Memories of the 28th Century

Even the sharks have to eat, but I prefer to avoid being the food. I won’t even begrudge the sharks who own or work for Bank of America (as Nation’s Bank is now called) or JPMorgan Chase (as Manufacturers’ Hanover Trust is now called) or any other of those pirates and sharks who run banks and insurance companies, but I resent being forced by law to feed them, and that’s what obamacare is about. Obama sold himself to the sharks, and I hope that he got a good price, but I won’t ...

The passage of the Senate bill to end the shutdown brought to mind other confidence games; the whole shutdown was a scam; it was just some troublesome children making life inconvenient for other people. But that scam was nothing compared to the great scams of the past, and Ponzi doesn’t even deserve this much of a mention, but the financial industry has been responsible for some good ones. The insurance crisis that led to the Great Recession was a good one, but it never fooled any except the silliest ...

I wasted some time Friday taking part in a group that a hospital was using to gather comments about their planned opening of a new branch, and to get suggestions on how they might improve services. It started with a lengthy presentation that seemed to be designed to focus thinking on a few narrow issues related to people getting medical treatments. That was after an introduction that clearly stated that they wanted to hear anything. It seemed perfectly insincere; they wanted to hear anything, but ...