Bill Clinton's Latest Mistress, The Energizer

I found this at the Economic Policy Journal and I just had to steal it- only because I detest the Clintons' so much.

It seems the secret service isn't so secret after all.

Bill Clinton reportedly has a buxom blond mistress who visits so often when Hillary Clinton isn’t home in Chappaqua that the former president’s Secret Service detail have given her an unofficial code name: Energizer, NyPo reports.

NyPo says this is according to Ronald Kessler in The First Family Detail: Secret Service Agents Reveal the Hidden Lives of Presidents, due Aug. 5.

More from Richard Johnson at NyPo:

The book, portions of which I’ve obtained, says none of the normal protocols are followed when Energizer arrives in her SUV, sometimes just minutes after Hillary has left the Westchester house.

Kessler quotes a supervisor informing a new agent: “You don’t stop her, you don’t approach her, you just let her go in.”

Energizer, who is described as charming and friendly, sometimes brought cookies to the agents, according to the book excerpts.

One told Kessler: “It was a warm day, and she was wearing a low-cut tank top, and as she leaned over, her breasts were very exposed. They appeared to be very perky and very new and full…There was no doubt in my mind they were enhanced.”

Kessler also reports that Hillary’s Secret Service detail informs Bill’s Secret Service detail when the former First Lady is coming home, so Bill has time to get Energizer off the property and clean up any evidence.

But once, the warning came late. “The agents had to scramble to get Energizer out of there so there wasn’t some kind of big confrontation.”

Kessler also reveals that Hillary is routinely rude to the agents who are sworn to take a bullet for her.

“Because she is so nasty to agents and hostile to law enforcement officers and military officers in general, agents consider being assigned to her detail a form of punishment,” Kessler wrote.

          (It should be noted that I am personally acquainted with a former treasury agent who
            corroborates that Hillary hates law enforcement.)
           

Weeding Out the Charlatans- The Sunday Collage

My father invented the crouton and my mother is a belly dancer. Very. Weird. More on that in a minute...

In the early 90's, I was one of the first guys on my block to buy a computer. I am not proud of how I did that. I traded a 1972 Cadillac Eldorado convertible with a 500 motor for 3500 bucks to buy that computer. I have had to get ok with that knuckleheaded move for 20 years or so. Back in those days, there were no "browsers." You loaded every address by hand before the Netscape browser landed. When the first browser became available, I thought I had died and gone to heaven.

The point to all of this- is that computers- place the world at your fingertips. An incredible amount of information, truthful and untruthful, can be found on a computer screen. Sometimes it is difficult to separate the truth from bullshit.

There are a few things that I am very good at. (1) Gambling in various forms which includes buying and selling (short) stocks and options. (2) I am a pretty fair judge of personal character and in so doing- I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt. I really believe that  most people are good people or at worst, simply misunderstood. (3) I am also very adept at spotting self absorbed people, liars, and charlatans. Fakes. I think my instincts for that came about as a result of listening to thousands upon thousands of liars for 25 years- some very good at the art. In fact, lying is so prevalent in our society that I believe that deceiving people became an epidemic long ago- probably in the 60's. Lying and dishonesty have become the American way of life. I do not think I am overstating this, in fact, that's why I recently changed subtitles on this blog. One caveat here- just because I've identified someone as a liar or most likely dishonest- does not mean that I will dislike them. (please see 2 above) I have grown old with dishonesty, I'm ok with it, and I no longer take it personally. However, I do perform due diligence on questionable statements that are important to me.

The other day I had a reader give me a link to a website run by a man named Mike Stathis. According to that website, Mike Stathis is a genius. He has accurately predicted every financial turn and whim since 2007. He has written many books and one of them is so good that it was actually "banned." Why would anyone ban a book written by a modern day Nostradamus? Who can ban the truth? I find all that very hard to believe but that's what his website says.

I toured Stathis' website and I began to look for credentials. Wiki no longer contains biographic material- in fact- the current wiki entry for Stathis reads like an ad written by Stathis himself which is quite possible to do given wiki's rules. Here is a wiki entry (2011) before the biographic cleansing took place.    From Wiki:

Mike Stathis was born Moshe Stakinsky in Telaviv Israel in 1956. His father, who invented the crouton, was a recent immigrant from Czechoslavokia. His mother was a belly dancer of international repute, her stage name Le BelliBouton. He is a distant relative of Benjamin Hyman Bernanke, Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank (USA) as his father's brother was Bernanke's sister's music teacher. Stathis graduated the Hebrew High School in Telaviv and then attended the Kosher Cooking Institute of Jerusalem, graduating in 1978 with high honors in dinner pastries [B.C. summa cum blintzes]. ....He is presently employed as an expert commentator on monetary policy and the economy by several mainstream internet news outlets.

Just because your dad invented croutons and your mother belly dances- does not mean that you cannot be an economic Nostradamus. 

Read that last line on the wiki bio. Do you sense bullshit? "an expert commentator" on "monetary policy" by "several" un-named news outlets. So who are those internet news outlets? That lack of specificity equals bullshit. That is what I call "weasel" language. Facts and the truth should always be easily verifiable.

Here is Mr. Stathis' site. http://www.avaresearch.com

Let me tell you a little story. In 2007, I had a jumbo mortgage originator (a million+) friend of mine tell me that the entire financial sector (banks) was going to collapse. He had all the inside info from places like Countrywide and IndyMac. This dude knew his shit and he knew how bad the banks were fucking up. Unfortunately when he told me all of this- he was blind ass drunk at a neighborhood party and I being a somewhat sober dude- thought he was overstating the position. Here is the lesson. Just because someone is blind ass drunk does not mean they don't know what they are talking about. Mark made gobs of money on the 2008 collapse. He was telling the truth. I couldn't capitalize on his information because I dismissed it as "drunk" talk. Too bad for me.

I have a process for weeding out bullshit and identifying liars quickly. Often, I find myself way out in front of everyone else. People often accuse me of being quick to judge others. Many years ago, when the idiot Bill Clinton got on national news to proclaim his innocence regarding Monica Lewinsky, I instantly knew he was lying. Hillary is just as bad as Bill, maybe even worse. Barack Obama is a different kind of liar. He likes to obstruct ( belittle, condemn, and make light of any accuser) ignore valid accusations (refuse to validate them) and then change subjects. That is his modus operandi. That is who he is. Watch him in the coming months. I guarantee that's how he will treat the myriad of scandals coming out of D.C. These are merely well known examples and illustrations and that's why I've used them here.

So how do you sort out fact from fiction on the internet? Snopes? Factcheck? Sometimes. The problem of course is the sheer volume and myriad of lies and deceptions that we are all confronted with on a daily basis. Most of the time they are harmless lies- and sometimes- they cost us dearly.

Here then is how I sort through all of today's charlatans and bullshit. First off, I question any speaker's motive privately and I am never predisposed to any assumption. For example, if someone is telling me something I ask myself the simple question, "What does the speaker gain if I buy in?" If you are Mike Stathis selling doomsday books- the answer is book sales and money. If you are Paul Craig Roberts- the answer is nothing. Paul Craig Roberts writes his blog and asks for nothing in return.

After I have satisfied that question, I can move on because this is an incremental process.

I know geniuses without credentials. If you are simply relying on credentialing to determine whether someone is lying or not- you would be wrong a significant amount of the time. However, if you try to find credentialing and cannot (degrees, work experience, success)  that should be a cause for concern. If someone has no degree or a degree in anthropology but is trying to convince me that building 7 was a controlled demolition- I investigate allegations like that on my own.

Never, ever, assume anything. Because just about the time you conclude something based on a single piece of information or an assumption- you will be wrong. 

Writers or speakers who cannot admit making mistakes or serious flaws tend to get my attention. When was the last time you heard some ego driven maniac like Obama or Hillary admit that they screwed up? The answer is never.  They see self honesty and self disclosure as a huge and fatal flaw. They will always try to present themselves as perfect. Maybe they actually think they don't make mistakes.

The inability to perceive yourself as flawed is almost sociopathic.

Imagine for a moment if Bill Clinton had gotten on TV way back when and announced to the world that he had been involved in an affair with Monica Lewinsky. Imagine just telling the truth. The whole nation would have felt sorry for him and for her and the whole incident would have blown over in a week or two.But instead Clinton got on TV and lied to the nation. Absolutely shameless. Sociopathic.

Last but surely not least- I spent countless hours reading every book and article that I could get my hands on which dealt with body language and non verbal behavior. Not only did I absorb and commit everything to memory- I found a serious downside to all of it. I began to identify and confront people who I caught lying. Sometimes I was wrong. Over the years I have learned to just listen, watch, and be quiet.. Mostly when I hear someone spinning some fantastic yarn nowadays- I just let it be. I have to. I would drive myself crazy confronting all of the bullshit I read, hear, or see on a daily basis. I just don't have that kind of energy to waste.

Is Mike Stathis a financial genius? I doubt it. 

I don't think it takes Nostradamus to know that the dollar's days are numbered or that this stock market is going to collapse. I tend to give greater weight to people like Yves at naked capitalism or authors/investigators like William K Black. These are real people with real credentials who are well aware of what a sham our economy is. There are a number of legitimate authors, writers, and investigators out there who are simply trying to educate people and build consensus.

I am not here trying to sell anybody anything. I have been wrong about many things- like how long the powers that be could continue to hide the fact that this country is bankrupt. Shit. I even thought Denver could cover the spread against Seattle.

The best any of us can do is try to uncover the truth and prepare accordingly. I think that's why most of us are here. We exchange information. The people with the best and most accurate information are the ones who are going to carry some wealth forward and survive the coming shit storm. I think a few of us know that they can't keep kicking the debt can down the road forever. 

Driving Home- The Sunday Collage

It started out harmlessly enough. A wedding in Silverthorne, Colorado and the trip home on Monday.

My brother's wedding over the weekend was a great success. The family brought out their best behavior and nobody was maimed or killed. I was so proud of my brother and his new wife- there is something about all that beaming back and forth that lets you know they are genuinely in love. The wedding and all the associated haps exceeded my best expectations. Then- there was the drive home.

Predicting is hard especially about the future. Just as I could not accurately predict how well everyone would behave at the wedding- I could not predict the bizarre events that would happen on the 800 mile drive home. Yesterday, the idiots were out in full force and on the highway.

My gal and I experienced four events, two of which I am still pondering, and one which might include my filing a complaint on a trooper in the Utah Highway Patrol (just as soon as I am done writing this) for a fine piece of ridiculous driving. The problem for most cops is that calls like this (a non injury "crash") are always rushed to dispatch via a cellphone with an excited witness and important details get left out. Often it is difficult to determine what type of response is actually needed based mostly on (and nearly always) incomplete information.

The first event happened on the interstate about 30 miles west of Silverthorne, Colorado. There was an overturned pick up truck and trailer on the eastbound half  (towards Denver) of the interstate. I noted as we passed this crash that there was no ambulance, fire, or tow trucks in attendance. The interstate has a median that is blocked with guardrails- making it very difficult to turn around and switch directions if you must. The road is undulating and filled with somewhat blind curves. A few miles past the wreck, I rounded one of those mountainous curves just in time to witness a flat bedded tow truck- parked on the right shoulder- turn left in front of me. He had evidently passed the crash going the wrong way and began looking for an emergency vehicle access road between both halves of the interstate to turn and go back. Having found one, he turned left from the right shoulder, across both lanes of traffic and for a moment- his vehicle provided a perfect metal barricade from right shoulder to left shoulder across the westbound interstate. I didn't have to smoke my brakes but I most certainly used them hard- in conjunction with downshifting my manual transmission- a slowing trick I have used to reduce speed on my motorcycles rather than simply relying on brakes.

The next incident happened about 60 miles later between Rifle and Parachute, Colorado. I was still westbound when a white SUV with an older gal driving entered the westbound lane from a ramp at Rifle. She was on her cellphone. She was one of those inconsistent drivers- speeding up and slowing down- you know the type. Those people you pass and then they pass you back because they cannot do two things at once. So at one point she sped up, then slowed down. As I began to pass her, she prevented the pass by speeding up. This would have been all well and good but we were about to enter a construction zone and my lane was completely coned off (actually barrels) and traffic was reduced to one lane. Just inside the barrels was a Colorado State Trooper parked and pointed our way with his lights on. I tried to get back into the remaining lane- ahead of the cellphone yakking older lady. She apparently decided this was the time and place to make her stand. She did not slow down one bit. In fact she sped up and absolutely refused to yield an inch of ground because the voices in her head told her that she simply could not tolerate my car ahead of hers. It was an interesting game of chicken but I never stood a chance. I had to hit the brakes to let her pass before striking the barrels. She did not seem even remotely concerned about the trooper sitting in the construction zone. In fact, the patrol car did not budge. Apparently, reckless driving is of little concern to state troopers but in all fairness- he might have been doing something else- like not watching anything. That was a very close call. We pulled alongside of this gal and her breast cancer survivor plates on the exit ramp. I looked over at her but she pretended to be invisible. I've found that this is how people who do shitty things always behave when they find themselves vulnerable and stopped next to someone who they have done something shitty to. She was lucky that it was me.

By the time we arrived in Salt Lake City, my girlfriend Kathleen was at the controls. It was super heavy rush hour traffic and we were south of SLC driving in the carpool lane. We were a few miles south of the 215 and traveling north on I-15 when we watched as an ambulance running with his lights on- entered the interstate from a ramp. He crossed four lanes of heavy traffic to get into the carpool lane ahead of us. I was in awe of this because running with lights on in that kind of congestion was sort of an interesting thing to watch. After a short distance- he decided to cross all four lanes again to take the 215 ramp. Nobody on the interstate can yield to emergency vehicles here because there is simply no place to yield to. In fact, the shoulder to our left just beside the car pool lane is only 4 or 5 feet wide. The width of that shoulder varies greatly, something I noted as we traveled along. Just before the junction with 215- a Utah Highway Trooper engaged his overhead lights and launched his patrol car down the left side of the carpool lane. There was no room for him to get by. It was super narrow. My girlfriend had to move right and straddle the fast lane next to us and the car pool lane (down a solid line) just to let the trooper pass. The lane to our right was just as congested as every other lane. A few miles north on I-15- we saw a three or four car non injury fender bender which apparently was the cause of this trooper's reckless response. Kathleen was less than impressed by all of this.

I will tell you this. As a retired police car pusher who sometimes worked in very heavy traffic, running code three (lights/siren) in very heavy traffic is always dangerous and just not worth the second or two you might save. The vast majority of time, virtually all of the time, you will never arrive at an accident scene in time to prevent anything else from happening. When seconds count we are always minutes away. The happening is over. A code three response is predicated upon the principle that speeding to any scene will stop something else from happening. The intervention theory. That almost never happens. I saved my very best reckless driving for those few calls when people or cops were screaming for help. By limiting those high speed responses, I was able to reduce my exposure to bad things. In that way young cops can become old cops, retiring without killing anybody or themselves in the process. We call that "experience" or "seasoning."

Having escaped those three incidents, we left the Utah state line and entered into the boondocks of Idaho about 20 miles west of Snowville, Utah.

On the horizon, I watched as a giant plume of black smoke shot up a few miles ahead of us. Having seen these types of things a time or two, I could tell a vehicle was on fire. As we neared the area, we saw a semi-truck trailer completely engulfed in flames on the shoulder. There were a couple of tractor trailer rigs blocking the fast lane and some guy was standing in the middle of the slow lane. We were about 200 yards from the burning hulk and I get a little nervous because you don't know what kind of cargo might be on the trailer. Passing right next to this thing might not be the smartest move- so we just watched it burn for a bit until we were satisfied that nothing was going to explode and shred our car. The blocking the road guy walked up to us at one point and told us to be careful. I was thinking at least I have some protection in this car, but I suppose he was just trying to be helpful. The wind was blowing fairly hard from SW to NE and the adjacent wheat field soon caught on fire. There was a farmhouse about 1/2 mile away but we didn't stick around long enough to watch the whole countryside go up or to see whether the fire made it to the house. About 20 minutes later we laughed as we saw some dilapidated 1980's volunteer fire truck with some fire hose on it heading for the scene. By the time it got there- there would be a 25 acre range fire and we thought about just stopping the truck and telling it to go home.

Blocking road guy running around

Like a blast furnace

Getting home in one piece is never a forgone conclusion. I can tell you this much. If anyone asks me how the drive home was yesterday, I just might say "ok" or "uneventful" just to save us all a lot of time. It's good to be home.

 

Calling Mr. Yellen

The fundamentals of project management provide that any project manager worth a shit- is far too intelligent to take over a half completed project that is already vastly over budget. Those things don't make your project resume' sparkle. Please think of the Federal Reserve's QE programs as a project- because I think the analogy is accurate.

Several of the commenters on the Zero Hedge comment boards like to refer to Federal Reserve Chairman Janet Yellen as "Mr. Yellen."

I'm not sure what the genesis of that was precisely, however, I strongly suspect it has something to do with her not so appealing looks- some folks have even said that when Janet enters any bank- they turn off the surveillance cameras just to be on the safe side.

Mr. Yellen's husband is George Akerlof. I spent this morning reading some of Akerlof's papers and thus opinion pieces- trying to get an accurate read on the collective Yellen thought process. Akerlof claims to be on the staff at the University of California Berkeley but that's not entirely true. Not only is he a liberal economist/banker/keynesian shill but he is a full fledged researcher working for the International Monetary Fund. Oh goody.

I'd like to draw your attention to this chart posted on the Economic Policy Journal which was produced by the BLS. This is a chart comparing various items and their inflated or deflated prices over the last 5 years.





Whenever I see charts such as this, I always wonder why the author selected the items that he/she selected for inclusion on the chart. Missing are things like tax rates, health care costs, and college tuition. Costs that virtually all of us incur- which are far more damaging and reoccurring- than buying a box of Lego blocks for your nephew at Christmas.

So please focus on this chart for a minute. What I'm about to do is make a real world apples to apples comparison. I am acutely aware of my spending habits- mostly because I do the spending and I consider my spending habits to be fairly representative of most folks. To be on the simplistic and fair side, please remember that I am only counting myself- not a wife, kids, or family.

For those of you who hate math and calculations, you may skip down to the bottom line and  find this*.

First I shall calculate my savings via the deflated right side of this chart over the last 5 years.

Toys- 0. I have purchased one laptop for 400.00 and a few other components for 200.00 My savings using the above chart have been 216.00 dollars. My girlfriend and I bought a 60" TV for Christmas that cost 600.00 My older TV cost 800.00 in 2010. So collectively speaking, I have saved about 900.00 bucks on television sets in 5 years.

According to the BLS then, I have saved 1116.00 over the last 5 years on those purchases.

Now let's try the left side of this bar chart.

I drive 15,000 miles per yr. (conservative est., I also have a motorcycle) The Elantra gets 30 MPG combined. So does the bike. That's 500 gallons of gas per year multiplied by 5 years. Let's say the current cost of gasoline is 3.50 a gal. So I spend 1750.00 per yr on gas. Therefore, I have lost about 1300 dollars per yr filling up my tanks since 2009. Total aggregate loss in buying power is 6,500.00.

I eat a lot of ground beef, sirloin. I am going to say  2 lbs. a week. I will use the current price and round it to 4.00 a pound. So I spend 8.00 a week or 416.00 per year on ground beef. Multiplied over 5 years that cost becomes 2100.00 or so. (remember as costs increase- so do sales taxes) Total aggregate loss here is about 750.00.

Auto insurance costs me 1000.00 a year for the car and bike. That is 5000.00 over 5 years. Using their 23% inflation handle means I have lost an additional 1150.00 since 2009.

* So I have saved 1116.00 dollars on deflating items. I have lost 8400.00 on inflating items. Therefore I have a net loss over the last 5 years of 7284.00 on just the items this simple chart depicts.

That loss is HUGE particularly over that short of a time frame.

Now I want you to note that in the middle of this bar chart, the BLS has stated that Consumer Price Inflation or CPI over this period of time (09-14) was 11% or about 2.2% per year. Of course that is complete bullshit as I have proven here. In fact, I have suffered a 5% rate of inflation just on the items they selected. That does not count toilet paper, health insurance, cost of housing, utilities, taxes- all those things that I cannot avoid, items and prices that have been rising in dramatic fashion.

In order to avoid the great deflationary event which should have unfolded in 2009, the unelected masters of the universe- Bernanke and Yellen- have embarked on a 4 trillion dollar stimulus project that has caused the prices of virtually everything to rise, except for a couple of novelty items produced by the Chinese.

This egregious market distortion and it's ill effects are going to unfold in dramatic fashion as all QE programs are halted OR plan (B) they kick the can some more by installing new QE plans and trying to dump the smoldering ruins onto some other sap.

Either way, I wouldn't want to be Mr. Yellen or her husband. They were left with an unfinished and wildly over budget project (without precedent!) that is going to cause a serious shit storm in the years to come- because there are only two ways out (deflation or hyperinflation) and both ways suck. 

Wouldn't you love to know how much gold Ben Bernanke personally owns? I'll bet it can be measured in pounds.

How To Financially Survive the American Health Care Disaster

This piece is predicated on two things. That you have some disposable income and that you currently do not have health insurance.(and know this- many of you will soon lose it.)

In 2007, I was able to retire early at the ripe old age of 46. It had always been a dream of mine not to spend my entire life toiling away for someone else. In the America of my dreams- life planning, hard work, discipline, determination, denying myself big ticket purchases, and saving- might allow me to pull that off. My American dream was contingent on freedom and the expectation that government or anyone else for that matter, would not be allowed to steal my money.

I'm not talking about an opulent life. I am talking about being able to afford a decent house, a new car, and enough money to travel when I want. Those things are attainable- but you have to live frugally. Frugally does not include paying 500 a month for health insurance coupled with an annual 2000 dollar deductible. That rounds out to something like 700 dollars a month or roughly- what I pay for my current mortgage.

In other words, I did not live my life saving every penny that I could just to turn around and piss it all away because some imperial President and his left wing puppets think they should be allowed to seize my money and redistribute it. There were no reforms, no spending caps, no cost caps. There was no due diligence. Obamacare stands as the worst law of my lifetime. It is the absolute antithesis of freedom. That the Supreme Court allowed this sham to stand is proof positive that we no longer have a Republic- we have a mob run democracy.

Health care costs were already out of control and barely affordable in the early 2000's after Rubin, Congress, and Clinton removed Glass-Steagall in 1999. With the help of a complicit and co-opted Congress, bankers were able to destroy what was left of our economy with the worst lending and accounting standards ever conceived. I use destroy in the past tense- because there have been zero reforms since the 2008 collapse. After the collapse of 2008, healthy and young people lost jobs and healthcare by the millions. I was one of them. Instead of stepping up and punishing those responsible- this government of theirs because it's surely not a government of ours- decided that innocent folks like myself needed some additional financial screwing to help keep the insurance and health care industry afloat.

This is how I've survived. Let me be more specific. This is what I have done to survive in America without health insurance for the past 7 years. I am 53.

The first thing I did was the most obvious and the most difficult- yet I believe that most Americans lack the will to do it. I got healthy.

No more drinking alcohol, smoking cigarettes, or eating that shit that they sell you in the grocery stores. Corn syrup is garbage and they put it in everything. I won't use ethanol in my car because it strips my car of performance and gas mileage and I consider corn syrup- the equivalent of  human ethanol. Your body does not know how to process corn syrup because it does not know what is is. I quit eating a whole host of "cheap carbohydrates" as well. Back in 2007, I was faced with a few looming health issues. Potential diabetes brought about by the shit I was eating and drinking, a complete lack of exercise, and lugging around an extra 80 pounds of fat which was not only hard on my circulatory system- it was creating stress and pain on my knees and ankles and actually preventing me from exercising. So I changed my diet first and quit drinking. As I was losing all of that excess weight, mostly from dietary changes, I introduced a simple exercise plan that included walking 5 miles a day every day of the week. I quit using tobacco. Today I run 2.5 miles a day and I lift weights. I still fight weight gain. I am a member of Planet Fitness which costs me a paltry 10 bucks a month- money well spent.

Once you've done everything you can do to mitigate your own personal health risks- find an independent doctor. Independent doctors are not beholden to giant hospital and health care systems- which means they are not required or encouraged to prescribe unnecessary imaging, tests, and other services unless they need to. One of the greatest health care con jobs in America is the doctor who loves to order un-necessary diagnostic tests because you are insured. Doctors also love to reduce their exposure to malpractice suits with tests which essentially prove nothing and cost thousands.

I am never afraid to weigh my costs against the expected results. If your doctor is somehow offended because you question the need for testing- consider getting a new doctor. I have had two bad experiences, oddly enough both were with female doctors, who were miffed because I questioned the efficacy of what they were trying to accomplish while they were ordering tests which cost me money, serious money. They are so used to burning insurance money that they don't even know what their ordered tests cost anymore, nor do they care. I make a habit of asking- and the truth is- this makes some doctors uncomfortable.

Interview doctors and dentists. Get cash prices and make payment plans. If they don't want to help you- move on. There are still compassionate professionals out there.

Many small and independent labs- and some "doc in the box" type clinics- will provide routine blood work for fractions of the costs of hospitals. I have monthly routine, blood clotting or protime tests. One local hospital charges 100 dollars a month for this testing while my local "doc in the box" arrangement costs me 14 bucks. That's a savings of 1000 dollars a year.

I am currently shopping for a colonscopy- cash price. I  am not afraid to leave our state and get it done outside of Idaho and maybe spend a night in an Oklahoma hotel if need be. The costs of a colonscopy are outrageous and can vary from 1500 to 5000 dollars or more. Getting it done out of state with a cooperative referral is possible with an independent doctor.

Prescriptions. Drug companies are granted 20 year patent protection on drugs they research, develop, and bring to market. Patent protection gives American big pharma a license to steal. Gilead Sciences recently developed a hepatitis C cure which they are selling for 84,000 dollars or 1 thousand dollars per pill over a 12 week period. This is the kind of monopolistic and insane pricing that can only be brought about when desperately ill people need treatment from greedy and protected drug developers. What's a fair price for Gilead's drug? Probably something far less than 84k but it's not like you have any regulatory body checking profit margins once big pharma gets a monopoly license. ww.newsweek.com/insurers-worry-84000-hepatitis-c-drug-sovaldi-could-break-bank-252539

Fortunately the internet has changed the rules of the prescription drug game. Where big pharma once had a captive U.S. audience- many of us have found ways to escape. I routinely use Canadian pharmacies. Would you rather pay 250 bucks for ten tabs of Viagra at a U.S. Walmart or 15 bucks for 10 tabs of Viagra (or its generic equivalent) at Northwest Pharmacy in Canada? 

I recently paid 75 bucks for a 35 gram tube of steroid cream at a local Walmart. I found a 50 gram tube, same strength, in Canada for 22 bucks. That's a savings of over 200%. 

Several years ago, I had friends who frequently traveled to Mexico to buy prescriptions for 1/20th of the costs they incurred in the United States. These were the same drugs produced by the same manufacturers. In a sense, American consumers and their health insurance plans, have subsidized the costs of drugs all over the world.

Behold the rise of ala carte and cash based surgery clinics. http://www.beckersasc.com/asc-turnarounds-ideas-to-improve-performance/cash-pay-surgery-centers-a-trend-for-the-future.html

When you take responsibility for the costs of your own health care- it's amazing to see how quickly and dramatically the costs can come down. It's almost as though you have to become part risk manager- part insurance adjustor and eliminate all of the waste and fraud yourself.

Despite all of this, I am still faced with two dilemmas. In the event of a catastrophic illness or traumatic injury- I will not be able to pay. Obamacare has never offered a true low priced- catastrophic plan. The other problem of course is the looming and enhanced penalties of 2.5% of your income for failing to obtain insurance in 2015 and beyond. I don't think I'm going to pay the penalties and that's my bottom line. I have already considered consulting with an anti Obamacare attorney that I am familiar with. I am quickly becoming one of those people who is growing weary of federal extortion and over reach. Maybe they will have to build new prisons for all of us health care dodgers and then of course- provide health care once we are all confined.

Finally, we may get a health plan we can afford.



  

 

Our Owners

Born On the 5th of July- The Sunday Collage

I've always hated the 4th of July.

In small town America- the 4th of July is often the biggest celebration of the year. There are parades, barbeques, carnivals, fairs, rodeos, shows, fireworks, and lots of drinking and drugging. In America, it's hardly a celebration until a lotta folks get half shit-faced and fully baked.

That why I dreaded it. I used to police that whole mess. Year after year.

In the early 1990's after one night time rodeo, I remember two drunken cowboys shooting bottle rockets at me while I tried to direct traffic in the dark for a couple thousand rodeo spectators. I was so mad that if I thought I could have left my post and caught one of those assholes- I might have. Fortunately, for everyone concerned, I did not.

On Jul 3, 2002, two young men, after a three day runner involving booze, drugs, two under-aged girls, and lots of guns- found themselves dead in a murder suicide. I pulled a 32 hour shift, with no sleep, and somehow managed to string together a couple of sentences for the local TV station on the 3rd or 4th. Then we had the parade- drinking, rodeo and drinking, fireworks and drinking, and 200 calls to dispatch from people pissed off about the loud noises fireworks make all night long.

In the old days I would get mad at people and say, "Ya know, the 4th of July happens every year. Next year, the very same thing will happen. Now you can either get used to this or whine about it every year- that's up to you." You can see how I evolved into the the master politician that I eventually became.

One of the very last years that I worked, maybe 2006, night shift arrested a guy for public urination after warning him not to piss on the street- at least once. After his friends bailed him out of jail, they decided to go and kick out every police car windshield and back window of every unoccupied police car parked at the police station. All of those vehicles had to be parade ready and getting replacement glass in one day was sort of a miracle. I cannot recall how many thousands of dollars it cost- but I can still picture those hung over assholes who did that deed. Unfortunately, I could not prove it in part because the truth is, I just wanted to kick the shit out of a couple of those clowns and I think that venom sort of leaked out in the interview process. Call it part of my masterful interview skills.

Allow me a little circuitous rant if you will..to explain some of that old pent up anger which I find quite amusing even as I write now- because emotions are almost always- honest.

Here's a big piece of self disclosure. There are many times in my life that the very best I could do- was manage not to strike anyone. You cannot really explain the emotional deprivation and resolve  you must possess when you've arrested some sick, hostile biker who spends nearly 2 hours calling you a pussy, telling you your mother tastes like bacon, and then threatening to kill members of your family when he gets out. And all of this you see, is supposed to come off in Ward Cleaver's shower at the end of the shift.  

Somehow the world expects God like behavior out of cops. Cops are supposed to put up with the most deviant, nasty, malicious, deceptive, and sometimes life threatening behavior on the planet- day after day- and then somehow be these magical, nice men who do all the right things.

It's incredible how very little our culture really knows about the day to day emotional grind of law enforcement and the toll it takes on you. The only show that ever came close to depicting it on some sort of superficial level might have been "Hill Street Blues." That show sort of depicted cops the way they really are. Faulty human beings just like everyone else. Even the Captain, the star of the show, was a recovering alcoholic- Frank Furillo. A great character.

I know a few cops who survived the emotional tolls of law enforcement quite nicely, but I was not one of them. I will add one other thing here. Tenacious, tough minded cops- the kind of guys and gals that never say quit and care deeply about how things turn out- are the kind of guys and gals that law enforcement emotionally bleeds. That was me. I feel like I've done a great job at sorting all of that out now- now that I am gone. But back then- there was always the 5th of July.

If the 4th of July marked this country's freedom and independence, then most certainly the 5th of July marked mine. Each and every year, I left town for at least two weeks and sometimes longer on the 5th of July. I didn't even think about work, which might be a lie- but that's the way I'm telling it here.

For two or three glorious weeks, I did whatever I wanted to do, sort of. I didn't have to deal with child abusers, drunken assholes, or arrogant lawyers. For two weeks each year, I got to wear normal clothes and laugh like normal people do. People were not lying to me, making stupid quips about donuts or statements like "I didn't do it" and thinking they were funny and unique. People were treating me decently and I liked it that way. Sometimes they would ask, "What do you do for a living?" and I'd look them right in the eye and tell 'em a lie- because I liked feeling a little normal even if it was only for a couple of weeks a year.

And I would speed everywhere on those vacations. I got pulled over so many times, that my ex nearly had an aneurysm. I think now, I just liked cops and maybe I missed them- in some perverse and misdemeanor sort of way. I never got tickets of course and very often I would tease those bastards unmercifully. Cops never get teased on traffic stops and I have to say that my behavior stopped more than one of these poor, unsuspecting cops dead in their tracks They would figure out rather quickly who and what I was. One time in Minnesota after doing 85 in a 70- I sat in a trooper's car and bullshitted with him for 30 minutes. He gave me a warning ticket and he apologized for that. My ex was pissed.

I don't hate the 4th of July anymore. But I still like the 5th a little better.

Maybe on the 5th of July, I'll will take Elvis for a spin. Maybe 45 in a 30 zone. Maybe one of those Boise motorcycle cops will stop me and I will say to him, "Ya know... the French cops, liberal hipsters, and women ride BMW's. Is that your wife's bike?"

Have a happy, safe, and sane 4th of July. And if the cops show up on your driveway amidst the busted cherry bombs, firecracker shards, and illegal and burnt Roman candle tubes-  be sure and lie to them. Tell em the neighbor kids must have done it. They'll understand.