Friday, February 9, 2018

CHARLIE SPIERING - SWAMP KEEPER TRUMP KEEPS PROMISE TO PELOSI AND MEXICO.... NO real WALL


White House Budget Plans Request $3 Billion Downpayment for New Bollard Fencing




The White House plans to request $3 billion in funding for President Donald Trump’s long-promised wall on the Southern border in its upcoming budget, according to a senior administration official.

The White House budget will be released on Monday, despite Congress currently negotiating a two year spending agreement.
However, the requested funding will be used for 18-foot bollard fences, not structures similar to the new 30-foot prototype walls recently built in San Diego.
The estimated $3 billion boost in funding for the wall was described as a “downpayment” by an official briefing a small group of reporters.
Modern presidential budgets are seen as a political document, detailing a wish-list of how they would like to see Congress spend money.
The request would help construct 124 miles of new bollard wall structures in the Rio Grande valley in Texas. The $3 billion would be primarily used to procure steel and purchase land in preparation for construction.
Land acquisition, especially from private landowners in Texas, would take considerable time, the official noted, but they were operating on an “accelerated” timeline.
The structures would differ depending on the terrain, but would largely follow the same model as existing structures on the southern border.
“We did learn, we are learning from the prototypes, in terms of materials and everything else, but I would say that our estimates are based on the actual wall that we’ve built at this point,” the official said.

AMERICAN TRAITOR: JOHN McCAIN AND THE LA RAZA HEROIN CARTELS


http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2018/02/an-american-traitor-senator-john-mccain.html


THE DEMOCRAT PARTY and the RISE OF THE MEXICAN FASCIST WELFARE STATE and MEX FASCIST PARTY of LA RAZA “The Race” NOW CALLING ITSELF UNIDOus.

http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2018/02/larry-elder-who-said-this-about-illegal.html

Not long ago, both Democrats and Republicans advocated safe, secure borders and an immigration policy of admitting immigrants who benefit, not burden, Americans. Que pasó? ….. LARRY ELDER – FRONT PAGE MAG


THE TRUMP AMNESTY TO LEGALIZE MEXICO’S LOOTING AND KEEP WAGES FOR LEGALS DEPRESSED


The draft amnesty will also serve as complete proof in November that Trump’s voters’ wrongly placed their trust in his August 2016 promise to block any amnesty: (SEE LINK).

http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2018/01/the-trump-amnesty-to-legalize-mexicos.html

"But the taxpayers’ costs also act as a $26 billion stimulus for business which will provide the migrants with medical services, apartments, entertainment, food, and transport. The continued inflow of the 4 million chain-migrants, however, is a vastly greater benefit for business and burden for American workers." NEIL MUNRO


LIFE EXPECTANCY PLUMMETS IN AMERICA - LAND OF OPEN BORDERS, JOBS AND WELFARE FOR ILLEGALS AND JOBLESSNESS, HOMELESSNESS, POVERTY AND DRUG ADDICTION FOR LEGALS

"The picture emerging is one of a society wracked by burgeoning social inequality, a catastrophic health crisis, and a government health policy aimed at deliberately lowering life expectancy while catering to corporate profit."


Falling US life expectancy: The product of a deliberate ruling class policy

9 February 2018
An editorial in a British medical journal has focused renewed attention on the shocking reality that life expectancy in the United States is declining. “Failing health of the United States: The role of challenging life conditions and the policies behind them,” published Wednesday in BMJ, formerly the British Medical Journal, builds on reports in December by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that revealed US life expectancy declined in 2016 for the second year in a row.
The editorial’s authors, Steven H. Woolf and Laudan Aron, both sat on a joint panel of the National Research Council and Institute of Medicine in 2013 that investigated US health disadvantage compared to other member countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). According to World Bank Data, the average life expectancy of an aggregate of 35 OECD countries stood at about 75.5 years in 1995. By 2015 the rate had risen to 80.3 years, while the US lagged behind at 78.7 years.
The editorial points to the myriad diseases and behaviors contributing to decreased lifespans in America, as well as to the social and economic factors driving them. The picture emerging is one of a society wracked by burgeoning social inequality, a catastrophic health crisis, and a government health policy aimed at deliberately lowering life expectancy while catering to corporate profit.
The opioid epidemic, alcohol abuse and suicides are leading causes of death in the US. The rate of fatal drug overdoses rose by 137 percent from 2000 to 2014. In 2015 alone, more than 64,000 people died from drug overdoses, exceeding the number of US fatal casualties in the Vietnam War. The suicide rate rose by a staggering 24 percent between 1999 and 2014.
These “deaths of despair” have disproportionately affected white Americans, including adults aged 25-59, those with limited education, and women. The sharpest increases have been in rural areas.
As to why the rise in mortality has been greatest among white, middle-aged adults and some rural communities, the editorial points to possible factors, which all relate to class issues. They include “the collapse of industries and the local economies they supported, the erosion of social cohesion and greater social isolation, economic hardship, and distress among white workers over losing the security their parents once enjoyed.”
The 2013 panel found that “Americans had poorer health in many domains, including birth outcomes, injuries, homicides, adolescent pregnancy, HIV/AIDS, obesity, diabetes, and heart disease.” It found that Americans are more likely to engage in unhealthy behaviors, such as intake of high-calorie foods, drug abuse and firearm ownership.
The editorial also notes that such behaviors are linked to “weaker social welfare supports and lack of universal health insurance.” What does this mean in the lives of workers and their families? It means cuts to food stamps and cash welfare assistance, the shutdown of community clinics and scarcity of substance abuse programs, lack of health insurance and/or burdensome medical bills. All these factors contribute to poor health outcomes and premature deaths.
Falling life expectancy—one of the most important measures of the social health of a society—has elicited no response from any faction of the US political establishment, neither the Trump administration nor the Democratic Party. On Thursday evening, the US Senate was deliberating on a two-year budget agreement that would increase military spending by $305 billion.... BLOG: WITH NO FUNDING FOR A WALL AGAINST NARCOMEX!
At his weekly press conference, House Speaker Paul Ryan said that the main factor contributing to the government’s increasing deficit is not the Pentagon’s gargantuan budget, which funds the US military’s aggression around the globe, but the so-called entitlements—Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid—programs that workers depend on for their retirement and their families’ health.
As the Democratic Party continues its obsession with claims of Russian meddling in the 2018 US elections, the Trump administration has pursued its assault on social programs. After failing in numerous attempts to repeal and/or replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the White House repealed the ACA’s individual mandate as part of the corporate tax overhaul, and has allowed states to begin imposing work requirements for Medicaid, the health insurance program for the poor and the disabled.
Discussion of health care and the well-being of American workers has become a non-issue for the Democrats, as they have emerged as the most adamant representatives of the military-intelligence agencies, supporting an impending war against Russia—in opposition to Trump and the Republicans and their saber-rattling against North Korea.

In reality, the war against the health of American workers has been a bipartisan conspiracy conducted over decades as part of a conscious strategy to pare back the gains won through the social struggles of the working class begun over a century ago.

Under the Obama administration, the implementation of the ACA was a key volley in the ruling elite’s social counterrevolution in health care. Sold as an expansion of health care, it was in fact aimed at limiting and rationing workers’ access to vital medical treatments and medicines as “unnecessary” and “lavish.” At the same time, through the universal mandate, it required individuals and families to purchase coverage from private health insurers under threat of tax penalties.
Both the Democrats and Republicans bemoan the high cost of health care in America. But the reality is that the high cost of health care—Americans pay on average $10,000 per person, per year—is not the result of actual spending on health care for workers and their families for vital treatments. It is because the US leaves the vast majority of pricing for drugs, procedures and hospital stays in the hands of the private sector. While hospitals and drug companies charge outrageous prices, millions of people remain uninsured and untreated.
For the ruling class, the increasing number of deaths of working men, women and youth is a “cost of doing business.” Indeed, it is seen as a positive good, as early deaths mean fewer costs associated with caring for the elderly—and more resources to pump into the stock market.
The US health care crisis is a national emergency. The ruling classes of the world, moreover, look to the US as a model for their own ruthless assault on jobs and social programs. To address this crisis requires a frontal assault on the wealth of the corporate and financial elite.
The vast resources currently monopolized by the top one percent must be made available to finance a universal health care system, in which everyone has access to high-quality care as a basic social right.
Such a social and economic reorganization requires the building of a mass movement of the working class, in opposition to both Democrats and Republicans, uniting workers of all races and nationalities in a fight against the capitalist profit system.
Kate Randall

OPIOID ADDICTION IN AMERICA:

OBAMA AND HIS CRONIES IN BIG PHARMA AT WORK!

OBAMA’S CRONY BANKSTERISM destroyed a TRILLION DOLLARS in home equity… and they’re still plundering us!

Barack Obama created more debt for the middle class than any president in US

history, and also had the only huge QE programs: $4.2 Trillion.

OXFAM reported that during Obama’s terms, 95% of the wealth created went to 
the top 1% of the world’s wealthy. 

PRINCETON REPORT:


American middle-class is addicted, poor, jobless and suicidal…. Thank the corrupt government for surrendering our borders to 40 million looting Mexicans and then handing the bills to middle America?


http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2017/11/princeton-scholars-opioid-crisis.html

US: Food insecurity may be twice as common as previously estimated

By Mark Ferretti
10 February 2018
Lack of sufficient access to nutritious food is a much greater problem for the American working class than previously understood, according to research published in the Journal of Hunger & Environmental Nutrition. In a survey of 663 households in Columbus, Ohio, researchers found that 32 percent were food insecure. This rate of food insecurity is double that of previous estimates based on county-level census data.
The researchers considered about half of food-insecure households to be “very low food secure.” People in this group are “skipping meals, at risk for experiencing hunger, and probably missing work and school and suffering health problems as a result,” according to Michelle Kaiser, PhD, an assistant professor of social work at Ohio State, and lead author of the study. Although the current research only examined Columbus, other metropolitan areas likely have similar disparities, she added.
“This study exposed the vastly different experiences of people who all live in the same city,” said Dr. Kaiser. “My suspicion is that most people don’t recognize that there are such discrepancies and can’t imagine living where they couldn’t easily go to a grocery store.” Notwithstanding the obliviousness of the more comfortable layers of the population, these data provide further evidence that the country’s deepening social divisions are reaching critical proportions.
For their study, Dr. Kaiser and colleagues surveyed economically and racially diverse households to understand consumer decision-making and food access. They also audited 90 food stores for the availability of items on the US Department of Agriculture’s Thrifty Food Plan and MyPlate list. The Thrifty Food Plan lists low-cost foods intended to ensure adequate nutrition. This plan is the basis for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which also is known as food stamps. MyPlate offers nutritional advice, such as emphasizing the consumption of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and healthy proteins.
Although African-Americans were overrepresented among the food insecure, the totality of the data indicated that the divide between food security and food insecurity was fundamentally one of class, not of race. Annual income tended to be less than $25,000 among food-insecure individuals and more than $50,000 among the food-secure. Full-time employment was significantly less common in food-insecure households (54.7 percent) than in food-secure households (75.2 percent). More than 20 percent of food-insecure households depended on Supplemental Security Income (SSI), veterans’ benefits, or other disability benefits, compared with 8.5 percent of food-secure households. About 5 percent of food-insecure households received unemployment benefits, compared with 3 percent of food-secure households. The food insecure were approximately five times more likely to participate in SNAP and nearly four times more likely to participate in the Women, Infants and Children assistance program than the food secure.
As a part of its turbocharged assault on the working class, the Trump administration proposes to cut $193 billion from SNAP over the next 10 years. This proposal goes even further than the $8.7 billion cut to SNAP that President Obama signed into law in 2014. If Trump’s proposal is enacted, it would deprive millions of poor and working-class Americans of assistance, forcing many to skip meals.
In Dr. Kaiser’s study, differences in education coincided with these differences in income. The highest level of education in food-insecure households was more likely to be a high school diploma, GED, two-year degree, or technical degree. But a higher percentage of people with a bachelor’s degree or graduate degree were food secure.
Previous investigations have linked food insecurity with higher risks of depression, anxiety, and social isolation. Dr. Kaiser and colleagues found that obesity, high blood pressure, and prediabetes were significantly more common among the food insecure than the food secure.
The investigators’ audits indicated that supermarkets were more likely than specialty markets, partial markets or convenience stores to offer all of the Thrifty Food Plan items and all of the MyPlate recommendations. Yet, compared with food-secure participants, food-insecure respondents were significantly more likely to shop at partial markets and convenience or corner stores, which had poorer selections. One reason is that the food insecure lived closer to partial markets and convenience stores, while the food secure lived closer to supermarkets and specialty stores.
More than 27 percent of food-insecure households had difficulties finding fresh produce, and 26 percent were “not at all satisfied” with neighborhood food access. “The types of food stores most accessible to food-insecure households rarely stock healthy food items,” said Dr. Kaiser. “In contrast, food-secure households are less likely to have to confront the same environmental challenges as food-insecure households to purchase and consume healthy foods.”
Barriers to obtaining food (e.g., access, safety or crime, and affordability) were more common for food-insecure households than for the food secure. Food-insecure participants also had difficulties with transportation. They were less likely to use their own cars and more likely to get rides from acquaintances, ride public transportation, or walk to get food, compared with the food secure.
More and more grocery stores and supermarkets in low-income areas are closing, according to Dr. Kaiser. Companies rarely establish a new grocery store in an urban area, particularly if it would be near a neighborhood with a high rate of poverty. These decisions are based purely on the profit motive. As they chase middle-class and wealthy shoppers, the big supermarket chains shutter stores in poor and working-class areas. Consequently, as Dr. Kaiser’s study indicates, poor and working-class people are left with fewer options, which leaves them in worse health than their wealthier peers.
Like companies in any other industry, supermarkets extract their profits from the labor of their employees. As shareholders demand greater returns, the supermarket chains abandon less profitable locations and wrest concessions from their workers. The result is a worsening of inequality and continuing assaults on the health and well-being of the working class.



TRICKLE UP ECONOMICS - WALL STREET PLUNGES AMID FEAR AND PANIC

OBAMA’S CRONY BANKSTERISM destroyed a TRILLION DOLLARS in home equity… and they’re still plundering us!

Barack Obama created more debt for the middle class than any president in US

history, and also had the only huge QE programs: $4.2 Trillion.

OXFAM reported that during Obama’s terms, 95% of the wealth created went to 
the top 1% of the world’s wealthy. 

PRINCETON REPORT:

American middle-class is addicted, poor, jobless and suicidal…. Thank the corrupt government for surrendering our borders to 40 million looting Mexicans and then handing the bills to middle America?


THE ENTIRE REASON AMERICAN BORDERS ARE LEFT WIDE OPEN AND UNDEFENDED AND FOR NON-ENFORCEMENT OF LAWS PROHIBITING THE EMPLOYMENT OF ILLEGALS IS TO KEEP WAGES DEPRESSED AND PROFITS UNNATURALLY ELEVATED.


"The violent reaction of the market to a marginal increase in wages resulted not from the increase itself but what it might portend: a resurgence in the class struggle in the US and internationally as workers push back against the continuous suppression of wages that has been a feature of the global economy for 30 years and particularly since the global financial crisis of 2008."

Wall Street plunges amid fear and panic

By Nick Beams
9 February 2018
Wall Street saw another plunge in stocks yesterday, with the Dow Jones index falling by 1,032 points—the second time in four days it has dropped by more than 1,000 points. A large portion of the sell-off, which impacted on all other market indexes and went across the board, took place in the last hour, indicating that further selling may be yet to come.
The Dow finished down by 4.2 percent, the S&P 500 dropped 3.8 percent, taking the fall from its January high to 10 percent, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq lost 3.9 percent. The interest rate on the benchmark 10-year treasury note rose to touch 2.9 percent, but fell back to 2.82 percent as money moved out of stocks into government debt.
Markets across Asia plunged dramatically today and remain in the red. With several hours of trading remaining, the Nikkei index in Japan had fallen over 2.5 percent; the STX in Singapore was down 1.8 percent; the All Ords in Australia down 1 percent; and the Kospi in South Korea down 1.6 percent. The Hong Kong and Shanghai exchanges in China were the worst impacted, with the Hang Seng down 3.3 percent and the Shanghai composite down 4.1 percent by lunch.
Six days after the Wall Street sell-off began last Friday, some of the market mechanisms driving it have become clearer. The initial fall was triggered by the news that wage growth in the US last year was 2.9 percent, above market expectations. This intersected with a rise in bond market interest rates, with the yield on the 10-year treasury bond rising to its highest point in four years, following earlier forecasts that the decades-long bull-run in bonds, which has seen interest rates fall to historic lows, is coming to an end.
The violent reaction of the market to a marginal increase in wages resulted not from the increase itself but what it might portend: a resurgence in the class struggle in the US and internationally as workers push back against the continuous suppression of wages that has been a feature of the global economy for 30 years and particularly since the global financial crisis of 2008.
The suppression of wages has been a key factor in the surge in stock prices, fuelled by the quantitative easing policies pursued by the US Federal Reserve and other central banks to pump trillions of dollars into financial markets.
The return of volatility to the equities market last Friday had such a significant impact because of a complex set of new financial products created by the financial markets over the past period, centring on the volatility, or VIX, index.
Through a process of “financial engineering,” finance houses and major banks, including some of the biggest names such as Barclays, Credit Suisse, UBS and Citigroup, created a series of financial products, based on the VIX, that could be traded on the markets. This involved “shorting the VIX,” that is, placing bets that the volatility index, which set record lows throughout 2017, would continue to remain calm.
Before the eruption of this week’s sell-off, the S&P 500 index had gone more than 400 days without recording a drop of 5 percent or more, a situation not experienced since 1959.
Betting on low volatility was one of the major sources of gains from the stock market throughout 2017, when the VIX averaged 11—its lowest point since records began in 1990. In trade this week it has risen as high as 50.
The assumptions behind this strategy bear a striking resemblance to those that drove the trading in mortgage-backed securities in the lead up to the 2008 crisis, which was set off by the bursting of the sub-prime bubble. Those in the sub-prime market assumed that it would always provide a positive return because, while there may be ups and down in regional markets, the national market as a whole would not fall. That assumption was shattered by the nationwide fall in US house prices in 2007–2008, leading to the meltdown.
Likewise “shorting the VIX” was based on the assumption that the calm in the markets over the past year would continue indefinitely. That was upended last Friday, setting in motion the sell-off and forcing major traders to unwind their positions.
A major feature of the turmoil, pointing to the growth of fear and panic, has been the speed of events.
On Monday, the market finished down by 1,157 points, after crashing by 900 points in the space of just 11 minutes during the last hour of trading.
On Tuesday, the market opened at more than 500 points down, then finished up by 567 points. From bottom to top, it saw a swing of 1,200 points, with 29 changes of direction during the day.
On Wednesday, it hit an intra-day high of 381 points before closing 19 points down. This was followed by a continuous fall from the time markets opened yesterday.
Exacerbating the sell-off is the fact that much of the trading is based on borrowed funds, subject to margin calls—the borrower has to return cash to the lender if the asset on which the loan is based falls in value. Faced with demands for cash, borrowers have to liquidate investments, leading to a further market downturn and a negative feedback loop as lower asset values trigger further margin calls.
Margin trading is only the tip of the international debt iceberg. The Bank for International Settlements estimates that the ratio of global debt to gross domestic product (GDP) is 40 percent higher today than a decade ago. Standard and Poor’s has reported that global non-financial corporate debt has risen by 15 percentage points to 96 percent of GDP in the past six years, with 37 percent of companies deemed to be “highly leveraged,” compared to 32 percent in 2007. With interest rates on the rise, the ability of companies and even governments to service this debt is called into question.
While trading in complex derivatives based on the VIX has been the immediate trigger for the market plunge, broader developments indicate this is a financial inflection point.
One of the continuous themes of the commentary on the market gyrations, including in a tweet by US President Donald Trump, is that the market is acting at variance with the direction of the real economy, which is showing signs of growth.
Such commentary ignores what has been the central feature of the rise and rise of the financial markets since 2008. The surge in US stock prices, rising by more than 350 percent from their low in March 2009, has taken place amid low growth—the weakest recovery from a recession in the post-war period. The “real economy” is characterised by historically low levels of investment and low productivity as profits have been diverted into ever-more risky forms of financial speculation.
The key factor in sustaining the markets has been the inflow of cheap money from the Federal Reserve, which has expanded its balance sheet from around $800 billion before 2008 to more than $4 trillion today. Speculators have operated on the assumption that the Fed is ready to step in and ensure the market will not fall precipitously, a key factor in the decline in market volatility.
That assumption is now being called into question. Confronted with an uptick in US economic growth, the Fed has started to lift interest rates, indicating that three rises may be enacted this year. Other central banks are moving in the same direction. The Bank of England indicated yesterday that interest rate rises in the UK may come sooner and be larger than expected. The European Central Bank is also under pressure to start winding back its program of quantitative easing which has sent interest rates to record lows, in some cases into negative territory.
The Fed and other central banks are concerned that if they intervene with more cheap money this may lead to a rise in inflation. That is how they characterize their greatest fear of all: an intensification of the class struggle as workers seek to regain the losses in their wages and living standards.
The market crisis is also being fueled by the key policies of the Trump administration, supported by the Democrats, of massive tax cuts for the corporate and financial elites and a boost to military spending for war. These measures are set to push the US budget deficit toward $1 trillion from its current level of close to $700 billion.
The result will be more government bonds on the market, leading to a fall in their price, and lifting interest rates, as the two move in an inverse relationship. Even before the announcement of the latest measures to vastly increase military spending, New York Federal Reserve president Bill Dudley said in a speech last month that the current fiscal path was unsustainable and the adverse effects of the tax cuts on the budget bottom line would outweigh any positive effects on capital spending and output.
The likelihood of these measures causing interest rate rises is being exacerbated by geo-political tensions. Under conditions in which the Fed is withdrawing from bond purchases, the US is mounting a trade war against the second largest purchaser in the recent period, China. Last month, in anonymous comments, high-placed Chinese financial officials told Bloomberg they were considering pulling back on bond purchases, partly in response to the more aggressive moves by the US on trade. If this takes place, for either financial or political reasons, it can only further roil US financial markets.
Whatever the immediate outcome of the present turmoil, some clear economic and political facts of life have been established. None of the contradictions of the capitalist system, which exploded to the surface in 2008, has even been tackled, let alone overcome.
The past period has been marked by the drive to war, with the growing danger of a nuclear conflagration either on the Korean peninsula or elsewhere. At the same time the banks, finance houses and capitalist oligarchs, along with the world’s central banks, have responded to the disaster into which they plunged the world a decade ago by creating new speculative “weapons of mass financial destruction,” setting up the conditions for the eruption of a crisis even more serious than that of 2008.
The world working class must take stock of the situation. The response of the ruling classes to the current meltdown will be to impose ever-deeper attacks on its social rights than those initiated a decade ago.
The capitalist system has no political and economic legitimacy, and threatens to plunge the mass of humanity into a disaster. It must be overturned in the struggle for an international socialist program by the world working class.

"The picture emerging is one of a society wracked by burgeoning social inequality, a catastrophic health crisis, and a government health policy aimed at deliberately lowering life expectancy while catering to corporate profit."


Falling US life expectancy: The product of a deliberate ruling class policy

9 February 2018
An editorial in a British medical journal has focused renewed attention on the shocking reality that life expectancy in the United States is declining. “Failing health of the United States: The role of challenging life conditions and the policies behind them,” published Wednesday in BMJ, formerly the British Medical Journal, builds on reports in December by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that revealed US life expectancy declined in 2016 for the second year in a row.
The editorial’s authors, Steven H. Woolf and Laudan Aron, both sat on a joint panel of the National Research Council and Institute of Medicine in 2013 that investigated US health disadvantage compared to other member countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). According to World Bank Data, the average life expectancy of an aggregate of 35 OECD countries stood at about 75.5 years in 1995. By 2015 the rate had risen to 80.3 years, while the US lagged behind at 78.7 years.
The editorial points to the myriad diseases and behaviors contributing to decreased lifespans in America, as well as to the social and economic factors driving them. The picture emerging is one of a society wracked by burgeoning social inequality, a catastrophic health crisis, and a government health policy aimed at deliberately lowering life expectancy while catering to corporate profit.
The opioid epidemic, alcohol abuse and suicides are leading causes of death in the US. The rate of fatal drug overdoses rose by 137 percent from 2000 to 2014. In 2015 alone, more than 64,000 people died from drug overdoses, exceeding the number of US fatal casualties in the Vietnam War. The suicide rate rose by a staggering 24 percent between 1999 and 2014.
These “deaths of despair” have disproportionately affected white Americans, including adults aged 25-59, those with limited education, and women. The sharpest increases have been in rural areas.
As to why the rise in mortality has been greatest among white, middle-aged adults and some rural communities, the editorial points to possible factors, which all relate to class issues. They include “the collapse of industries and the local economies they supported, the erosion of social cohesion and greater social isolation, economic hardship, and distress among white workers over losing the security their parents once enjoyed.”
The 2013 panel found that “Americans had poorer health in many domains, including birth outcomes, injuries, homicides, adolescent pregnancy, HIV/AIDS, obesity, diabetes, and heart disease.” It found that Americans are more likely to engage in unhealthy behaviors, such as intake of high-calorie foods, drug abuse and firearm ownership.
The editorial also notes that such behaviors are linked to “weaker social welfare supports and lack of universal health insurance.” What does this mean in the lives of workers and their families? It means cuts to food stamps and cash welfare assistance, the shutdown of community clinics and scarcity of substance abuse programs, lack of health insurance and/or burdensome medical bills. All these factors contribute to poor health outcomes and premature deaths.
Falling life expectancy—one of the most important measures of the social health of a society—has elicited no response from any faction of the US political establishment, neither the Trump administration nor the Democratic Party. On Thursday evening, the US Senate was deliberating on a two-year budget agreement that would increase military spending by $305 billion.... BLOG: WITH NO FUNDING FOR A WALL AGAINST NARCOMEX!
At his weekly press conference, House Speaker Paul Ryan said that the main factor contributing to the government’s increasing deficit is not the Pentagon’s gargantuan budget, which funds the US military’s aggression around the globe, but the so-called entitlements—Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid—programs that workers depend on for their retirement and their families’ health.
As the Democratic Party continues its obsession with claims of Russian meddling in the 2018 US elections, the Trump administration has pursued its assault on social programs. After failing in numerous attempts to repeal and/or replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the White House repealed the ACA’s individual mandate as part of the corporate tax overhaul, and has allowed states to begin imposing work requirements for Medicaid, the health insurance program for the poor and the disabled.
Discussion of health care and the well-being of American workers has become a non-issue for the Democrats, as they have emerged as the most adamant representatives of the military-intelligence agencies, supporting an impending war against Russia—in opposition to Trump and the Republicans and their saber-rattling against North Korea.

In reality, the war against the health of American workers has been a bipartisan conspiracy conducted over decades as part of a conscious strategy to pare back the gains won through the social struggles of the working class begun over a century ago.

Under the Obama administration, the implementation of the ACA was a key volley in the ruling elite’s social counterrevolution in health care. Sold as an expansion of health care, it was in fact aimed at limiting and rationing workers’ access to vital medical treatments and medicines as “unnecessary” and “lavish.” At the same time, through the universal mandate, it required individuals and families to purchase coverage from private health insurers under threat of tax penalties.
Both the Democrats and Republicans bemoan the high cost of health care in America. But the reality is that the high cost of health care—Americans pay on average $10,000 per person, per year—is not the result of actual spending on health care for workers and their families for vital treatments. It is because the US leaves the vast majority of pricing for drugs, procedures and hospital stays in the hands of the private sector. While hospitals and drug companies charge outrageous prices, millions of people remain uninsured and untreated.
For the ruling class, the increasing number of deaths of working men, women and youth is a “cost of doing business.” Indeed, it is seen as a positive good, as early deaths mean fewer costs associated with caring for the elderly—and more resources to pump into the stock market.
The US health care crisis is a national emergency. The ruling classes of the world, moreover, look to the US as a model for their own ruthless assault on jobs and social programs. To address this crisis requires a frontal assault on the wealth of the corporate and financial elite.
The vast resources currently monopolized by the top one percent must be made available to finance a universal health care system, in which everyone has access to high-quality care as a basic social right.
Such a social and economic reorganization requires the building of a mass movement of the working class, in opposition to both Democrats and Republicans, uniting workers of all races and nationalities in a fight against the capitalist profit system.
Kate Randall

OPIOID ADDICTION IN AMERICA:

OBAMA AND HIS CRONIES IN BIG PHARMA AT WORK!


THE DEMOCRAT PARTY and the RISE OF THE MEXICAN FASCIST WELFARE STATE and MEX FASCIST PARTY of LA RAZA “The Race” NOW CALLING ITSELF UNIDOSus.

http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2018/02/larry-elder-who-said-this-about-illegal.html

Not long ago, both Democrats and Republicans advocated safe, secure borders and an immigration policy of admitting immigrants who benefit, not burden, Americans. Que pasó? ….. LARRY ELDER – FRONT PAGE MAG


THE ECONOMIST:

America’s drift to war and economic collapse

"The United States has foolishly given Pakistan more than 33 billion dollars in aid over the last 15 years, and they have given us nothing but lies & deceit, thinking of our leaders as fools. They give safe haven to the terrorists we hunt in Afghanistan, with little help. No more!"    PAT BUCHANAN


“It notes in passing that for the American government, which already runs annual budget deficits approaching $700 billion, “finding the money will be another problem.”


Dow Falls By 666 Points, Capping Worst Week in Two Years



Sometimes good news for the economy is bad news for stocks.

The U.S. economy added 200,000 jobs Friday, and wages saw their biggest increase since the end of the recession. The strength of the labor market, however, appeared to lead to weakness in the stock market.
The stronger-than-expected jobs report is likely to reassure Federal Reserve officials about their plans to raise rates several times this year. In December, Fed officials predicted that they would raise rates three times in 2018. A stronger jobs market, however, raises the potential for a possible fourth rate hike.
“If wage growth continues, that could have an impact on the path of interest rates,” Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari said on CNBC Friday.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell by nearly 666 points, or around 2.5 percent, Friday. The Dow rose 5.8 percent in January but declined 4.1 percent for the week, the worst weekly record since 2016. The S&P fell by 2.1 percent, and the Nasdaq Composite declined by around 1.95 percent.
The yield on the ten-year Treasury note rose to its highest level in more than four years. Yields move up as bond prices decline.
Rising pay for workers has focused investor attention on the risk of inflation, which erodes the value of the fixed coupon paid to bondholders.

Government Does 

Too Little for Older 

People, the Poor and 

the Middle Class

Partisan, age gaps in views of government help for younger people
Majorities of Americans say the federal government does not provide enough help for older people (65%), poor people (62%) and the middle class (61%). By contrast, nearly two-thirds (64%) say the government provides too much help for wealthy people.
Opinions are more divided about the amount of help the government provides for younger people: About half (51%) say the government does not do enough for younger people, 29% say the government provides about the right amount of help, while 13% say it provides too much.
The national survey by Pew Research Center, conducted Jan. 10-15 among 1,503 adults, finds that views on government help for the poor, the middle class and the wealthy – as well as for older people – have changed little in recent years. This is the first time this series has included a question about younger people.
There are partisan differences in views of government support for all groups included in the survey. However, the gap is somewhat narrower in views of government help for older people than for other groups. While 73% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents say the federal government does not do enough for older people, a smaller majority of Republicans (58%) say the same.
The partisan gap is much wider in views of government help for younger people. Nearly seven-in-ten Democrats (69%) say the federal government does not provide enough help for younger people. Republicans are divided: Nearly equal shares say the government does too little (29%) and too much (27%) for younger people, while 36% say it provides about the right amount of help.
In addition, there are sizable age differences in views of government help for younger people – but not in how much the government does for older people. A majority of those younger than 50 (58%) say the government does not do enough for younger people, compared with 44% of those 50 and older. Nearly identical shares of those under 50 (65%) and those 50 and older (66%) say the federal government does not do enough for older people.

Views of government help for poor, wealthy, middle class

The partisan divide in views of government aid for the poor is wider than for other groups. Fully 82% of Democrats say the federal government does not provide enough help for poor people, compared with just 36% of Republicans. About as many Republicans say the government does too much for the poor (33%) as say it does too little; 27% say the help the government provides is about right.
Pew Research Center’s recent report on the public’s political values found that partisan differences in attitudes about aid to the poor and needy have widened considerably over the past two decades. In that study, 71% of Democrats said the government should do more to help the needy even if it meant going deeper in debt, compared with 24% of Republicans.
Democrats and Republicans also differ in their attitudes about the help the government provides to wealthy people. A large majority of Democrats (77%) say the federal government provides too much help to the wealthy. As with views about government help to the poor, Republicans are divided. Nearly half of Republicans (46%) say the federal government provides too much help for wealthy people, 42% say it provides about the right amount, while 6% say it does not provide enough help.
Partisan differences in opinions about the federal government’s help for the middle class are not as pronounced. Seven-in-ten Democrats say the government does not provide enough help for the middle class, compared with about half of Republicans (51%).
Republican attitudes about government help to the poor, middle class and wealthy differ significantly by family income. Democratic opinions vary much less across income levels.
Nearly half of Republicans with incomes under $40,000 (47%) say that the government does not provide enough assistance for poor people. This is considerably higher than those who make between $40,000 and $75,000 or $75,000 or more; only about three-in-ten in these income brackets say that poor people do not receive enough assistance (32% and 28%, respectively).
A similar pattern is seen on opinions about government help for the middle class. A majority (59%) of lower-income Republicans say the middle class does not receive enough help. That compares with about half of Republicans with higher family incomes.
And while 58% of Republicans with incomes of less than $40,000 say the government provides too much help to wealthy people, only about four-in-ten (41%) of those with incomes of $40,000 or more say the same.
Large majorities of Democrats across income categories say the federal government does not provide enough help for the poor and middle class, and that it provides too much help for the wealthy.


THEIR BILLION DOLLAR WELFARE STATE ON OUR BACKS!!!

70% OF ILLEGALS GET WELFARE!
 “According to the Centers for Immigration Studies, April '11, at least 70% of Mexican illegal alien families receive some type of welfare in the US!!! cis.org”

So when cities across the country declare that they will NOT be sanctuary, guess where ALL the illegals, criminals, gang members fleeing ICE will go???? straight to your welcoming city. So ironically the people fighting for sanctuary city status, may have an unprecedented crime wave to deal with along with the additional expense.
*
$17 Billion dollars a year is spent for education for the American-born children of illegal aliens, known as anchor babies.
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$12 Billion dollars a year is spent on primary and secondary school education for children here illegally and they cannot speak a word of English.
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$22 billion is spent on (AFDC) welfare to illegal aliens each year.
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$2.2 Billion dollars a year is spent on food assistance programs such as (SNAP) food stamps, WIC, and free school lunches for illegal aliens.
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$3 Million Dollars a DAY is spent to incarcerate illegal aliens.
30% percent of all Federal Prison inmates are illegal aliens. Does not include local jails and State Prisons.
*
2012 illegal aliens sent home $62 BILLION in remittances back to their countries of origin. This is why Mexico is getting involved in our politics.
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$200 Billion Dollars a year in suppressed American wages are caused by the illegal aliens.
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Nearly One Million Sex Crimes Committed by Illegal Immigrants In The United States.

"If the racist "Sensenbrenner Legislation" passes the US Senate, there is no doubt that a massive civil disobedience movement will emerge. Eventually labor union power can merge with the immigrant civil rights and "Immigrant Sanctuary" movements to enable us to either form a new political party or to do heavy duty reforming of the existing Democratic Party. The next and final steps would follow and that is to elect our own governors of all the states within Aztlan." 

THE STAGGERING COST OF THE WELFARE STATE MEXICO AND THE LA RAZA SUPREMACY DEMOCRAT PARTY HAVE BUILT BORDER to OPEN BORDER’


According to the Federation for American Immigration Reform’s 2017 report, illegal immigrants, and their children, cost American taxpayers a net $116 billion annually -- roughly $7,000 per alien annually. While high, this number is not an outlier: a recent study by the Heritage Foundation found that low-skilled immigrants (including those here illegally) cost Americans trillions over the course of their lifetimes, and a study from the National Economics Editorial found that illegal immigration costs America over $140 billion annually. As it stands, illegal immigrants are a massive burden on American taxpayers.

POPULATION EXPLOSION FOR GRINGO WELFARE

THE HORDES OF ILLEGALS KEEP COMING…. Despite America’s jobs, housing and Mexican crime tidal wave.


"If the racist "Sensenbrenner Legislation" passes the US Senate, there is no doubt that a massive civil disobedience movement will emerge. Eventually labor union power can merge with the immigrant civil rights and "Immigrant Sanctuary" movements to enable us to either form a new political party or to do heavy duty reforming of the existing Democratic Party. The next and final steps would follow and that is to elect our own governors of all the states within Aztlan." 

LA made $1.3B in illegal immigrant welfare payouts in just 2 years

TRUMP’S SECRET AMNESTY, WIDER OPEN BORDERS DOCTRINE TO KEEP WAGES DEPRESSED.

"During the same month that Schlafly had backed Trump for his “America First” agenda, Nielsen’s committee released an ideologically-globalist report, promoting the European migrant crisis as a win for big business who would profit greatly from a never-ending stream of cheap, foreign migrants."

 

 

AMERICA: ONE PAYCHECK AND TWELVE ILLEGALS AWAY FROM HOMELESSNESS!

http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2017/12/rick-moran-los-angeles-mexicos-second.html

 

A dashcam video of downtown Los Angeles on Christmas day reveals a stunning sight: hundreds of tents and lean-tos on the sidewalks that serve as shelter for the homeless. The scene is reminiscent of a third-world country. RICK MORAN / AMERICANTHINKER com

 

 

HOMELESS CRISIS IN LOS ANGELES, MEXICO’S SECOND LARGEST

 

CITY, WORSENS BY THE DAY….        Approximates the great depression

 

http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2017/11/homeless-crisis-in-mexicos-second.html

 

 

93% of the murders in Los Angeles are by Mexicans

 

 

 

HOMELESS AMERICA’S HOUSING CRISIS as 40 million illegals have climbed U.S. open borders.

 

http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2017/12/homeless-in-america-hundreds-of.html

 

EVERY AMERICAN (Legal) only one paycheck and two illegals away from living in their cars.




Drug Rehab Centers are 




Fueling Homeless Epidemic 




in California

 

http://www.breitbart.com/california/2017/12/19/drug-rehab-centers-are-fueling-homelessness-in-california/

 

Getty Images

Drug rehabilitation or “rehab” centers are increasingly being seen as a contributing factor in the homeless epidemic that has swept across the Golden State.

“There’s evidence to suggest a portion of the growth [of homelessness] in some Orange County cities, and to a lesser degree in Los Angeles, can be attributed to the rehab industry’s aggressive recruitment of addicts – and their lucrative insurance payments – from around the country,” the Orange County Register noted in a recent article.
The issue rests in the fact that the drug rehab centers’ business models actually wind up leaving addicts stranded on the streets. The rehab model is also highly lucrative, bringing in hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars per year.
Often, once a patient’s insurance money runs out, rehab homes and facilities will kick him or her out on the street, which results in relapse and, often, homelessness.
According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, over 60 percent of people who receive drug rehabilitation will relapse. Many of these individuals wind up homeless.
In 2015, Forbes reported:
The National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependency estimates that over 23 million Americans (age 12 and older) are addicted to alcohol and other drugs. According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), just under 11% (2.5 million) received care at an addiction treatment facility in 2012. SAMHSA also estimates that the market for addiction treatment is about $35 billion per year.
According to Los Angeles County’s annual homeless count, the region’s homeless population has grown 23 percent since 2016. The study also found that the number of homeless people in L.A. County whose last residence was out of state increased by 21 percent.
The Register points out that in Florida, there is a strong link between rehab and drug-treatment facilities and homelessness, and particularly in Palm Beach County, where government counts reportedly found a 73 percent increase over the past two years in the number of homeless youth between the ages of 18 and 24.
“The (rehab patients) are not going back home to the Northeast,” Palm Beach County State Attorney Dave Aronberg, who leads the county’s Sober Home Task Force, told the Register. “The incentives are too great to remain here: the free rent, the free transportation, the lifestyle. They’ve set up these individuals for failure.”

Adelle Nazarian is a politics and national security reporter for Breitbart News. Follow her on Facebook and Twitter.


RVs Become Only Housing 


Option for Many in 


Unaffordable San Francisco


by ADELLE NAZARIAN18 Dec 2017298

Housing prices and the homeless epidemic in Northern California are two factors that have contributed to what is being described as a “crisis” in which trailers and recreational vehicles (RVs) have become the only viable option for residents of the Bay Area.

“We’ve never seen it like this,” Tom Myers, executive director of Community Services Agency of Mountain View, told the San Jose Mercury News. “We have to be prepared that this will be the new normal for us. It’s a crisis.” According to the publication, San Francisco averages more than three complaints a day about RV communities.
“I have to do whatever I have to do,” Robert Ramirez, 54, who lives on lives on government assistance and collecting recyclable items, told the Mercury News. He has been living in his RV for six months. He is currently in San Jose but will likely be asked to move in a short amount of time.
The median cost of a two-bedroom apartment is approximately $2,500 in San Jose and $2,200 in Oakland.
RV residents, while they do not consider themselves homeless, are reportedly often included in overall homeless counts. Since 2015, the number of homeless people has jumped to nearly 40 percent.
The stretch along South 7th Street in San Jose has become an RV haven for people who cannot afford the city’s skyrocketing rents.
During her annual State of the City address last month, Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf called on her constituents to open their doors and residences to the city’s homeless. “Give up that Airbnb. Fix up that back unit,” Schaff reportedly said.
In 2015, SF Weekly noted: “Although it’s illegal to inhabit a vehicle in San Francisco between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m., police rarely enforce that law.”
Adelle Nazarian is a politics and national security reporter for Breitbart News. Follow her on Facebook and Twitter.