Not exalting the gifted prevents quarreling.

Not collecting treasures prevents stealing.

Not seeing desirable things prevents confusion of the heart.

The wise therefore rule by emptying hearts and stuffing bellies,

By weakening ambition and strengthening bones.

If people lack knowledge and desire,

Then intellectuals will try not to interfere.

If nothing is done, then all will be well.

Tao Te Ching (Ch-3)

Liberty, be it known, is for those only who dare to strike the blow to secure and retain the priceless boon. It has been written that 'Love of Liberty with life is given,' and that 'life without liberty is a continuous curse,' and that 'an hour of liberty is worth an eternity of bondage.' It would be an easy task to link together gilded periods extolling liberty until the mind weary with delight, becomes oblivious of the fact that while dreaming of security the blessings we magnified had, one by one, and little by little, disappeared, emphasizing the truth of the maxim that 'eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.'

Eugene Debs

Eugene Victor Debs

On this Labor Day I have read hundreds of comments here and many fine, fine blogs. This is the second part of my statement that really was based upon Rowan's original blog.

The Awards must be distributed for the three day week end that best celebrated  THE WORKER; So I hereby render unto Rowan and Ramona and Flowerchild the LABOR DAY WEEKEND Award given to all of them from all of me:

To Rowan for her fine post:  http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/rowanwolf/

To Ramona for her fine post:  http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/ramona/2009/09/for-labor-a-pat-on-the-back-a.php?ref=reccafe

To Flowerchild for her fine post:  http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/flowerchild/2009/09/something-is-wrong-somewhere-a.php?ref=reccafe

I have looked at graphs, statistics and theorems. Some I understand, some are more difficult for me to comprehend. But do not miss Flowerchild's take on all of this.  It is the individual case that explains the suffering best, as least for me.  I wanted to include one more piece of information I came upon recently that demonstrates the pain and suffering of a good segment of our population:

 U.S. food stamp enrollment set a record for the third month in a row, rising to 32.55 million at latest count, the U.S. government said on Monday. In a monthly update, the Agriculture Department said food stamp enrollment in February of 32.55 million was up 1.1 percent, or 350,000 people, from January and up 17 percent, or 4.8 million people, from one year earlier.

"Currently, one in three eligible people are missed," said the antihunger group Food Research and Action Center. It said an enrollment campaign would "help maximize the federal recovery dollars available to help local families and businesses."

Texas had the largest enrollment, 2.93 million, down 1.7 percent, followed by California with 2.59 million, up 1.7 percent, and New York state with 2.25 million, up 1.6 percent.

U.S. enrollment in recent months:

February - 32.555 million

January - 32.205 million

December 2008 - 31.784 million

November 2008 - 31.097 million

October 2008 - 31.050 million

Sept 2008 - 31.587 million

http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSTRE5435R420090504

But if there has been one thing that has been around on this portion of the continent over the last four hundred years it is YANKEE INGINUITY.  I mean, you have to hand it to the capitalists, they can make lemonade out of rotten lemons, add some sugar and preservatives and vwella. Ha  They can literally take buckets of shite, add some strange chemicals and make fertilizer that will grow corn higher than any elephant's eye.

Yessiree bob. Good old yankee ingenuity.

After the mortgage business imploded last year, Wall Street investment banks began searching for another big idea...

The bankers plan to buy "life settlements," life insurance policies that ill and elderly people sell for cash -- $400,000 for a $1 million policy, say, depending on the life expectancy of the insured person. Then they plan to "securitize" these policies, in Wall Street jargon, by packaging hundreds or thousands together into bonds. They will then resell those bonds to investors, like big pension funds, who will receive the payouts when people with the insurance die.

The earlier the policyholder dies, the bigger the return -- though if people live longer than expected, investors could get poor returns or even lose money.

Either way, Wall Street would profit by pocketing sizable fees for creating the bonds, reselling them and subsequently trading them.....

The idea is still in the planning stages. But already "our phones have been ringing off the hook with inquiries," says Kathleen Tillwitz, a senior vice president at DBRS, which gives risk ratings to investments and is reviewing nine proposals for life-insurance securitizations from private investors and financial firms, including Credit Suisse.

"We're hoping to get a herd stampeding after the first offering," said one investment banker not authorized to speak to the news media. http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2009/09/is-wall-street-about-to-ruin-another-financial-product-life-settlements-edition.html 

I predict that partnerships will be formed among those in the economic oligarchy. They have a method of making money when the stock goes down. So if somehow the health insurers can keep killin their insureds, the corps cold sell short on their life bundlings.  And they all could be BACK IN THE GAME.

Damn, the geniuses who own and rule this country have figured out how to bet on life and death. I mean the health industry has put billions upon billions of dollars into the hands of this oligarchy that comes directly from the pain and suffering and death of the American People.

But this, I mean this scam....well don't it beat all?

I shall end with the rest of the Debs oration that I began supra:

Is it worth while to iterate that all men are created free and that slavery and bondage are in contravention of the Creator's decree and have their origin in man's depravity? If liberty is a birthright which has been wrested from the weak by the strong or has been placed in peril by those who were commissioned to guard it as Gheher priests watch the sacred fires they worship, what is to be done? Leaving all other nations, kindred and tongues out of the question, what is the duty of Americans? Above all, what is the duty of American workingmen whose liberties have been placed in peril? They are not hereditary bondsmen; their fathers were free-born-their sovereignty none denied and their children yet have the ballot. It has been called 'a weapon that executes a free man's will as lightning does the will of God.' It is a metaphor pregnant with life and truth. There is nothing in our government it can not remove or amend. It can make and unmake presidents and congresses and courts. It can abolish unjust laws and consign to eternal odium and oblivion unjust judges, strip from them their robes and gowns and send them forth unclean as lepers to bear the burden of merited obloquy as Cain with the mark of a murderer. It can sweep our trusts, syndicates, corporations, monopolies and every other abnormal development of the money power designed to abridge the liberties of workingmen and enslave them by the degradation incident to poverty and enforced idleness as cyclones scatter the leaves of our forest. The ballot can do all this and more. It can give our civilization its crowning glory-the co-operative commonwealth. To the unified hosts of American workmen fate has committed the charge of rescuing American liberties from the grasp of the vandal horde that have placed them in peril, by seizing the ballot and wielding it to re-gain the priceless heritage and to preserve and transmit it, without scar or blemish to the generations yet to come.