Teresa Heinz Kerry helping the uninsured

[ProSense]

Newark creating health plan for uninsured

The Associated Press

NEWARK, N.J. - The mayor of New Jersey's largest city isn't waiting to see whether national health care reform is successful in Washington, D.C.

Newark Mayor Cory Booker is moving forward with a pilot program with the pharmaceutical industry and philanthropist Teresa Heinz to provide primary health care and prescription drugs to uninsured residents. The wife of former presidential candidate John Kerry is helping fund the initiative.

Heinz Family Philanthropies has funded similar initiatives in Chicago, California and Clarksdale, Mississippi.

Organization president Jeffrey Lewis says the goal is to craft a cheaper way to care for the uninsured before chronic illnesses like diabetes require costly hospital stays.

This is awesome!

Thank you Teresa.

[babylonsister]

1. So generous, so Teresa. Thanks to her! nt

[blm]

9. More from MH1's article posted in LBN.....

>>>>>>

The program results from a partnership between the clinic, the Heinz Family Foundation, the City of Newark and several major pharmaceutical companies as well as Kings and Liss Pharmacies in Newark. Booker and Teresa Heinz -- philanthropist and wife of former presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) -- hope to use the program as a template for similar healthcare efforts around the city.

"The anxiety, the fear, the doubt the worry is going to be banished in the city of Newark," he said.

Heinz is pushing similar efforts throughout the nation that focus on local needs and local services. The foundation has funded similar initiatives in Chicago, California and Clarksdale, Mississippi.

Saying that top-down efforts are not as effective as homegrown responses to healthcare, Heinz is hopeful that she can generate support for coverage that features public and private partnerships and transcends the rancor characterizing the current debate.

"We have to have local accountability and management," Heinz after her remarks today. "If people know what they can get than they know what they are fighting for."
>>>>>

[blm]

2. She's funded real-life healthcare services for the underserved for years with little notice

from the newsmedia who prefer to spread the lies and smears over the truth about this amazing woman's contributions to the reshaping of healthcare for the poor and working families, and especially encouraging PREVENTATIVE healthcare.

Thanks for posting this, Pro - too bad the press still couldn't bring itself to discuss the measure in a fuller article.

[ProSense]

3. This is still going to be important for those who fall through the cracks. n/t

[blm]

5. absolutely....maybe it will encourage others to start seeing that there is no time to waste

when it comes to preventing more disastrous health issues that end up effecting communities everywhere.

[maryf]

57. No one should be falling through the cracks...

With HR676 no one would be...charity doesn't help when its stopping the real problem from being looked at...

[karynnj]

69. That would be great - but it isn't what is happening now in the real world

In the real world, there are people falling between the cracks and this could help some of them.

The fact is that HR676 is not going to pass either House. The best chance is a bill that allows states to go to single payer. Even that is a long shot and it would require states passing single payer plans.

[maryf]

70. So fight for it...

write for it, demand it, if you think its the right thing. Don't say "Oh well, what can I do???" say "Oh HELL, I gotta do something". That's grassroots...meaning all the people's voices trump all the money in the world...

[blm]

79. So Teresa should follow YOUR example and stop her entire LIFE'S devotion to bringing healthcare

to those who HAD NO ACCESS to it? She should have waited till more people joined her in her cause?

You would prefer her last 60 years actually working PHYSICALLY to bring healthcare to African villages and poor neighborhoods in affluent America were spent, instead, writing strongly worded letters?

[karynnj]

13. True - and in 2004, the media simply wrote of her being "outspoken"

when in reality, though she like any intelligent woman, had opinions, she is rather soft spoken. She actually is, more than anyone else, responsible for Pittsburgh being a green city. This she did quietly leading by example. It was for things like that that she was appointed as an NGO delegate to the Rio environmental conference, where her friendship with her future husband began.

Here's an article written recently that shows that she was the person who enlisted the other foundations to take action in revitalizing Pittsburgh. http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09258/998065-482.stm?cmpid=newspanel1

She and John Kerry make an incredibly remarkable, brilliant couple, who really share a passion with making the world better.

[blue neen]

4. Glad to be the fifth recommendation!

We're proud of you, Teresa! :)

[ProSense]

7. Thanks. n/t

[imdjh]

6. Made me think, if we could get Richard Mellon Scaife on board for Single Payer it might happen

Scaife often comes off as a nutcase (being an alkie doesn't help) but he takes some interesting and nonconforming positions sometimes. If Single Payer were presented to him as a business model, he might go for it.

Speaking of noblesse oblige- have Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Ted Turner, Steve Jobs or any of the big names of our day come out for Single PAyer?

[blm]

8. Scaife's name doesn't belong here - he targeted Kerry and Teresa long before

most had ever heard of the Dem governor of Arkansas.

[imdjh]

11. Scaife and Heinz have some connections if I am not mistaken.

I'm familiar with your complaint about his newspaper attacking Kerry, but Heinz' fortune is somehow connected to Mellon.

[ProSense]

14. BS! n/t

[karynnj]

17. No they aren't - other than being Pittsburg based

and BLM is right. Scaife has funded right wing causes for decades and is an incredibly disgusting man in his personal life. The Heinzes were good people, who cared for others. He was a very moderate Republican. In 2004, one of his sons said he likely would have left the current Republican party. It would be hard to find someone closer to the complete opposite of Teresa Heinz Kerry than Scaife.

The Heinz fortune was based on selling food - like ketchup. Scaife's fortune was from Andrew Mellon - who had a bank and interests in oil, steel, shipbuilding, and construction.

[imdjh]

34. "trust accounts are held at Mellon Financial Corp"

Heinz Kerry's money is actively managed every day of the year, providing capital to Gannett, Anheuser-Busch, Pfizer and Procter & Gamble, among many others. It helps finance municipal sewer systems, technology start-ups, schools and more.

The trust accounts are held at Mellon Financial Corp., the Pittsburgh institution that has long handled the affairs of the Heinz family.

http://articles.latimes.com/2004/jun/27/nation/na-heinz27

This is what I was remembering.

[blm]

43. Scaife does not control Mellon Financial.

.

[karynnj]

44. It is a major bank in Pittsburgh

He is an heir of the man who started it - I think he's a grandson or great grandson. I don't think he has anything to do with the bank.

You do realize that his paper attacked Senator Heinz for decades and still attacks Teresa and now, John Kerry routinely. He is not a good person - they are.

[imdjh]

46. Yeah, but he's also quirky.

He's on Medicare and he might think it's a terrific idea to support Medicare for all.

[karynnj]

47. Do you have any real indication of that?

It is very far from the policies that he has spent millions promoting. The idea that a man, just because he is over 65, who has been a rabid right winger for decades, would support medicare for all is not too likely. How many Republicans in Congress are over 65. I have not seen Senator Hatch, far more moderate than Scaife, promote medicare for all - that was nowhere near what he said in the Finance committee yesterday.

[imdjh]

65. There is a business angle to Single Payer. We need to keep reaching out.

Even if we keep getting our feelings hurt. No, Scaife hasn't indicated to me that he's open to single payer, but he has surprised me in the last year or so by his interview with Hillary Clinton. Frankly, I wasn't aware that the man was still fit to receive or capable of holding a sane conversation, so there are still some little surprises to be realized in this world.

Maybe, someone needs to ask him.

[wisteria]

16. Scaife would never go for this unless he thought it would be the end of Obama's chances in 2012. n/

[Cha]

10. Ah Teresa! A geniune

philanthropist who is doing so much good in the world.

[Libertas1776]

12. Good on her and Mayor Booker

K&R

[wisteria]

15. She is such a kind and caring woman. It is just wonderful that she is doing this. n/t

[blindpig]

18. A pittance

relative to the labor her family has wrung out of workers. Yet I guess we should grasp at the hem of her dress weeping tears of joy lest we the great unwashed appear ungrateful about the beneficence of our betters.

[ProSense]

19. This should be at the top of any list of idiotic RW spin. n/t

[blindpig]

20. Far from it.

Just goes to show how far you are from the 'left'. T'was nothing but an observation drawn from working class analysis.

Crumbs from the table of the rich suffice for some, I reckon.

[ProSense]

21. "Just goes to show how far you are from the 'left'." You can't use that as a cover for RW BS. n/t

[blindpig]

22. Oh boy.

Let me explain this slowly.

There are two main classes, the workers and the owners. You can be on one side or the other. The side of the workers is the 'left'. The side of the owners is the 'right'.

Which side are you on?

[ProSense]

25. "Let me explain this slowly." No, let me:

There are two kinds of people: those who are full of shit and the rest of us.

Period.

[blindpig]

27. Don't want to talk about politics, huh?

Cause you can't avoid class in politics, though the right attempts to mightly.

[karynnj]

33. Or we can speak of those who have no class at all

But Teresa Heinz and Cory Booker have plenty of class and they have worked hard to help those with less than they have.

The fact is that Teresa and John Kerry could waste their talents and abilities and simply live the richest life on the planet. Instead, they both work very hard trying to make a better world - often very quietly.

[maryf]

54. And with a lot of money from the insurance companies...

John Kerry is number 8 on the list of recipients of money from insurance companies...Teresa's help is the typical band-aid on top of the gangrenous wound...

[karynnj]

67. Kerry is that high because he was the 2004 Presidential candidate

The donors of that money are individuals, who work for the insurance company, who thought enough of Senator Kerry to donate money to his campaign. Your analysis is idiotically simplistic.

Kerry has a very good record on healthcare - including writing the precursor bill to SCHIP with Ted Kennedy.

[blm]

80. Total ignorance - you can't be serious about this issue because you hang your hat on 2004 campaign

donations, without ANY regard for Kerry's actual record or the 6 DECADES that Teresa has devoted her life to brininging healthcare to those who HAD NO ACCESS to it.

Why would you parade that level of ignorance? Why do you cling to your distortions? Educate yourself before you smear those who have worked far harder in far more dangerous circumstances and for far LONGER than you.

[TBF]

116. Easy to find time for charity when you don't have to work for a living. n/t

[blm]

117. SIX DECADES - when she was a child she traveled to villages in Africa assisting her father

THAT is how she spent her youth, and it was the beginning of the SIX DECADES she has devoted to bringing healthcare to those who had no access - in Africa and later in communities all over the US. A devotion she tended long before there was any Heinz Foundation backing her actions.

You all should be ashamed of the mindlessness of your attacks.

[karynnj]

31. The world is far more complex than you describe it

[Odin2005]

39. No use arguing with a doctrinaire Marxist.

They will dismiss all your arguments as "Bourgeois Propaganda". They are locked in black-and-white thinking.

[karynnj]

42. exactly

[Rabrrrrrr]

71. Your claim of Bourgeois Propaganda is just Bourgeois Propaganda

:rofl:

[blm]

24. You know ZERO about those who worked for Heinz - they treated workers well and were beloved

by them because of their humanity and fairness towards their employees.

You are too full of shit to know this and won't admit you judged based on your own bullshit assumptions.

[blindpig]

48. Did they not make a huge fortune off the labor of their employees?

Case closed.

[blm]

52. And employees were treated FAIRLY and rewarded well - case closed.

What's sad is that you would PREFER those workers were abused just so you could cling to your sophomoric arguments.

[blindpig]

59. What is fair?

Did the workers receive the full value of their labor? Of course they did not, else there would not be a Heinz family fortune nor a Heinz Family Foundation.

Capitalism is abuse, whether it be with the velvet glove or the iron fist.

[blm]

62. Horsepoo - it's not up to YOU to tell workers how valued they should feel. You had to gin up a case

here because you have none that has any basis in reality.

When the Heinz family ran that company, their employees felt valued and rewarded and YOU CAN'T STAND THAT.

Go attack a company that deserves your scrutiny and stop making shit up about the few good ones that showed strong standards and respected their employees.

[blindpig]

78. Yes, of course.

The Heinz family gave with both hands...

http://www.library.pitt.edu/labor_legacy/heinz.html

not

[blm]

82. And things changed, and Heinz changed with them, resulting in satisfied employees for decades

and yet, you wish they were NOT satisfied, just so you can continue to attack the few good companies along with the bad ones.

Your failure to distinguish good treatment from bad allows the bad to get away with a whole lot more.

[blindpig]

84. Yes, and in days gone by

there were 'good' slave masters and 'bad' slave masters. It's about the institution, not the individuals.

[blm]

85. and YOU prefer Teresa stop her life's work of bringing healthcare to underserved so YOU can bash her

with your group hate. Way to use your head and heart.

Your quest to smear Teresa is imbecilic....and...lacking simple humanity.

[blindpig]

87. I am in no way 'smearing' Teresa

I am simply pointing out the facts of capitalism. No doubt she is a sweet, gracious lady, in that upper class way, but the money had to come from somewhere. That is the issue.

Why should working people have to depend upon the beneficence of the wealthy? It was workers who created that wealth in the first place.

[blm]

90. She is continuing what she did when she HAD NO MONEY - she's helping the sick get healthcare.

Be glad that someone who believes all should have access to good heathcare was entrusted with that Foundation - use your energy to uncover the bad guys, it's not like there are too few of those around.

What a luxury for you to waste time trying to undermine one of the best advocates for real environmental and healthcare solutions this nation has known.

[karynnj]

105. Every listing you show was well before Teresa even met John Heinz

Senator Heinz was a small boy - if that - whenall these happened.

[blindpig]

106. It's all about the source of the wealth

and the economic system which allows such abuse. The capitalists is as much a captive of the system as is the worker.

[blm]

110. How do YOU live? If you and your family don't live exactly as you preach, then shut up about good

people who are doing good deeds with their lives and with their access to the kind of money that can really be put to use to help others.

[karynnj]

113. That though has nothing to do with how Teresa has used that fortune for good

In addition, her three sons share her values.

[karynnj]

30. Yet you were willing to take the crumbs that multi millionare John Edwards threw you

This is not a crumb - and if you knew anything of Cory Booker, you would not say so.

"Booker obtained a J.D. in 1997 from Yale Law School where he started and operated free legal clinics for low-income residents of New Haven. He was also a Big Brother, and was active in the Black Law Students Association. Booker lived in Newark during his final year at Yale and following graduation served as Staff Attorney for the Urban Justice Center in New York and Program Coordinator of the Newark Youth Project.

From 1998 to 2006, he lived in Brick Towers, a troubled housing complex in Newark's Central Ward. Booker organized tenants to fight for improved conditions. In November 2006, as one of the last remaining tenants in Brick Towers, Booker left his apartment for the top unit in a three-story rental on Hawthorne Avenue in Newark's South Ward, an area described as "a drug-and gang-plagued neighborhood of boarded-up houses and empty lots."<4> Brick Towers has since been demolished and a new mixed-income development will be built there in 2010.<5>"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cory_Booker

Booker, a Rhodes Scholar and a Yale lawyer is too smart to be fooled and his credentials on economic justice are unbeatable.

[ProSense]

35. Anyone who refers to helping the uninsured as a "crumb"

doesn't deserve to be taken seriously.

[karynnj]

36. I agree

Someone clearly has ideological blinders on or has some preconceived unsupported by facts opinions to attack either Cory Booker or Teresa Heinz Kerry on this good project.

[blindpig]

49. How did Edwards get into this?

I appreciated that Edwards brought the issue of class into the debate, that was his sole value. I never expect much from him.

[karynnj]

64. Others can use search

My point is that you decided to attack a genuinely humanitarian effort Of Teresa Heinz Kerry's in an extremely obnoxious way.

Yet in many posts - including the one I gave a link to - you clearly did take Edwards' words at face value. It seems to me that you are willing to ignore good ACTIONS, but if someone voices something that matches your ideology, you are supportive. In your posts on Edwards, there is none of the sarcasm you lavish on Teresa Heinz Kerry.

[blm]

23. And it was YOU who went from village to village in Africa bringing healthcare to those who had no

access to it? Ooops....no...that was TERESA - that's how SHE spent her youth.

That was YOU protesting apartheid in South Africa in the 60s when you could easily be shot for it? Oooops...no....that was TERESA.

Teresa has used the Heinz Foundation money to fund environmental and healthcare programs to degrees that few in this country have - and she has been doing it for many years.

BTW - when Heinzes ran their company, the workers were treated very well, and THAT is why they are still beloved in Pennsylvania - they treated their workers fairly and well.

You don't know shit about the Heinz family or Teresa or the people who worked for them.

[blindpig]

26. Yet they were, and are capitalists

and thus appropriated the labor of their workers. They might have been 'nicer' than some other capitalists, yet the fact remains.

Law of averages sez that some rich people are bound to be 'nice'. Yet that does not take away from their vile function appropriating the labor of workers and controlling our society for their own interest.

[blm]

28. And when workers are treated well and respected and valued there is still no difference to you? Then

why focking bother BEING good employers and treating workers well if there's no difference?

The point is you don't know what the fuck you're talking about - your way of defining debate is no different than the RW fascists which guarantees only warfare and ignorance.

[karynnj]

32. "The vile function of appropriating the labor of the workers" ?? You mean offering them employment?

Do you intend to get a job when you finish college? Will the people who employ you know you think they are exploiting you? Or will you be self employed? If so and you are very successful, will you hire others to help you - thus becoming a capitalist pig?

[blindpig]

50. Your assumptions are ill founded.

Besides that, it has little to do with the will of the individual, good or ill, it is the nature of the system.

[karynnj]

29. Teresa has nothing to do with the Heinz company

nor did Senator John Heinz. Teresa runs a philanthropy. She is an incredibly good, kind, person who has done a substantial amount of good work. Far far more than Edwards, who you were so entranced by. (http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=132&topic_id=4287109 ) You might consider that Edwards, very wealthy though he is, ended his programs almost as soon as his Presidential run was over. Unlike Teresa, who has helped people with her foundation when she was an unmarried widow and continues even though Kerry is not likely to run for anything other than his seat for life in the Senate. Both kerry's mean what they say about social justice.

Here is an article on how Teresa initiated the effort by the Pittsburgh philanthropists to revitalize Pittsburgh - http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09258/998065-482.stm?cmpid=newspanel1 That was real - it helped people.

[blindpig]

51. So, where did the money of the Heinz Family Foundation

come from, hmmm?

[Rabrrrrrr]

53. It came from people buying ketchup. You should go get an economics book.

Read it, learn something.

Get your face out of Mao's little red book, and stop pretending to have any idea what you're fucking talking about.

It'll be interesting to see how your views change after someone stops paying your way through college.

[blindpig]

56. And who made the ketchup?

YOU should study a little economics. Don't think Papa Heinz was elbow deep in tomato juice.

Your assumptions concerning my condition are truly amusing.

[blm]

58. And those who MADE the ketchup were well rewarded and happy workers in secure working conditions

which you prefer they never had so you can cling to your delusional argument against the Heinz family like a security blanket.

Do you have pictures you can share of your protests against good working conditions and well-paid labor?

[blindpig]

61. What is "well rewarded"?

They did not receive the full value of their labor else there would not be a Heinz family fortune, they didn't pull that money out of their asses, they expropriated the labor of their workers, that is how capitalism works. They may have been better treated than some other workers, yet the workers were still cheated by the capitalist system. Benevolent paternalism is better to experience than a harsh taskmaster, yet it is still servitude.

[blm]

66. That is for the employees to answer - not for YOU to tell them how to feel. You need to make shit up

and smear good employers because you don't TRUST all those thousands of employees who were happy with their secure working conditions with the Heinz family that included good pay and benefits.

[Rabrrrrrr]

68. No pictures, just lots of made-up innuendo and fundamentalist marxist soundbytes.

Why actually discuss something when you have an ignorant little red book to tell you what to think so that you can be better manipulated by an even greater evil?

Come, comrade - let us give up being employed so we may live off the beneficence of our Great Wondrous and Holy Chairman! Food and housing are free under the leadership of our Great Wondrous and Holy Chairman! Money is created out of nothing! It's wonderful!

[Rabrrrrrr]

63. I *did* study economics, *and* worked in the financial world.

Your assumptions concerning my condition are truly amazing.


So, since you seem to so anti-money, how do you propose that people make a living if we were to make it illegal to employ people, which is the only logical end-point to your sad anti-employer screeds.

Everyone for himself? If you aren't smart enough to make your own business and product, then to hell with you?

Or do we just go back to subsistence farming, no technology, and rely on the beneficence of some Great Wondrous and Most Holy Leader with yet another red book that will bring a worker's utopia and a perfect society in which the Great Wondrous and Most Holy Leader has everything he wants and everyone else waits in line for the potatoes the great chairman didn't want? Oh, wait - can't wait in line for potatoes, because that reeks of capitalism. Better make damn sure you've grown enough for yourself.

[blindpig]

76. Why do we need employers?

Why can't workers reap the full benefit of their labors without some parasite skimming off the top? Are these capitalists some superior beings without which the wheels fall off? Sounds like Objectivism to me.

[A HERETIC I AM]

83. Just exactly how do you suggest the facilities the workers labor in are to come about?

Why can't workers reap the full benefit of their labors without some parasite skimming off the top?

Please explain the mechanism in which this can be accomplished.

There are many people with opinions like yours on DU but none of them ever seem to be able to explain how a factory (as just one example) can come into being merely by or through the efforts of the "workers". I mean, if workers are to "reap the full benefit of their labors" I would assume you mean that there is no (or should be no) premium added to the value of that labor in the price of the finished product.

But no one, and I mean NO ONE has ever explained how these workers are supposed to come up with the money to build the production facility in the first place, expand said facility or pay for new product research, things that virtually every successful business needs to do in order to survive.

You likely think profit is evil, but profit, in some form or another, is at the root of virtually all trades. Both sides of a voluntary trade, and that includes you taking a job for pay at one company or another, benefit in some way. If there were no benefit for both parties, people would not deal with each other.

[blindpig]

86. Voluntary association.

Where did the capitalists get the money to build the facility, etc? It was derived from the labor of workers. All value derives from labor. We have no need of those who derive great fortunes from the labor of others and then use it to shape the world according to their desires and necessities. We don't need them, we can manage our own affairs.

What a commodity exchanges for is it's worth. If it's exchange value is greater that the compensation that the worker receives then the worker is being cheated.

[A HERETIC I AM]

88. Nice dodge.

You did not answer my question. Or rather, you attempted to answer my question by asking a question.

Where did the capitalists get the money to build the facility, etc?

Very often, particularly with small companies or start ups, it was their own money and/or they secured loans, either through family members, friends or a bank.

It was derived from the labor of workers.All value derives from labor. We have no need of those who derive great fortunes from the labor of others and then use it to shape the world according to their desires and necessities. We don't need them, we can manage our own affairs.

I have no doubt that individuals can manage their own affairs. What I doubt is your ability to understand the concepts of venture capital and the monetary risk a business owner takes upon himself when starting a company.

What a commodity exchanges for is it's worth. If it's exchange value is greater that the compensation that the worker receives then the worker is being cheated.

Suppose you and I are Lakota Souix. My greatest talent is as a maker of bows and arrows and your greatest talent is in shooting those arrows during a buffalo hunt. I trade you the bows and arrows for the meat you kill. I have in mind a quantity of meat my products are worth and you have in mind an amount of meat you are willing to give up for my products. We come to an agreement and make a trade both YOU AND I are happy with. If I have a method I discover on my own, a way to expand a given quantity of meat (call it "Buffalo Helper") and am able to trade some of the meat I got from you to others for the fruits of their talents, say, a better knife from the knife maker with which I am able to make more bows and arrows, would you then consider yourself to have been cheated?

Edited for sentence structure.

[blindpig]

91. Not a dodge.

Rather an attempt to get down to the basics. See, your assumptions are all contained within the framework of capitalism. You speak of venture capital, but where did that capital come from? It is the congealed labor appropriated from workers. What is being risked is labor that has been appropriated from workers in the first place.

Your example of the Lakota is off base. Exchange of the fruits of their labor between two individuals is exchange, nothing more.Capitalism is infinitely more complicated and predicated upon the unequal relationship between labor and capital. In any case, the Lakota didn't do like that, the fruits of the hunt were held in common.

[Rabrrrrrr]

93. The Lakota example is a perfect example of capitalism

It started as mere exchange between two people, and then a third person was brought in, such that the person making the arrows is then profiting off the labor of the hunter by exchanging the hunter's labor (in the form of "meat") for something else.

[blindpig]

96. That's not capitalism.

As Wiki tells it:

Capitalism typically refers to an economic and social system in which the means of production (also known as capital) are privately controlled; labor, goods and capital are traded in a market; profits are distributed to owners or invested in new technologies and industries; and wages are paid to labor.

So where's the wage labor, the market, the investment?

What you are talking about is trade, which predates capitalism by thousands of years.

Your knowledge of economics ain't worth squat.

[Rabrrrrrr]

97. I hope your sking ain't chafing from hugging onto that ideological sinking ship so tightly.

:rofl:

Okay, then - so to you, as long as there isn't anything called "money", then capitalism is just fine, because there isn't that word that you find so terrifying which leaves you able to just wrap your mind around it and pretend it's something it isn't.

Thanks. Now I where you're coming from.

Profiting from another's labor is okay if it's in tangible goods, but not if it's in that abstract and oh-so-terrifying buggy-boo called "money".

Gotcha!

:thumbsup:

[blindpig]

99. Um, there cannot be capital without money.

Money, like trade, predates capitalism, though it is greatly modified by it.

I cannot make any sense out of your post.

[Rabrrrrrr]

101. Lots of capital in the Lakota example, and there was no money there.

:shrug:

(and please - as HERETIC said, don't get caught up in the name of the tribe used in the example; pay attention to the example itself)

[blindpig]

108. Capital? Show me.

Methinks your definition is faulty.

[Rabrrrrrr]

109. Meat. Bow and arrows. The trees the bow and arrows are made from.

the animals in the fields.

The skill sets of the hunter and the arrow maker.

The tools used to make the bows and arrows. The tools the hunter uses to skin and carve up the meat.

There's capital fucking everywhere.

Just because you don't want it to be there doesn't mean that it isn't.

[blindpig]

114. That's not capital.

That is the bounty of nature. More poor definition.

[Rabrrrrrr]

118. So, since you discount natural items AND manufactured items as capital, it doesn't exist.

At least, in your worldview - as you present it here - there is no such thing as capital, since neither natural things nor manufactured things are capital.

How odd.

Or is it that the manufactured stuff isn't capital because the arrow maker never said some kind of magic phrase, like "Okay, I now declare this place that I make arrows in a factory."

Is that it? It takes a factory to have capital?

I don't know - your economic system is really confusing.

It would be a lot easier if you just used words the way they are commonly accepted and are used by the experts in the field.

I'm also curious how, if there is no such thing as "capital", there can then be capitalists for you to hate with so much vitriol.

[A HERETIC I AM]

95. Fine. Forget the Lakota. We're two schmucks in the middle of the woods.

You still didn't answer the basic question. Would you feel cheated if, after we had made an agreeable trade, I made another trade using the goods you traded me that benefited me?

I understand your position, trust me. You just don't like the idea of profit in any way, shape or form.

If things worked the way you would like to see them, the Ford Motor Company would still be working out of a rented building on Mack Avenue in Detroit.

And I have a feeling you would think that was just fine.

[blindpig]

98. Your example is irrelevant.

As I just said above, trade between two individuals is just that, trade. It has nothing to do with wage labor, etc. In a society of voluntarily associated producers the wherewithal of instituting or expanding a productive facility would be provided by that society according to to the needs and desires of those voluntarily associated producers.

As for your example, since I expect your returning to it despite it's irrelevance, cheated, no, I'm happy if that works for ya.

[A HERETIC I AM]

103. Fascinating.

As I just said above, trade between two individuals is just that, trade.

All transactions are trades. A Sheet Metal Shear operator trades his labor for an hourly wage, just as I traded my bow and arrow for meat.

It has nothing to do with wage labor, etc.

Sure it does. In my producing a bow and arrow, I have set a price on it based on how much I value my time and effort. That price is a specific quantity of meat. If I were to get less meat than I thought I should then it wouldn't be an equitable trade to me. If I were to get more then it wouldn't be an equitable trade to you. Either way, it certainly has to do in part with what I perceive as appropriate value for my effort or "wage labor".

This sentence I find really interesting;

In a society of voluntarily associated producers the wherewithal of instituting or expanding a productive facility would be provided by that society according to to the needs and desires of those voluntarily associated producers.

So in your mind, the "wherewithal" to expand my bow and arrow making operation will be provided by "society" based simply on my "needs and desires"?

There is a reason no such society has ever long prospered or reached any technological advancements. It doesn't work in practice.

As for your example, since I expect your returning to it despite it's irrelevance, cheated, no, I'm happy if that works for ya.

Just so I'm clear here, you're okay with me making a profit as a result of your labor, right?

[blindpig]

111. Faulty definitions.

All transactions are trades. A Sheet Metal Shear operator trades his labor for an hourly wage, just as I traded my bow and arrow for meat.

The shear operator has no other means of sustenance than to sell his labor to this capitalists or that, on their terms, hardly a fair trade.

Sure it does. In my producing a bow and arrow, I have set a price on it based on how much I value my time and effort. That price is a specific quantity of meat. If I were to get less meat than I thought I should then it wouldn't be an equitable trade to me. If I were to get more then it wouldn't be an equitable trade to you. Either way, it certainly has to do in part with what I perceive as appropriate value for my effort or "wage labor".

Wage labor is the socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer in which the worker sells their labor under a contract (employment), and the employer buys it, often in a labor market. That relationship does not exist in our example.

So in your mind, the "wherewithal" to expand my bow and arrow making operation will be provided by "society" based simply on my "needs and desires"?

Not only your needs and desires alone but those of society in general. This requires a society of consensus, we are first and foremostly a social species.

There is a reason no such society has ever long prospered or reached any technological advancements. It doesn't work in practice.

Every attempt at such a society has been mercilessly been hounded and attacked by those who it would replace. It ain't easy being Red.

Just so I'm clear here, you're okay with me making a profit as a result of your labor, right?

Where's the profit? You have exchanged something which I traded to you for something else from another person. Profit is the value expropriated from the worker by the capitalist. Apples & oranges.

[Rabrrrrrr]

104. Nothing to do with wage labor?

The meat is the symbol of the labor of the hunt. The arrows are the symbol of the labor of arrow making.

The hunter says "My hours of labor on the hunt and cutting up the meat as symbolized in this basket of meat is, to me, worth your hours of work making those arrows".

And the arrow maker says "No, the value of my arrows is worth that basket of meat plus the giraffe's kidneys".

And the hunter can say "No, worth a basket and one kidney".

And then they agree, and they trade.

Just because it isn't called "money" doesn't mean that it isn't playing the role of money. And just because it isn't called "capital" doesn't mean that it isn't. The hunter's capital is his skill set, his healthy body, his time, and his weapons. It probably isn't leveraged six ways to Sunday in a bank lending scheme, but it's still capital.

[JoseGaspar]

112. This example is as inane as when Samuelson used it...

... and he stole it from someone else.

Indian "Bow and Arrow" stories and Robinson Crusoe tales are equally fraudulent.

"Suppose you and I are Lakota Souix. My greatest talent is as a maker of bows and arrows and your greatest talent is in shooting those arrows during a buffalo hunt. I trade you the bows and arrows for the meat you kill. I have in mind a quantity of meat my products are worth and you have in mind an amount of meat you are willing to give up for my products. We come to an agreement and make a trade both YOU AND I are happy with. If I have a method I discover on my own, a way to expand a given quantity of meat (call it "Buffalo Helper") and am able to trade some of the meat I got from you to others for the fruits of their talents, say, a better knife from the knife maker with which I am able to make more bows and arrows, would you then consider yourself to have been cheated?"

The Souix did not "trade" amongst themselves. They had no private property and they kept no personal record. All produced and all consumed. That is not where "trade" comes from, let alone "cheating". If you don't know the evolution of "commerce", don't make it up. Next, you will be teaching modern "morality" to the Inuit.

If you do know how it evolved, the floor is yours. But, at the moment, all you are doing is taking the substance of the modern day, and warping real history to suit your made up contention that, "it has always been thus". It hasn't always been thus... It hasn't even been this way for long.

[A HERETIC I AM]

115. Got it. My analogy sucked. You and Blindpig win. n/t

[Rabrrrrrr]

94. Unless you think that every business can be turned into a co-op...

well, seriously - I'm curious, in your perfect world where no one has to labor and money appears magically, how does anything get done? How do people get fed? Who's the dictator with the full force of an amazingly huge engine of violence to force everyone to work in perfect blissful little red book harmony and utopian selflessness?

[Odin2005]

38. Thanks for reminding me why I think you Marxists suck.

[JI7]

40. hahhahah, typical ignorant bullshit by wannabe revolutionary types

there are many people who are not wealthy who oppose supporting others who are poor.

the assholes who are protesting Obama at those rallies are not part of the wealthy class.

Reagan and Nixon came from poor backgrounds. FDR and Kennedys came from wealthy backgrounds. but which ones did more to help the working people.

both John and Teresa grew up with far more than others but they have always worked to help those who weren't as privileged.

[imdjh]

41. Carrying a picture of Chairman Mao? nt

[Odin2005]

37. K&R

[politicasista]

45. Kick for Momma T

Kudos to First Lady Michelle Obama for using her crib (lol!) for some cool entertaining. :toast: And kudos to Mayor Booker for doing this. He was/is a staunch supporter of Obama during the campaign. :)

:kick:

[maryf]

55. John Kerry

http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/summary.php?ind=f09&cycle=All&recipdetail=M&sortorder=U

1.3 million from insurance companies...Teresa assuaging guilt?

[blm]

60. Why would you claim that? Kerry was a presidential candidate - of course those numbers would

seem higher to someone ignorant of his actual record on this issue.

BTW - Teresa has been funding health clinics in a number of poor neighborhoods underserved by conventional medicine for two decades. Her commitment to bringing healthcare to those with no access to medicine began in her childhood when she spent her youth working alongside her father who traveled from village to village in Africa.

If anyone should feel guilt for their actions, it should be those who condemn good work out of deliberate ignorance.

[maryf]

72. His actual record...

Is promoting an insurance industry's bill
...again, charity without working to change why these conditions exist is like putting a band-aid on an infected wound...think about that...

[blm]

77. Bullshit - you have no basis to make that charge - just your lazy, uninformed assumption

Kerry has been for single-payer for many years. He has worked to get whatever progress he can towards that eventual goal.

If you were actually concerned with the issue, you would know that - in fact - you'd have known that 5 years ago.

BTW, Kerry is the one who crafted the Public Financing of Campaigns legislation that he and Wellstone submitted in 1997. He's been for it since 1985.

You may have preferred he not run a funded presidential campaign in 2004, but, the Democratic party was NOT going to give up every dollar donated just to stick to Kerry's past rule of not accepting corporate PAC money.

[Joe Chi Minh]

102. Kerry has apparently been tireless in his work in the legislature for

relatively poorly-paid and powerless people, i.e the ordinary Joe and Jane. Not to speak of his one-time comrades in the military and their sons and daughters.

[maryf]

74. Besides, those numbers don't SEEM higher, they are higher...

the fact is he's 8th on the list of receiving contributions from the insurance companies...

[blm]

75. Because he was a PRESIDENTIAL candidate - where money comes in from everywhere - his record shows a

different story than you want portrayed by using those numbers. But, I doubt you ever stretched your brain around those facts. The money number gave you all the information you wanted to or could process and were too lazy to go further. Typical.

[karynnj]

107. "seem" is appropriate as they include contributions as a presidential nominee

It is not a comparison of apples to apples.

[karynnj]

73. Not from companies - from the people who work for them

Kerry authored a bill with Wellstone to take big money out of financing campaigns. He is very clear that he dislikes the system as it is, but if you want to run for President or any other office, you have to raise money. There have been no cases where Kerry has done anything that suggests a quid por quo.

Teresa is using her foundation, as she has since she took it over, to help people. I met a Republican, formerly from PA, when I volunteered in NJ in 2004, who was also volunteering. She said that she looked into Kerry, because she had always been very impressed by Teresa. She said that she trusted him, because if there was any sleaziness, Teresa would never have married him. The fact is they are two very good committed people.

[goclark]

81. A classy lady ~

A rich citizen that steps up to the plate to really help people.

[Zoeisright]

89. Now THERE'S a good, Christian woman.

The real kind of Christian, not the fake 700 Club kind.

[Vidar]

92. Bravo, Teresa!

[Joe Chi Minh]

100. Wonderful to read.