Universal Health Care in USA ... Facts ! 6/24/09

America Needs/Deserves Health Care Now !

Myth: The U.S. has the best health care system in the world. Fact: The U.S. has among the worst health statistics of all rich nations. Summary The U.S. does not have the best health care system in the world - it has the best emergency care system in the world. Advanced U.S. medical technology has not translated into better health statistics for its citizens; indeed, the U.S. ranks near the bottom in list after list of international comparisons. Part of the problem is that there is more profit in a pound of cure than an ounce of prevention. Another part of the problem is that America has the highest level of poverty and income inequality among all rich nations, and poverty affects one's health much more than the limited ministrations of a formal health care system. Argument Let's review the health care statistics first, and analyze them afterwards. All statistics here are for the year 1991; they have generally become worse for the U.S. since then.Health Care Expenditures (percent of GDP) (1)

United States 13.4%
Canada 10.0
Finland 9.1
Sweden 8.6
Germany 8.4
Netherlands 8.4
Norway 7.6
Japan 6.8
United Kingdom 6.6
Denmark 6.5
Doctors' incomes: (2)
United States $132,300
Germany 91,244
Denmark 50,585
Finland 42,943
Norway 35,356
Sweden 25,768

Percent of population covered by public health care:
ALL NATIONS (except below) 100%
France, Austria 99
Switzerland, Spain, Belgium 98
Germany 92
Netherlands 77
United States 40
Average paid maternity leave (as of 1991; this changed with Clinton's
signing of the 1993 Family and Medical Leave Act):
Sweden 32 weeks
France 28
United Kingdom 18
Norway 18
Denmark 18
Japan 14
Germany 14
Netherlands 12
United States 0

Life Expectancy (years):
Men Women
Japan 76.2<> 82.5
France 72.9<> 81.3
Switzerland 74.1<> 81.3
Netherlands 73.7<> 80.5
Sweden 74.2<> 80.4
Canada 73.4<> 80.3
Norway 73.1<> 79.7
Germany 72.6<> 79.2
Finland 70.7 <>78.8
United States 71.6<> 78.6
United Kingdom 72.7<> 78.2
Denmark 72.2 <>77.9
Infant Mortality Rate (per 1,000 live births):
United States 10.4
United Kingdom 9.4
Germany 8.5
Denmark 8.1
Canada 7.9
Norway 7.9
Netherlands 7.8
Switzerland 6.8
Finland 5.9
Sweden 5.9
Japan 5.0
Death rate of 1-to-4 year olds (per community of 200,000 per year):
United States 101.5
Japan 92.2
Norway 90.2
Denmark 85.1
France 84.9
United Kingdom 82.2
Canada 82.1
Netherlands 80.3
Germany 77.6
Switzerland 72.5
Sweden 64.7
Finland 53.3
Death rate of 15-to-24 year olds (per community of 200,000 per year):
United States 203
Switzerland 175
Canada 161
France 156
Finland 154
Norway 128
Germany 122
Denmark 120
United Kingdom 114
Sweden 109
Japan 96
Netherlands 90
Note: the murder rate for the above age group is 48.8 per 200,000. Even
subtracting this entirely still puts the U.S. near the top of the list.
Premature Death (years of life lost before the age of 64 per 100 people):
United States 5.8 years
Denmark 4.9
Finland 4.8
Canada 4.5
Germany 4.5
United Kingdom 4.4
Norway 4.3
Switzerland 4.1
Netherlands 4.0
Sweden 3.8
Japan 3.3
Percent of people with normal body mass:
Men Women
Germany 53% <>37
Finland 51<> 37
United Kingdom 46<> 38
Canada 52 <>29
Switzerland 49<> 30
France 44<> 30
Denmark 44<> 25
United States 47<> 22
Sweden 44 25
Percent of people who believe their health care system needs fundamental change:
United States 60%
Sweden 58
United Kingdom 52
Japan 47
Netherlands 46
France 42
Canada 38
An explanation of America's poor health care statistics Sharp readers will notice that the last chart may mean different things to different people. Conservatives think the U.S. health care system needs reform because there is too much government involvement in health care; liberals because there is not enough. So let's clarify this statistic with a few others. Americans are the most dissatisfied with the quality and quantity of their health care. Of the 10 largest industrialized nations, the U.S. ranked dead last in health care satisfaction, with an approval rating of only 11 percent. (3) There's no putting a positive spin on this statistic; any president with such a low approval rating would be impeached! Most of this dissatisfaction stems from the high expense and unavailability of U.S. health care. During the 1993 debate on health care reform, polls consistently showed that two-thirds of all Americans supported the idea of universal coverage. (4) Polls also showed that Americans didn't want to pay the higher taxes to achieve this goal, which many pundits took to be an amusing example of public inconsistency. Actually, the public was entirely consistent. Other nations manage to cover everybody, and at lower cost. Nor is America's international reputation in health care as high as many Americans boast it to be. "Ask anyone you know from a foreign country... which country is the envy of the world when it comes to health care," Rush Limbaugh wrote in See, I Told You So. But according to a Gallup poll published by the Toronto Star, only 2 percent of all Canadians believe that the U.S. has a better health care system than their own. (5) The fact is that America does not have the finest health care system in the world; it has the finest emergency care system in the world. Highly trained American doctors can summon Star Wars-type technology in saving patients who have become seriously injured or critically ill. But as far as preventative medicine goes, the U.S. is still in the Stone Age. It should be no surprise that in America's health care business, entrepreneurs will take a pound of cure over an ounce of prevention every time. But in reality, what affects the health of Americans lies more outside the formal health care system than within it. In Europe during the last century, life expectancy nearly doubled after nations purified their drinking water and created sanitation systems. In America during this century, the highest cancer rates are found in neighborhoods around the chemical industry. (6) A healthy diet and exercise provide better health than most medicines in most circumstances. Other nations have realized that factors outside the hospital are more important than factors inside it, and have used this bit of wisdom to lower their health care costs. Perhaps the greatest reason why Europeans are healthier than Americans is because they have reduced poverty, especially child poverty. The link between poverty and poorer health has long been proven. One survey reviewed more than 30 other studies on the relationship between class and health, and found that "class influences one's chances of staying alive. Almost without exception, the evidence shows that classes differ on mortality rates." (7) The American Journal of Epidemiology states that "a vast body of evidence has shown consistently that those in the lower classes have higher mortality, morbidity and disability rates" and these "are in part due to inadequate medical care services as well as to the impact of a toxic and hazardous physical environment." (8) And in an even more important finding, studies from Harvard and Berkeley have proven that income inequality -- not just absolute poverty -- is equally important. (9) States with the highest levels of income inequality also have the highest mortality and morbidity rates. The reason why relative poverty matters is because prices and opportunities are relative too - the U.S. may have the best medical technology in the world, but at $10,000 a procedure, who can afford it? Many reasons contribute to the worse health of the poor. Political scientist Jeffrey Reiman writes: "Less money means less nutritious food, less heat in winter, less fresh air in summer, less distance from sick people, less knowledge about illness or medicine, fewer doctor visits, fewer dental visits, less preventative care, and above all else, less first-quality medical attention when all these other deprivations take their toll and a poor person finds himself seriously ill." (10) And this is not to mention that the poor work and live in more polluted, hazardous and strenuous environments. These deprivations are especially hard on infants in their critical development years. The U.S. has tried to combat this problem by offering universal prenatal and postnatal health care, much like Europe does. But the U.S. is fighting against a head wind because it has levels of poverty that Europe does not. Again, a person's health is affected by more factors outside the formal health care system than within it. It's not enough to give a few programs to a person in poverty; what's needed is removing that person from poverty completely. "When I look back on my years in office," says C. Everett Koop, Reagan's former Surgeon General, "the things I banged my head against were all poverty." (11) If America is to improve its health statistics, it must not only pass universal health care, but reduce poverty as well.

Editorial : We cannot afford not to implement Universal Health Care ! It seems our race to the bottom continues.

Tennessee Donor Service ~ "The Gift of Life"! ~ County Court Clerks

By : Don Jones, Heart-Transplant#189 ~ Vandy

By donating $1.00 when you renew your vehicle's license tags, you can help educate others about the critical need for organ and tissue donations through the Tennessee County Clerks "HELP RENEW LIVES" campaign. If you mail in your renewal, simply add $1 to the registration charge and check the appropriate box indicating your are “adding a dollar for donor awareness”. If you visit your local County Clerk, you may be asked if you would like to donate a dollar for donor awareness; if not, simply tell the staff member you would like to do so.

Together we CAN save lives !

Governor Ned R. McWherter(D)Tennessee, 1987-1995 Monument Fund

Governor Ned R. Mc Wherter(D)Tennessee 1987-1995

By : Don Jones

Pictured above is the Honorable Ned R. McWherter, Governor of Tennessee 1987-1995 ! In This writers opinion, one of the best Governors in my life time. It seems that his home County, Weakley County is going to erect a bronze life sized monument in his honor. I cannot think of a more deserving public servant to do this for ! When the Governor was asked about this, he said, as long as there are no public tax-payer funds used, he would endorse it ! "Thanks" Governor McWherter for all that you did and still do ! If you would like to contribute/donate to this monument in his honor, just click on the title of this article or the link below !

http://www.nedraymonument.com/

Big Lies About Heathcare Reform...

Here Come the Big Lies About Health Care Reform
by Mike Hall, May 28, 2009

We noted a few days ago how the private insurance industry was set to unleash its attack dogs on health care reform to try to kill a public health insurance plan option as part of President Obama’s health care reform initiative. Those dogs have started to bark. Yesterday, the fake group, Americans for Prosperity (AFP)—another one of those astroturf names meant to appeal to All of Us—launched a $1.7 million TV ad campaign claiming we may all die if Obama’s health care reform proposals are enacted. The ads don’t even skirt the neighborhood of the truth, but then, as Robert Borosage wrote last week, the health care industry has a long history of “trying to scare the hell out of Americans” when it comes to health care reform.The ads conjure up the boogeyman of a “government-run” health care system where patients will die as their cancerous tumors grow to fatal stages while they wait months to receive care. Scary stuff. Phony, but meant to scare us all. A public health plan option has won the endorsement of major health care groups and many senators and representatives and is a key component of the AFL-CIO’s health care reform principles. It would provide workers who have private insurance and those without insurance a choice in coverage: Stay with their private plan or choose the public plan option. It would also—which scares the hay out of the private insurance industry—provide some competition for an industry that has secured a near-monopoly of the market and recorded record profits, while we are paying more for less care. The Wall Street Journal reports that another group, Conservatives for Patients’ Rights, is buying air time for a 30-minute Sunday morning infomercial featuring “horror stories” about the Canadian and British health care systems and warning the U.S. government is about to take over health care here. Like AFP’s campaign, that message doesn’t even have a nodding acquaintance with the truth. But a key Republican strategist says the truth doesn’t matter when it comes to fighting health care reform. BTW, most Republican lawmakers have decried a public plan option with strikingly similar, and just as phony, arguments. Think Progress reports that lies about health care reform are not going to go away anytime soon. In an interview with The New York Times, conservative pollster Frank Luntz admitted that he would continue raising the false specter of a ”Washington takeover” of health care—whether or not that was Obama’s actual proposal. “I’m not a policy person. I’m a language person,” Luntz said. Click here for a detailed look at the blueprint for the propaganda campaign against health care reform. The truth may set you free, but a big lie just might protect Big Health Insurance Companies’ big profits.

Universal Health Care ~ YES !

Health Insurance Profits Soar as Industry Mergers Create Near-Monopoly
by Mike Hall, May 27, 2009

Profits at 10 of the country’s largest publicly traded health insurance companies rose 428 percent from 2000 to 2007, while consumers paid more for less coverage. One of the major reasons, according to a new study, is the growing lack of competition in the private health insurance industry that has led to near monopoly conditions in many markets. The report says such conditions warrant a Justice Department investigation and, says Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), provide compelling evidence of the need for a public health insurance plan option as part of the health care reform initiative President Obama and Congress are developing. Schumer says the report from Health Care for America Now! (HCAN)
is the starkest evidence yet that the private health care insurance market is in bad need of some healthy competition. A public health insurance option is critical to ensure the greatest amount of choice possible for consumers. According to the recently released HCAN report, “Premiums Soaring in Consolidated Health Insurance Market“: In the past 13 years, more than 400 corporate mergers have involved health insurers, and a small number of companies now dominate local markets but haven’t delivered on promises of increased efficiency. According to the American Medical Association, 94 percent of insurance markets in the United States are now highly concentrated, and insurers are thriving in the anti-competitive marketplace, raking in enormous profits and paying out huge CEO salaries. These mergers and consolidations have created a marketplace where a small number of larger companies use their power to raise premiums—an average of 87 percent over the past six years—restrict and reduce benefit packages and control and cut provider payments. In a letter to the Department of Justice’s Anti-Trust Division, Richard Kirsch, HCAN national campaign manager, and David Balto, former policy director of the Federal Trade Commission and now senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, write: Simply put, the private insurance companies have secured monopolies or tight oligopolies and exercised that power to put profits ahead of patients….There were no actions taken against anticompetitive conduct by health insurers in the last administration, in spite of the fact that cases by state attorneys general have secured massive fines against these insurers. A lack of antitrust enforcement has enabled insurers to acquire dominant positions in almost every metropolitan market. They ask for an investigation of the already consummated mergers that “harm competition or create an anticompetitive market structure.” They also urge the Justice Department to conduct investigations of “anticompetitive conduct by dominant insurance companies and challenge that conduct where appropriate.” Many dominant insurers limit the ability of providers to choose rival insurers or inform patients about more efficient and comprehensive coverage. The DOJ should investigate tools used to stifle competition such as physician gag clauses, most favored nations provisions, all-products clauses, and silent networks, which prevent providers and consumers from having the full range of competitive alternatives. Schumer last week co-sponsored a Senate resolution urging the creation of a public health plan option and says a public health plan “is critical to ensure the greatest amount of choice possible for consumers.” We believe that it is fully possible to create a public health insurance plan that delivers all the benefits of increased competition without relying on unfair, built-in advantages. If a level playing field exists, then private insurers will have to compete based on quality of care and pricing, instead of just competing for the healthiest consumers. Click here for a copy of the full report. Tell us what you think should be included in comprehensive health care reform. Take the 2009 Health Care for America Survey. The survey gives you the opportunity to make your voice heard and helps shape health care reform to meet the needs of working families.
Tags: Charles Schumer, HCAN, health care, Health Care for America Now, health care reform, labor, private insurance, public plan option, union, union blogs, unions Channels: Legislation & Politics

Editorial : I thought the following comment said it all ! It seems that Senator Schumer (D) New York, Knows !

1 Comment
True Democrat on 28.05.2009 at 14:36 (Reply)
HR 676:The United States National Health Care Act (USNHC) establishes a unique American universal health insurance program with single payer financing. The bill would create a publicly financed, privately delivered health care system that improves and expands the already existing Medicare program to all U.S. residents, and all residents living in U.S. territories. The goal of the legislation is to ensure that all Americans will have access, guaranteed by law, to the highest quality and most cost effective health care services regardless of their employment, income or health care status. In short, health care becomes a human right. With 47 million uninsured Americans, and another 50 million who are underinsured, the time has come to change our inefficient and costly fragmented non-system of health care.

Your Elected Official`s...Stay in Touch

Get in Touch with Your Elected Official

To find your Senator, click here.

To find your Representative, click here.

Or call the Capitol Switchboard at 202-224-3121

Tennessee > http://tennesseeanytime.org/government/elected.html

America`s Biggest Problem = GREED !

Saving America...

By : Don Jones

Most of my life, I have been an optimist. America was the land of opportunity and wealth, if that was your utmost desire ? I grew up in Detroit Michigan, on the west side ! I went to School there, graduated from Northwestern High School on Grand River and the Blvd. I worked 13 years for the Detroit Board of Education. I worked at Thomas M. Cooley High School on Hubbell and Chalfonte, just off Fenkell(5 mi. Rd.) I got married while working there, my wife and I bought a house in Nankin Township, now called Westland. We had two sons. We decided to move back to Tennessee, my roots ! I went to the University of Tennessee at Martin to try and obtain a job, related to my job in Michigan. There was no budget at that time for that kind of job. I went to Union City Tennessee one day to complete some business, I stopped at the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company and put in an application for employment, two days later I was called and went to work there the following Monday, November 30, 1970 ! The first few days, I did`nt think, I was going to make it. The work was extremely heavy and I came out of an office. However, I did make it, I was making a whopping $2.05 per hour. The United Rubber Workers Union, was just establishing itself. When asked, I joined. I came out of a Union state, it was the correct thing to do ! Goodyear created one of the best unions in Tennessee. Remember Tennessee is a right to work state. Translated, that is (Right to Work for Less)! open shop, not closed ! I`m proud to say that the entire hourly work force joined, with the exception of approximately 15 people ! that's over 2000 people who became the union, out of necessity ! Goodyear supervisors were relentless in their quest to be plant managers. They drove you with whips and guns, well almost. We worked 6 days a week 8 hours per day, and you could get all the overtime you wanted. You could work Sundays if you wished too. There were many employee`s who did. There were no retirees to support, Health Insurance was dirt cheap for your entire family. It was a family mans place to be, you could make a little money and cover your family with insurance... and if you stayed long enough, you could retire with the same benefits for you and your spouse. Now, they are talking about closing the plant and making these tires in China ! Why ? Because, they can make them in China without union labor for almost nothing in labor cost, they then ship the tires back to the good ole USA for sale. They make a ton of money and have no obligation to their workers ! GREED ! Now for my number#1 question, once all the descent paying union jobs leave and everything is built off-shore, who buy`s the product(tire/cars/ etc.) I believe, that is where we are now. The market(people with jobs) that's purchasing power, can`t buy the products. Our politicians do not seem to care ! General Motors is now contracting out whole automobiles for import to the USA ! Chrysler is merging with a foreign auto company. Ford seems to be doing ok ! At least they have not taken any tax-payer money, yet ? Mr Henry Ford, the founder of Ford Motor Company, said it best, "When my Ford employees cannot purchase the product we/they build, I`m out of business" ! There is a bill pending congress now, called Employees Freedom of Choice Act ! Such a hullabaloo about it coming from the Republican party, it makes you sick. It gives the employee the right to form/join a union, without interference from union busters/company's and other very greedy CEO`S and top officials of company's. I`m not sure, what they are so afraid of ? I believe they are driven by pure greed ! It really does`nt matter, soon there will be no manufacturing jobs remaining in our once great manufacturing country ! Our politicians have sold us out to the highest foreign bidder and then, we tax-payers give the tax dollars to move! As a friend of mine said recently, Jones, everybody has gone crazy. No, it is not crazy, it is pure unadulterated GREED ! Better think about it folks ! ? We need to take our country back ! I write in relation to Goodyear, it could be any large manufacturer ! "God Bless America" !

Addictive Drugs and the Damage they Do !

Drug Addiction, it`s a Disease...4/30/09

By : Don Jones

If you have not dealt with drug addiction in your immediate family, consider yourself very fortunate. Drugs not only destroy the person taking them, they destroy entire family`s ! It is a terrible hideous disease. Our law enforcement officials are doing what they can do, which is not very much. They enforce the law. However this does not cure the disease or the problems that go along with drug addiction ! Putting a drug addict in jail is merely a temporary stopping point. I believe it is a waste of time and money. Drug cost is astronomical, I`m not just talking the cost of the drug itself, but the hidden cost it is to family`s and government agency's and society itself. I`ve heard people say, put them in jail and throw away the key. These people have never dealt with drug addiction and know not what they say. Our court system is almost totally in adequate. They cannot and have not dealt with drug addicts in a positive manner in the past or in the now ! There are seven (7) day withdrawal clinics, where a patient/addict can go and be treated for seven (7)days...My advice, is save your money. They do not work ! Then there are 30 day clinics, they work at times ! But, it is expensive ! Then there are the exclusive clinics that last six (6) months to a year. they seem to work better, but, hold on most of us cannot pay the cost of these clinics, Only the very wealthy. I believe we are already spending millions of dollars on this problem. We need to begin attacking this devastating problem from another prospective, It is a fact that, what we are now doing is not working and has not for a longtime. So a new beginning is needed, the new beginning is to treat drug addiction as a disease ! Some people will say that it is a self-inflicted addiction, I have no argument against that. However, the way we are approaching drug addiction today is not working. We may as well pour our money down a drain. So a new beginning is needed. I do not have all the answers, I just know that what we are doing in today's drug fight, is futile and cost huge amounts of money. If we are going to spend this money, and we are ! Why not spend it in a productive manner ? I have run across another approach to this problem, it is a new approach, my first reaction was not good. Then, I began to think about it, and said this a new and untried approach to dug addiction. Maybe, we should look at it more closely ? The one draw back is that it cost at the present time $12,000.00 for forty (40)days.
If I have a point, it is that we are going to spend this money on addiction one way or another. Why not try some innovative ways ? As I said earlier, what we are doing is not working ! I have said that drug addiction is the blight of the world, I hate drugs ! Drugs rob us of those people we seem to love most. If you will click on the title of this blog, it will carry you to Spirit Lake, surf the site, call for information, I did ! They will be glad to answer all your questions, if they have the answer, and if they do not have the answer, they will tell you that also. Here is the web-site again...

http://www.spiritlakerecovery.com/about/staff.php

CEO Pay Out of Control ! Even During Bad Times !

Executive PayWatch: CEO Perks Rise as Workers’ Wages, Jobs Wilt...
by James Parks, Apr 14, 2009

Even as the U.S. economy went into a tailspin, the median salary for CEOs of 200 large corporations increased by 4.5 percent to $1.08 million. On top of that, these corporations keep plying executives with generous freebies, despite the public outcry over private jets and other executive perks.The 2009 AFL-CIO Executive PayWatch site, which launches today, points out that the perks for executives rose on average by 12.5 percent in 2008 to $336,248—or nine times the median salary of a full-time worker. Even more appalling is the practice of rewarding executives who drive their companies into the ground. For example, the site reports that in 2007—the year the financial crisis began to unfold—the top 10 recipients of the federal government’s Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) collectively paid their CEOs a combined $242 million in total annual compensation. That averages nearly $25 million per CEO to run companies that might have gone bankrupt if not for billions of dollars in taxpayer assistance.The PayWatch site also features an e-mail action. Click here to send a letter to Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) and Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.), chairmen of the House Financial Services Committee and the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, respectively. Let them know we’re counting on them to draft legislation that truly strengthens our financial regulations and begins curing the disease that has infected our economic system.This year’s Executive PayWatch highlights 10 case studies that show the multiple ways CEOs profited big time, while the average worker could barely hang on. There is the well-known case of AIG, which has been kept afloat by more than $170 billion in federal assistance—about $1,500 for every household in the nation—and still paid out more than $500 million in salaries and bonuses to hundreds of senior employees.Here are other prime examples in the case studies of corporate failure: While retirees worry over the fate of Deere & Co.’s pension surplus, which is shrinking because of stock market losses, the value of Deere CEO Robert Lane’s retirement income increased $5.5 million in fiscal 2008 to $22.5 million. Lane and other senior executives participate in not one but three different pension plans. SunTrust Bank, which received $4.9 billion from the federal bailout fund, wants shareholders to approve a mega-grant of $7.7 million in stock options for James Wells, its chairman and chief executive officer, even as investors have lost billions. While workers who are laid off in these tough economic times are lucky if they receive anything more than their last paycheck, Richard Bond, who retired as CEO of Tyson Foods in January, stands to collect more than $14 million in “golden parachute” severance payments. Want to know what your CEO made last year? The Executive Paywatch site offers three user-friendly ways to find out. And if you want to have a little fun at the CEO’s expense, play the “Boot The CEO” game and kick the money out of the greedy CEO’s hands.

Buy American...If You Can ?

Buy American...If You Can ?

The 2010 Ford Fusion is the hottest American hybrid. But this new American car is built in Mexico and Japan, not in America. America’s car of the future is here but it won’t save American jobs. Congressman Don Manzullo has a plan that will save American jobs though. Rep. Manzullo has introduced the New Automobile Voucher Act of 2009 which would give Americans $5,000 to put towards a new car. He says his plan will “bolster automobile manufacturing and sales and will put millions of Americans back to work”.

Free Democratic Trade Unions ~ Yes ! Essential to Democracy !

Free Democratic Trade Unions...

By : Anonymous

12.4% of the work force in America is union and all I hear is that unions are the cause of the United States of America’s companies for going broke or moving to Mexico NAFTA or other off shore countries. Let’s see if all or not all public workers are union Teachers, police, fire, and other types of Government jobs are Union, what does that leave about 11% 12% that are other trade union workers such as lazy ass plumbers, electricians, roofers, pilots, engineers aviation, and even some lazy ass farm worker unions. Yet the whole world is crashing and most of the workers of world are non-union.You always claim its lazy ass auto workers and tire workers that destroyed the US of A’s economy.You’re telling me that if everyone was not union and had lower pay they would have saved the USA from all these terrible problems caused by Banks and other financial institutions and upper Management corporations and their Greed. Oh! By the way Banks and other financial institutions and upper Management CEO aren’t they non-union, and they are the main cause of this financial meltdown in America that destroyed everyone’s 401k most likely yours too, not the auto workers not the unions.My question is why, is it ok for a company to make as much profit for CEO’S and others, yet it is wrong for workers to make as much profit as possible too? So if banding together to get what we can is bad because it hurts companies, then the banding of the colonies hurt the companies of England and the King (CEO). This must be a bad and terrible thing using your logic. I guess only evil men band together whether it be for creating a country, company, or union. Those men must have been out for personal gain or profit evil greedy men.Is it bad if a person tries to get profit or gain through the stocks?Is it bad if persons (workers) band together to get profit or gain?Everyone knows trickle down does not work, why because each person does not want to give or pass down any profit or gain they receive, to those that may be below them even if you make very little income.Whenever Goodyear came to the workers and asked, we need this or that done because it will save the company and workers jobs. The union always tried to do the right thing most of the time, at what point did Goodyear ever say good job to the workers anywhere and here is profit for you, were going to trickling it down. Never without a fight did this happen and don’t tell me the union sets wages they only set a temporary bottom that wages can go. Goodyear or any company could pay more to its employee’s but for some reason the rule is always pay them sub-minimum wages why is that?Money it seems to me is used to have power over others. The last depression caused more unionizing of labor ( that's history). The banding of all workers is again starting to take hold. The greed of Wall Street has once again set this in motion, so I thank all of you in the high world of finance you soon may have nothing. Too much greed killed your golden goose.

"Thanks Buddy" ! ~ for this one, I wish, I knew who wrote this ? They were reading my mind !

The Great Bear Hunt ! Or "Rip & The Bear"!

"Rip & The Bear" !

By : "Dad" Don Jones

I rarely write about my family. Having said that, I`m going to write about my youngest son affectionately called "Rip" ! Rip is the last of the good guys, a real treasure. I say that with all sincerity and much love. His word is is his bond. He says what he does, and does what he says. In today`s world that is almost unheard of. I do not say these things in idle time phrase`s. I do not say them, because he is my son. I say it because it is true. Having said these praise`s, I now move on to the real reason for today's blog. Rip is a great wild game hunter. at one time, when I was younger, he and I would travel to South Dakota to pheasant hunt, we had a great time ! Every year in early autumn, Rip travels to Colorado to hunt large game. Elk, mule dear and bear ! He has been very successful in his hunts thus far. One year he killed a huge, almost royal elk. He has traveled to a island in the pacific to hunt rare large game and killed a large mule dear. Then one year he got the "Bear Fever" he wanted to bag a bear. he bought his bear tag for a couple of years, but alas no bear ! So, one summer he went to Colorado and stayed a month and tracked bear, to learn their habitats and habits. He took still cameras and placed them in strategic areas where he would find bear signs. He really got some great pictures. He was learning the way of the bear and he did. Then this past season in Colorado, he went hunting again, without going into great detail, which he would be glad to do for you, I will just tell you he killed a monster bear ! This bear weighed in at 551 lbs. 7 ft. 1 inch. from nose to tail ! A huge Brown Bear specimen. He is having this bear mounted in a full life-size mount.To say that my son was elated would be an understatement. He called me from atop of one of those mountains to tell me. He thought this bear would go in the Boone/Crockett book of world records. It did not. His friend Mark, lives in Henry County, today an official from the (Tennessee Wildlife Resource Agency) was coming to Paris Tennessee to a place called Hulmes Sporting goods, for the specific purpose of logging in official weights and measures of wild game, Mark picked up the skull and jaw bone of this bear and took it to Hulmes to be measured officially. I`m sad to report that this bear was 3/16 of an inch short of the record book. Rip, was disappointed, but not as badly as you might think, He had missed going into the record book by 3/16 of an inch. There will be other seasons and other game. He loves the hunt and the outdoors so much. He is a hunter and conservationist. As I said earlier, he is a rare and extraordinary man !

The pictures at top are (1.)Rip and the Bear (2.)Pete, Russell,"The Bear" Rip and Mark, his friend`s (3.) Cary, The Bear & Rip, Cary is referred too, as his second Dad !

Union Matters...We Do Not Learn from our Past Mistakes

The New York Times Magazine
June 26, 1938
BEHIND THE CONFLICT IN “BLOODY HARLAN”

The Background of Mountains and Hill Folk Against Which a Dramatic Trial is Being Held
By: F. Raymond Daniell

Technically and legally the coal operators, corporations and peace officers of Harlan County on trial here at London are charged with a criminal conspiracy to nullify the Wagner Act. Actually, however, it is the political and economic system of that rich soft-coal field which is at the bar. For in Harlan County, as nowhere else in the county, except possibly on the cotton plantations of the Deep South, the visitor encounters feudalism and paternalism which survive despite all efforts to break them down. For years the county has been known as “bloody Harlan.” It is feud country, and last year there were sixty murders within its precincts. But Harlan has no monopoly on violence and bloodshed; its designation is due rather to the fact that much of the bloodshed has been directly connected with the struggle between miners and operators and with union organizations. Because of the national interest in that warfare its troubles have received more attention than other outbursts in the feud belt. Within Harlan County, which lies in the southeastern corner of Kentucky on the Virginia border, are some 70,000 inhabitants. From 16,000 to 18,000 men work in the mines and produce from 14,000,000 to 18,000,000 tons of coal, worth $45,000,000 each year. This is more than a third of Kentucky’s total bituminous production and, while only a drop in the national total, it is of sufficiently high quality and is produced so cheaply under existing labor conditions that it is a strong competitor with the product of other fields. It is that fact, more than the hope of swelling its treasury with several thousand new members, each paying dues of $1.50 a month, which is responsible for the determined effort now being made by the United Mine Workers to organize the Harlan miners. Unless this effort succeeds, the union fears it will lose its recognition in neighboring coal fields, where operators are complaining that they cannot maintain union standards unless Harlan County’s operators are brought into line. Prior to 1911 Harlan County was a quiet rural community of small mountain farms. The chief industry was agriculture and logging, with a little moon shining. Even then it was known that beneath the ridges lying between Pine and Black Mountains, along the forks of the Cumberland River, there was wealth in the form of soft coal such as was needed for the manufacture of steel. There was no way, however, of getting it out to the Great Lakes. Then the railroad came. Overnight the characteristics of the countryside changed. Here and there the beautiful green hills were defaced by the winding conveyors over which the minded coal is carried from the drift mouth or mine opening in the hillside to the tipple, where it is broken and sorted and sized alongside the railroad tracks. Great piles of black waste and excavated earth began making their appearance on the hillsides, and from neighboring counties there came a swarm of farm boys and men, lured by the hope of high pay. There were no towns, no houses for the miners, except those the coal operators built, and thus there came into being the company town and the company store. As the coal industry grew in Harlan County, local capitalists got in on the ground floor. Among them was R. W. Creech, a patriarchal old gentleman with mustaches which spread a full eight inches on either side of his nose. He had been a lumberman before the railroad came, floating his logs down the river. To him his employees are like children, to be cared for and kept in order. He is one of the defendants in the conspiracy trial. Others among the defendants flocked into Harlan County in the early days of the industry. Among them were many who went there to escape labor troubles in other fields. They brought with them a bitterness against Unions that has never died.The camps they built for their laborers had moral standards on a par with the standards of the environment. Red liquor was drunk in Homeric quantities and fights were common. The county disclaimed responsibility for policing the mine camps, and there grew up the practice of hiring a special policeman and having him deputized by the Sheriff to lend the authority of law to his six-shooter. Even now the mining camps of Harlan County are no week-end resorts for sissies. The industry of the peace officers in rounding up drunks on Saturday night is prodigious. The fine, usually amounting to $19.50, is often paid by the company employing the prisoner and then deducted from his pay. In the four years ended last Jan. 1, the records show that 14,000 persons went to the lock-up at one time or another-a profitable guadrennium for the jailer, who is allowed 75 cents a day for feeding each prisoner. A good manager can do it for considerably less.
For years the operators had everything their own way. But Harlan’s position in the coal business and the number of unorganized miners there were not over-looked by the Unions. There were repeated efforts to Unionize the district, and for years the Unionized miners and the operators have been engaged in a bitter feud, with not all the violence directed at the miners. Back in 1931, when the United Mine Workers made an abortive effort to organize the Harlan field, there was competition for members among several rival unions, including one said to have been dominated by Communists and members of the I.W.W. In this period there was an epidemic of burglary of company stores and thefts of dynamite and copper from the companies, which was blamed on union members and organizers. The company put Sheriff’s deputies on their payrolls, and the killing of such deputies in a battle with strikers led to the “reign of terror” which union men say has been set up against them. With the passage of the NRA, the Guffey Act and, finally, the Wagner Act, outsiders came in to organize the miners, and agents of the Federal Government stepped in. The world of the Harlan County coal barons began to topple. The United Mine Workers have succeeded in negotiating contracts with ten of the forty-two mines operating in Harlan County, and today the union has a office in the town of Harlan, and its field workers travel about without molestation as long as they stay off non-union company property. Although only about a fourth of the county’s population works in the mines, nearly everybody in the county is dependent, directly or indirectly, on them. Only about 12,000 live in free, incorporated towns, and even there the influence of the coal operators is strong. The other 58,000 live in company towns, occupy company houses, walk on company streets, shop in company stores, go to company churches and send their children to company schools. Illness is treated by company doctors and justice is often administered by company magistrates, who hold court on company property. One of the big companies, until recently, had its own private jail. The company towns range in size from little settlements of 100 or 200 houses, to cities like Lynch, owned by a subsidiary of United States Steel, where more than 9,000 miners and their families live under rules and conditions laid down by a board of directors instead of a Common Council. Here the streets are surfaced, the houses painted, and, though plumbing is almost rare as elsewhere in the county, living conditions appear reasonably good. There is a private police force and a private fire department, a smart-looking new motion-picture theatre and a department store which might be a branch of a New York or Chicago store. Lynch, where a higher proportion of workers of alien stock are employed than elsewhere, has the only Roman Catholic Church in the county. In contrast to this tree-shaded little city, with its neat lawns and flower gardens, are the more typical towns of the smaller, locally owned companies. There the muddy, rutted streets swarm with pigs, raised to supplement the family larder when the cold weather comes. The dilapidated houses, standing in pools of stagnant water, and the vacant faces of the inhabitants present a depressing picture to the visitor from outside. Yet shiny new automobiles, in improvised garages underneath the houses, washing machines on the back porch and electric refrigerators in the living room are as common as in the camps where housing conditions are better. In the middle of the county is the town of Harlan, a rather shabby county seat of wood and brick buildings, hemmed in, almost squeezed, by the surrounding mountains. It is one of the three incorporated towns in the county, the others being Cumberland and Evarts. Harlan’s Chamber of Commerce claims for the town a population of about 7,000, and Harlan is the shopping center for all the people in the county who have managed to scrape together enough cash to trade away from the company store. Even here, however, mine operators or their kinsfolk control most of the mercantile establishments in the town. A man can’t even buy a headache remedy without patronizing the operators, for they own the drug stores, too. Many of the county’s people are mountain folk, quick to anger and quick to shoot. Men think no more of toting a gun than Englishmen do of carrying an umbrella. For a time, until the quaint inconsistency was corrected a few years ago, the Kentucky statutes provided a stiffer penalty for the man who merely fired at someone than for the man who wounded his enemy. Outside a little church in Harlan on Sunday night the writer saw two boys, not more than 12 or 13, with businesslike .38-caliber revolvers in their overall pockets.The people tend to resent intrusion in their affairs by “furriners,” much as they would resent a stranger “messin’ around” their women folk. During an inspection tour of the mines the writer ordered a photographer to take a picture of a “Tobacco Road” family – a mother sitting beside her cabin with a nursing baby and an old miner resting on the back stoop and was about to ask the woman’s permission when the local photographer intervened. “Ask the man, not the woman,” he said. “He might shoot if you ask her.” And then on our tour of the company towns our driver stopped suddenly in the road at High Splint and began backing up. At first the reason was not apparent. Then a boulder, the size of a cabbage, rolled down the road in front of the car. Four boys stopped playing ball and retreated to the sidelines. From between two houses there came a man, his shirt torn and bloody, wielding an axe handle. Retreating before him was a man with a rock which must have weighed ten pounds. He threw it and the man with the axe handle had at him. When it was over the stone-thrower was unconscious in the road and the club-wielder was leaning against a fence, blood pouring from a crack in his skull. No one interfered or seemed especially interested.The feud tradition is a strong factor in Harlan’s way of life. For generations it has been the custom, when a man is killed by a member of a rival clan, for all the victim’s family to go gunning for the killer and his kinsfolk. Honor is not considered avenged until the mortality score is even. Interference by the law and the courts is bitterly resented.
Relations between miners and operators have a similar directness. In the company towns, the homes of the operators generally are alongside the three and four room dwellings of the miners, who pay between $1.50 and $2.50 a month per room. It still is a common thing for the children of the operator to go to the same company school as the children of the common laborers until they have reached high-school age. As a matter of fact, it is said with some justification that mine children in company towns get more schooling than the children of incorporated towns. The county provides only seven months’ salary for the teacher, but the company town usually pays the teacher for keeping school open another two months. The schools are built by the company, but the teacher is appointed by the Superintendent of Schools.The owners of the mines dress in khaki work clothes, go in and out of the mines and sit in an office, usually on the ground floor of the commissary, unguarded by secretaries. Any worker is free to come in with his problems whether they be financial, domestic, or legal, and he usually can count on receiving help if he has kept clear of the United Mine Workers.The mines pay off every two weeks in cash, and when times are good the miners of Harlan County make relatively good money, receiving from the open-shop mines a little above the union scale, but working longer hours than union men and having no means of checking company figures on the amount of coal they dig. Most of the financial transactions between the miner and the store are carried out by means of scrip issued to the employees against credit they have established by their labor under-ground. This scrip is non-transferable, and, generally speaking, can be spent only in the company store, where prices are slightly higher than in the cash chain stores downtown. Everything from the finest quality meats and canned goods to the latest in overstuffed furniture can be bought there. Many of the commissaries sell liquor, which is legal in Harlan County. Credit is available in almost unlimited amounts to regular employees of the mines, whether the mines are running or not. When they do run, the operator knows his men will dig coal and he will sell it, deducting the amount he has advanced from the pay due the miners. Most of the company stores now have about an average of $20,000 outstanding in over-drafts of miners, but they are not worried. In one camp this correspondent was permitted to inspect the ledger in which the miners’ accounts are kept. One entry showed that one of the miners, after all the credit advanced to him had been deducted from his earnings for a month, came out exactly even with the company. Closer inspection showed that he was paying a lower rate of rent than the other miners. When the treasurer of the company was asked about this, he explained that the amount this man had earned last month was a little less than the credit that had been advance him so the company cut his rent by a few cents to make it come out even. In Harlan a miner who “keeps shet” of union activities need not worry about keeping a roof over his head, nor need he concern himself much with where the next meal-or, for that matter, the next drink-is coming from, for the paternalistic employer provides a kind of social security. Harlan’s leading citizens are anxious that this side of the picture be presented. Such are the setting and the background for the drama in the court room here in London which the whole county has been watching. Harlan today sees what may be the climax in the struggle between two sharply differing ways and philosophies of life.
Talk to the operators of the mines and you will hear that they want to protect their miners from being forced to join a union which they do not want and which, they say, for all the dues collected, cannot give them anything they do not now receive without the necessity of paying dues. You will also understand that the operators want to run their mines without outside interference.
Talk to the union leaders and you will hear that they are fighting paternalism of the operators. They charge that the one thing a miner may not do on company property is think for himself or speak out in public. They are fighting, they will tell you, to free the miners from an archaic system in which liberty has no place.

Editorial : Today, things have changed a little. But, not as much they should, we are still fighting the same old archaic system of those who do not wish for the workers to have a voice in their work place. Today we are trying to get the "Employee`s Free Choice Act" passed, and the Republican Senate are doing all they can to disrupt and defeat this basic right bill. As the title of this blog says, it seems we do not learn from our past mistakes ! With freedom to Join free democratic trade unions, perhaps Harlan and the United Mine Workers of the past can lead the way. Remenber this was written in 1938, one year before I was born. Workers need the "Employee`s free Choice Act" Passed !

Social Security ~ Don`t Mess With Success...

Social Security, Medicare Under Attack (Sen. Bernie Sanders)

February 23rd, 2009

Social Security and Medicare are likely to come under new attack at a “fiscal responsibility summit meeting” on Monday at the White House. The huge and growing national debt is a major problem which must be addressed, but there are ways of doing that without cutting Social Security benefits or decimating Medicare. During the last decade the wealthiest people in our country have become wealthier while working people have struggled desperately to keep their heads above water. It would be a betrayal of the needs of the middle class of this country if we lowered Social Security benefits or raised the retirement age for Social Security eligibility.The truth is that there is no crisis in Social Security. Social Security will remain solvent until 2041, according to projections by the system’s trustees. I am unalterably opposed to raising the retirement age or lowering benefits. I will propose legislation to strengthen Social Security by lifting the cap on contributions that now allows upper-income wage earners avoid payments. It is absurd that billionaires are contributing the same amount into Social Security as those who earn $105,000 a year.
There is a financial crisis in Medicare, but it is directly related to the disintegration of our entire health care system – the most costly and wasteful in the world. The way to address that crisis is to join the rest of the industrialized world and create a national health care program guaranteeing health care for all.

Common Sense Died Yesterday...

An Obituary printed in the London Times -

Interesting and sadly rather true "Today we mourn the passing of a beloved old friend, Common Sense, who has been with us for many years. No one knows for sure how old he was, since his birth records were long ago lost in bureaucratic red tape. He will be remembered as having cultivated such valuable lessons as: Knowing when to come in out of the rain; Why the early bird gets the worm; Life isn't always fair; and maybe it was my fault. Common Sense lived by simple, sound financial policies (don't spend more than you can earn) and reliable strategies (adults, not children, are in charge). His health began to deteriorate rapidly when well-intentioned but overbearing regulations were set in place. Reports of a 6-year-old boy charged with sexual harassment for kissing a classmate; teens suspended from school for using mouthwash after lunch; and a teacher fired for reprimanding an unruly student, only worsened his condition. Common Sense lost ground when parents attacked teachers for doing the job that they themselves had failed to do in disciplining their unruly children. It declined even further when schools were required to get parental consent to administer sun lotion or an Aspirin to a student; but could not inform parents when a student became pregnant and wanted to have an abortion.. Common Sense lost the will to live as the churches became businesses; and criminals received better treatment than their victims. Common Sense took a beating when you couldn't defend yourself from a burglar in your own home and the burglar could sue you for assault. Common Sense finally gave up the will to live, after a woman failed to realize that a steaming cup of coffee was hot. She spilled a little in her lap, and was promptly awarded a huge settlement. Common Sense was preceded in death, by his parents, Truth and Trust, by his wife, Discretion, by his daughter, Responsibility, and by his son, Reason...

He is survived by his 4 stepbrothers; I Know My Rights. I Want It Now. Someone Else Is To Blame. I'm A Victim. Not many attended his funeral because so few realized he was gone.

Editorial : How sad ! Thanks to, Bro. Mike Stanley for this one.

Managers Overpaid, Not Workers !

Managers, Not Workers, Overpaid in Manufacturing Jobs
by James Parks, Feb 17, 2009

Some pundits and lawmakers—Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) comes to mind—falsely claim that union workers are overpaid and are to blame for the decline of U.S. manufacturing. But a new report, released last week by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), busts that myth and shows the convenient conventional wisdom to be wrong. EPI economist Josh Bivens lays out the facts in Squandering the Blue-Collar Advantage, which show that U.S. manufacturing’s blue-collar workforce, far from destroying U.S. competitiveness, is actually one of the key elements making a positive contribution to competitiveness—a contribution being undermined by a variety of other factors. Click here to read the entire report. Says Bivens: If the story of U.S. manufacturing began and ended with its blue-collar workers, the outcome would be far different from what we’re seeing today. In hourly pay and productivity, U.S. manufacturing workers give their companies a significant competitive edge—one that is being drained away by other negative forces. Bivens identifies three key factors undermining U.S. competitiveness: The overvalued U.S. dollar, which artificially drives up the price of U.S. goods abroad and drives down the cost of foreign-produced goods here. Over the past 10 years, this imbalance alone has created a 10 percent to 16 percent cost disadvantage for U.S. goods, compared with the previous decade.
The high cost of U.S. health care is another significant factor. Reducing these costs to the same level as our comparable trading partners could create a 4.6 percent cost advantage. U.S. managers—not workers—are overpaid. Bringing white-collar wages in line with those in comparable countries could result in a 6.4 percent cost advantage for U.S. manufacturers. Bivens adds: If we want to restore the strength of U.S. manufacturing in our economy and in the world, we have to address the real anti-competitive factors that are dragging it down. In this effort, the wages and productivity of the unionized blue-collar workforce are an important asset.

Editorial : Poor ole Bob Corker(R)TN, he just does`nt get it ! Or Does He ? Hey Bob, still have illegal aliens working for you ? Bob, are you listening ?

Buy American ! Help Yourself !

Senator John McCain wanted to be President of America. Now he tried to strip

” Buy American “out of the Stimulus Package that passed the US Senate. McCain sponsored an Amendment that would take the Buy American paragraph out of the Stimulus Package. What in the world is he thinking? Thank goodness the American people did not vote him into the White House. McCain and 29 other Republicans and 1 Independent voted for the Amendment to strip the Buy American out of the Stimulus Package. Below are the US Senators that voted to strip Buy American out of the package. All Democrat US Senators voted against stripping Buy American out of the Stimulus Package. How did your US Senator Vote. Those listed below Voted No to "Buy America"

Alexander ( R ) TN Barrasso ( R ) WY Bennett ( R ) UT

Bond ( R ) MO Bunning ( R ) KY Chambliss ( R ) GA

Coburn ( R ) OK Cochran ( R ) MS Corker ( R ) TN

Cornyn ( R) TX Crapo ( R ) ID DeMint ( R ) SC

Ensign ( R ) WY Enzi ( R ) WY Hatch ( R ) UT

Inhofe ( R ) OK Isakson ( R ) GA Johanns ( R ) NE

Kyl ( R ) AZ Lugar ( R ) IN Martinez ( R ) FL

McCain ( R ) AZ McConnell ( R ) KY Murkowski ( R ) AK

Risch ( R ) KS Roberts ( R ) KS Sessions ( R ) AL

Shelby ( R ) AL Thune ( R ) SD Wicker ( R ) MS

Lieberman ( ID ) CT

Editorial : Good ole Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker (R`s)Tennessee, are`nt we proud of Them ? Sure we are ! Both Tennessee Senators voted against Buy America ! Shame on You both. lest we forget our turncoat Lieberman.

U.S.A.`s Biggest Export is JOBS !

New Report: 30 Million Service Jobs May Be Shipped Overseas
by James Parks, Jan 23, 2009

Recent telecommunications advances, especially the Internet, could theoretically put more than 30 million U.S. jobs at risk of being exported overseas. Services previously needed to be performed domestically theoretically can be done anywhere in the world through the Internet, four U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) analysts say in an article appearing in the agency’s Monthly Labor Review (subscription required).The 160 occupations considered capable of being performed in other countries account for some 30.3 million workers, one-fifth of total U.S. employment and cover a wide array of job functions, pay rates and educational levels. More than half of the vulnerable jobs in the BLS study are professional and related occupations, including computer and mathematical science occupations and architecture and engineering jobs, and many office and administrative support occupations also are considered susceptible. Since 2000, corporations have shipped more than 525,000 white-collar overseas, according to the AFL-CIO Department for Professional Employees (DPE). Some estimates say up to 14 million middle-class jobs could be exported out of our nation in the next 10 years. Accountants, software engineers, X-ray technicians, all are losing their jobs as corporations look for low-wage workers in countries such as India and China. Meanwhile, the jobs being created in the United States often are low-wage jobs that don’t offer health coverage or ensure retirement security. Nearly one-quarter of the nation’s workers labor in jobs that generally pay less than the $8.85 hourly wage the U.S. government says it takes to keep a family of four out of poverty. Sixty percent of such workers are women, and many are people of color. Among the occupations most susceptible to being sent overseas, the BLS analysts say, are those that produce information and do not require “face-to-face” contact. Among the most vulnerable are office and administrative support jobs, with relatively low education or training requirements, including telephone operators, payroll and timekeeping clerks, and word processors and typists. Another 11 of the highest ranked jobs are professional and related occupations, which generally possess higher educational requirements. They include pharmacists, computer programmers, biochemists and biophysicists, architectural and civil drafters, financial analysts, paralegals and legal assistants.Among the occupations least likely to be shipped overseas are financial managers, food scientists and technologists, front-line retail sales managers, and training and development specialists.