I SMELL A RAT

I read in my Chicago Tribune today that, "Abbot Laboratories and two other pharmaceutical firms agreed to pay more than $421 million to settle claims of defrauding Medicare and Medicaid". These are the same companies that charge working people and retirees, exhorbitant fees for drugs that cost pennies to manufacture.

They say, "We need the extra money for research, so we can find cures for dreadful diseases". I think this is pure, unadulterated balderdash. But what do I know? I'm just a blue-collar guy.

I read another interesting story today. Big business is hoarding cash instead of creating jobs for Americans! Really? Economists predict that profits for Standard & Poor's 500 companies are expected to rise 47% for the year. Yeah, sure. Now I am certain that the filthy rich really need those Bush tax breaks! The wealthy are building manufacturing plants in places like China and Viet Nam, but NOT in the United States. The union workers who made them rich here in the good old USA, cut into their profits. This isn't thier "bottom line". They have to satisfy their fat-cat stockholders. Unemployment here is 9.8%, if you can believe that low figure.

Unemployment is over 20% in the construction industry. The wealthy manufacturers and construction companies think that the unions should be eradicated. To them, we are rable rousing communists, by God! The corporates are the real rats. We should start building some big mouse traps. Maybe some proud American will donate the cheese.