“Due to a family crisis, there will be no article this week.”
Or... that is what I was going to announce in lieu of this week’s article.
The crisis is real. My mom had a bad reaction to new medication on Friday and ended up in the emergency room and then rushed to another hospital where she underwent emergency surgery. For most of the weekend, she was in a pretty bad state; being in and out of consciousness, not entirely lucid and sometimes rambling on things that made no sense. Chalk all that up to the surgery, the drugs needed to keep her stable, and to several days where she didn’t have but maybe a few hours sleep at a time because of the problem that led to her getting the medication that almost killed her.
As her caregiver, I’ve been visiting on her when possible as well as keep up with what is going on with her. I’ve also had to be the one to talk with hospital administrators and so-called “case managers” who all seem to assume that anyone and everyone on my mother’s contact list would know instantly everything about my mother. Things like her list of doctors and medications. Things that only my mother would really know. They also seemed to presume from the questions they asked that the home would have a complete medical facility with equipment and a wheelchair and a medical bed and someone that would be able to care for her 24-7. Sorry, but we have a home, not a hospice; and we sure as hell have no plans on sending her to one anytime soon or making the home into one.
But one of the conversations with one of these “case managers” led me to fear that my mother could end up being discharged without notice and while still attached to all the wires and IV tubes.
In fact, that actually happened to at least two people in the Atlanta area in the past year. One of them was literally removed from the hospital and left on the curb with tubes and wires still in him. He was incoherent, with both a fever and sepsis, and the police actually rushed him back across the street to the emergency room. He was supposedly “discharged” because the hospital said that Medicare refused to further fund his treatment.
Imagine having that happen to your family member.
Actually, I don’t have to imagine it, because, in another situation, that did happen to my mother a few years ago. Being discharged after suffering a critical injury, my mother was told to wait for two weeks until she could see a doctor. The pain of her injury was so severe, I had to take her to another hospital miles away the next day and they agreed that she needed to be treated then and there.
Look, I get that insurance and Big Medical corporations need to make a profit. But they are also there to provide a service, and, when that involves healthcare, they have no justification whatsoever to ration that healthcare to those that need it. That is doubly true when it involves Medicare and Medicaid, two taxpayer-funded services that are never supposed to be treated like corporations.
But that led me to notice that the screwjobs are happening all around for those of us who are not one-percenters, and they’re only getting worse.
Inflation is a big issue for everyone. The price of everything is going up. And it’s not just happening in America. We are still dealing with a global pandemic from two years ago, when the world was shut down for a while. There are still supply chain issues and companies still trying to get back up to speed. And then, of course, there is corporate greed. Because why not?
Advice #1... when inflation is an international problem, not just burdened on one country, you cannot blame the president of just that one country for that inflation. That’s like blaming Mother Nature only because it’s raining over your house and not the downpour going on everywhere else in the neighborhood.
Advice #2... if you claim supply-and-demand for raising prices now and then later boast record profits, then it’s really opportunistic greed and not supply-and-demand, and there needs to be some investigations and arrests.
The price of gasoline is another problem that is contributing to inflation. Again, we’re hearing “supply and demand” along with some complicated doublespeak about nonsensical market demands as to why the price of gas is going up while the price of oil is going down. Oh, and that certain president is getting blamed as well for not fulfilling the same list of demands that Big Oil were using back in 2005.
Advice #3... the same reasons for the price going up needs to be in effect for the price going down. If you claim “supply and demand” for it going up, then you need to follow suit for the price going down. If you claim nonsensical doublespeak is the reason why the price is not going down, then you are guilty of price-gouging. Again, investigations and arrests are in order.
Advice #4... if you are in a position to increase supply and you are asked to increase supply to offset the rising prices, and you consciously refuse to, then you are guilty of price manipulation.
Advice #5... if you make a list of demands, like a certain “Big” did in 2005, and you promise that it will lower the price of gasoline, and those demands are met but then you claim “it will take years” before it does do what you claimed, then you are guilty of misrepresentation and fraud.
We’ve been hearing a lot about the lack of baby formula in the stores. Part of it is because one of the primary suppliers was shut down back in February following bacterial infections which killed two infants. Sort of like when a certain peanut factory was full of salmonella back in 2009 and all of a sudden it was hard to get peanut butter.
Does it make it hard for mothers? Yes. Just like it was hard for mothers ten years ago to make a PBJ sandwich for their young kids without the “PB”. But let me ask you this... do you want your infant to die of bacterial infection? And to the members of Congress that are throwing temper tantrums over this, specifically those that claim to be “pro-life”, do you want babies to die of bacterial infections? There are alternatives, and not every state has this problem. I would think it would be a matter of simple redistribution where needed. That does not require government activity.
Corporate investors are busy buying houses and turning them into rental properties, making it impossible for real couples and families to get homes. They’re flush with Wall Street money – cash-on-hand – that they are using to outbid any real human being and get as many homes as they can. The so-called “American dream” of owning your own home is pretty much impossible now thanks to corporations. And those who have homes, we’re getting inundated with letters and messages from corporate investors who want to buy our homes at any cost.
And, because there is a race to buy homes by corporate investors, that’s jacking up housing prices and also the rent. Combined with the ever-increasing interest rates to try to deal with inflation, it is becoming impossible for renters to stay in their homes and also for them to get another home.
At some point real soon, there’s going to be yet another crisis to deal with because of this. That will be a homeless crisis, as families will be priced out of their rentals and unable to either get homes or rent a new place to live. We’re going to hear more about people living in cars and camped out in parking lots because they can’t get homes. We saw it just over ten years ago with the financial crisis, only this time it won’t be because of the banks. It will be because of corporate greed.
Oh, and I haven’t even mentioned what’s going on over in Europe with Russia.
Let’s get brutally honest here... the screwjob is real. Hard working Americans are getting squeezed on every level, and it’s not because of a certain guy currently in the White House. It’s about corporations being greedy and doing everything they can to get as much profit as they can.
The only way this would end, outside of yet another economic collapse, is for corporate execs to be responsible and to end the practices that are screwing us all over. Sadly, I see that as likely as them facing criminal charges.
“Due to a family crisis...”
Except it’s not just a family crisis, is it?
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