How it works: We are the product

 

I have gone off grid. I don't want to be a commodity that's sold to the higest bidder. 

The Netflix documentary, The Social Dilemma is a must watch for everyon about how people are manipulated by algorythms. This documentary as made in 2020 and AI has become even more powerful in the last 6 years.

The US poor performing healthcare system.

 

Today, everybody in Taiwan is fully covered for doctor and hospital services. Everybody has a driver’s-license-like healthcare card, which accesses their entire medical history. They can book a doctor’s appointment on any computer terminal in the country, and the entire cost of the system is a bit more than 6 percent of Taiwan’s GDP (in the United States, healthcare consumes 24 percent of our GDP) because there are no insurance company intermediaries sucking profits off the system.

Hartmann, Thom. The Hidden History of American Healthcare: Why Sickness Bankrupts You and Makes Others Insanely Rich (pp. 2-3). Berrett-Koehler Publishers. Kindle Edition. 

In his book The Hidden History Of American Healthcare by Thom Hartman, he opens  with a description of how different countries, specifically Taiwan and the US dealt with the Covid 19 pandemic. Taiwan and the US are very different countries so it could be argued that you can’t compare their health care systems because of different circumstances, but it is worthy of note that Taiwan covers healthcare for all its citizens at the cost of 6% of their GDP while the US cost is 24% of its GDP and it not only doesn’t cover all its citizens and even the ones who have healthcare coverage are covered poorly with co-pays and deductibles and needs for cost containing authorizations before care can be delivered.

When you reflect on how the US healthcare system operates compared to other first world countries the American system performs at substandard levels in spite of its high cost. This observation leads to the question of why Americans not only tolerate this low performing system but support political representatives who design, and support it?

People or profit in the US health care system?

The U.S. healthcare system stands apart from those of other high-income nations. While nearly all other developed countries utilize some form of universal healthcare to ensure every citizen has coverage, the U.S. relies on a complex, fragmented hybrid system dominated by private, employer-sponsored insurance alongside targeted public programs.

Despite spending nearly twice as much per capita on healthcare as the average wealthy nation, the U.S. frequently sees lower life expectancy and higher rates of chronic illness compared to its peers.

Why is the US health care system the worst in the first world nations? Because it is profit making and the primary incentives for the system is to make a profit not serve the health needs of Americans. 

Why is the system set up this way to maximize profit rather than to provide service? Because the health care corporations spend inordinate sums of money on lobbying and campaign donations to legislators and government executives who support their corporate interests rather than the interests of the people they represent and supposedly are working for.

The primary social policy undermining the US healthcare system is the Citizens United ruling of the US Supreme Court which claims that corporations are persons who have free speech and therefore can spend any amount of money they choose to sponsor and support elected officials at all levels of government.

If you want to change the health care system in the US to better serve people, elect legislators and executive officials who want what’s best for their constituents and not the corporations. We need politicians who support people not profit.

Which is the best: audio or print books?

There is an interesting article on the Cornell University Evidence Based Living web site entitled, “Is Listening To Audiobooks As Good As Reading?”

Here are a couple of quotes from the article:

The analysis did find that literal comprehension — recognizing explicitly stated facts — was approximately the same for reading and listening. The paper’s authors hypothesized that readers have an advantage because they can slow down, reread a tricky paragraph, or pause to reflect, while listeners must move at the narrator’s pace.”
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Divided attention consistently reduces how much we retain, which likely accounts for differences in comprehension when comparing reading and listening.
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The evidence doesn’t suggest we should avoid audiobooks altogether, but rather that we should make careful choices about when to listen and when to read. “Audiobooks come at a cognitive price and one should not substitute them for reading,” Sternberg says.The take-home message: Although the human brain interprets reading and listening in similar ways, the evidence shows that listening likely does not promote cognitive development as much as reading.

I have noticed that my experience of listening to audiobooks and reading print is quite different and serve different purposes. The more challenging the material the more I get from print. I like listening to audiobooks for pleasure and reading print for information. I notice that a lot is lost when I listen to audiobooks as compared to when I read print.

For example, most nonfiction I would rather read print while fiction is usually OK in audio unless there are unusual names and words in which case I prefer print.

When it comes to rereading, it is much easier and more satisfying to reread in print. I found this especially true when I listened to the audiobook first. I don’t find it enjoyable or satisfying to listen to an audio of a book I already read in print.

88 corporations pay no federal income tax in 2025

From Common Dreams on 06/11/26 

Eighty-eight corporations that paid no federal income tax last year spent roughly $852 million on US campaign contributions and lobbying during recent election cycles, a report published Thursday revealed.

The report, “The Current Price of Zero,” was authored by Eileen O’Grady, a researcher at Public Citizen’s Congress Watch division. The publication draws upon an analysis published in April by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) showing that at least 88 of the nation’s largest companies paid no federal corporate income tax in fiscal year 2025, despite reporting combined US pretax income of around $105 billion.