Before you file for bankruptcy, it is important to realize that all bankruptcy proceedings will be listed in public bankruptcy records.
Therefore, if you have filed for bankruptcy, it is possible for anybody - including future employers or creditors - to easily look up your bankruptcy record while trying to discover your financial history. This can be very annoying in the future, and might make it harder for you to get credit that you need.
Another result of this is that there is really no point in neglecting to mention that you have had to file for bankruptcy in the past. Since the information is public, you cannot easily hide that information from a future creditor. However, you can also find out whether or not your own information is still listed on the bankruptcy record, and you can also find out exactly what information other people have access to by searching for yourself.
There is a benefit to having bankruptcy records, however, and that comes if you are going to invest in a company, or if you're looking to buy from one. You can find out what a company's bankruptcy history is, which will give you a good idea as to whether or not they are worth investing in. This is especially useful since the bankruptcy proceedings regarding smaller companies rarely make the news - and you probably will not have heard that a particular company has ever gone bankrupt.
Another thing that you can look for if you need more information would be the bankruptcy records that were filed by the bankruptcy court. These records will have detailed information about the bankruptcy proceedings, so you can find out what to expect if you end up doing business with that particular company.
However, it's important to note that just because your name is listed in the bankruptcy records does not mean that it will be impossible for you to get a loan or other line of credit if you need it. In fact, in most cases you will still be able to get credit after a bankruptcyPsychology Articles, especially if you allow time to pass and work on rebuilding your credit rating.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jakob Jelling is the founder of Cashbazar.com. Please visit http://www.cashbazar.com/bankruptcy.shtml and learn all about bankruptcy.
Saturday, May 5, 2007
Bankruptcy Alternatives - 5 Ways to Avoid Bankruptcy
In today's debt ridden society many people are in severe financial difficulties, often for reasons outside their control. Bankruptcy for many, is the last step in a long road of financial pressures but many opt for this solution too early and without considering suitable bankruptcy alternatives. Whilst bankruptcy may get rid of the immediate pressures it isn't necessarily the end of the problems.
What you are about to read may stop you making the biggest mistake of your financial life.
In today's debt ridden society many people are in severe financial difficulties, often for reasons outside their control. Bankruptcy for many, is the last step in a long road of financial pressures but many opt for this solution too early and without considering suitable bankruptcy alternatives. Whilst bankruptcy may get rid of the immediate pressures it isn't necessarily the end of the problems.
When you file for bankruptcy your life becomes an open book for the court appointed bankruptcy officials. They will pry into all aspects of your life and you will be required to provide all your financial information, including bank accounts, savings, investments and assets. Anything that can be sold or converted to cash, including your family home and any valuable contents, will be disposed of and you may still have part of your income deducted from your salary to pay some of your debts.
But there are bankruptcy alternatives that may be less painful for many. Here I've listed 5 bankruptcy alternatives
1. Negotiate with your creditors.
When you get into difficulties you should contact your creditors as soon as possible. Contacting them sends a signal that you want to repay them.
Lenders are anxious to get their money back and sometimes they will go to great lengths to help you. They may be prepared to re-finance your debt to have it paid over a longer period with lower installments.
They will often be prepared to reduce or freeze the interest rate and will even cut the balance owing up to 75%.
2. Refinance your mortgage.
If you have a property, which you own outright or on a mortgage, there is the real possibility of you being able to refinancing your debts using a secured mortgage or re mortgage.
Refinancing your debts involves taking out a new mortgage, or an additional mortgage. Some lenders will lend up to 125% of the property value allowing you to pay all your outstanding debt and may even have some spare cash to treat yourself.
As the new loan is repayable over a long period of time (often 25 - 35 years) the monthly repayments are significantly lower than with short term debt and should be far more manageable
3. Refinance your debts using a debt consolidation loan.
Debt consolidation is where you take a new unsecured loan and use the funds to pay off your outstanding debts. Debt consolidation loans are repayable over a longer term at a relatively low interest rate and as a result the monthly repayments are lower. If the loan is secured on your property then the interest rate and payments may be even lower.
4. Sell your home and downsize.
One of the easiest ways to get out of debt is to sell your house or apartment and downsize or move into rented accommodation. The surplus cash can then be used to pay your debts and you can continue with your life without the pressure.
Selling up and moving home is, however, a difficult and often painful option. If you do sell however. you can determine the price and remain in control. If the house falls into bankruptcy, you lose control and the house may be sold by
your mortgagor at auction for a price often considerably less than the price you can obtain in a normal sale.
5. A formal arrangement with your creditors.
A formal arrangement with your creditors can often be negotiated by specialist debt management companies and is filed with the courts. These arrangements are for 5 years. You pay an agreed amount each week or month to the debt management company and it is then divided between your creditors. While you continue to pay they are prevented from approaching you.
After the 5 year period is over any balance still owing is wiped out and you are free to live your life free of debt. If however you break the arrangement the normal result is bankruptcy.
As you can see, there are several sound bankruptcy alternatives for you to choose from. Everybody is under financial pressure from time to time, however you should not compound your problems by declaring bankruptcy too soon. Instead, choose the bankruptcy alternative that sounds the best for your particular situation and start working to repair your credit now.
Using a bankruptcy alternative means that in a few years you will have rebuilt your credit and will be back on trackFind Article, whereas with bankruptcy it could be ten years before you can get back to normal.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
John Edmond worked for many years in insurance and finance and now writes on debt management and finance. For more articles and advice on managing your debt go to http://www.card-debt.net or http://www.consolidation-loan-advice.info
What you are about to read may stop you making the biggest mistake of your financial life.
In today's debt ridden society many people are in severe financial difficulties, often for reasons outside their control. Bankruptcy for many, is the last step in a long road of financial pressures but many opt for this solution too early and without considering suitable bankruptcy alternatives. Whilst bankruptcy may get rid of the immediate pressures it isn't necessarily the end of the problems.
When you file for bankruptcy your life becomes an open book for the court appointed bankruptcy officials. They will pry into all aspects of your life and you will be required to provide all your financial information, including bank accounts, savings, investments and assets. Anything that can be sold or converted to cash, including your family home and any valuable contents, will be disposed of and you may still have part of your income deducted from your salary to pay some of your debts.
But there are bankruptcy alternatives that may be less painful for many. Here I've listed 5 bankruptcy alternatives
1. Negotiate with your creditors.
When you get into difficulties you should contact your creditors as soon as possible. Contacting them sends a signal that you want to repay them.
Lenders are anxious to get their money back and sometimes they will go to great lengths to help you. They may be prepared to re-finance your debt to have it paid over a longer period with lower installments.
They will often be prepared to reduce or freeze the interest rate and will even cut the balance owing up to 75%.
2. Refinance your mortgage.
If you have a property, which you own outright or on a mortgage, there is the real possibility of you being able to refinancing your debts using a secured mortgage or re mortgage.
Refinancing your debts involves taking out a new mortgage, or an additional mortgage. Some lenders will lend up to 125% of the property value allowing you to pay all your outstanding debt and may even have some spare cash to treat yourself.
As the new loan is repayable over a long period of time (often 25 - 35 years) the monthly repayments are significantly lower than with short term debt and should be far more manageable
3. Refinance your debts using a debt consolidation loan.
Debt consolidation is where you take a new unsecured loan and use the funds to pay off your outstanding debts. Debt consolidation loans are repayable over a longer term at a relatively low interest rate and as a result the monthly repayments are lower. If the loan is secured on your property then the interest rate and payments may be even lower.
4. Sell your home and downsize.
One of the easiest ways to get out of debt is to sell your house or apartment and downsize or move into rented accommodation. The surplus cash can then be used to pay your debts and you can continue with your life without the pressure.
Selling up and moving home is, however, a difficult and often painful option. If you do sell however. you can determine the price and remain in control. If the house falls into bankruptcy, you lose control and the house may be sold by
your mortgagor at auction for a price often considerably less than the price you can obtain in a normal sale.
5. A formal arrangement with your creditors.
A formal arrangement with your creditors can often be negotiated by specialist debt management companies and is filed with the courts. These arrangements are for 5 years. You pay an agreed amount each week or month to the debt management company and it is then divided between your creditors. While you continue to pay they are prevented from approaching you.
After the 5 year period is over any balance still owing is wiped out and you are free to live your life free of debt. If however you break the arrangement the normal result is bankruptcy.
As you can see, there are several sound bankruptcy alternatives for you to choose from. Everybody is under financial pressure from time to time, however you should not compound your problems by declaring bankruptcy too soon. Instead, choose the bankruptcy alternative that sounds the best for your particular situation and start working to repair your credit now.
Using a bankruptcy alternative means that in a few years you will have rebuilt your credit and will be back on trackFind Article, whereas with bankruptcy it could be ten years before you can get back to normal.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
John Edmond worked for many years in insurance and finance and now writes on debt management and finance. For more articles and advice on managing your debt go to http://www.card-debt.net or http://www.consolidation-loan-advice.info
Friday, May 4, 2007
Bankruptcy Chapter 13
I desire that the followers article will help you to better empathise this topic.
The US Congress passed a law that accomplished a set of unvarying laws to govern how bankruptcy was handled. These laws were set under a system named the bankruptcy code. In this code there are chapters that refer to assorted issues in bankruptcy. One such chapter deals with allowing the debtor to start a new life whilst they pay off their future debts. This bankruptcy chapter 13 is one of the popular bankruptcy laws.
In bankruptcy you broadly speaking need to find some way of surviving while at the same time you pay off your creditors what you owe to them. This sounds a civilized way of transaction with this mater but the accuracy is otherwise.
In most cases creditors will try to force you to pay them the assorted amounts that you owe. This form of force payment can range from a simple letter to harassment via phone calls and even visits from your creditors. With bankruptcy chapter 13 you have the best way of stopping this force payment and you are given a way to live again.
With a bankruptcy chapter 13 filing, for the person who has gotten into a debt which seems to be eating up their life’s earningsPsychology Articles, this law allows the person to find a fair way of paying off their debts.
The terms of repayment will need to be discussed with your creditors in your lawyer’s presence. This way the terms of payment will be in accordance with a judicature approved payment scheme. With this payment scheme your debts can be paid off with an quantity that you can give to spare from your each month support expenses.
Once you have filed for bankruptcy chapter 13 doesn’t allow your creditors to talk to you about your credit claims. There is a ceiling period of Five years for you to pay off any outstanding debts that you have. This refund will follow a plan that the judicature has decided will allow you to live and also compensate your creditors off.
During the period of your bankruptcy chapter 13 gives the tribunal the right to oversee how the repayment is progressing. Your interests for this integral time period will be looked after by your lawyer. There are other benefits that you can find with this bankruptcy chapter 13 law.
In this law you will be able to obtain a full discharge alternative for your bankruptcy claim if you have managed to wage of all of the spectacular debts. The other great advantage of bankruptcy chapter13 law is that anyone can file for bankruptcy chapter 13 as long as they have a steady income with which they can devote off their debts.
Thank you for Taking you time to read through this data if you’re interested in gathering more knowledge please continue to search this site.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Michael Malega presents several bankruptcy chapter 13 articles for your information. You can visit Michael's WWW site at: http://www.bankruptcy-chapter-13-facts.com/index.php
The US Congress passed a law that accomplished a set of unvarying laws to govern how bankruptcy was handled. These laws were set under a system named the bankruptcy code. In this code there are chapters that refer to assorted issues in bankruptcy. One such chapter deals with allowing the debtor to start a new life whilst they pay off their future debts. This bankruptcy chapter 13 is one of the popular bankruptcy laws.
In bankruptcy you broadly speaking need to find some way of surviving while at the same time you pay off your creditors what you owe to them. This sounds a civilized way of transaction with this mater but the accuracy is otherwise.
In most cases creditors will try to force you to pay them the assorted amounts that you owe. This form of force payment can range from a simple letter to harassment via phone calls and even visits from your creditors. With bankruptcy chapter 13 you have the best way of stopping this force payment and you are given a way to live again.
With a bankruptcy chapter 13 filing, for the person who has gotten into a debt which seems to be eating up their life’s earningsPsychology Articles, this law allows the person to find a fair way of paying off their debts.
The terms of repayment will need to be discussed with your creditors in your lawyer’s presence. This way the terms of payment will be in accordance with a judicature approved payment scheme. With this payment scheme your debts can be paid off with an quantity that you can give to spare from your each month support expenses.
Once you have filed for bankruptcy chapter 13 doesn’t allow your creditors to talk to you about your credit claims. There is a ceiling period of Five years for you to pay off any outstanding debts that you have. This refund will follow a plan that the judicature has decided will allow you to live and also compensate your creditors off.
During the period of your bankruptcy chapter 13 gives the tribunal the right to oversee how the repayment is progressing. Your interests for this integral time period will be looked after by your lawyer. There are other benefits that you can find with this bankruptcy chapter 13 law.
In this law you will be able to obtain a full discharge alternative for your bankruptcy claim if you have managed to wage of all of the spectacular debts. The other great advantage of bankruptcy chapter13 law is that anyone can file for bankruptcy chapter 13 as long as they have a steady income with which they can devote off their debts.
Thank you for Taking you time to read through this data if you’re interested in gathering more knowledge please continue to search this site.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Michael Malega presents several bankruptcy chapter 13 articles for your information. You can visit Michael's WWW site at: http://www.bankruptcy-chapter-13-facts.com/index.php
bankruptcy records
Time to get started on this topic. Take a few moments to read every aspect of this paper hopefully it will be of great help.
Most of the time the actions we take and the things we do, are reasoned as being public and as such they can be viewed by anyone. This fact also holds true for the individuals who have gone through with bankruptcy. Once you have filed for bankruptcy it becomes public property and anyone can look for your bankruptcy records.
In most cases prospective employers who are looking to employ person will sometimes look in bankruptcy records. These records can be accessed by anyone. You can find this information by calling the bankruptcy courts’ voice automated service. This help will provide you the selective information that you require.
To attain this information you will need to supply the case number, social Security number or the name of the person that you are looking for info about. You will also be able to access these bankruptcy records from the bankruptcy courts web site.
At the spot the data about bankruptcy records is free but you should check to see if this is the eccentric the next time that you look for diverse bankruptcy records. The bankruptcy records will contain lots of information about the bankruptcy case.
This info mostly is the name of the person who is filing for bankruptcy and which bankruptcy for filed for. Special information like bank bill informationFind Article, current and past residential addresses can be found from the bankruptcy records. You can also find the person’s social Security number and their date of birth.
These bankruptcy records hold the selective information about the person’s family – the names of the spouse and the children – and employment records. Fundamentally you will be able to approach the integral life history of the person. This data is helpful if you want to know if the person has a history of finance problems.
In the bankruptcy records once you provide the case number of the bankruptcy case you will be able to look at the integral proceeding. This selective information will let in the names of the lawyers who worked on the failure case. The versatile assets and property that were not part of the failure defrayment scheme will be listed as well.
Also having data on bankruptcy clients bankruptcy records can deal with other matters that deal with bankruptcy. These matters can be the another(a) types of information that are needed for the various forms of bankruptcy. You can also accession info about where to find and get the bankruptcy forms that you need.
While bankruptcy records hold information about a person who has gone through a failure case they are normally looked up by people who need this selective information for their company’s credit purposes. The system of public access makes this data readily available and easy to find.
I desire you enjoyed reading this article and found the information useful and interesting.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Michael Malega presents several bankruptcy facts articles for your information. You can visit Michael's net site at: http://www.bankruptcy-chapter-13-facts.com/Bankruptcy-Records.php
Most of the time the actions we take and the things we do, are reasoned as being public and as such they can be viewed by anyone. This fact also holds true for the individuals who have gone through with bankruptcy. Once you have filed for bankruptcy it becomes public property and anyone can look for your bankruptcy records.
In most cases prospective employers who are looking to employ person will sometimes look in bankruptcy records. These records can be accessed by anyone. You can find this information by calling the bankruptcy courts’ voice automated service. This help will provide you the selective information that you require.
To attain this information you will need to supply the case number, social Security number or the name of the person that you are looking for info about. You will also be able to access these bankruptcy records from the bankruptcy courts web site.
At the spot the data about bankruptcy records is free but you should check to see if this is the eccentric the next time that you look for diverse bankruptcy records. The bankruptcy records will contain lots of information about the bankruptcy case.
This info mostly is the name of the person who is filing for bankruptcy and which bankruptcy for filed for. Special information like bank bill informationFind Article, current and past residential addresses can be found from the bankruptcy records. You can also find the person’s social Security number and their date of birth.
These bankruptcy records hold the selective information about the person’s family – the names of the spouse and the children – and employment records. Fundamentally you will be able to approach the integral life history of the person. This data is helpful if you want to know if the person has a history of finance problems.
In the bankruptcy records once you provide the case number of the bankruptcy case you will be able to look at the integral proceeding. This selective information will let in the names of the lawyers who worked on the failure case. The versatile assets and property that were not part of the failure defrayment scheme will be listed as well.
Also having data on bankruptcy clients bankruptcy records can deal with other matters that deal with bankruptcy. These matters can be the another(a) types of information that are needed for the various forms of bankruptcy. You can also accession info about where to find and get the bankruptcy forms that you need.
While bankruptcy records hold information about a person who has gone through a failure case they are normally looked up by people who need this selective information for their company’s credit purposes. The system of public access makes this data readily available and easy to find.
I desire you enjoyed reading this article and found the information useful and interesting.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Michael Malega presents several bankruptcy facts articles for your information. You can visit Michael's net site at: http://www.bankruptcy-chapter-13-facts.com/Bankruptcy-Records.php
Thursday, May 3, 2007
Ethics: the all-important lesson that's rarely taught in medical schools or public schools
We teach a lot of subjects to a lot of people in this country, and as a result we produce great technicians: people who are masters of subjects like mathematics, chemistry, anatomy, biology, history, American literature and so on. But there's one subject we almost never teach. You won't find it taught in our public schools, it's never mentioned in medical schools and it's only rarely approached at universities. But it's perhaps the most important lesson of all, and it's something that's desperately lacking in our society. What is it? The lesson of ethics.
In the United States, we are not taught ethics as children or adults. Unless our parents happened to be great teachers of these subjects, no one teaches us the lessons of honesty, integrity, or how to practice compassion. And the result of this lack of ethics education is a nation that pursues capitalism in all its forms without applying appropriate ethics.
This is exactly how we ended up creating companies like Merck, which sells drugs like Vioxx. This is how we created Enron, a company that deceived an entire country and took advantage of people in order to generate profits for itself. This is how we ended up with the WorldCom fiasco, the Disney meltdown, and the horrifying modern day FDA. It is a lack of ethics that has created many of the problems in this country. Not a lack of capitalism or a lack of ingenuity or a lack of technical ability, but an inability of people to demonstrate even the fundamentals of ethical behavior.
I have a theory on why medical schools, in particular, don't want to teach ethics. It's because ethics aren't black and white. There's no direct, easy answer when you start asking ethical questions. What medical schools want is one answer for one symptom. They want a clear-cut solution for every problem. It must be compartmentalized or framed in a reductionistic mindset in order to appeal to medical schools.
Yet ethics education is exactly what conventional medicine needs most, because so much of what's going on in organized medicine today is practiced without ethics, without compassion, and without any real recognition of the very humanity of the patients the industry is supposed to be serving. Too often in modern medicine, general practitioners, oncologists and surgeons look at patients as just another paying customer... another person to run through the system. And that's how a lot of hospitals and drug companies look at it, too. It's certainly how Medicare and Medicaid programs view patients. The humanity gets lost in the equation.
I agree that, as a health practitioner, it can be challenging to offer more individualized, compassionate services to patients, because if you get too close, it's easy to unintentionally take on some of the patients' stresses and sicknesses. But there is a balance that can be achieved, and I think this balance is being achieved right now by those in naturopathic medicine and the healing arts like therapeutic touch. Yet this balance is not at all achieved by conventional medicine, because ethics and compassionate are simply not part of the curriculum.
I ask, how can a medical system that has no recognition of the humanity of patients expect to find success treating those patients? It can't. And that's why modern (western) medicine has failed. Under its watch, we have seen the proliferation of the most diseased population ever observed in the history of civilization. All that medical technology, you see, is worthless if you don't have ethics guiding you in its use.
Now this isn't to say, by the way, that all doctors are unethical. Most doctors that I have met personally, even if they are followers of conventional medicine, are themselves ethical people. But they've arrived at that through personal experience, not through any formal education. We have a situation in this country where people may stumble across the subject of ethics on their own, or they may receive an education from non-traditional sources such as family members or participation in organized religion, but they sure don't get ethics from med schools.
At the same time that we have people who stumble across ethics and end up incorporating a philosophy of ethics into their lives, we also have another group of people who never embrace ethics and who basically run around society as business leaders, medical leaders, CEOs of drug companies, and political leaders. It seems like many of these people lack any degree of ethics that most other people would consider to be normal.
For example, if you were the CEO of a drug company selling a prescription drug, and you found out that your drug tripled or quadrupled the risk of heart attacks in people who took it, would you have the ethics and the courage to say, "Hey, maybe we should take this drug off the market?" That's not what happens in the pharmaceutical industry. Rather than taking the drug off the market and protecting patients, companies routinely seek to hide the negative studies, distort the truth, cover up the truth and keep selling the drug to generate profits. And this isn't an exception I'm talking about here: it's the rule in the drug industry! That's how things are actually done in the pharmaceutical world today. It's all about making more money no matter what happens to the patient. If you don't believe me, just look at what's been happening with the COX-2 inhibitors debate. This class of drugs, which has killed tens of thousands of Americans, and for which the FDA even admits a greatly increased risk of cardiovascular disease, has been selected by the FDA to remain on the market!
We are in a situation now where we have literally 25% of the Gross Domestic Product being spent on health care. That's a tremendous amount of money that's being generated through systems of marketing, advertising, propaganda and deception that are highly unethical. A recent study says that nearly half of all personal bankruptcies in the United States are due to medical bills. And that's true, but I think that the big bankruptcy in this country is the ethical bankruptcy. We are morally and ethically bankrupt as a nation. The results of that bankruptcy include skyrocketing rates of chronic disease, increased stress in daily life, reduced quality of life, growing social problems, the mass diagnosis of mental and behavioral disorders, a failing health care system, deep bankruptcy at the federal government level, and much more.
I find it astonishing that even in our public schools, children can go through 12 years of so-called "education" and not receive a single class on ethics. Unless they happen to have gifted teachers, they're never told about honesty or the power of doing good deeds for others. They're never taught to value another human life. This is simply not part of the official curriculum. In fact, most of the messages children receive teach them the opposite of ethics. Messages from the media, video games, television programs, and movies are largely about violence, trauma and killing other people in order to accomplish your goals. That's what you see in the action shows and a lot of Hollywood movies where it's all about taking out your enemy rather than finding ways to cooperate. The media engenders conflict, not compassion.
I suggest we initiate a fundamental change in our medical schools and public schools. Perhaps we should stop trying to be such virtuoso technicians and, instead, learn to apply ethics to these technical skills. Because if you're not making the right decision from a moral, ethical viewpoint, then what good is all the technology in the world?
With sufficient technology, for example, you can grow organs for human transplants inside the bodies of living, breathing mammals (like pigs). We have the technology to do that right now. But is it ethical to grant life to mammals so that we can kill them, retrieve their organs, and put those organs into the bodies of human beings who have abused their bodies to the point where their own organs have failed? Is that an ethical application of technology?
I'm not attempting to answer that complex question here, but I am saying that we need to be asking these questions. And until we do so, we're going to find ourselves deeper in bankruptcy at every level imaginable: financially, socially and ethically.
http://www.newstarget.com/004901.html
In the United States, we are not taught ethics as children or adults. Unless our parents happened to be great teachers of these subjects, no one teaches us the lessons of honesty, integrity, or how to practice compassion. And the result of this lack of ethics education is a nation that pursues capitalism in all its forms without applying appropriate ethics.
This is exactly how we ended up creating companies like Merck, which sells drugs like Vioxx. This is how we created Enron, a company that deceived an entire country and took advantage of people in order to generate profits for itself. This is how we ended up with the WorldCom fiasco, the Disney meltdown, and the horrifying modern day FDA. It is a lack of ethics that has created many of the problems in this country. Not a lack of capitalism or a lack of ingenuity or a lack of technical ability, but an inability of people to demonstrate even the fundamentals of ethical behavior.
I have a theory on why medical schools, in particular, don't want to teach ethics. It's because ethics aren't black and white. There's no direct, easy answer when you start asking ethical questions. What medical schools want is one answer for one symptom. They want a clear-cut solution for every problem. It must be compartmentalized or framed in a reductionistic mindset in order to appeal to medical schools.
Yet ethics education is exactly what conventional medicine needs most, because so much of what's going on in organized medicine today is practiced without ethics, without compassion, and without any real recognition of the very humanity of the patients the industry is supposed to be serving. Too often in modern medicine, general practitioners, oncologists and surgeons look at patients as just another paying customer... another person to run through the system. And that's how a lot of hospitals and drug companies look at it, too. It's certainly how Medicare and Medicaid programs view patients. The humanity gets lost in the equation.
I agree that, as a health practitioner, it can be challenging to offer more individualized, compassionate services to patients, because if you get too close, it's easy to unintentionally take on some of the patients' stresses and sicknesses. But there is a balance that can be achieved, and I think this balance is being achieved right now by those in naturopathic medicine and the healing arts like therapeutic touch. Yet this balance is not at all achieved by conventional medicine, because ethics and compassionate are simply not part of the curriculum.
I ask, how can a medical system that has no recognition of the humanity of patients expect to find success treating those patients? It can't. And that's why modern (western) medicine has failed. Under its watch, we have seen the proliferation of the most diseased population ever observed in the history of civilization. All that medical technology, you see, is worthless if you don't have ethics guiding you in its use.
Now this isn't to say, by the way, that all doctors are unethical. Most doctors that I have met personally, even if they are followers of conventional medicine, are themselves ethical people. But they've arrived at that through personal experience, not through any formal education. We have a situation in this country where people may stumble across the subject of ethics on their own, or they may receive an education from non-traditional sources such as family members or participation in organized religion, but they sure don't get ethics from med schools.
At the same time that we have people who stumble across ethics and end up incorporating a philosophy of ethics into their lives, we also have another group of people who never embrace ethics and who basically run around society as business leaders, medical leaders, CEOs of drug companies, and political leaders. It seems like many of these people lack any degree of ethics that most other people would consider to be normal.
For example, if you were the CEO of a drug company selling a prescription drug, and you found out that your drug tripled or quadrupled the risk of heart attacks in people who took it, would you have the ethics and the courage to say, "Hey, maybe we should take this drug off the market?" That's not what happens in the pharmaceutical industry. Rather than taking the drug off the market and protecting patients, companies routinely seek to hide the negative studies, distort the truth, cover up the truth and keep selling the drug to generate profits. And this isn't an exception I'm talking about here: it's the rule in the drug industry! That's how things are actually done in the pharmaceutical world today. It's all about making more money no matter what happens to the patient. If you don't believe me, just look at what's been happening with the COX-2 inhibitors debate. This class of drugs, which has killed tens of thousands of Americans, and for which the FDA even admits a greatly increased risk of cardiovascular disease, has been selected by the FDA to remain on the market!
We are in a situation now where we have literally 25% of the Gross Domestic Product being spent on health care. That's a tremendous amount of money that's being generated through systems of marketing, advertising, propaganda and deception that are highly unethical. A recent study says that nearly half of all personal bankruptcies in the United States are due to medical bills. And that's true, but I think that the big bankruptcy in this country is the ethical bankruptcy. We are morally and ethically bankrupt as a nation. The results of that bankruptcy include skyrocketing rates of chronic disease, increased stress in daily life, reduced quality of life, growing social problems, the mass diagnosis of mental and behavioral disorders, a failing health care system, deep bankruptcy at the federal government level, and much more.
I find it astonishing that even in our public schools, children can go through 12 years of so-called "education" and not receive a single class on ethics. Unless they happen to have gifted teachers, they're never told about honesty or the power of doing good deeds for others. They're never taught to value another human life. This is simply not part of the official curriculum. In fact, most of the messages children receive teach them the opposite of ethics. Messages from the media, video games, television programs, and movies are largely about violence, trauma and killing other people in order to accomplish your goals. That's what you see in the action shows and a lot of Hollywood movies where it's all about taking out your enemy rather than finding ways to cooperate. The media engenders conflict, not compassion.
I suggest we initiate a fundamental change in our medical schools and public schools. Perhaps we should stop trying to be such virtuoso technicians and, instead, learn to apply ethics to these technical skills. Because if you're not making the right decision from a moral, ethical viewpoint, then what good is all the technology in the world?
With sufficient technology, for example, you can grow organs for human transplants inside the bodies of living, breathing mammals (like pigs). We have the technology to do that right now. But is it ethical to grant life to mammals so that we can kill them, retrieve their organs, and put those organs into the bodies of human beings who have abused their bodies to the point where their own organs have failed? Is that an ethical application of technology?
I'm not attempting to answer that complex question here, but I am saying that we need to be asking these questions. And until we do so, we're going to find ourselves deeper in bankruptcy at every level imaginable: financially, socially and ethically.
http://www.newstarget.com/004901.html
Be a fiscal patriot: die early and save your government from bankruptcy
This may come as a shock to some people, but once you retire, you're of no financial use to the government of the country in which you live, and thus the government has no financial incentive whatsoever to invest in your longevity or long-term health. In fact, if you think about it, governments that have any sort of social programs, including social security, save money when you die as soon as possible after retirement. If you live into your 80's or 90's, you are costing the government a lot of money over the long haul, whereas if you die the minute you hit 66 or 67, you've lived out your productive, tax-paying life, and yet have not cost the government by staying on the public payrolls.
Not surprisingly, some people say the government even hopes you die younger, or that the U.S. government in particular is promoting prescription drugs and discrediting nutritional supplements to make sure no one lives very long. I think that's a rather sinister assumption. I don't believe in some giant conspiracy to make everybody ill just to prevent the government from going bankrupt.
Frankly, I don't think our government has the financial sense to prevent bankruptcy in the first place. We're already bankrupt. Social security is already broke. What will it matter if the government is a little more bankrupt because people are living longer and collecting more social security? This massive government theft from private citizens is a system that's going to collapse anyway. Kiss your social security deposits goodbye if you're under 40. Chances are, you'll outlive social security's solvency by a long shot.
Or, to save it, our lawmakers will just keep raising the retirement age to make sure nobody qualifies to collect. Pretty soon it will hit 70, then 75, and then 80. All they have to do is raise the age to the point where fewer than 5% of the population even lives that long. Let's face it: social security is just a legalized Ponzi scheme -- a system of generational theft that takes money from one group of working people and hands it over to another. And just like a classic Ponzi scheme, the promises can't be met. The money simply isn't there any more, and some time in the next two decades, the public is eventually going to figure this out.
Regardless of what you believe on this issue, it's sort of a moot point, because our nation is going bankrupt anyway, and much of that bankruptcy is caused by health care costs. Today, our health care costs absorb 25 percent of our gross domestic product. One out of every four dollars is spent for healthcare, and that number is rising. It is bankrupting our nation, and just as significantly, it is reducing our competitiveness in the global marketplace. It's now comparatively cheaper for employers to hire people in other countries, not just because the hourly wage costs are lower, but increasingly because the health care costs are more affordable.
We have a worsening health care crisis in this country, and yet no one is talking about real solutions. The only discussions on the table are about shifting money from one party to another, lowering prescription drug costs, passing the buck, shuffling around paperwork, and basically just changing who's accountable for the bankruptcy, rather than actually trying to make people healthy.
We need to start investing in prevention, but of course, as I've pointed out many times, if we actually had a healthy population, the government wouldn't be able to afford it. Taxes would have to go up considerably if the average lifespan increased by only five years. And if people started eating fruits and vegetables, if the food supply was cleaned up to remove metabolic disruptors and toxic ingredients, and if hydrogenated oils were banned, then the average lifespan in this country would increase even further. That will cost the government billions of dollars that it doesn't have. Which means, of course, we'd have to sell more treasury bills (government debt) to China and Japan.
So again, some people might say that these toxic ingredients are still allowed in the food supply -- that the FDA allows companies to use hydrogenated oils and sodium nitrite and high-fructose corn syrup -- because we have to keep the population chronically diseased. They say it is not only good fiscal policy for the federal government, but it also creates generous profits for the pharmaceutical companies. That last part of it is certainly true: Big Pharma makes billions treating disease symptoms caused by toxic food ingredients.
But I don't think our federal government has the single-minded focus necessary to have an organized campaign of early deaths just to save public funds. However, there's no denying the financial cause and effect of longevity versus dying shortly after retirement. When people die shortly after retirement, they save the government a big pile of cash.
It's not a conspiracy, it's just public health complacency.
You can bet that if there were a system where people somehow paid more money to the government for every day they lived past 70, we'd see all sorts of government-funded investments in longevity research. They'd be banning dangerous food ingredients and toxic prescription drugs daily. Cigarettes would be outlawed. Junk food advertising would be banned. Subsidies would be offered for monthly fitness club memberships. And the average lifespan of U.S. citizens would skyrocket.
But that's in la-la land. In the real world, nobody makes any money when you live longer. The only person who benefits is you.
Your internal conspiracy theory
You want a conspiracy theory? I'll give you one: most people conspire to kill themselves before retirement age by avoiding exercise, eating processed foods, refusing to take nutritional supplements and gulping down dangerous prescription drugs. If there's anyone to blame for dying early around here, it's the people who refuse to take care of their own health.
I mean, let's face it: an informed consumer doesn't have to eat hydrogenated oils at all. C'mon... it's listed right there on the label! You can't blame the FDA or federal government for your health problems when you're the one wolfing down another five donuts at dessert. And don't blame social security for the fact that your own food and lifestyle habits add up to an average lifespan of about 53. That's your own fault, not the government's. Even people who know what's unhealthy still manage to conspire against their own good sense and eat that stuff anyway.
That's the real conspiracy here, folks.
Because remember this: you can't control the lawmakers in Washington. You can't control the future of social security. You can't even control the FDA. But you can darn well control what you put in your own mouth. Your health is the one thing about your future that you do control.
So if you want to be a fiscal patriot, go ahead and die early to save the government from bankruptcy. But if you want to be healthy, focus on those things you can control and make the best of them. This nation may end up flat broke, but at least you can walk away from it all with your health fully intact.
To me, that's a lot more valuable than a bunch of IOUs from a government that's already neck-deep in the tar pit of financial ruin.
http://www.newstarget.com/007763.html
Not surprisingly, some people say the government even hopes you die younger, or that the U.S. government in particular is promoting prescription drugs and discrediting nutritional supplements to make sure no one lives very long. I think that's a rather sinister assumption. I don't believe in some giant conspiracy to make everybody ill just to prevent the government from going bankrupt.
Frankly, I don't think our government has the financial sense to prevent bankruptcy in the first place. We're already bankrupt. Social security is already broke. What will it matter if the government is a little more bankrupt because people are living longer and collecting more social security? This massive government theft from private citizens is a system that's going to collapse anyway. Kiss your social security deposits goodbye if you're under 40. Chances are, you'll outlive social security's solvency by a long shot.
Or, to save it, our lawmakers will just keep raising the retirement age to make sure nobody qualifies to collect. Pretty soon it will hit 70, then 75, and then 80. All they have to do is raise the age to the point where fewer than 5% of the population even lives that long. Let's face it: social security is just a legalized Ponzi scheme -- a system of generational theft that takes money from one group of working people and hands it over to another. And just like a classic Ponzi scheme, the promises can't be met. The money simply isn't there any more, and some time in the next two decades, the public is eventually going to figure this out.
Regardless of what you believe on this issue, it's sort of a moot point, because our nation is going bankrupt anyway, and much of that bankruptcy is caused by health care costs. Today, our health care costs absorb 25 percent of our gross domestic product. One out of every four dollars is spent for healthcare, and that number is rising. It is bankrupting our nation, and just as significantly, it is reducing our competitiveness in the global marketplace. It's now comparatively cheaper for employers to hire people in other countries, not just because the hourly wage costs are lower, but increasingly because the health care costs are more affordable.
We have a worsening health care crisis in this country, and yet no one is talking about real solutions. The only discussions on the table are about shifting money from one party to another, lowering prescription drug costs, passing the buck, shuffling around paperwork, and basically just changing who's accountable for the bankruptcy, rather than actually trying to make people healthy.
We need to start investing in prevention, but of course, as I've pointed out many times, if we actually had a healthy population, the government wouldn't be able to afford it. Taxes would have to go up considerably if the average lifespan increased by only five years. And if people started eating fruits and vegetables, if the food supply was cleaned up to remove metabolic disruptors and toxic ingredients, and if hydrogenated oils were banned, then the average lifespan in this country would increase even further. That will cost the government billions of dollars that it doesn't have. Which means, of course, we'd have to sell more treasury bills (government debt) to China and Japan.
So again, some people might say that these toxic ingredients are still allowed in the food supply -- that the FDA allows companies to use hydrogenated oils and sodium nitrite and high-fructose corn syrup -- because we have to keep the population chronically diseased. They say it is not only good fiscal policy for the federal government, but it also creates generous profits for the pharmaceutical companies. That last part of it is certainly true: Big Pharma makes billions treating disease symptoms caused by toxic food ingredients.
But I don't think our federal government has the single-minded focus necessary to have an organized campaign of early deaths just to save public funds. However, there's no denying the financial cause and effect of longevity versus dying shortly after retirement. When people die shortly after retirement, they save the government a big pile of cash.
It's not a conspiracy, it's just public health complacency.
You can bet that if there were a system where people somehow paid more money to the government for every day they lived past 70, we'd see all sorts of government-funded investments in longevity research. They'd be banning dangerous food ingredients and toxic prescription drugs daily. Cigarettes would be outlawed. Junk food advertising would be banned. Subsidies would be offered for monthly fitness club memberships. And the average lifespan of U.S. citizens would skyrocket.
But that's in la-la land. In the real world, nobody makes any money when you live longer. The only person who benefits is you.
Your internal conspiracy theory
You want a conspiracy theory? I'll give you one: most people conspire to kill themselves before retirement age by avoiding exercise, eating processed foods, refusing to take nutritional supplements and gulping down dangerous prescription drugs. If there's anyone to blame for dying early around here, it's the people who refuse to take care of their own health.
I mean, let's face it: an informed consumer doesn't have to eat hydrogenated oils at all. C'mon... it's listed right there on the label! You can't blame the FDA or federal government for your health problems when you're the one wolfing down another five donuts at dessert. And don't blame social security for the fact that your own food and lifestyle habits add up to an average lifespan of about 53. That's your own fault, not the government's. Even people who know what's unhealthy still manage to conspire against their own good sense and eat that stuff anyway.
That's the real conspiracy here, folks.
Because remember this: you can't control the lawmakers in Washington. You can't control the future of social security. You can't even control the FDA. But you can darn well control what you put in your own mouth. Your health is the one thing about your future that you do control.
So if you want to be a fiscal patriot, go ahead and die early to save the government from bankruptcy. But if you want to be healthy, focus on those things you can control and make the best of them. This nation may end up flat broke, but at least you can walk away from it all with your health fully intact.
To me, that's a lot more valuable than a bunch of IOUs from a government that's already neck-deep in the tar pit of financial ruin.
http://www.newstarget.com/007763.html
Head of GAO warns America is headed for financial ruin; national debt will bankrupt U.S. economy
(NewsTarget) The comptroller general of the United States says the nation is on the path to financial ruin unless the American public tells Washington to change its ways.
David M. Walker, head of the General Accountability Office, or GAO, is the nation's top federal accountant. With the voting season now in full swing as November approaches, candidates from both major political parties are talking up the standard issues that energize the public and encourage discussions, but no candidate appears to be talking about the state of the nation's fiscal prospects.
"This is about the future of our country, our kids and grandkids … we the people have to rise up to make sure things get changed," says Walker.
Walker said the challenges facing the nation were severe as the federal government continues to fund operations by borrowing foreign money. He also warned of the coming effects on the economy as the "baby boomer" generation begins retiring, calling it a "demographic tsunami" about to wash ashore.
"He can speak forthrightly and independently because his job is not in jeopardy if he tells the truth," said Isabel V. Sawhill, a senior fellow in economic studies at the Brookings Institution. Walker's term ends in 2013, as he is serving a 15-year term as the comptroller of the U.S., so he has one of the most secure jobs in Washington. That fact frees him to be candid about the state of the nation's economy.
"You can't solve a problem until the majority of the people believe you have a problem that needs to be solved," Walker says.
Mike Adams, a consumer advocate, adds that "The U.S. national debt is the 800-pound gorilla hiding in the economic closet … no one wants to talk about the national debt, and no politician who talks about reducing it will ever get elected. The U.S. public has lost any appetite for fiscal restraint and seems intent on driving this economy into total debt collapse."
http://www.newstarget.com/020930.html
David M. Walker, head of the General Accountability Office, or GAO, is the nation's top federal accountant. With the voting season now in full swing as November approaches, candidates from both major political parties are talking up the standard issues that energize the public and encourage discussions, but no candidate appears to be talking about the state of the nation's fiscal prospects.
"This is about the future of our country, our kids and grandkids … we the people have to rise up to make sure things get changed," says Walker.
Walker said the challenges facing the nation were severe as the federal government continues to fund operations by borrowing foreign money. He also warned of the coming effects on the economy as the "baby boomer" generation begins retiring, calling it a "demographic tsunami" about to wash ashore.
"He can speak forthrightly and independently because his job is not in jeopardy if he tells the truth," said Isabel V. Sawhill, a senior fellow in economic studies at the Brookings Institution. Walker's term ends in 2013, as he is serving a 15-year term as the comptroller of the U.S., so he has one of the most secure jobs in Washington. That fact frees him to be candid about the state of the nation's economy.
"You can't solve a problem until the majority of the people believe you have a problem that needs to be solved," Walker says.
Mike Adams, a consumer advocate, adds that "The U.S. national debt is the 800-pound gorilla hiding in the economic closet … no one wants to talk about the national debt, and no politician who talks about reducing it will ever get elected. The U.S. public has lost any appetite for fiscal restraint and seems intent on driving this economy into total debt collapse."
http://www.newstarget.com/020930.html
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