In Massachusetts since August, citizens have bought $1.2 billion in state bonds to support state spending needs.  During WWII the US issued War Bonds in denominations small enough for average folks to buy.  It was a tremendous effort, both in terms of money raised and in terms of building public support for the War effort.

Today almost 3/4 of America’s Treasury debt is being bought by overseas investors, central banks and sovereign funds.  It’s an unhealthy situation and compromises the country’s independence.

The Treasury should be issuing bonds each of which will direct money into important national efforts.  They should issue Energy Bonds to raise domestic investment in our effort to transform our energy system to a sustainable model, as one obvious example.  They should issue HealthCare bonds to help fund our transition to a more equitable, affordable national health care system.

Common sense, combined with a little effort, can and would make a big difference.  Taxes are taxes but they go who knows where.  This type of investment will not reduce tax income, but it will increase overall funding for achieving important goals.

Tying specific Treasury securities to a national program will increase America’s investment in itself.  And it will reduce the country’s corrosive dependence upon foreigners to sustain our improvements.

Just a reminder.  Since it’s inception in 1980, taxpayers have spent something on the order of $45 billion to clean up environmental damage created by America’s longstanding failure to husband it’s resources.

This is just a small taste of what lies ahead if America continues to ignore environmental damage that continues unabated today.  Witness the coal industry’s miserable record of environmental destruction: Entire mountaintops leveled, aquifers polluted, just to name two that to this day are still tolerated.

The Superfund and brownfield site cleanups came about as a result of the Love Canal scandal.  In case you forgot about this, or are too young to even know about Love Canal, here is a brief Wiki recount.

Love Canal is a neighborhood in Niagara Falls, New York, which became the subject of national and international attention, controversy, and eventual environmental notoriety following the discovery of 21,000 tons of toxic waste buried beneath the neighborhood by Hooker Chemical. Love Canal officially covers 36 square blocks in the far southeastern corner of the city, along 99th Street and Read Avenue. Two bodies of water define the northern and southern boundaries of the neighborhood: Bergholtz Creek to the north and the Niagara River one-quarter mile (400 m) to the south. In this area, Grand Island is situated on the south shore of the Niagara River.

The Niagara Falls School Board chose to construct a school on this site, even though being fully aware of the fact that Hooker Chemical had dumped an appreciable amount of hazardous waste there, and the City of Niagara Falls permitted the building of homes and rental units on this tainted property. The construction efforts of the development released the chemical waste, leading to a public health emergency, an urban planning scandal, and a finding of liability on the part of the former owner. In the words of a state health commissioner, “Among its legacies, Love Canal will likely long endure as a ‘national symbol of a failure to exercise a sense of concern for future generations.”^[1] It was indeed a situation where the inhabitants of Love Canal “overflowed into the wastes instead of the other way around.” ^[2]

But we have not learned our lesson.  We still refuse to husband our resources or be decent stewards of our environment.

The Communist Dictator Stalin was said to have remarked “A single death is a tragedy.  A million deaths a statistic.”  Love Canal was a tragedy.  Forty five billion dollars is a statistic.

If we continue our ways, the mounting statistics will become a tragedy for us all.

Mother Nature has a way of suppressing or even eliminating species that overextend their natural domain: Including the human species.

If you have no knowledge of chemicals classified as endocrine disruptors, you should.  You’re likely to be consuming them all the time.  The problem with these chemicals is that they can mimic and affect your hormones.  And they do so at extremely low dosage levels, which means normal toxicology testing won’t protect you.

Here’s an explanation from The Endocrine Disruption Exchange.

“The endocrine system is the exquisitely balanced system of glands and hormones that regulates such vital functions as body growth, response to stress, sexual development and behavior, production and utilization of insulin, rate of metabolism, intelligence and behavior, and the ability to reproduce. Hormones are chemicals such as insulin, thyroxin, estrogen, and testosterone that interact with specific target cells. The interactions occur through a number of mechanisms, the easiest of which to conceptualize is the lock and key. For example, target cells such as those in the uterus contain receptors (locks) into which specific estrogenic hormones (keys) can attach and thereby cause specific biological actions, such as regulating ovulation or terminating pregnancy. Other endocrine disrupting mechanisms include binding hormone transport proteins or other proteins involved in signaling pathways, inhibiting or inducing enzymes, interfering with uptake and export from cells, and modifying gene expression.

Over the past 60 years, through technological advances a growing number of synthetic chemicals have been used in the production of almost everything we purchase. They have become a part of our indoor environment, found in cosmetics, cleaning compounds, baby and children’s toys, food storage containers, furniture and carpets, computers, phones, and appliances.

We encounter them as plastics and resins every day in our cars, trucks, planes, trains, sporting goods, outdoor equipment, medical equipment, dental sealants, and pharmaceuticals. Without fire retardants we would not be using our computers or lighting our homes. Instead of steel and wood, plastics and resins are now being used to build homes and offices, schools, etc. A large portion of pesticides are endocrine disruptors. What this constant everyday low-dose exposure means in terms of public health is just beginning to be explored by the academic community.”

What kind of effects might these chemicals develop in our bodies?  From a Scientific American article here.

“For example, bisphenol A (BPA), a primary component of some plastics, reacts with cells in the same way as the female hormone estrogen and could be acting synergistically with other pseudoestrogens in the bloodstream to produce heart disease, diabetes or liver failure. Such effects have been observed in animal studies in the lab as well as in frogs in the field for chemicals ranging from the phthalates (used to help perfumes scent linger and make plastics soft) to ubiquitous herbicides like atrazine, linked to malformation in frogs……

Among health issues that some advocates have linked to chemical exposures: early pubescence in girls (BPA hastens the onset of pubescence in juvenile rats); asthma (car and truck exhaust can induce or worsen lung inflammation), and genital malformation (phthalates have been linked to lower sperm count and deformed penises in rats). The rise in autism is also believed by some to be at least partially linked to an environmental cause; NIEHS began in 2006 a study of mothers of autistic children who are pregnant again to see if there is any association with particular environmental exposures.”

The issue is finally broken into the major media.  Here’s an article in the NYT by Nicholas Kristof entitled “It’s Time to Learn From Frogs.”

Kristof writes in his article “Now scientists are connecting the dots with evidence of increasing abnormalities among humans, particularly large increases in numbers of genital deformities among newborn boys. For example, up to 7 percent of boys are now born with undescended testicles, although this often self-corrects over time. And up to 1 percent of boys in the United States are now born with hypospadias, in which the urethra exits the penis improperly, such as at the base rather than the tip.”

And further on in the article Kristof reports:

“A lot of these compounds act as weak estrogen, so that’s why developing males — whether smallmouth bass or humans — tend to be more sensitive,” said Robert Lawrence, a professor of environmental health sciences at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. “It’s scary, very scary.”

The scientific case is still far from proven, as chemical companies emphasize, and the uncertainties for humans are vast. But there is accumulating evidence that male sperm count is dropping and that genital abnormalities in newborn boys are increasing. Some studies show correlations between these abnormalities and mothers who have greater exposure to these chemicals during pregnancy, through everything from hair spray to the water they drink.

Endocrine disruptors also affect females. It is now well established that DES, a synthetic estrogen given to many pregnant women from the 1930s to the 1970s to prevent miscarriages, caused abnormalities in the children. They seemed fine at birth, but girls born to those women have been more likely to develop misshaped sexual organs and cancer.”

None other than the prestigious Endocrine Society is sounding a strong warning.

“There is growing interest in the possible health threat posed by endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs), which are substances in our environment, food, and consumer products that interfere with hormone biosynthesis, metabolism, or action resulting in a deviation from normal homeostatic control or reproduction. In this first Scientific Statement of The Endocrine Society, we present the evidence that endocrine disruptors have effects on male and female reproduction, breast development and cancer, prostate cancer, neuroendocrinology, thyroid, metabolism and obesity, and cardiovascular endocrinology. Results from animal models, human clinical observations, and epidemiological studies converge to implicate EDCs as a significant concern to public health. The mechanisms of EDCs involve divergent pathways including (but not limited to) estrogenic, antiandrogenic, thyroid, peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor , retinoid, and actions through other nuclear receptors; steroidogenic enzymes; neurotransmitter receptors and systems; and many other pathways that are highly conserved in wildlife and humans, and which can be modeled in laboratory in vitro and in vivo models. Furthermore, EDCs represent a broad class of molecules such as organochlorinated pesticides and industrial chemicals, plastics and plasticizers, fuels, and many other chemicals that are present in the environment or are in widespread use. We make a number of recommendations to increase understanding of effects of EDCs, including enhancing increased basic and clinical research, invoking the precautionary principle, and advocating involvement of individual and scientific society stakeholders in communicating and implementing changes in public policy and awareness….”

 So it’s time to become more aware.  The EPA is beginning to test these chemicals, but they are going to use outdated technologies that won’t flag low dose dangers.  Again from the Scientific American here.

“Each test and assay was designed under the surveillance of corporate lawyers who had bottom lines to protect and assorted toxicologists who were not trained in endocrinology and developmental biology. For over a decade, EPA has ignored the vast wealth of information on endocrine disruption from independent academic researchers funded by the United States and other governments in Europe and Asia. This 21st century research is based on different assumptions than the toxicological assumptions that drove the EPA test designs. And most important, because of the limited scope of its test battery, EPA is not in a position to address the pandemics of endocrine-related disorders that pose a threat to every child born today.”

Sound familiar in our political landscape?  Corporate interests interfere with the public’s safety, whether their physical safety such as that endangered by endocrine disruptors, or their financial safety which was recently severely damaged by a Wall Street protected by Washington.

President Obama promised us change.  I wonder if even he underestimated the amount of change that’s so desperately needed. 

It’s not a coincidence that the Republican Party is going bust along with the concept that unfettered free markets work best.

The current global recession is a direct result of an ideology that free markets, if just left alone by government regulation and supervision, would best be able to create sustained growth, jobs and income.  Although this was not always so, the current version of the GOP aligned its politics totally with this concept.

So what happened?  Reality happened.  The ideology was flawed.  Unregulated financial markets, in particular, will collapse if not monitored by government.  It’s happened before and it helped cause the Great Depression.  Strict regulatory regimes were created because of the Great Depression.

But the Great Depression was 70-77 years ago.  Most people who lived through it are long dead and buried.  Memories faded.  The lessons learned then were eventually discarded, most particularly during the Presidencies of Clinton and Bush.

But of the two parties, the GOP drunk most deeply of this flawed ideology that unregulated free markets will provide for all. 

So unregulated free markets do what they do:  They go dramatically bust, plunging entire economies into recession or worse while evaporating the population’s savings. 

That ideological boat is sinking more rapidly than the economy.  And along with it sinks the GOP.

If ever there was irrefutable evidence that our private health care system is broken, it’s the latest billion dollar business spawned by our system:  Medical Tourism.

Want a hip replacement?  In the US it can cost more than $100,000.  But you can go to New Delhi, for example, and get the same treatment from a top flight medical center for about $10,000.  Heck take the family along too for a couple weeks.

Want to get that bright white smile back with porcelain veneers, a $3,000 job here in the US?  Go to Costa Rica where you can safely get the same procedure for about $500.  Consulting firm Deloitte estimates that more than 750,000 Americans last year traveled overseas to save money on surgical procedures of all kinds.

Even the European Union, where public health care plans are dominant, has ruled that citizens can go overseas for medical procedures which will be paid for by the public health care system of the home country.

Meanwhile the forces of our heavily subsidized private health care system have marshalled their money and lobbyists to fight President Obama’s health care reforms and keep their subsidized profits.  

It is perfectly reasonable to recognize that the public sector does some things best, the private sector does other things best.  But this rational line of reasoning has been banished from our public discourse.

To bring this thought out into the open is met with what can only be described as hysteria. The immediate response is to point at the perp and yell “Stalin!”

If the public can aggregate resources and provide a health care system that benefits citizens, both in cost and health care outcomes, then that is what the public should do. The public’s agent is the government. Governments don’t make profits. Get over it.

Even Obama gets tied up in knots when he talks about the public option. Even he is left trying to argue that the public option should be allowed to compete, and won’t get any “subsidy.” What? Every darn thing in America gets a government subsidy because governments provide the stable infrastructures for society to operate. And possibly the most subsidized industry in America is the health care system as it now exists.

Of course a public option will gain subsidies. The pertinent point is that other countries’ experience clearly show that subsidies to public health care systems are more efficient and provide better cost and health outcomes than do subsidies to private health care systems.

And America’s subsidies to its private health care industry are evidence number one that this is true.  The billion dollar Medical Tourism business is just another clue that we’re doing this all wrong.

The truth is, any argument to preserve our system borders on absurdity.

Among President Obama’s recommendations for comprehensive regulatory reform of the financial industry  is one for establishing the Consumer Financial Protection Agency (CFPA).

Harvard Prof. Elizabeth Warren, currently the head of a Congressional Committee charged with overseeing Treasury’s Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), would be a terrific choice to run CFPA.  She’s a lawyer with strong consumer protection inclinations and she’s an expert on issues involving debt and the middle class.

Here’s what the administration wrote about this recommendation.

“Prior to the current financial crisis a number of federal and state regulations were in place to protect consumers against fraud and to promote understanding of financial products like credit cards and mortgages.  But as abusive practices spread, particularly in the markets for sub prime and non traditional mortgages, our regulatory framework proved inadequate in many important ways.  Multiple agencies have authority over consumer protection in financial products, but for historical reasons, the supervisory framework for enforcing these regulations had significant gaps and weaknesses.  Banking regulators at the state and federal level had a potentially conflicting mission to promote safe and sound banking practices, while other agencies had a clear mission but limited tools and jurisdiction.  Most critically in the run-up to the financial crisis, mortgage companies and other firms outside of the purview of bank regulation exploited that lack of clear accountability by selling mortgages and other products that were overly complicated and unsuited to borrowers’ financial situation.  Banks and thrifts followed suit, with disastrous results for consumers and the financial system.

“This year Congress, the Administration, and financial regulators have taken significant measures to address some of the most obvious inadequacies in our consumer protection framework.  But these steps have focused on just two, albeit very important, product markets–credit cards and mortgages.  We need comprehensive reform.

“For that reason we propose the creation of a single regulatory agency, a Consumer Financial Protection Agency (CFPA), with the authority and accountability to make sure that consumer protection regulations are written fairly and enforced vigorously.  The CFPA should reduce gaps in federal supervision and enforcement, improve coordination with the states; set higher standards for financial intermediaries; and promote consistent regulation of similar products…….

“The CFPA should give consumer protection an independent seat at the table in our financial regulatory system.”

You know when a recommendation is well targeted by the level of whining and shrillness it stirs up.  Financial industry players are upset that someone might actually come in and stop the profitable rip offs of consumers (and business, by the way) they’ve enjoyed for so long.

Here’s the good professor in a recent PBS interview. 

“Every credit card for a credit card company is like a lottery ticket. They’re just waiting to see who’s going to maybe stumble a little. Maybe get into trouble on a car loan. Maybe nothing at all except they just look vulnerable. They’re just in the right zip code. They’re just the right profile for people who won’t be able to run any place else. And those are the ones you slam. Those are the ones you hit with the 29 percent interest rate, the 35 percent interest rate, the new fees. And then, because of course if you can’t pay it, then you get hit with a fee for not paying or for paying late, for going over limit. And the game is afoot. With any luck at all from the credit card company’s perspective, these people will become little annuities that will just keep generating profits for the credit card companies for months, for years, maybe forever.”

An edited transcript of a recent PBS Warren interview is here: http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/501/credit-traps.html

And it isn’t just consumers.
“I was bowled over by a figure in The Home Depot’s presentation at the Chicago Fed’s 2009 Payment Systems Conference this week: The Home Depot paid more in interchange than for employee health care last year. That’s astounding. Interchange is The Home Depot’s third largest operating cost. And this is from a company that gets comparatively low interchange rates just by being large. Interchange is costing large, sophisticated merchants more than health care. And the value it gives is questionable: The Home Depot’s interchange costs have risen 16% in recent years, while purchase volume has increased 10%.”
That from credit slips blog here: http://www.creditslips.org/creditslips/credit_debit_cards/.

Of course that also speaks to the big box technique of hiring a lot of low paid workers as temps with no health care benefits. Another plus for globalization and the destruction of labor unions!

In addition to her knowledge and experience, there are several characteristics Prof. Warren exhibits that should recommend her for the job.  One, she’s not political.  Two, she’s deeply suspicious of complexity and she demands transparency.  Just ask Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner.  At a recent appearance by Geithner before her committee, Warren gave Geithner’s Treasury a “gold star” for being the most transparent Treasury on record.  And then with barely a moment’s pause, she requested more transparency so that Treasury’s stress test of big banks could be independently verified by outside parties.  A third characteristic of Warren is her style.  She’s at all times polite and non-threatening.  She’s persistent certainly, but she isn’t one to demean or bully someone before her committee, character traits much too rare in Washington’s “take no prisoners” environment.

If President Obama puts Warren in this job consumers should rejoice.