New Rule: Not Everything in America Has to Make a Profit

[phantom power]

This might be the best "new rules" that Maher has ever done.

How about this for a New Rule: Not everything in America has to make a profit. It used to be that there were some services and institutions so vital to our nation that they were exempt from market pressures. Some things we just didn't do for money. The United States always defined capitalism, but it didn't used to define us. But now it's becoming all that we are.

Did you know, for example, that there was a time when being called a "war profiteer" was a bad thing? But now our war zones are dominated by private contractors and mercenaries who work for corporations. There are more private contractors in Iraq than American troops, and we pay them generous salaries to do jobs the troops used to do for themselves ­-- like laundry. War is not supposed to turn a profit, but our wars have become boondoggles for weapons manufacturers and connected civilian contractors.

...

Because medicine is now for-profit we have things like "recision," where insurance companies hire people to figure out ways to deny you coverage when you get sick, even though you've been paying into your plan for years.

When did the profit motive become the only reason to do anything? When did that become the new patriotism? Ask not what you could do for your country, ask what's in it for Blue Cross/Blue Shield.

If conservatives get to call universal health care "socialized medicine," I get to call private health care "soulless vampires making money off human pain." The problem with President Obama's health care plan isn't socialism, it's capitalism.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-maher/new-rule-not-everything-i_b_244050.html

[TexasObserver]

1. recommend ... because it's dead on

[Echo In Light]

2. Rec 2 - Bill Hicks said it first and with far more conviction, but still...

[abumbyanyothername]

8. Maher and Dennis Leary

both owe a lot to Hicks.

Can you imagine catching Hicks and Kinnison at a Houston open mike back in the day? (Of course, I don't think that Kinnison started the whole screaming routine until he was fairly well known and it came out by accident.)

[DrDan]

3. EXACTLY!!! - privatization should not be our goal for all efforts

[redqueen]

4. "When did the profit motive become the only reason to do anything?"

The 80's, duh.

[unpossibles]

5. right on

and of course this is getting unrecommended too.

I think this is true of a lot of things, that sadly we've become so obsessed solely with what financial worth something has that we've forgotten about the intrinsic value of many things in life.

Freedom may not be free, but that doesn't mean we should be crushed by our debts in order to have the illusion of being free.

[timeforpeace]

6. The production of Government has never been profitable, and will never be. Good rule.

[applegrove]

7. Yes. I really liked this new rule. It is so timely and so true. We need to get that message out.