Health Care in Chaos: Escape to Anarchy

USA's health is getting progressive worse, and even immigrants suffer here:

In 2012, life expectancy in the US ranked 32^nd worldwide.  Strikingly, when poor immigrants come to the United States their health declines and they live shorter lives.  One immigrant succinctly said: “In Mexico, we ate healthily and didn’t even know it.  Here, we know the food we eat is bad for us.  But we eat it anyway.”

I recall when nearly no one had health insurance, but people were healthier and medicine generally more effective.  Charity covered those who could not pay.  To this day I pay cash, and refuse Rmoney/Obamacare.

Uninsured Americans actually report fewer health problems than those who are insured privately and publicly.  They use less health care services, maybe because they have had to learn how to stay healthy without doctoring. 

As a child with the gift of ADHD/ADD, I was often in the hospital getting sewn up and once did a stretch being observed for skull fracture. (My favorite question was "What happens when I push this button?")  No one ever talked money or worried about medical bills, because hospitals charged what things cost, not what insurance companies will pay.  Doctors made a lot, but so did florists and restaurateurs.

It is individual behaviors that determine the health of a population, largely a lack of exercise, obesity and tobacco use.  Most of the credit modern medicine takes for improved health numbers emanates from a steep decline in smoking rates, not an increase in the availability of new medicines or other treatments.

No kidding.

It didn’t help that government, which fashioned the Affordable Care Act, also produced the Food Pyramid that misled Americans to consume refined carbohydrates that convert to sugar in the body at the expense of fats that quell appetite.  Nina Teicholz tells the whole story in her best-selling book THE BIG FAT SURPRISE ... We have a massive diabesity epidemic going on in America spawned by the food industry that spikes foods with high fructose corn sugar (even ketchup, bacon, peanut butter) that induces sugar-craving yeast overgrowth, and other chemicals that cause consumers to lose control of their appetite.  The medical profession then treats diabesity as if it is a lack of exercise and lack of self-control when leanness in other nations like Japan and France is not attributed to frequent attendance at gymnasiums or the reading of diet books.  [American Family Physician 2001]
There is a disconnect between the food industry that is fashioning prepared foods that are spiked with corn syrup and other pleasure-center stimulants that encourage overeating against the backdrop of modern medicine that pretends to treat this behavior as a drug deficiency.  [American Diabetes Association]
Executives from the largest American food companies walked out on a 1999 conclave that explored why half of the nation is diabetic or pre-diabetic and is addicted to food.  They protected their financial bottom line.  [New York TimesFeb 20, 2013]  The diabesity epidemic is good for business.

That's capitalism, happy to kill its customers, indeed, intent on doing so under malthusian eugenics imperatives.  There is a way to end all of this, simply end the subsidies.

Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.

Bookmark this post --- Email this post

Deregulate Medicine Now

When I was a kid, I was in the emergency room often, since I had the gift of ADD/ADHD. No one every worried about the cost of health care, because the Catholics had an awesome range of hospitals whose prices reflected what people could pay, and the difference was made up by charitable donations. Nobody went without health care.  But then big government got access to unlimited credit, and socially conditioned people to worry about "health insurance" instead of health care.  By driving up costs through monopolies (patents) and control over how many beds may be licensed for health care, the Catholics were driven out, and now the corporations run the shows, even in hospitals still bearing Catholic names.

While awaiting the birth of a daughter, I recall reading the early registries of admittd patients from a historical record in one of Providence Hospital display cases.  Names redolent of soul, Asia and native predominated.  These people could not pay, but they got fixes and cures.

I also recall when kids with glasses had to be careful because their glasses cost an arm and a leg, and countless people had to go without reading because optometry was a racket for these doctors to charge too much to do too much.  Some effort was made to deregulate optometry, and the pushback assured us untold gnerations of people stumbling around for lack of glasses if optometry was deregulated.  I am wearing a pair of 1.25 glasses I got for $8 at a Walgreens, now that optometry has been deregulated.

The hegemon is a thug, and professionals like to have a thug enforce their private rents.  Here a doctor is threatened for charging a low price to the poor.  We need strict separation of health care and state.

Completely deregulate medicine.

Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.

Bookmark this post --- Email this post

A Little Lesson/Assignment

This blog is going to go silent for about six weeks, until early January 2015.  I spend about two hours a day doing research and placing my outraged screeds and rough drafted content up and, happily somewhat organized, a happy thing for someone like me with the gift of ADD/ADHD.  These are my most creative and productive two hours, to which I will devote to the draft.

But I have enough rough content to produce my third book, how to grow once you've started up.  You have customers, and now you need more.

For years people have asked for an advanced class, and my response has been the advanced class is to actually execute the info in the intro class.  

The paradox was the improvements in communication and transportation after the "Fall of the Wall" in Berlin 25 years ago atomized businesses to where functions were farmed out (warehousing, accounting, sales) and the headquarters itself could be removed from the port city. Where once you could simply call another importer you knew from down the street about some problem, now you go to the web.  But that web information may rate high in a search, but not be reliable.  My courses have been unique in validity and reliability, according to the participants.

Now there is a new void.  We have lost at least one, probably two, generations to FIRE (Finance, Investment, Real Estate), people who would have once started small businesses have answered the siren call to trade the new false economy.

In my classes I can see patterns of what is missing, and in practice I shake my head at the waste of time and money in the areas of finding new customers, marketing, trade show work, finance, product development.

Another indicator the time is right is there are plenty of people who are writing on the same topic.  This is good, it means the need is being met.  But the fact of the matter is what I have is better content than what I am seeing, for whatever reason, so I am obliged to write mine too.  But I have the others at a disadvantage, I am actually doing what I describe, and have done so for forty years now.

And the next forty years promise to be even more exciting.  The pendulum is swinging back, small is beautiful again, "get big or get out" has failed, and people want new choices in goods and services.

Yes, if you are on any of my lists you'll hear about the book as it gets toward publication, or if not, email me at john at johnspiers dot com and I'll put you on a notification list.

And since you've read this far, here is a wee assignment if you like:

Listen to this lecture, part one and two...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FlAjxdEgBY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWk-GSNlfs8

(Incidently, At 2:45 seconds into part two, Simon Sinek asks ... “how do you find the ones who just ‘get it’ Before you are doing business with them, vs the ones who don’t get it”  (pointing to the 16% laggards.)  I've been teaching that for 30 years, I learned it from the people I worked for the first ten years.  The kind of info people used to pass on inside small businesses.)

and then reflect on what you heard as you study this promo piece.

http://www.apple.com/watch/films/#film-design

Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.

Bookmark this post --- Email this post

Love Of Money is the Root of All Evil

If the Bible said "love of Disco is the root of all evil" I could relate to that.  Those were some very fun times, some wicked things were done, and it was a lot of fun.  I loved it.  But that is not what the Bible says.  The Bible says "love of money is the root of all evil."

I guess if you have the gift of ADD/ADHD, making money is never a problem, and if something is never a problem, you don't worry about it.  Certainly people around me worry about me and money, just not me.

But that love of money quote got me thinking, the ban on usury provided a negative hint, and how usury concentrates power in ever fewer hands to the point it takes extremely few people to "call the shots" is clear.

When world problems come to mind, they can all be understood as love of money at the root, and usury as the means to the present end.  Iraq, Ferguson, the coming stock market crash, any and all problems can be traced to too much power in too few hands, effected by usury.  Do I believe usury (taking or giving interest on a loan) should be outlawed?  No!  Just make it unenforceable in law.  End of that regime.

I've been reading much on this, and this week can across a book online on the topic...  S C Mooney, Usury, Destroyer of Nations.  Mooney does yeoman work carefully taking down every religious and social argument pro-usury.  Very good stuff.  I cite Dr. Gary North here often, since his stuff is good, but North is pro-usury, with which I obviously disagree.  North has made a lifelong concerted effort to critique the entire Bible for economic wisdom, and it is good stuff, but he gets something central, usury, wrong.    This blindness put him on the losing side of an argument with Mish on hyperinflation, North and Mish being of the same school of economics, the Austrian, and Mish gets it right.  Mish just yesterday returned to the topic and this is a good summary of the right side of the debate.  His foil this time is a Forbes writer, it is sad to see Forbes go so downhill so fast.  Ironic, a magazine that promoted usury sells out due to usury.  (Forbes sold out to a Hong Kong outfit.)  One point Mooney concedes is there will never be business loans at no interest.  (I'll say it again, all loans are charitable events, if you have money with which to make more money, invest as a co-owner, not take a (relatively) sure thing from someone taking a risk.  )

Looking around the world where USA is failing to a degree it cannot be blamed on Obama (no one can do this much damage) it looks pretty grim.

So I was astonished to see, unbidden, with no particular impetus, business loans at no interest, crowdfunded by Kiva.  Now, when Kiva first came out, it was micro-finance at interest crowdsourced.  So I could see it was the evil Grameen Bank Mohammed Yunis look-alike bringing micro-evil to Islam, the last bastion of usury-free business.  But Kiva-zip is crowdsourced loans at no interest!  I (and other on this list) jumped in to make small loans at no interest, and the borrower picked up $10,000 total well within the timeline.  I am very keen to find out the metrics... do no-usury loans subscribe faster better?  What is the average loan size?  What was the impetus for this effort? And so on and so on.

Now, this new thing is immediately contrary to patterns and practices of this corporation we call the USA.  You cannot make charitable loans in USA to businesses without someone imputing interest and paying taxes on the imputed income.  So either the giver or the beneficiary will be in trouble with the IRS.  That is just how capitalism works, and the USA as a corporation has over the centuries taken on patterns and practices of capitalism, which is "love of money" above all else.

Good on Kiva for offering this...  the people making the loans will have to fork over more money to the IRS for having done so, or more likely, the beneficiaries will become targets of the IRS, but either way,  we are now designed to crush good things before they get started.  In capitalism, the IRS works for the bankers, and to the degree no-usury loans displease some banker, business loans at no interest will be crushed.

But started it did.  When the market gets wiped out in the next couple of months, just recall in the chaos there are good systems we can adopt.  ( http://www.lewrockwell.com/2014/08/david-stockman/does-the-wall-street-casino-seem-dangerous/  This too...  http://armstrongeconomics.com/2014/08/19/crisis-collapse-in-world-capital-flows/ Remember, just like last time, 2008, and every time before, the powers that be will tell you "no one saw this coming."  Plenty of people saw it coming.  Just no one will do the right thing.)

Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.

Bookmark this post --- Email this post

Russians Dumping Visa/Mastercard for Chinese UnionPay...

Kevin Checks in with how Russians are dealing with the sanctions...  and how the Russians have switched to the Chinese UnionPay...



The Russians are working on their own system, and I wish they would hurry up, because their card has some very cool style...



Update:  I can read enough Russian to make out the words, Universalnaya Elektronaya Karta  and Rossia...  the logo in the upper left is U Ye Ka, or if sounded out in Russian.. "ooo yech..."  which is a common expression of disgust in English.  Something like the problem of Chevy Novas to Mexico ( no + Va = doesn't go)  or the Japanese sports drink Cal-pis.    Since the Russians haven't rolled it out, perhaps they could reduce the logo just to the Y (oo in Russian) and then the logo say "oooo" as in "ooo...  I'll buy that..."

See what happens when you match one year of college Russian with the gift of ADD/ADHD?

Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.

Bookmark this post --- Email this post

No Positions For Scholars

An ABD PhD candidate was explaining to me the situation on the ground as to employment prospects in his field, and his desire to be a professor of philosophy some day, his particular field is ethics.

After the 2008 crash, there was no more money going into professorships so there are five years of unemployed PhDs who have been putting out papers (Publish or Perish) and that is a tough crew against which a newly minted PhD must compete.

A couple of years ago the French floated a plan to raise the retirement age from 62 to 65 and the students took to the streets in protest.  Why would students protest?  Because the French economy is on a conveyor belt and as people drop off at 62 on one end the newly graduated pick up jobs on the other end.  If for three years people did not drop off one end as they awaited the new retirement age, for three years new graduates would not get jobs upon graduation.  But wait it gets worse... after the three years, when the machine starts back up taking new graduates, it would take the newest ones, leaving the graduates for the three year hiatus never to get a job for which they were educated.  No wonder their system is in stress.

So maybe he has actually an advantage, because a school can get five years more service out of him than they can get out of the PhDs who have been cooling their heels for five years.

I don't have a PhD, and not even an ABD, but I do have ADD/ADHD and am employed as a lecturer at UCB.  I shared with him my saga of building a side business from scratch teaching noncredit classes as schools, creating and anthology, and then identifying what is missing to write ones own book.  (It is axiomatic those working are the most attractive new hires.

He was intrigued, and corrected me on the use of anthology to find what no one has touched, pointing out usually an anthology was put out to criticize other philosophers.  Why, it never occurred to me that anyone would criticize another's work, but upon reflection, would it not be better to write something new and missing rather than challenge other's ideas?

And I assured him, noncredit, continuing ed is welcoming of any topic, even, perhaps especially his specialty of ethics.

With the last of my spawn graduating from university the last couple of years, I am acquainted with the misallocation of resources on campuses.  The money is going into pensions and gee-whiz buildings on campus, and not into the classrooms.   Hope that changes soon.  Our professors cannot even afford tweed any longer.  What is the world coming to?

I even wrote a book on building a business in teaching writing consulting publishing, available on kindle and in paperback.

Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.

Bookmark this post --- Email this post

The Gift of ADD/ADHD

Doctors are becoming ever more perplexed as to why ever more people are questioning their judgment.  Perhaps it is because ever more doctors are becoming soldiers in the fight for social engineering.

Parents face implacable social forces who want to make money off their children.  This needs to be said.

According to the US National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), nearly one in 11 American children aged 13-18 and one in 25 adults are affected by ADHD.
The analysis noted that Ritalin and other drugs were meant to be used only for "severe" ADHD symptoms, which according to research data only occur among about 14 percent of children with the condition.
Yet "about 87 percent of children diagnosed with ADHD in the US in 2010 subsequently received medication," it said, warning of "unnecessary and possibly harmful medication treatment".
The study said the main ADHD drugs could have side effects like weight change, liver damage and dwelling on suicide. And the drugs' long-term impact, as a child moves into adulthood, remained unknown.
The study, led by Rae Thomas at the Centre for Research in Evidence-Based Practice at Australia's Bond University, did not dispute the existence of ADHD as a medical condition.
It noted that children who genuinely had a severe form of it ran the risk of failure at school and of social rejection.

One in eleven.  There are zero children who need Ritalin.  There is no such thing as a chemical imbalance until the doctors introduce a chemical imbalance.  There are plenty of kids who are rambunctious, or mature at a different pace, and so what if they face "social rejection"  or face "failure at school."  We all face some social rejection, that's part of life, and no one faces total social rejection.  Failing at school is a problem of how schools operate.  So homeschool the gifted child.  Failing at school is no indicator of future success.  25% of our people drop out, and most do just fine.  Finishing school signifies nothing.

If you look at all these people who go to gun-free zones and starting shooting the place up, they have all had these treatments.  Talk about facing social rejection and doing poorly at school.  I call eleven dead doing poorly at school.

We have drug companies that attract soul-dead welfare queen executives, and parents who think of their kids as a consumer item... or a pet.  "Let's load junior up with whatever..."  Or at best, parents who have no idea who they are up against.

If your kid is on Ritalin, well, you've been had.  Get very expert help on getting your kid off Ritalin, and out of the system.  The stuff is extremely dangerous, and all the doctors know it.    So why do they prescribe it like "an aspirin and rest"?

If your kid acts up at school and faces social rejection, rejoice.  You have a gifted child.  Homeschool the kid, or sail around the world.  Whatever you do, do not drug the kid.  We need eery single one of those kids with the gift of ADD/ADHD. Change your life to organize around the gift.  Do not drug him.

Have a heart.


Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.

Bookmark this post --- Email this post

The Gift of ADD/ADHD and International Trade Success

Kevin checks in with an interesting article...  if I had a critique it would be the fellow is going to run into price competition, but I doubt they will beat his salesmanship.

He says he does not use sales reps, and I imagine not, since he is very good at that.  What did catch my eye...

THE BACKGROUND A Toronto native, Mr. Shvartsman learned his first sales lessons at the age of 7, helping his parents sell jewelry at a Sunday flea market. He was smart, but he struggled in school because of an undiagnosed attention deficit disorder.

And thank God they did not diagnose it!  He'd be glued to a video-game right now and countless people in Florida would be short nice patio furniture.

If someone told you your energy, creativity, curiosity and love of life is a disease, and they have been drugging you for it, then find a good doctor who can take you off the drugs (under medical care).  There is nothing wrong with you.  Get off the drugs, enjoy your incorrigible weirdness, and serve others with it.  They will be happy you did.

For the grandaddy of psychiatry critics, check out Dr. Szasz...





Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.

Bookmark this post --- Email this post

The Gift of ADD/ADHD

When I was a child, my parents asked me what I wanted for Christmas.  I said a tea set.  They begged me to be like the other boys.  I told them I tried.  The other boys would say "Let's go play baseball!"  And I'd say "No, let's take clothes apart and see how they are made."  Then the other boys would beat me up.

I told my parents about a new disease they made.  They called it hyperkinesis.  (Later they called it ADD or ADHD or both.)  I heard they had drugs for it.  I asked if I could have the drugs.

My mom had a degree in sociology and said psychiatry was bogus and hyperkinesis was not a disease. I reminded her she wanted me to be like the other kids.  She said the other kids were not on drugs, so going on drugs would not make me like the other kids.

In high school when all the kids were on drugs they were then like me.  They would do stuff like take clothes apart to see how they were made.  In class.  The clothes they were wearing.  This was better.  I began to fit in.  Except it was illegal to take such drugs.  I finally got a job in a hospital kitchen, where ADD paid off big time.  I learned ADD was a gift.

Then Uncle Sam said I should register for the draft.  Go to Vietnam like the other boys.  At that point I didn't care about being like the other boys.  I had the gift of ADD/ADHD.  War was not for me.  I filled out a bunch of forms and the military said they did not want me.  1 O.  Women and children first.  I got a job in an import export company.  A small one, perfect for someone with ADD/ADHD.

If your kid is different, it's not a disease.  It's a gift.  If they offer you drugs, decline.  Suggest if they can't keep up with a kid with ADD, perhaps they should take drugs.  That actually works out well.

Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.

Bookmark this post --- Email this post

Are You Successful?

Occasionally I get asked that question by a prospective student, and it is difficult to answer, for the questioner has trapped himself.

So I answer, “I would not wish my life on a dog.”

Usually, this startles my questioner.  But but but...

Then I follow up “But I would not trade my life for anyone else's.”

And that is absolutely true.  I certainly envy some people’s talent, this singer, that athlete,  here an artist, that cook, but never would I trade places.  And even if I had their talent, I would not use it in the way they do, so what would be the point?  They do wonderful things with their talent, and I wouldn’t do what they do.  The Bible says something about being happy with your portion.

And then, how do you explain to anyone who does not have the gift of ADD/ADHD that you have the finest gift God can bestow on a human, short of salvation itself?  It is cruel to tell people who do not have this gift that you have it, and they will never have it, this side of the parousia.

You see, the questioner wants to judge my “success” not by my standards, or his standards, by a third standard, accumulation of things.  Do I have a waterfront home, do I have nice cars, a boat on the dock, a summer place, do I have this and that, do I golf, etc.

I hesitate to answer directly because of the assumptions:

1. That those things are my idea of success.  That any “successful” people care about those things.

2. That if I had those things, I could show others how to get those things. That is delusional. One person’s path is like no others.

3. That copying someone else is a way forward. This denies that an individual has creative options.  It is an escape from responsibility.

And all for what? More stuff?

A better question than are you successful is “are you happy?”

To this question I can honestly and unhesitatingly answer, “Hell no.  War, bailouts, disease, fascism, rotten medicine, illegal search and seizure, porn, torture, spying, poverty, it all makes me sick.”

Yikes, then who would want to learn anything from me?

Because I find joy in working on solutions to all of those problems.  it is exactly the problems that give us an opportunity to make the world a better place.  Ourselves.

We have wine.  The next valley over has none.  Problems:  barrelling wine for travel, making barrells, making carts to carry wine, clearing roads over the pass, raising oxen to pull the wagon, making wagons, new clothes for 3 season travel.  Trade is solutions to problems, being aware of the problems, and experiencing the pain of realizing gthe problems, is the way forward.

Somebody who asks if I am successful is heading in exactly the opposite direction. They do not want to solve problems, they want to store up stuff.  There is no possible way I’ll ever head in that direction, and it is dicey they will ever want to go where I am going.  So when I am asked “are you successful,?’ I cringe.  Some people have been turned around, sure.  But many just want more.

There are some people whose orientation is to figure out where they can position themselves to take.  Like politicians.  Michael Lewis wrote Liar’s Poker, a cautionary tale of how Wall Street works, and he was astonished to get so many people, smart people at top schools, who missed the point and wanted to know how to get a job doing what Lewis regretted.

I just tell them the class will save them time and money getting to where they would get anyway.  Nothing more nothing less.  Whatever definition they have for success, they’ll get there faster at less cost.  That’s all i can do.  Is that worth more than what anyone might pay?  For 25 years the answer has been yes.  I keep treaching becuase people keep saying thanks.

Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.

Bookmark this post --- Email this post

Drugging Children

The New York Times has a "mock-concern" article that comes down hard on drugging kids in school.  What do you do when you see parents drugging their kids stupidly?  What do you say to parents whose kids have gone off the rails after a decade or more of psychotropic drug experiments.

“These children are still in the developmental phase, and we still don’t know how these drugs biologically affect the developing brain,” he said. “There’s an obligation for parents, doctors and teachers to respect the authenticity issue, and I’m not sure that’s always happening.”

Yes, we have no idea what the long term effects...wait, yes we do, between LSD and Ritalin, the CIA picked LSD to use because Ritalin was too unstable.

“My kids don’t want to take it, but I told them, ‘These are your grades when you’re taking it, this is when you don’t,’ and they understood,” Ms. Williams said, noting that Medicaidcovers almost every penny of her doctor and prescription costs.

This is the 47% who fear without Obama their kids won't get blottoed.  

“It’s scary to think that this is what we’ve come to; how not funding public education to meet the needs of all kids has led to this,” said the superintendent, referring to the use of stimulants in children without classic A.D.H.D. “I don’t know, but it could be happening right here. Maybe not as knowingly, but it could be a consequence of a doctor who sees a kid failing in overcrowded classes with 42 other kids and the frustrated parents asking what they can do. The doctor says, ‘Maybe it’s A.D.H.D., let’s give this a try.’ ”

Kaching!

So what do you say when you here a parent put some kid on Ritalin?  You say "You are harming your child.  The drug is nastier than any recreational drug out there.  The long term effects are horrible.  ADD is not a disease, it is kids being kids. Not all kids learn on the exact same time frame.  Stop drugging your kids, they will be fine."

"Don't feel bad, just admit it and stop.  We all screw up our kids somehow, all the way back to the way Adam and Eve raised Cain.  But when you turbo-charge bad impulses with federal dollars, corrupt medicine and money-hungry doctors, the harm is wildly leveraged.  Stop now."

Until we make it clear there is no such thing as ADD, or anything that needs medication, we will never have anyone working on solution to the damage done by drugging these kids  Ands like the article says, we'll never get proper schools, ones designed for kids like me, kids with the gift of ADD/ADHD.

Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.

Bookmark this post --- Email this post

Your Kid On Ritalin?

You made a mistake.  Friends of mine whose kids are on Ritalin get angry with me when I tell them I have the gift of ADD, and they made a terrible mistake putting their kids on Ritalin.  But, but, but...

Doesn't matter.  We all make mistakes, sometimes terrible ones.  And yes, you may have harmed your kids for life, parents do that.  No doubt I have done so to my kids in some way.  C'est la vie. But the time to stop is now, so other kids are not harmed.  And until we understand these drugs are wrong, we'll never come up with a cure or therapy to help undo the damage done to your kid.  And that work, undoing the damage, is a new business opportunity.

And always remember, medical records are not secret to protect you, they are secret to protect the drug companies and the government.

Here is a roundup from an MD on Ritalin like drugs:


Eric Harris age 17 (Zoloft then Luvox) and Dylan Klebold aged 18 in Colombine school shooting in Littleton, Colorado, killed 12 students and 1 teacher, and injured 23 others, before killing themselves. Klebold’s medical records have never been made available to the public.
Jeff Weise, age 16, had been prescribed 60 mg/day of Prozac (three times the average starting dose for adults!) when he shot his grandfather, his grandfather’s girlfriend and many fellow students at Red Lake, Minnesota. He then shot himself. 10 dead, 12 wounded.
Cory Baadsgaard, age 16, Wahluke (Washington state) High School, was on Paxil (which caused him to have hallucinations) when he took a rifle to his high school and held 23 classmates hostage. He has no memory of the event.

Thirteen-year-old Chris Fetters killed his favorite aunt while taking Prozac.

Twelve-year-old Christopher Pittman murdered both his grandparents while taking Zoloft.

Thirteen-year-old Mathew Miller hung himself in his bedroom closet after taking Zoloft for 6 days.

Fifteen-year-old Jarred Viktor stabbed his grandmother 61 times after 5 days on Paxil.

Fifteen-year-old Kip Kinkel (on Prozac and Ritalin) shot his parents while they slept then went to school and opened fire killing 2 classmates and injuring 22 shortly after beginning Prozac treatment.

Luke Woodham age 16 (Prozac) killed his mother and then killed two students, wounding six others.

A Pocatello, ID (Zoloft) in 1998 had a Zoloft-induced seizure that caused an armed stand off at his school.

Michael Carneal (Ritalin) a 14-year-old opened fire on students at a high school prayer meeting in West Paducah, Kentucky. Three teenagers were killed, five others were wounded..

Young man in Huntsville, Alabama (Ritalin) went psychotic chopping up his parents with an ax and also killing one sibling and almost murdering another.

Andrew Golden, age 11, (Ritalin) and Mitchell Johnson, aged 14, (Ritalin) shot 15 people, killing four students, one teacher, and wounding 10 others.

TJ Solomon, age 15, (Ritalin) high school student in Conyers, Georgia opened fire on and wounded six of his class mates.

Rod Mathews, age 14, (Ritalin) beat a classmate to death with a bat.
James Wilson, age 19, (various psychiatric drugs) from Breenwood, South Carolina, took a .22 caliber revolver into an elementary school killing two young girls, and wounding seven other children and two teachers.

Elizabeth Bush, age 13, (Paxil) was responsible for a school shooting in Pennsylvania

Jason Hoffman (Effexor and Celexa) – school shooting in El Cajon, California
Jarred Viktor, age 15, (Paxil), after five days on Paxil he stabbed his grandmother 61 times.

Chris Shanahan, age 15 (Paxil) in Rigby, ID who out of the blue killed a woman.

Jeff Franklin (Prozac and Ritalin), Huntsville, AL, killed his parents as they came home from work using a sledge hammer, hatchet, butcher knife and mechanic's file, then attacked his younger brothers and sister.

Neal Furrow (Prozac) in LA Jewish school shooting reported to have been court-ordered to be on Prozac along with several other medications.
Kevin Rider, age 14, was withdrawing from Prozac when he died from a gunshot wound to his head. Initially it was ruled a suicide, but two years later, the investigation into his death was opened as a possible homicide. The prime suspect, also age 14, had been taking Zoloft and other SSRI antidepressants.
Alex Kim, age 13, hung himself soon after his prescription of Lexapro had been doubled.
Diane Routhier was prescribed Welbutrin for gallstone problems. Six days later, after suffering many adverse effects of the drug, she shot herself.
Billy Willkomm, an accomplished wrestler and a University of Florida student, was prescribed Prozac at the age of 17. His family found him dead of suicide – hanging from a tall ladder at the family's Gulf Shore Boulevard home in July 2002.
Kara Jaye Anne Fuller-Otter, age 12, was on Paxil when she hung herself from a hook in her closet. Kara’s parents said ".... the damn doctor wouldn't take her off it and I asked him to when we went in on the second visit. I told him I thought she was having some sort of reaction to Paxil…")
Gareth Christian, Vancouver, age 18, was on Paxil when he committed suicide in 2002,
(Gareth’s father could not accept his son’s death and killed himself)
Julie Woodward, age 17, was on Zoloft when she hung herself in her family’s detached garage.
Matthew Miller was 13 saw a psychiatrist because he was having difficulty and school. The psychiatrist recommended Zoloft for him. Seven days after beginning the Zioloft samples, his mother found him dead… hanging by a belt from a laundry hook in his closet.
Kurt Danysh, age 18 and on Prozac, killed his father with a shotgun. He is now behind prison bars, and writes letters, trying to warn the world that SSRI drugs can kill.
Woody ____, age 37, committed suicide while in his 5^th week of taking Zoloft. Shortly before his death his physician suggested doubling the dose of the drug. He had seen his physician only for insomnia. He had never been depressed, nor did he have any history of any mental illness symptoms.
A ten-year-old boy from Houston shot and killed his father after his Prozac dosage was increased.
15-year-old Hammad Memon shot and killed a fellow middle school student. He had been diagnosed with ADHD and depression and was taking Zoloft and "other drugs for the conditions."
22-year-old culinary student Matti Saari shot and killed 9 students and a teacher, and wounded another student, before killing himself. Saari was taking an SSRI and a benzodiazapine.
27-year-old Steven Kazmierczak shot and killed five people and wounded 21 others before killing himself in a Northern Illinois University auditorium. According to his girlfriend, he had recently been taking Prozac, Xanax and Ambien. Toxicology results showed that he still had trace amounts of Xanax in his system.
18-year-old Finnish gunman Pekka-Eric Auvinen had been taking antidepressants before he killed eight people and wounded a dozen more at Jokela High School – then he committed suicide.
14-year-old Asa Coon of Cleveland, shot and wounded four before taking his own life. Court records show Coon was on Trazodone.
16-year-old Jon Romano, taking medication for depression, fired a shotgun at a teacher in his New York high school.



Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.

Bookmark this post --- Email this post

Taxation Done Right: No Fight Flight Fraud

A tax lawyer, Charles Adams, wrote a book back in 1982 called Fight Flight Fraud, The Story of Taxation.

He covers the history of taxation, from at least 3000 BC, to his time, 1982.  His thesis is taxation is the price we pay for for a civilized society, following Holmes, but the state almost always gets it wrong.  Taxing is tricky, and he shows, through historical example, where taxes go right and where they go wrong.  Taxes done wrong invite fight, flight or fraud, or some combination thereof.  And his history of the world revolves around tax policy, and its effects.  It is a fascinating trip.

The book is fundamental to any business library.  His study is comprehensive and entertaining.  My first criticism would be general... please, if you have serious content, do not lay out your book like a coffee table book.  Those of us who have the gift of ADD/ADHD get lost in such books.  The book was a gift for my birthday. It is big, 9x`12. .  It has lots of pictures  I spent a month jumping from picture to picture, reading bits here and there, and not making much sense of it.  I finally forced myself to read through from the beginning, and found the book is a treasure.

There are nuts who say the income tax is unconstitutional, and this lawyer agrees.   Not only was an income tax introduced twice, twice it was ruled unconstitutional and overturned.  Three times is the charm, and there it is.  It is still UNconstitutional for 2 reason he lays out, as a lawyer, but by 1982, USA was no longer  nation of laws.  He outlines the relentless effort on the part of American counterrevolutionaries to undo the constitution, successfully.

It was also fun to read a book contemporaneous to 1982, where many of his allusions come from that era.  A trip down memory lane, to boot.

He does not like our tax system, and his criticism of  the system 1982 would be all the stronger for today.  If you love the state and want to preserve it, then this is a game plan for avoiding revolution while funding the state.

Under Reagan there were some changes to the tax laws, but they only served to make collection wider and more efficient, not better.

A couple of interesting points.  In many cases Jews fled to Moslem safety in the face of Christian ferocity.  In one instance, welcoming Jewish perspicacity, a Moslem potentate declared Jews tax exempt.  The Jewish elders appealed to the fellow to make no such rule, for in time it would invite envy and repercussions.  The Jews have not forgotten the disaster of Joseph and their experience in Egypt.

Liberals love to point to high-tax Sweden as the workable ideal for USA.  What I did not know is Swedes are an aggressive, world class tax avoidance people.  Important detail that.  Their aggressiveness would make an Italian blush.  And on the other hand, their tax collectors would make an SS officer blush.  We can all name famous Swedes, none of them live in Sweden.  As soon a Bjorn Borg started making money in tennis, he got out of Sweden.  Swedes work hard to get way from Sweden.  When speaking admiringly of Swedish polity, that should be noted as a downside to their system.

It is his critique of the USA tax system, in light of all others, that is the harshest.  And he was writing in 1982,  imagine what he would say today.

For my part, I do not buy his thesis that “taxation is the price we pay for a civilized society .. and we can get it right. “  Taxation is one price we pay for a state, but we do not need a state.  Yes, the state can make taxes more tolerable, but since crisis feeds state power, why would the powers that be ever make life easier?  Abusive taxation may invite fight, flight or fraud, but as this history shows, the state has endless ways of countering all three.  And none more prolific than the United States.

Further, his history shows, but he does not note, that when taxes are low, the burden fairly distributed, and the government careful in spending it, we have peace and prosperity.  Well, we see that today in places like Andorra and Hong Kong, where most people have no tax burden whatsoever, becasue people tend to be self-governing when there is no state to cause malinvestment and polity distortions.  The conclusion would be eliminate the state and taxation, but he will not go that far.

But as a lawyer, his livelihood depends on the state, so as a lawyer, he will always prefer the state to his clients. 

When the US was being formed, watchers around the world were observing and commenting.  One such observer, Immanuel Kant noted an internal contradiction, a fatal flaw in our system.  You know that we have a system of checks and balances, the legislative, the judiciary and the executive branch.  Lawyers are officers of the court, that is to say, they are officers in one of the three branches of government.  For an officer of the court to serve in any other brach of government is both a conflict of interest and an abuse of power.  Kant warned such a flaw would bring down our system.  It did.

A supreme court justice, Oliver Wendell Holmes, at the top of the judiciary, is the one who said taxation is the price we pay for for a civilized society. And take a wild guess where the quote is written in stone?  Over the entrance of the Internal Revenue Headquarters, a division of the executive branch! Do we need any more evidence of perfidy than that?

One step in recovering freedom will make the implicit conflict of interest, explicit: no lawyer may serve in the legislative nor executive branch.  I think we would have avoided much grief if we listened to Kant.

Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.

Bookmark this post --- Email this post

Advertising

David Ogilvy was the enfant terrible of advertising in the 1960's and wrote a few books, in particular OGILVY ON ADVERTISING I have long recommended. He appears to have had the gift of ADD/ADHD, if his CV is any indication. He was an innovator and a truth-teller.

Ogilvy points out most advertising is a waste of money, largely an ego-investment in the form of a valentine to the CEO and crew that run the company. Think of Jack Welch and GE, and all of the money spent to tell us they "Bring Good Things to Life" in spite of the fact they at the time were pursuing business and allying with government programs that much harmed our economy.

The book made one point I found astonishing when I first read it. Ogilvy said never run an ad without a coupon. Now, Ogilvy represented Rolls Royce and Sears. Sears, I can see a coupon. But Rolls Royce? Yes, a coupon for a brochure that advanced the sales job on a Rolls Royce, but far more importantly, showed Rolls Royce exactly the response rate to the ads placed. Ogilvy taught every ad should be keyed ( indentified in some trackable way) and as dollars are spent on ads, you know exactly what you are getting for your money.

As a small business grows, small amounts of experience inform the entrepreneur as to what precipitates a customers buy. the unique offer of the entrepreneur, in the process of designing and redesigning based on market feedback, also shapes any advertising message, at its most effective, within the enterprise and as the ever better designs are being developed. It is a pas de deux between design and advertising message, the one working with the other.

in big biz, since the taxpayers ultimately support the corporations whether they fail or thrive, especially if they fail, advertising is just spending money to aggrandize oneself and support the regime. When Union 76 advertises how the oil company is advancing green initiatives, it is simply coordinating its activities with the state, and charging the cost to the taxpayers, not the customers. The rank and file celebrate bringing Union 76 into the fold of the green movement, when in fact it is a defeat.

But back to efficacious advertising. The idea that advertising will necessarily grow a business of course is nonsense. The ads must be effective, Ogilvy's small point that efficacy could be tracked caused a furor when he mentioned it, but in fact it did little damage, since, as I said, most advertising is pointless and paid for by taxpayers, not consumers, anyway.

One aspect of the damage done by government intervention in the market is since the big bucks in advertising is misallocated in the area of promoting the regime and the big biz/big govt axis of evil, what advertising skill set that is out there is malinvested in inefficacious means. Little if any work is done in the area of solid art and science of advertising.

Ogilvy's point is critical for we who actually provide a value in the marketplace. We can know if advertising is efficacious as it runs. I lay out in my book some ways of using the principle of subsidiarity to get the most effective advertising, but it should be read in the context of Ogilvy's work.

Until the time comes when advertisers have a model that guarantees a return on your investment (Google is moving in this direction) you are on your own, but can be well guided by Ogilvy, and the tried and true practices of small businesses.

Bookmark this post --- Email this post

The Gift of ADD/ADHD

Q. How many ADD kids does it take to change a lightbulb?

A. Did you see that dog?

I've mocked the ADD conceit here many times, and now comes and article that talks about this gift without over mentioning ADD?  Do you suppose someone realized drugging kids does NOT help?

Bookmark this post --- Email this post

Talk to Two Customers, Call Me In The Morning

I'd like to make an observation about being self-employed.  Now this just may be peculiar to we who have the gift of ADD/ADHD, but my heart and mind soars from the depths of discouragement to the heights of bravado, in spite of the fact that I know it is never as bad or as good as I think it may be at any given extreme.

One thing you learn is to just accept the feeling, but don't really act on it.  There is always, though, something that can get you grounded and balanced again: marketing.  Forget about what you are feeling, and just get your product or service in front of customers.  Their sober assessment will get you back on the straight and narrow.

It does not matter where you are in the process, at any point you can speak to customers, whether you are in the beginning, where you are still a consumer, or you've made the switch to where you are now a producer.  No mater where you are in the continuum of building your own business, contact with customers is always edifying, one way or another.

Bookmark this post --- Email this post

Gift of ADD/ADHD - How To Treat

Ritalin is a consumer item for most parents, something to give the kid, like a wii box or braces or whatever is popular today.  The powers that be, following Huxley, condition teachers (and some parents) to see a kid who mind can go in ten directions at once and say

"O no!  My kid's mind goes in 10 directions at once!"

A propoer response to realizing your kid has a mind goes in 10 directions at once is

"My kid's mind goes in 10 directions at once.  So what?"

The mind goes in the right direction, it merely goes in 9 others too, at the same time.  So what?

But, the kid cannot study!

No, the course is boring.  By 10 minutes into the lesson, the kid has checked it out nine other ways, and has already figured it out: whole language is bogus.  New math is bogus.  State history is untrue.  If you already know that it is all a waste of time, then why pay attention?

How can you say new math or whole language is bogus.

Well, there is no science to support its efficacy.

But plenty of kids excel with this pedagogy.  No, the only kids who excel in school are those with parental involvement.  Kids spend 8 hours a day in front of essentially TSA workers who drone on about nothing.  They then go home and have their parents teach them the lessons, or go to khanacademy.org, or otherwise learn the topic.  They do well.

Love is defined as wanting the good for the other.  If you love your children, and he has ADD, then homeschool him.  Let him study math, language and music in 4 minute increments, and be finished at 10 am to snoboarding the rest of the day.  One parent may have to quit a job, but if you pencil it out, you'll learn you are probably not giving anything up.

Bookmark this post --- Email this post

ADD: If It Is A Disease, Why I Don't Want A Cure.

I am so glad I was in grade school before the powers that be discovered the disease known as ADD/ADHD.  Of course, there is no such disease, this made-up disease is merely a means of suppressing individuals who cannot sit still in school through soul-killing monotony.  I'll say it again, if teachers cannot keep up with lively students, drug the teachers with speed, not the students with ritalin.

Everyone says ritalin is overprescribed, but never in their instance.  Parents are conditioned to reflexively accept what doctors tell them, and to become a doctor today, you have to get with the program.

At wikipedia, one would expect far more on the controversy of ADD/ADHD, but even there, the powers that be allow only trace reference.  But let's look at what the site calls a problem, with my comments after each bullet.

Predominantly inattentive type symptoms may include:^[34]

• Be easily distracted, miss details, forget things, and frequently switch from one activity to another
• We are renaissance people...
• Have difficulty focusing on one thing
• We are renaissance people, we get it faster than you can teach it...
• Become bored with a task after only a few minutes, unless doing something enjoyable
• This is an illness...?!
• Have difficulty focusing attention on organizing and completing a task or learning something new
• Only when it is banal or unimportant, in spite of what you say...
• Have trouble completing or turning in homework assignments, often losing things (e.g., pencils, toys, assignments) needed to complete tasks or activities
• We share...
• Not seem to listen when spoken to
• When the speaker is boring: how is you being boring constitute me being ill...?
• Daydream, become easily confused, and move slowly
• Right... we work on serious things, which we are obliged to do in the mind, since you could care less about our creativity...
• Have difficulty processing information as quickly and accurately as others
• As defined by you, not by us...  we are not your little brown-nosers...
• Struggle to follow instructions.
• Only because your are tedious...

Predominantly hyperactive-impulsive type symptoms may include:^[34]

• Fidget and squirm in their seats
• So let us wander around the room, or school... or neighborhood...
• Talk nonstop
• Generally what we have to say is more interesting than what you have to say, and we are a sharing tribe...
• Dash around, touching or playing with anything and everything in sight
• Well, how come you have it out, are are an inquisitive tribe...
• Have trouble sitting still during dinner, school, and story time
• We "make hay while the sun shines..." can't sit around wasting time...
• Be constantly in motion
• You envy our energy...
• Have difficulty doing quiet tasks or activities.
• We save that for sleep time...

and also these manifestations primarily of impulsivity:^[34]

• Be very impatient
• You are tedious to us.
• Blurt out inappropriate comments, show their emotions without restraint, and act without regard for consequences
• You mean no matter how much you try to oppress us, we keep on happily?  We are genuine, frank? This is a disease...?
• Have difficulty waiting for things they want or waiting their turns in games
• Right, we prefer martial arts, tennis, skiing... games where you don't have to wait for the non-ADD/ADHD people to get it together... so this is a disease...?

  No way would I ever give up my inquisitiveness, my energy, my fascination with the world around me so that I can "focus" and be a good little automaton.  If you cannot keep up with us, then may I recommend angel dust, speed or cocaine? What?  That is offensive?  But drugging irrepressible youths is   not offensive?

Set my people free!

Bookmark this post --- Email this post

The Gift Of ADD/ADHD

Sounds like he had the gift:

The best way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas.

- Linus Pauling

Bookmark this post --- Email this post

Gift of ADD?ADHD - Cheerful Giving

The preacher man this morning was explicating the concept of cheerful giving, and it dawned on me that cheerful giving is an attribute of the ADD/ADHD nation.  We are cheerful givers.  We will give anything and everything away for nothing, we volunteer for anything and everything, although we really accumulate nothing to make giving much of an impact, and we have no skills so our volunteer work seems to be a net deficit for anyone who is managing a task.

But, we look at things from a thousand ways.  We may not be able to design a bridge, but we can tell you immediately if it will fall down, because we looked it at a way you did not.  Bridge builders could concentrate in school and learn bridge-building, we could not and did not.

We warn and are ignored because we know nothing about bridge-building.  But we are right.  (Someone said "you can be happy, or you can be right: pick one.")  We move quickly from task to task, seeing learning, innovating, and are generally just happy.  The powers that be cannot have that: people pointing out error, people not producing like robots, people somehow happy.

So today the ADD nation is drugged.  And we all lose the benefit of their insights, their innovations, their warnings.  The "cure" for ADD, ritalin, is far worse than the disease, for the person forced to take it, and for the rest of us who lose the good of the ADD/ADHD citizen.

Bookmark this post --- Email this post