Evil Profits

While putting in my mandatory hours of viewing current events on TV, I came upon a government health discussion with audience participation. Those fine products of government training camps were proclaiming how evil profit is especially evil in health care.

How many people do you know working for room and board? I would argue everything we own that is above and beyond our needs for basic survival represent personal profit. We call our selves a consumer nation. I'd consider that a hint most of are doing more than volunteer service all day.

But back to the idea our of doctor not making a profit. He should see me for the pure joy that comes from hanging out with sick people? He's not allowed to want a house in the suburbs?

If you sat down at a table and told the waitress, "I don't believe in tipping. Your should think of it as a privilege to be serving me." What kind of service do you think you're going to get?

Profit is a form of motivation. There must be a reason to do something when doing nothing is easier. Companies are not created by government programs or magic fairies. They are the result of a lot people wanting to make some money. Yes many of these people are driven by vision, need or belief but they still expect and deserve a reward for their time, effort and capital.

Profits make great things happen. Socialism produces only human misery. Socialism takes cotton candy dreams and turns them into broccoli lies. "From each according to ability and to each according to need." It sounds great. It is the snake oil that will cure all of society's ills. It is a recipe for turd soup that creates only famine, bone gnawing dreariness and violence on a worldwide scale. It creates a world where people are motivated to be needy not able.

Without profit, mankind would not have gotten beyond living in a cave provided by nature, eating berries we hoped would not kill us and trying to out run big kitty cats with really long teeth.

Snapping back to the present where it isn't a big, hairy elephant trying to step on us but a leviathan of questionable charity and callous intentions. We have a 2,000 page government health bill that only directly addresses the uninsured when it claims to help by ordering the IRS to track them down and fine them for not having insurance.

In the Middle East Department: Iran invades Iraq

Keep an eye on this story, someone is trying to run a con.

Iraq demands Iran withdraw troops from oilfield
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE5BH1Y920091218

Iraq-Iran in oilfield dispute
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2009/12/2009121816934643863.html

Colonel Peter Newell, a US military spokesman in Iraq, said that such incidents were not uncommon in the area.

"What happens is, periodically, about every three or four months, the oil ministry guys from Iraq will go ... to fix something or do some maintenance. They'll paint it in Iraqi colours and throw an Iraqi flag up.

"They'll hang out there for a while, until they get tired, and as soon as they go away, the Iranians come down the hill and paint it Iranian colours and raise an Iranian flag.

"It happened about three months ago and it will probably happen again."

Note that the Colonel's comments from been dropped from the newer stories and oil price news added. My guess is oil futures speculators are trying to move the market.

I suspect the Colonel is not an official "spokesman." He's probably retire a Colonel because he understands enlisted men more than he does Pentagon politics. He has probably enjoyed a lot of success on the battlefield because he never lost his common sense.

I knew a captain like him a long time ago. That captain probably grew up to be that kind of Colonel. My sergeant and lieutenant would rather have root canal surgery than talk to me. I had a knack for turning any conservation into a surreal experience. The kind of thing that left them talking to themselves and drinking heavily for the rest of the day.

One day I pulled a prank that brought down the attention of my captain's superiors. He called me into his office, I explained how my car had stalled on this old, lonely road. When night falls, it's as if the trees creep closer. I hear howls in the woods. I can't get the car to start. The howling gets louder. The starter cranks uselessly. I hear scratching at the windows. I think I even hear inhuman moans of suffering from the pack of oddly deformed wolves." The rest of my colorful descriptions stutters to a stop in the icy, emotionless response of my audience of one. My captain choose to fill the void.

"Byrum, if I were to creatively interpret the regulations, you would be in a federal prison until your hair turns gray. I have a sergeant who is counting his days to retirement. My lieutenant is an idiot who amazes me by finding his desk each morning. The gods of war may have saddled me with them. But I will not be saddled with you. I have a fine dinner planned tonight. A dinner planned with even finer companionship. I do not want my good mood and pleasant thoughts disturbed. You will leave my office and think of all the ways I can make your life a hell if you shit on me again."

Needless to say, me and my captain never chatted again. My lieutenant used his rank to avoid me. My sergeant must have burned a few favors to get me transferred to the other side of the Earth. But that is another story and the fire has burned low to glowing ashes. Sunrise is lighting the morning. This old man's stories must await another night of the electricity failing.