Does Your Pharmacy Have the Same Problem as Cleburne’s Walgreen Pharmacy?

As I rounded the corner to head down the aisle to the pharmacy, I saw the dreaded sight – a line that extended across the aisle I was on and across part of the next aisle. So, I changed my course and moved over to that aisle so I could intercept the line and find my place at the end. Once in line I realized it would probably not be as bad as I first though because there were only four people in front of me – for some reason they decided to keep a safe distance of about 4 ft. between them.

You know how it is when you submit to “the line.” Our senses start taking in everything in our surrounding – probably inherited this from our ancestors who wanted to make sure there were no mountain lines or rattlesnakes close by where they were waiting in line for a drink of water. This makes us really good at spotting potential threats – and I did. Over to the left there were four people sitting in chairs waiting on prescriptions and outside the drive thru window there were two cars. We were all looking toward one spot – and that spot was occupied by one young woman. There were ten of us all looking at her!

I quickly noticed that she was looking somewhere too – back in the pharmacy where there were three or four other Walgreen employees staying business and making sure they made no eye contact with us.

After about 25 or more minutes standing in line, I made it to her – provided the usual stuff – name, address, DOB. She went over and picked up a bag and handed it to me and told me to put my info in the system. When she told me the price I asked her if that was correct, it was only about half what it was supposed to be – and then it happened. She looked in the bag and there was only one bottle. Then she went back to the computer and clicked and said – they only filled one prescription. With a strained forced smile she said – “Would you like wait for us to fill it – in about another 30 minutes?”

That’s when I decided this Walgreen pharmacy has a problem. A problem is an existing situation that fails to meet values and expectations.” So I analyzed the situation and came up with the following options for what the problem is:

(1) Customers are less important than other things.

(2) Employees that interact with customers are too expensive to hire.

(3) Too many customers show at once.

(4) Too many customers show up at the wrong time.

After cogitating on this highly important situation I reached this conclusion – This Walgreen Pharmacy must have too many customers!

What do you think? Got any suggestions?

The Country Cogitator

PS        I feel a little better now.

Secret Meeting, Too Big to Fail & Too Powerful to Prosecute

What would you think if a CNN Breaking News announcement interrupted the regular program and a reporter appeared announcing that the US Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, a US Senator, and five high level officers of the largest banks in America had been discovered secretly meeting to create a system in which private banks would take control of the entire monetary system of the USA?

In November 1910, CNN did not exist, but the meeting described above took place. The men traveled by private train to a private resort owned by J. P. Morgan at Jekyll Island off the Georgia coast. Those present were:[i]

(1) Frank Vanderlip, President of Rockefeller’s National City Bank of New York.

(2) Henry P. Davidson, senior partner of J. P. Morgan & Co.

(3) Charles D. Norton, President of Morgan-controlled First National Bank of New York.

(4) Benjamin Strong, Vice President of Morgan-controlled Bankers Trust.

(5) Paul Warburg, a German immigrant and senior partner of Kuhn Loeb & Co.

(6) A. Platt Anderson, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury of the United States.

(7) Senator Nelson Aldrich, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, and father-in-law of John D. Rockefeller, Jr.

Warburg’s plan proposed the creation of the Federal Reserve Association, an association with twelve member banks whose stock would be owned by private stockholders. The Federal Reserve Association would control the nation’s money and credit; it would be a bank of issue, meaning the private bankers would be able to create currency or money at will, and it would finance the Government by securing credit in times of war. Senator Aldrich later admitted the agenda in a magazine article:

Before passage of this Act, the New York Bankers could only dominate the reserves of New York. Now we are able to dominate bank reserves of the entire country.[ii]

Contrary to what many Americans believe -- the Federal Reserve System is not a government agency. It is a private corporation completely owned by commercial banks. What do you believe is their top priority – making the most money or increasing the quality of life for the most Americans?

The one thing I can’t figure out is why so many Americans have bought into the mantra – “the less government regulation the better off America will be.” Who do you think benefits the most from less regulation? Could it be –

Banks that are too big to fail!

&

Bankers that are too powerful to prosecute!

Or, as US Attorney General Eric Holder said:

"I am concerned that the size of some of these institutions becomes so large that it does become difficult for us to prosecute them when we are hit with indications that if you do prosecute, if you do bring a criminal charge, it will have a negative impact on the national economy, perhaps even the world economy."[iii]

Now that’s the ideal situation for an elite few – but I don’t think it is what the Founding Fathers had in mind when they created our great nation. Tocqueville predicted that if American citizens failed to voluntarily associate together to achieve great things by participating in the governing process, the following will happen:

(1) Wealthy and powerful men would come to control the governing process and use it to increase their power and wealth.

(2) Individuals will become powerless because they dependent on wealthy and powerful individuals.

(3) Freedom and liberty will be in great jeopardy and the existence of the nation will be endangered.

Cogitate on that awhile!

The Country Cogitator

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[i] A History of Money; p. 44

[ii] A History of Money; p. 47

[iii] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/06/eric-holder-banks-too-big_n_2821741.html

Banking 101

Introduction

How important is money to most people? It is clearly a basic requirement for life and most people spend the majority of their lives working to acquire it. So, what do you know about money itself? Do you know the answers to these questions?

(1) What is money?

(2) Where does it come from?

(3) Who makes it?

Wouldn’t you think that people who spend so much time and effort trying to acquire money would make it their business to know as much as possible about money? How many courses about money did you take in high school and college? Doesn’t that seem strange?

The reason the masses aren’t taught about money and the banking system is probably because those who control the banking and monetary systems do not want them to know what they have done in the past and what they are doing now. We are about to change things and let the genie out of the box.

What is money?

The answer we are going to give for this question is for what money was before the 1970s. There have been significant changes since then.

(1) commodity money – A commodity is something useful or valued.[i] It is something that can be traded for something else. In the history of mankind, a wide range of commodities have served as money: salt, hides, cattle, slaves, tobacco, sugar, metals, silver, and gold, to name a few. At any moment in time, there are likely to be several commodities that strive for the position of being the universal standard for pricing (dollars, ounces of gold, number of cows, etc.).[ii] 

(2) fiat money -- Fiat money replaces commodity money with valueless and inconvertible symbols issued by the state. It ultimately rests on social trust in the ability of the state to enforce payments in this form of money; it competes with commodity money and restricts the presence of the latter in the sphere of exchange; it also provides a standard unit of account for prices. Fiat money can take several forms varying from cheap metallic coin, to crude paper monies with forced circulation, to sophisticated legal tender issued by central banks and backed by state debt.[iii]

(3) credit money -- Credit money is a privately issued form of money that results from credit relations among agents of circulation. It is inherently a promise to pay in the future, a liability of the issuer. Credit money is normally created as financial institutions issue liabilities to finance the loans they make. By the same token, credit money returns to its issuer as loans mature (liabilities drain away). Final settlement requires either cancellation against another promise to pay, or the intervention of commodity or fiat money. [iv]

So, money can be a commodity, something that is valueless issued by the state, or a promise to pay something in the future. This is probably not the definition you had in mind a few seconds ago. The acceptance of fiat or credit money ultimately rests on social trust in the ability of the state to enforce payments in that form of money.[v] If a society does not have that trust, it will turn to commodity money instead.

The bottom line is that the whole USA monetary systems ultimately exists because of one thing -- TRUST! The government's -- and the 1%'s -- greatest fear is that people will stop trusting the system.

Cogitate on that for awhile!

The Country Cogitator  

---

[i] http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/commodity

[ii] Profiting Without Producing: How Finance Exploits Us All By Costas LaPavitsas © 2013, Verso, Brooklyn, NY; p. 83.

[iii] Profiting Without Producing; p. 84.

[iv] Profiting Without Producing; p. 84.

[v] Profiting Without Producing; p. 84.

State’s 1st bullet train to chase A&M’s Hwy. 6 ghosts

Fightin' Foobirds! Fish Class, Air Force Squadron 14, Texas A&M Corps of Cadets, '62-'63. Yours truly, corner, lower right, bewildered as ever. "Big Red," or Amos DeWitt, my fish old lady, is on top row beside tequila bottle, with white glove and fingers high. Crazy bunch. We really, really, really did know what Life was about then.

By Dan Bodine

The announcement this week Texas’ new bullet train expected to run within 10 years between Dallas and Houston will make just one stop  (just off Hwy. 6 at Aggieland in College Station) is proof once again either “any blind raccoon can find an acorn or two if it just keeps scratching around” or, doubly so, "ghosts don’t live forever."

Indeed, the train caps a splashy PR campaign to reverse the school’s negative image vis a vis "modern times" that started a half century ago.

And it sure ‘nuff shreds a “locked-in” location moniker that no doubt either kept or drove thousands away from the school, too. Highway 6, not interstates, is how you reach A&M. So plan on staying a while, it was. Especially in the old days.

It hasn’t been but 50 some-odd years, yes, since only gung-ho, idealistic Army or Air Force wannabes, or passing-down farmers or ranchers kids mostly, or naive idiots like my fellow blogger Jim Myers and I, dared to venture off to Aggieland for college – to forced ROTC life in the mean Corps of Cadets. A powerful 12th man!

After barbers shaved off all our hair from our heads and we were put in military uniforms to march for an hour or so under a hot Texas afternoon sun, we were put at “Parade, rest!” in front of our barracks/dorms.

Before being dismissed, a steel-jawed first-sergeant walked angrily before each one of us – his glowing-red eyeballs glued to our faces as he passed by, watching us for a sign of weakness, just a twitch – row after row, while shouting long-lived words like these:

“Texas A&M put more military officers in World War II than any other military school in this country! Be proud you’re here! You hear!!? If not, if you don’t like it, always remember – Highway 6 runs both ways!! Take one of ’em!!!”

Hee, hee. After that first year, that’s exactly what Jim and I did. Flew the coop to happier learning grounds.

Huge setback for both of us, of course. Starting off college by gittin’ outta Dodge City isn’t exactly a textbook case on how to begin a college education.

But Texas A&M didn’t exactly offer the textbook campus life Jim and I had envisioned growing up in Cleburne either.

Should’ve prepared ourselves better? Cram all of that to see in one weekend visit our senior year in high school? Not quite. Sure wish the internet had been around then with the com boxes to get into, though. Whoo!

But it was a valuable lesson in life for each of us, too, the long and short of it was.

“Put more glue on your hands. There might be times when you might want to hang around a while longer. Life has a way of changing.”

Change came, too, for the old school. ’62-’63 (our year) was the last year Texas A&M refused to admit female students, for instance. Hwy. 6 became a co-ed highway. Just behind that was lifting the 2-year Corps membership requirement.

Top athletes around the country started giving the campus a second look, in the years that followed. The focus on academics intensified. Research, always A&M’s core strength, grew more prominent as corporate growth funneled more funds into the institution.

To thousands and thousands of graduates and their families over the years, Aggieland always has been one of the best, if not the best, campus in the nation. What has evolved through the past half century is now more people know it.

Soon the only stop between Dallas and Houston, on the only bullet train in the State of Texas, will be at A&M.

Would I let my teenage daughter go to school there in a few years on an academic scholarship, if she became interested?

La-dee-da! The times they are a changin’, ain’t they?!!




---------------------

Here's the link again on the Fort Worth Star Telegram train story. http://www.star-telegram.com/2014/08/27/6072469/high-speed-rail-gaining-steam.html?rh=1

–– 30 –-

Power: Some things history reveals about it.

I was working on a project today and came across a paper I filed away a few years ago about “power.” So, after cogitating on it for a little while, I decided to share some of the highlights with you. Understanding what power is and some time-tested truths about it is an essential step to more accurately understanding history, as well as changing things today.

What is power?

Power is the capacity of some persons to realize their wishes; to produce the effects they want to produce; and to produce intended and foreseen effects on others.

Basic Axioms about Power

(1) Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. -- Whether it is kings, presidents, or CEOs, or petty tyrants around the community, they get so full of themselves that they cut corners, cheat, treat people badly, or make such gross displays of their status that they alienate their followers or stir up an opposition.

(2) The fact that power corrupts means that power congeals. -- People and organization try to hold on to power at all costs. Once there is a power structure, it is very hard to change it or dislodge it.

(3) The powerful always try to create an outside enemy, real or imagined, to bind the followers to the leaders. -- The human tendency to divide people into "us" and "them," which social psychology experiments suggest is readily triggered, makes this a very easy task to accomplish.

(4) Divide and conquer. -- If the followers are not faithfully bound to the leader by the dread of the outside enemy, then leaders can stay in power by favoring some followers and punishing others.

(5) Provide the followers with bread and circuses.  Capitalize on the fact that people's everyday life can be compelling for many reasons: a love of friends and family, pleasure in work or artistic or athletic skills, and a desire for routines. If everyday life is possible, then people are less likely to try to challenge a power structure.

(6) The powerful believe that the enemy of their enemy is their friend. -- Only by understanding this axiom is it possible to realize that there is a rationale to the constantly shifting alliances that occur in human power struggles at any level from the personal to the international. When the issue is power, principles usually go out the window.

Source: Basics of Studying Power by G. William Domhoff / April 2005 -- http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/methods/studying_power.html

Thanks for join the cogitation emergence!
JM

Why do we let them exploit us?

The French historian and progressive philosopher Fernand Braudel observed that throughout history there seemed to be a minority of people who:

(1) held power and wealth

(2) ruled society

(3) exploited the population to sustain their power and privilege

In America the “population” is called “citizens.” An interesting thing happens when we flip the list above and read it like this: There seems to be a minority of people who exploit (use selfishly for one's own ends) the citizens:

(1) to sustain their power & privilege

(2) to rule society

(3) to acquire their power & wealth

This raises the following questions:

(1) How do they exploit the citizens?

(2) How do they use the government to rule citizens?

(3) How do they hold their power & wealth?

When we know the answers to the above questions, we can then discover the names of:

(1) those who hold power & wealth

(2) those who do the acts of exploitation

(3) government officials who make it possible for the minority to rule citizens

(4) those who hold the minority’s wealth for them

Knowing who the predators are is an important & necessary component for solving many of the problems we face today. But, it isn't as important or as big of a challenge as the solving the primary problem: the ability for citizens to work together for a common purpose.

For this to happen each citizen have to come together as “members of the common purpose group” instead of “members of special interests groups” or the “crowd of complaining passive observers.” The minority who holds the power, wealth & privilege isn't worried – they know history is on their side – citizens rarely work together.

(1) What if citizens could come together because they agree on a common purpose?

(2) What if they worked together to achieve that common purpose?

(3) What if they chose leaders who were committed to the common purpose?

(4) What if professionals committed to the common purpose?

Real change begins with finding a common purpose and making a commitment to working with fellow citizens, neighbors, family members, friends, workers, network associates, and anyone else to make the common purpose the reality for the population. What do you think should be the common purpose? Cogitate on that!

JM 

The Country Cogitator

PS - If you think this is worth cogitating on please let me know by “Liking” my Facebook page – Click Here. 

Mean old “rulemakers” pick on “big old bank.”

Do you feel sorry for a company that just reported a $12.3 billion profit and whose chairman is complaining that things would have been better if it had not needed to “invest significant time and resources” in meeting the “heightened and evolving expectations of our regulators.” 

The problem is that rulemakers are putting “unprecedented” pressure on the bank and distracting its staff. It has 256,000 employees, but has “extremely limited space capacity” to deal with the “increasingly fragmented, often extra-territorial, still evolving” rules. 

• Those mean old US rulemakers hit the bank with a $1.9 billion fine for breaking anti-money-laundering rules -- most notably managing transfers for Mexican drug cartels. 
• It has paid $2.7 billion in restitution for more than one million mis-sold insurance policies in Britain. 
• It is under investigation in just about every rate-rigging case out there, from Libor to foreign-exchange, gold, silver and other benchmarks.
• It is sitting on $3.3 billion in provisions for unspecified future legal problems. 

What are those places called that are referred to as “extra-territorial” and "their rules?" They are called "sovereign nations" and their rules are called "laws." 

If you really want to be entertained, download the annual report from the link in the article below and go to page 259 and read its legal laundry list. 

Read this very interesting and enlightening article at -- http://qz.com/244328/hsbc-is-looking-for-sympathy-after-reporting-a-12-3-billion-profit/#/h/92259,1,92260,1,92262,5/