(NaturalNews) What we're really seeing today with the union worker protests in Madison, Wisconsin is the collision of
money desires with
fiscal reality. Everywhere across the country, union workers want to take home more money. Across the board, from teachers and firemen to law enforcement officers and government office workers,
everybody wants a bigger paycheck. But the states are going broke. And the economic realities we're now facing are making everybody nervous.
The voters, you see, don't really want balanced budgets. Voters, as a rule, are rather short-sighted. They want the higher government wages, benefits and social programs
today but they'd rather not think about the financial cost of it all
tomorrow.
That works fine for a while... until tomorrow actually arrives. And then suddenly your state (or your nation) is facing a debt burden crisis that forces it to make extremely difficult financial decisions.
That's when the protests begin. And before long, the protests lead to riots.
If only money grew on trees
Nobody is happy about making less money... even when they're already making a lot. The average compensation for teachers in the Milwaukee Public School system, when you add up the salaries and benefits, is
over $100,000 a year. (
http://maciverinstitute.com/2010/03/average-mps-teacher-compensation-...) The salary portion alone is over $56,000.
That's pretty good money for being a teacher in a public school system. But it's never enough, you see.
Nearly everyone spends to the limit of their salary -- and then they spend a little more, too, driving them into debt and desperation. The debt spending of a typical wage-earner in America is now so severe that the average annual savings rate is a negative number. And it drives people to a sense of desperation.
Yet economic reality says the public salaries must be cut. Either that, or jobs must be cut. One way or another,
states are going to have to cut spending to remain solvent, and that means either cutting benefits, cutting jobs or cutting salaries. Of course, states could always just try to raise taxes on individuals and businesses, but that merely has the longer-term effect of driving businesses out of the state, causing a long-term job loss that ends up denying the state income tax dollars from working people, further worsening the state's economic problems.
Why states can't solve their financial problems by raising corporate taxes
That's why raising taxes may seem like a short-term solution, but it's really a long-term job killer. Texas is learning this lesson the hard way. When it recently went after Amazon.com, claiming the company owed the state several hundred million dollars because Amazon maintained a distribution center in Texas, the company responded by simply
closing down the distribution center (
http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/10/22/us-amazon-tax-idUSTRE69L5EC...).
That's the thing about raising taxes: When you squeeze companies too hard, they just shift their operations to a more tax-friendly state. The same thing goes for individuals: Raise the state income tax too much, and people leave the state to look for work somewhere else where they can keep more of the dollars they work so hard to earn.
This leaves states trying to come up with other desperate solutions to cutting expenditures or raising revenues. Several states are toying with the idea of legalizing gambling -- as if somehow having a new crisis of gambling addicts and casino zones is a net plus rather than a net loss to any given society.
Why the health care system is destroying America's economy
This all leads me to the real issue that's destroying state budgets. That is, of course,
sick care (state Medicaid). States, you see, cover the
health care benefits of both active and retired state employees. This means the states are paying for the monopoly-priced pharmaceuticals, heart bypass surgeries, toxic chemotherapy treatments and other conventional medical treatments that are collectively known as "health care."
Texas, for example, spends roughly
one-third of its state budget on health care costs (
http://sunshinereview.org/index.php/Texas_state_budget). That's nearly $60 billion a year in so-called "health care" spending. This is money that's largely just flushed down the toilet, especially given that conventional medicine does virtually nothing to help people
prevent disease and avoid becoming costly medical patients down the road.
Remember: Every dollar that goes into a pharmaceutical is a dollar the state cannot afford to pay out in worker salaries or benefits.And yet every state in the United States continues to operate a
state medical board that maintains precisely the very same state-enforced medical monopoly that's causing that state to go broke! It's the medical board that makes sure doctors don't recommend
nutritional prevention of disease, for example. Any doctor that dares to tell patients that vitamin D can prevent cancer could be stripped of their license and booted out of the state medical system. This is true in Texas, California, Illinois and nearly everywhere else in America.
It is the state medical boards, you see, that are ultimately driving these states to bankruptcy through the protectionist, monopolistic practices that censor or outlaw anything that competes with the drugs-and-surgery approach to
health care. Any therapy that
prevents disease is a financial threat to Big Pharma, hospitals, doctors and clinics. And yes, the sick care corporations and non-profits really are so greedy that they would compromise the health of the public in order to maintain their cash flows.
Case in point? Komen for the Cure raising money for cancer through the sale of buckets of fried chicken. (
http://www.naturalnews.com/028631_Komen_for_the_cure_pinkwashing.html)
The cancer industry, in particular, has willfully pursued a policy of discrediting cancer prevention strategies while increasing the recruitment of "false positive" cancer patients through mammography and other efforts. The cancer industry makes more money when people are diagnosed with cancer, of course -- not when people remain cancer-free by being informed about anti-cancer foods, supplements and activities that could save their lives.
The result of all this is that
the conventional medical system is sucking the states dry, resulting in the very financial crises that are now leading to these economic collisions between state lawmakers and state workers.
When the health care system takes away one-third of a state's money, there's not much left to go around in the form of salaries and benefits, you see. The real problem isn't the unions. The problem is that states are paying their money into a broken, fraudulent sick-care racket known as "conventional medicine."
So what's the solution? Glad you asked.
The solution: End the monopoly on conventional medicine
If you want to save your state from bankruptcy, you need to
dissolve the state medical board. Dismantle it completely. Allow doctors, naturopaths and herbalists to
teach nutrition to patients. Allow health freedom in your state by inviting the naturopathic physicians to set up shop and practice real medicine without being harassed by state officials.
End the censorship of nutritional supplements by legalizing scientifically-validated free speech on nutritional products. This would allow companies who sell helpful products (such as vitamin D) to make valid health claims such as "Vitamin D can help prevent cancer." Essentially states need to adopt Ron Paul's "Health Freedom Protection Act."
Outlaw the dangerous chemicals used in the food supply in your state: Aspartame, sodium nitrite, MSG and artificial colors. Ban the advertising of junk foods, fast foods and pharmaceuticals. Crack down on the price fixing fraud in which drug companies engage on a regular basis.
Through these actions and more, states could revolutionize their health care systems and ultimately see health care expenditures drop by 50 percent or more. This could save states like Texas
$30 billion a year!After all, taking care of sick people is hugely expensive. Preventing disease, on the other hand, is remarkably affordable. Disease prevention is
money well spent. Vitamin D, which prevents nearly 4 out of 5 cancers, is ridiculously cheap to hand out to people, even if the state bought the vitamins for its citizens!
No state can survive the cost of caring for a diseased population
Presently, no state in America truly supports disease prevention or even basic nutrition for its people.
Every state is currently supporting the very same fraudulent medical racket that's driving them bankrupt. It's like a snake swallowing its own tail to survive... sooner or later, you only end up consuming yourself.
I've said this so many times here on NaturalNews, but it's worth repeating:
No state (or nation) has any real future if it cannot encourage its people to be healthy. The sick-care costs will bankrupt you every time.
There isn't enough money in the world to pay for ongoing sickness and disease -- even if that is Big Pharma's profit model.
If the states wish to save themselves from bankruptcy, they are going to have to ditch the costly, ineffective and highly fraudulent conventional medical system that dominates health care today. This means taking aggressive action such as
dismantling the FDA, opting out of Obamacare mandates and stripping drug companies of their drug patents (many of which are based on molecules stolen from nature in the first place).
It also means getting rid of the toxic chemicals that are poisoning people and causing the very diseases that lead to skyrocketing health care costs: Aspartame, fluoride (in the water), MSG, sodium nitrite (in processed meats), psychiatric drugs, antidepressant drugs, statin drugs and all the other pharmaceuticals that are abusively prescribed to patients as part of Big Pharma's profit push.
It means legalizing healing and ending the censorship of dietary supplements and nutritional products that can actually
reverse disease and prevent illness.
It means, in essence, ending conventional medicine's deadly stranglehold on the U.S. economy.
Because make no mistake: Today's pharma-centric medical system would rather kill the patient than lose its monopoly. It will squeeze cities, states and nations until they are dead and buried and there's not a dollar left to suck out of them. The greed of pharmaceutical companies and disease industry institutions knows no bounds, no morals and no ethics. They would rather see America fall than their own profits. And they will do anything -- absolutely anything -- to prevent America from embracing health freedom, natural healing or
disease prevention, because that would spell the beginning of the end of that dark, destructive chapter in world history known as the "Dark Ages of medicine."
We are living through the final days of the Dark Ages of medicine right now. Big Pharma, the vaccine industry, the cancer industry... these are all on the verge of collapse. As states and nations fall under the financial bankruptcy of a failed, broken sick-care system, when they rise from the ashes to start anew,
they will abandon conventional medicine in favor of a medical system that actually works: Holistic
natural medicine based on patient empowerment and disease prevention rather than chasing symptoms with patented chemicals.
Nutrition can save America!
I've already spelled out all the solutions in a free special report you can download right here from NaturalNews. It's called
Nutrition Can Save America!You can read it at:
http://www.naturalnews.com/report_Nutrition_Health_America_0.htmlThis report contains the information any U.S. state needs to save itself from financial collapse under the weight of a failed sick-care system.
About the author: Mike Adams is a consumer health advocate and award-winning journalist with a passion for sharing empowering information to help improve personal and planetary health He has authored more than 1,800 articles and dozens of reports, guides and interviews on natural health topics, and he has published numerous courses on preparedness and survival, including financial preparedness, emergency food supplies, urban survival and tactical self-defense. Adams is a trusted, independent journalist who receives no money or promotional fees whatsoever to write about other companies' products. In 2010, Adams co-founded NaturalNews.com, a natural health video sharing site that has now grown in popularity. He also founded an environmentally-friendly online retailer called BetterLifeGoods.com that uses retail profits to help support consumer advocacy programs. He's also the founder and CEO of a well known email mail merge software developer whose software, 'Email Marketing Director,' currently runs the NaturalNews email subscriptions. Adams volunteers his time to serve as the executive director of the Consumer Wellness Center, a 501(c)3 non-profit organization, and practices nature photography, Capoeira, martial arts and organic gardening. He's also author a large number of health books offered by Truth Publishing and is the creator of numerous reference website including NaturalPedia.com and the free downloadable Honest Food Guide. His websites also include the free reference sites HerbReference.com and HealingFoodReference.com. Adams believes in free speech, free access to nutritional supplements and the innate healing ability of the human body.
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