Saturday, June 30, 2012

Conservatives Worldwide Support Universal Healthcare - Except in U.S.

Did you know that Conservatives Worldwide Support Universal Healthcare? - Except in U.S.!

The Conservative government ruling England would never consider abandoning their Universal Health care system - Prime Minister David Cameron has in fact supported it strongly even during his austerity government actions, which is cutting budgets and costing jobs and causing great economic stress for the English.

I have been in nearly 50 countries on business in over three decades from the Fortune 500 in the 70's so I have seen how a lot of countries do things.

It struck me that of all the conservatives I have encountered in the entire world the only one who conservatives in the world who don't support Universal Health Care for their people are in only one country - the USA!

Meaning that our conservatives are out of step with the rest of the world's conservatives.

Think about it - who are the ones who are out of touch?

How "Christian" is it NOT to care about or citizens having access to health care, including the preventive care they now have as a result of the Affordable Care Act? Did Jesus say: "Do nothing for your fellow man?"

I'm just asking...

Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Congress Cuts 1 Million Jobs - Billionaires Now Pick Presidents

26 June 2012
Global American Series

                                   How Billionaires Will Be Picking America's Leaders

Do you remember when the I-35 bridge collapsed into the Mississippi a few years ago? It could happen now anywhere, anytime, while Congress does nothing.

At Lake Charles the I-10 bridge crossing the lake is 70 years old. It is so rickety that they have closed half the lanes.  Even then, they can’t keep the replacement light bulbs from breaking from the vibration of cars rumbling over it.  If it collapses, America’s major east-west artery, I-10, is cut in half for months of not years. There are thousands like it nationwide.

Now contractors are laying people off instead of fixing these deathtraps and crumbling roads.
How does Congress’s failure to act help anyone? How does it create those jobs or repair that bridge?  Meanwhile, Congress is pulling their checks, along with their government health care insurance (while being against it for ordinary Americans).

Our Congress seems determined to drown the American economy. It has failed to pass a routine normal bipartisan Transportation bill that generates over 1 million jobs fixing America's roads and bridges.  They should have done it months ago.

I went to military-controlled Egypt during the first peace treaty in 1979 (gave up my room for the delegation, the story is in my book). Now it has democracy and an Islamic President.

I went to Syria controlled by one Assad on an international child kidnapping case. Now it is controlled by his son and is in a civil war. (That one too is in the book).

So, I wonder what would happen if I visited Congress in DC?  What democracy we have left is as wobbly as the Egyptians! America is slipping more towards Egypt and Syria-type governments -- each controlled by a few powerful people. Why?

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that billionaire corporations can give billion dollar checks if they wish to pick the next American President and Congress. And they can do it anonymously. Even casino money from China could be purchasing the next President of the United States!

The court nullified a 100-year old law in Montana that forbid corporate political donations, which was written 100 years ago after large mining companies were buying Montana's elections. So much for states’ rights on that one! 

The U.S. S court has also said you can be stopped and asked to prove your citizenship.  Remember the old WWII shows where the Nazi guy says: "Show me your papers!" 

I am a citizen, but if stopped I could not prove it. I carry a driver’s license like most people, not my birth certificate! Who does?

Tell me, how would a police officer make that determination?  By the color of your skin? Am I “OK” as a white Anglo with a funny Norwegian name in the eyes of the police but my Hispanic citizen friend, Martin, who served in the Air Force, needs to produce his birth certificate on the highway?

Finally, consider this: America’s Economic Recovery depends not just on what American leadership does (or doesn’t) do; it also depends on what the European Union does (or doesn’t) do with its economic tightrope.

We either float or drown in the global economic pool together.

PASS IT ON!

To keep up with insight into America’s and the world’s future, “Subscribe” or “Follow” at any or all of the following links –

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“Better Times Ahead: April Fool?”
www.BetterTimesAheadAprilFool.com

Final Chapter (Free at website is: “Agenda for American Greatness”
How We Got Into this Mess, and how America can WIN in a global, high tech, space age 21st Century….

Written by Michael Fjetland BBA/JD, with experience in nearly 50 countries, from Fortune 500 to Small Entrepreneurs.

Sunday, June 24, 2012

The Food Stamp CONGRESS

They have call him the "Food Stamp President." That is the pot trying to call the kettle black (no pun intended).   Truth be told: It's the Food Stamp CONGRESS. Why?

Because the GOP-controlled Congress are stifling jobs in a huge way -- by not passing a routine Transportation Bill that has always funded the nation's road and bridge repair jobs. Failing to pass this routine bill is causing contractors to lay off workers, at the cost of 1 MILLION JOBS, and counting!

And that ripples to cause others to lose jobs.

A Congress that refuses to pass what has ALWAYS been a BIPARTISAN Transportation bill to fix roads and bridges BEFORE they collapse into the water (thousands of them are over 70 years old!) is playing politics and deliberating hurting the American economy and millions of AMericans.

By refusing to pass the Transportation Bill and create another 1 MILLION JOBS for Americans, it FORCES more people on Food Stamps.

So that makes the GOP House the Food Stamp CONGRESS .  From the outside it really is looking like their are sabotaging the U.S. economy solely for political gain.

P.S. the car elevator owning set wouldn't understand what its like to choose between food and gas and rent. If you are BORN RICH, you never had to face that reality.

I have..its in my book "Better Times Ahead: April Fool"
www.BetterTimesAheadAprilFool.com

It's a survival story on how to make it despite losing a job. It finishes with SOLUTIONS not being proposed by Congress...

Sunday, June 17, 2012

Better Times Ahead on Father's Day...

I wonder how different my life would have been had I been a father, something that passed me by somehow.  HOW did that happen?

I know why. For me it was because I followed all that strict Catholic stuff I was taught and I was scared to death of procreating by accident - to the point it never happened at all!  Now at 62, the prospect definitely appears past tense. Sometimes I think I would have at least had a kid if I had not been so careful - and put things off too long.

Since I am a non-father my wallet is safer and I don't have to get mad that my son or daughter could be so stupid as to be politically opposite of me, or have me babysit grandkids 24/7 while they practice being self absorbed 30-somethings. LOL.

So I am using a quiet Father's Day to assemble and organize thousands of photos, a good way to remember fathers and mothers and the memories from our times together.

My photos are not the usual kind. They are quite different.  I have strange things people don't normally see, like the World Court in the Hague (in Holland, as in Europe, located on the Planet Earth) when I was on an international case that took me to Amsterdam and Brussels -- shortly after arriving I discovered that it was an international fraud involving players on 3 continents. Since the addresses I had proved to be phony, I wasn't sure if my life was in danger or not. I had to figure out how to complete the mission and survive.

Then I found some old photos of me standing next to small steel door that looked like nothing.

Yet it  probably one of the most interesting religious symbols to Christians - and it lies in Syria. The photo I am next to a small door half my size. It was the entrance early Christians used to enter their first Christian churches to worship without being killed by Rome guards.

Now that door is located in the BACK of a Christian church in Syria.  I was there before all the killing by Bashir Assad. I was there when his father was in control. I was on an international child kidnapping negotiation for a Texas lady whose teen daughter was taken to the Middle East without her consent (the story is in my ebook at the link). 

I am also sorting through all the Armor Glass shots and videos - from  remarkable tornado shots to how IKE stripped Chase Tower of its windows. 

Imagine: IKE was only a CAT 1! What if we got hit by a CAT 2 or higher?  Yikes. Our buildings are that that well built.  I am working on ways to share these photos but for now the best way to see them is to scan the Armor Glass blog to see what's happening day to day.

I hope everyone is having a great Father's Day!

If you would like to give him a new toy get him an eReader and a eBook to go with it. How about giving him "Better Times Ahead." It should make him feel better, considering the many trials the author went through!  The subtitle is: "Surviving a Lay off on a global scale." 

It's a true international adventure story which echoes what people are going through - and despite it all still succeeds. It provides inspiration and insight for people today.

You'll have to read it to see if I really did edit out any sex scenes! LOL

Come to think of it, I was single.  And there was that time in China on my entrepreneurial trip after getting laid off from the big company when I met this girl from Germany. She was teaching in Nanjing, the old capital of China....and her apartment had no heat.
LOL).
www.BetterTimesAheadAprilFool.com

Have a GREAT Father's Day and Great Week Ahead...Better Times Ahead!

For updates, click "Subscribe" or "Follow"...

Wednesday, June 6, 2012

The RISE of Independent Voters -Bigger than GOP and Dems

PBS News tonight had a fascinating, and accurate I believe, report on who will decide this election: Independent Swing Voters.
They are, for the FIRST time, the LARGEST political group in the U.S. Bigger than either party, Democrat or Republican.
"Indies" are now 38%, Democrats 32% and GOP 24% (yes, the Republican group is the smallest).  
Linda Killian has written a book how the Independents are an "untapped power" in American elections and politics. It appears that their day in the sun has come, after decades of hyperpartisan politics that no longer makes sense. How can Congress argue over the deck chairs when the economy went off the cliff in late 2008? They did.  And still do. Even a basic highway bill that both parties have supported for decades is hung up, as our bridges and roads crumble.  (Playing politics is now more important than keeping our infrastructure competitive in a global economy).
Independents are tired of NEGATIVE politics and the bickering. They hate money in politics. They are socially tolerant. They care most about the economy and deficits. They just want a government that makes sense. 
They will be choosing the American President in 2012. They will pick who they think is best for the country's future, not what's best for just the super wealthy. They won't make their decision until October and see more of both candidates - these are not snap deciders. 
These Independent voters hold the keys to this election. And as they grow they will decide future elections, not just Republicans or Democrats.
One of my Congress races against Tom DeLay was as an Independent (2004). 
Story at:

"Running Against the Hammer"
The book "Better Times Ahead" ends with a chapter on SOLUTION. The "Agenda for American Greatness." 
www.BetterTimesAheadAprilFool.com
More than ever, America needs real solutions, not talking points to regain our No. 1 status. 
Stay tuned. With Europe on the financial edge, anything could happen.

Remembering D Day

It's D-Day, the day in 1944 that spelled the end of Hitler and the rise of the Koch Brothers and Citizens United. OOPS. 

What happened to the 1 man, 1 vote principle that our troops fought for? Did they fight for the right of corporations to buy elections? Or did they fight to keep us free of that kind of tyranny? I think the latter. Our Supreme Court seems to have forgotten what has made us special - democracy without bribes and buy outs. 

Let's hope we can get that back, or the D Day victory will be lost by us. As Pogo once said: "We have met the enemy, and he is us!"

Tuesday, June 5, 2012

A Bi Polar Nation: America's challenge

On Wisconsin and today's vote: I'll say only 1 thing. It has polarized a once civil state. It has become uncivil, dividing families and even husbands and wives. It will be CLOSE, either way.

That means regardless of who wins, we are still a "bipolar nation" - split between two factions, with independents now the deciders of each election. 

We MUST find our civility - I have yet to see the political debate rise above elementary level (name calling, talking points). We need to be thinking strategically, and globally to win a 21st century high tech global economy - with sinking educational levels and skills. Who is talking about upgrading our skills, and a real path to high tech Global America...?

We talk about it at "Better Times Ahead: April Fool?
"Agenda for American Greatness"

www.BetterTimesAheadAprilFool.com