SLAPPED

Because of my articles about unions I will not be posting here for a while as I have been SLAPPed. If you don't know what that means it means a Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation.

Canadian-Health-Care-Uncare-Non-Care

Since my previous post http://liarsandcrooks.blogspot.com/2008/02/canadian-health-care-uncare-non-care_10.html my friend has still not got on the MRI waiting list. She has been faithfully doing her knee exercises every day and has been going to a physiotherapist. Now she can already walk fairly well without a crutch.

I assume if you wait long enough for health care the problem either goes away or you die.

Unions are for Idiots #2

Since I will be away for a while and I have many friends and relatives living in
Canada I will let one of them sound of in this blog.

The Canadian Auto Workers Union is loosing jobs as everyone now knows, because of the slowdown in sales. Buzz Hargrove their union president has vowed that they will not take any pay cuts to save their jobs as the unions did in the US. Instead they want government subsidies to help them out.

I have no sympathy for these idiots. The estimate is that they are now getting paid $5 to $10 dollars an hour more than their counterparts in the US. For years we were being ripped off by the overpriced and poorly built cars they produced. Did they have any sympathy for us?

With the dollar being near par they should be getting the same pay rate as the US workers to stay competitive. Why should other taxpayers money be used to subsidize the life style of these overpriced workers.

Vacation Affordability

A young, newly married, acquaintance of mine is planning a one week island vacation. There is nothing wrong with that if he could afford it. He seems to think so. I think he is making a big mistake that will cost him dearly.

Here are the facts. See what you think?

He is newly married for slightly over a year. He is 30 years old she is 32. They both have student loans outstanding of approximately $30,000. They have no savings. They presently live in an apartment and want to buy a house within the next year. He has a good job as a high school teacher earning approximately $35,000 per year. She as works in a office earning approximately $30,000 per year. She wants to have a child soon within the next 2 years.

Going to a discount travel agent like Itravel200 and looking at Caribbean island packages in the middle of summer, which is the cheapest time to go, one finds that the average island all-inclusive 7 day package costs approximately $2,000 for 2 with all taxes included.

Assuming both retire in 30 years and assuming they invest the $2,000 instead in a stock market index fund, this money will grow to $35,000 by the time they retire. This is just using an average of 10% compound interest over 30 years as this is the average annual growth of the stock market over long time periods.

Now, can they give up the instant pleasure of the vacation for the future pleasure and security of $35,000?

Another way to look at it is that this vacation is actually costing them $35,000.

The Canadian Health Care, Uncare, Non Care System

Another Sample of the Canadian un-health care system.

I was just recently contacted by a friend who had a ski accident. She went to the hospital and x-rays were taken. Luckily no bones were broken but she broke one tendon in her knee and ruptured another one. She was bandaged up, told to do some knee exercises and wait to get an MRI done.

She has now been patiently limping and waiting for 3 weeks. Since she can't drive and walk properly she has problems buying food and looking after herself. She phoned to complain to say "something has to be done, I can't live like this".

She researched some MRI facilities on-line in Buffalo and found out she can book an appointment next day and have the results the day after. The price is $465.00 US. She is now considering what she is going to do next.

I will keep you informed what she will do next.

The Canadian Health Care, Uncare, Non Care System

The great Canadian health care, uncare, non-care system is working overtime.

For those of you that don't know about this socialized system it is the only country besides Cuba that has a system entirely run by the government and would rather allow its citizens to die than let them get health care from a private clinic or company.

I call it uncare because people are but on waiting lists and spend months waiting for some simple medical tests. Until very recently nobody really knew how long these people had to wait and in many cases some were waiting years.

I call it none care because many treatments and drugs that could save lives are not provided and are in fact disallowed.

Case in point. Tony Flora.
Years ago the Canadian government had a scandal on their hands because they made a decision not to screen blood for infectious diseases. There was an inquiry and of course nobody went to jail even though some people died as a result.

Tony Flore happened to be one of the unfortunate that had an operation and because of the government blood negligence got hepatitis C. As a result he eventually ended up with liver cancer. He applied to have a liver transplant, and of course the uncaring health care system turned him down. They sent him home and told him to die.

But Tony was a fighter. He went to England at his own expense and with a donated liver from his brother got the operation done. It was a big financial sacrifice for the whole family. His mother had to sell her house and his brother depleted his savings and took of work to have the procedure done. Being self employed it was a tremendous strain both financially and health wise.

When Tony got back and had recovered he tried to get compensation from the uncaring government for some of his health costs. But of course, he was turned down.

Now eight years later Tony is healthy, deeply in dept, and still trying to get some of his money back.

Of course the Canadian Uncare, Noncare Health system that was originally set up to shield people from such disasters just keeps going along not really caring about peoples lives.

Bad Car Drivers

I just read that Ireland has a problem with American 'bad car drivers' that get confused driving on the left side of the road. According to an Irish Senator, these foreign 'bad car drivers' don't know the difference between there right and left hands and are causing unnecessary accidents.

As a result they are proposing to change the side of the road that they are driving on from left to right as Sweden did in the early 1950's.

My proposal is to make it mandatory for all foreigners that are renting a car in Ireland to have their hands marked with a magic marker indicating which hand is the right one and which hand is the left one. This way they would only have to glance on their hand to remember which side of the road they should be driving their car on.

A similar solution can be imposed on some of the Caribbean islands were they also drive on the left. But of course most of the island car drivers are so bad that it does not really matter where you drive.

Unions Are for Idiots

Here is an article worth reading.
www.nationalpost.com/todays_paper/story.html?id=291546

It reminds me of my own experiences with labor unions. When I was still going to school and trying to earn some money at a summer job in construction the union went on strike for 6 weeks. Of course I was also out of a job. After the 6 weeks they settled for a 5 cent increase per hour.

Let's do the math. 40 hours per week at 5 cents an hour equals $2. We were getting paid at that time $1.50 per hour or $60 per week. The wages lost for the 6 weeks we were on strike cost us $360. Therefore we would have to work more than 232 hours just to get the money back we had just lost. Actually it was more than that because our union deductions were a % of our wages so they went up as well.

Now, I was only 16 years old at that time but it didn't make much sense to me then. It also made a life long impression on me that the union really didn't care about the working man and their problems. All they were interested in was their own cushy jobs and power.