This page is reserved for YDP artists and authors who just
feel the need to vent in a public forum. These bitches will remain up for one month
only, so read quickly!
The following is the opinion of the author or artist who
wrote it, not -- necessarily -- the opinion of Yard Dog Press or any of its associates.
A Bitch from James K. Burk
This is going to sound like a multiple
bitch, but everything has a common thread.
I like and respect my doctor but I've
come to detest the medical industry—and it is an industry. Drug companies have such a majority of congressmen
in their pockets that they easily defeated a bill to allow the government to negotiate
drug prices for Medicare and Medicaid with the companies.
Of all the companies filling generic
prescriptions, only Costco makes just a reasonable profit.
Profit margins of over 300 to 800 percent are common, and can go over a
thousand percent. If there were ever a
legitimate reason for an obscenity law, it would be against such obscene profits.
Hospitals run unnecessary tests and
subject patients to unnecessary procedures because they have to cover their asses when
someone decides to file a malpractice suit, but the expenses are also to cover that new
scanner. You know, the one that can look
inside the patient's wallet.
Everyone is concerned about the price
for health care and the need for a national insurance plan.
I agree with the need for such a program but, as usual, the devil is in the
details. The present administration would
probably want to turn over the program to existing insurance companies, thus lining the
pockets of insurance execs while screwing the public.
The Democratic alternative would probably be to turn the whole thing into a
government agency,
Considering that FEMA is the new
four-letter word, as in "the situation is all FEMAed up," do we really want the
same wonderful people who brought us FEMA and who can't even negotiate prices with the
drug companies to be the ones in charge of health care?
The final segue is into computers, and
especially Microsoft. Modern electronics have
gotten so complicated that people can make a good living programming everything including
DVD players.
This is absurd.
The biggest problem is with electronic
engineers, who behave like high school boys in a locker room showing off their johnsons at
each other.
Since they seem to have no johnsons to
speak of, they substitute with other equipment. The
guy who gets bragging rights is the one who programs the most unnecessary bells and
whistles into the board. The consumer is the
one saddled with electronics loaded with features he doesn't need or want.
And if Microsoft unleashes something
new, wait a year or two before ordering it, because it will be cheaper then and the
earlier customers will have found the problems that need fixing. If you're a customer of a new Microsoft system,
you're an unpaid guinea pig.
What's the common thread in all this? Money.
While capitalism is a wonderful system
and remarkably inventive, it is a law of the jungle system which often rewards those with
no ethics or morals, questionable talent, and the capacity to make money. For every lion, there is a tapeworm. (For example, Howard K. Stern seems to have no
attributes except a clingy, enabler style and he's swimming, like a weasel version of
Scrooge McDuck, in his money pool. Someone
once said that making money is a knack, like being able to wriggle one's ears. I can wriggle my ears (I got second choice A.)
Actually, the US has never actually
practiced capitalism. From its founding, this
country has operated under what an Economics prof would call neo-mercantilism and what you
and I would call capitalism for the poor and welfare for the wealthy. I'd say it's past time to even the playing field.
