid $20-40 million a year bonuses. Part of the one percent.

Chase announced recently that effective August 1, Chase is going to charge depositors a fee for holding their money. You got it. Savings and checking accounts will be charged a fee payable to the bank. Chase feels it is entitled to something for holding people's monies. The same monies banks invest overnight to a 20 percent profit for themselves and pay depositors 1.5 per cent a year on their deposits.

The fee will be $.25 per $100 deposited. It will add up to millions if not billions of dollars a year.

Pigs might be too gentle a description. They are whores! They will provide any service for a fee.

The next situation is even better. More difficult to believe than the $.25 charge scenario.

There has been a successful move in recent years in certain European and Asian nations by banks. If money in a savings or checking account lies dormant for a specified number of years, the account is deemed inactive and the bank removes the money. The money no longer belongs to the depositor.

Australia did it last year for the first time. The banks grabbed $360 million from dormant accounts.

There is an additional twist. States are permitted to create and apply the dormant account theory based on state law. Each State must pass its own law as California and Georgia have done.  California and Georgia were delighted to pass such legislation. Why not? The money does not stay with the bank. It goes directly to the State. The State thereafter can use the monies to help pay its own debts, finance under funded state pension funds, etc.

The dormant account rule applies to safety deposit boxes, also. No activity and the box is emptied. Cash, jewelry, bonds, etc.

The pigs prevail again. However, this time for the benefit of State governments.

It is one hand washes the other. The banks need federal and state laws to permit them to steal legally from depositors. Along the way, why not do the States a favor and grab some money for them.

Note that what one bank does today, others will do tomorrow. The same with State banking laws.

Which brings us to offshore banking accounts. There are trillions of dollars held in offshore banking accounts by American corporations or corporations doing business in the United States. They sit there because the corporations do not wish to pay U.S. taxes on the money. Taxes which we sorely need to pay down debt and provide for our people.

Recognize that many Congress persons want to cut, alter or eliminate Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. The same Congress persons who voted to permit corporate America to enjoy the benefit of tax free off shore accounts.

It does not make sense to me. 

Now to the point of this tirade re offshore accounts. 

Putin announced last week that many Russian businesses are burying their money in offshore accounts to avoid Russian taxes. He said it was time to do something about it.

I believe Putin will. If he moves with the same speed he has re Crimea and gas outlets in North Korea, South Korea and China, he will have the problem resolved in my opinion by year's end. Of course, Putin has an advantage. He rules/governs a totalitarian state. He's the boss, he calls the shots. Russia's legislative body is controlled by Putin. 

I am eager to see how Putin handles his off shore problem. We might learn something from it.

I wonder if we will ever reach the point where the people run the government again. It seems to me Congress is beholden to the corporations and the corporations own Congress. Government of the people, by the people and for the people is yesterday's news. What will it take to return us to those days?

CHILDREN WALKING TO AMERICA

My people immigrated from Italy at the turn of the century. Not the most recent turn. The one before. The year 1900.

They traveled by boat. Steerage class. The lowest deck of the ship, the bottom of the boat. It was a  cheap ticket. Conditions were poor. People crowded into one huge room. No separate quarters for women. No privacy. Packed like cattle.

They yearned to be free and the opportunity to better themselves.

The Statue of Liberty welcomed them as they entered New York harbor. The giant of a woman with a special poem emblazoned on her structure.

Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me:

I lift my lamp beside the golden door.

Another wave of immigrants is arriving. Almost 50,000 have arrived already this year. By year's end, it is anticipated the figure will be 90,000.

Not by ship or boat. Not by car, train or plane. They are making the trip on foot. 

They are children. Unaccompanied minors. No Pied Piper. They lead themselves. Their ages a bit confusing. No question they are minors. Initially, the average age was reported as 10-12. As low as 4. More recent reports indicate 15-17. Pictures on the internet suggest 10-12 as being the most accurate. Babies also appear in the pictures. In the laps of older children.

Their trip started from one of three Latin American countries. El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. They made their way into Mexico. Somehow got over the waters of the Rio Grande and into Texas. They crossed the Rio Grande in rubber boats or holding onto something that would float.

The story they tell about leaving their home countries is the same. To escape gang violence. Apparently the violence is pronounced. It is everywhere, including schools and neighborhoods. One of the teenagers when asked why she made  such a difficult trip answered, "Do I face possible death in immigrating or sure death in staying?"

An example of a country where violence is occurring is Honduras. The homicide rate has tripled in the last 10 years. The homicide rate is the highest in the world for a country not at war.

Texas could not handle the influx of just under 50,000 children in six months. The U.S. government decided to transfer some of the children to Nogales, Arizona. Some 700 to 1,000.

Nogales was chosen not to aggravate Arizonians who had suffered from a large foreign influx in the past 10 years. Immigration is presently down in Arizona. The manpower, facilities and technology however remain in place to assist in caring for these children. More will be sent to Ventura, California, San Antonio, Texas, and Fort Sill, Oklahoma where proper facilities either await or are being swiftly erected.

Texas was immediately overwhelmed. Not enough showers, for example. Four more were immediately added and by the time you read this an additional sixty will have been. For most of the girls, it was to be their first shower in 10 days.

Food is a problem. The kids could not eat the food first offered. Their stomachs were not accustomed to it. They experienced Montezuma's revenge.

The children are being vaccinated. Each given a medical examination. Professionals have been brought in to provide counseling and recreational activities.

Why are the children all of a sudden making the trip to the United States? They have been told in their home countries and by relatives in the United States that as children they will receive amnesty. They believe Obama has made it possible. They come looking for the better life and believing they will be able to remain.

Most have families already living in the United States. Eighty five percent of them. The other fifteen percent carry notes from relatives in their home countries asking U.S. officials to take pity and let them in.

The immigration laws are too complicated for me to get into. There is some merit to what the children and/or their relatives claim. Most however appears not to be correct.

Arizona is behaving in typical fashion. They are not pleased with the children being flown in from Texas. Governor Brewer and a local county attorney threaten the U.S. with criminal charges.

Huge numbers of people moving from one country to another to escape violence is common place throughout the world. It had to happen at some point to the United States. We got it with an extra grain of salt. Children.

The eyes of the world are upon us. Can we care for the children? Will we care for the children? Will we be the humanitarian nation everyone thinks us to be? Will we be the humanitarian nation we think we are?

It is our moment in the sun. I hope we do not screw up. For the sake of the children and for ourselves.

HUMAN ORGANS FOR SALE

Capitalism is without limit. Economic trade for profit boundless. Legality not necessarily a concern. Underground ventures can be capitalistic.

Today's society presents forced prostitution as one of the worst of the underground ventures. Young girls are either forcibly or deceptively removed from their home countries to another with the carrot being a better job, a better life. When their destination is reached, the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow is from 20-40 men a day or a severe beating. Even worse, death.

The profit made by abductors and deceivers of innocent girls is humongous. 

There is another underground venture that is little spoken of. It exists. It is highly profitable. Perhaps even more despicable than the sexual slavery of young girls. It involves the sale of human body organs.

The demand for body organs is great. The availability slim. One hundred thousand body organs a year are needed. Only 10,000 are available. The body organs include kidneys, hearts, livers, and corneas. Seventy five per cent of the trade involves kidneys. The need for kidney replacements is driven primarily by diabetes.

The acquisition of these body parts is ALWAYS to avoid death or blindness. Money to the wealthy sick is not an issue, insurance not a concern.

The underground trade has grown involving the sale of body parts. Organs are obtained from the donor for nothing to $20,000. Generally, $5,000. An international broker is involved. He arranges with the donor for the organ and thereafter makes arrangements for the sale of the organ. His profit is outstanding! The organs sell for $150,000 to $200,000. $150,000-160,000 being the norm. Other than what the broker pays the donor and the minimal costs involved in the removal, making a match and delivery, the balance is all the broker's. In  the range of $125,000 to $175,000 per organ. Not bad.

The broker finds donors in several ways. Just as with slave traders in the 1600s and 1700s, the brokers invade African, Eastern European and Middle East villages. The young are taken away in mass. The same as with young girls to be introduced into slavery. They are taken to a central location. Then one of two scenarios occurs. The person is kept over a period of time and all organs are taken till death occurs. The other is that a specified organ is removed. Then the donor is on his or her own. Follow up medical is negligible. Many die from infections.

Another method to secure organs is the broker dealing directly with the donor face to face and offering $5,000 to $20,000 for a specified organ. The donor is almost always extremely poor and such amounts represent a windfall. 

At the other end of the cycle are the doctors, hospitals and people in need of the organs. Visualize the situation. It is poor people submitting to amputations for cash to save the wealthy sick. Many nations play the game. We do not hear of it, however. Sounds despicable to buy human body organs. Yet it is being done everywhere, quietly. Even in the United States. Though not as flagrantly as in China, India, Pakistan, the Philippines and Iran. The hospitals and doctors charge fees in addition to what the broker charges. A life and death situation makes for desperate people. Desperate people do desperate things. Even spending upwards of $500,000 in the final analysis for an organ that will continue life.

An example of U.S. involvement is Levy Rosenbaum. A Brooklyn resident, he was a broker in body parts buying kidneys from Eastern Europe and then selling them. He generally paid $10,000 to the donor and charged the buyer $160,000. He was in business for 7 years till caught. He was convicted in federal court and sentenced to jail. Rosenbaum is typical of those who buy and sell organs world wide.

India, Pakistan, and the Philippines perform organ surgeries on a regular basis. The hospitals and/or doctors provide package deals to those who are in need and will come to them for the organ replacement surgery. Referred to as transplant tourism, the package includes everything. Airfare, hotel, hospital, doctor, the organ and whatever else may be required. 

China is deeply involved. A huge population. Many commit capital crimes and are executed. China removes the deceased's organs following execution. Ninety per cent of organs used in China for replacement purposes come from the bodies of deceased prisoners.

Iran handles the situation differently. Perhaps Iran should be the role model for the rest of the world.

The buying and selling of organs for profit is legal in Iran.  There is a cap, however. $1,200 for a kidney donation. There are no waiting lists. Physical and mental care is provided the donor later. Seventy percent of the donors are poor. However, the system appears to work effectively and fairly for all involved. Assuming one can accept as proper the sale of body organs.

The huge profit motive is not part of the Iranian system. The organs are only available to Iranians. Foreigners cannot purchase one.

Except for Iran, the sale of body organs is generally prohibited world wide. However there are devious type laws passed to make it appear a nation is not involved in the practice. Such as the transportation of body organs is illegal, but not the sale or use.

Obviously all kinds of ethical questions are involved. The preservation of human life. The use of a part of one person's body, whether voluntary or involuntary, to save another. Religious considerations. And so on. The issues should be studied and discussed. Shades to a certain degree of the questions raised with stem cells.

Life is important and the methods to preserve it. Assuming there is a solution, it should be one which is a benefit to all and a detriment to none.