Featured Trades: (THE HEALTH CARE BILL)
1) Here Comes Health Care. Well, the sun rose this morning. After driving around Washington State listening to talk radio while the health care vote was counting down, I wasn't so sure I would see it again. With this single vote, Obama has torn up the constitution, deprived America of freedom, and signaled the end of our country as a power on the world stage. The Democrats will lose control of the House and the Senate in seven months, and impeachment proceedings will begin against our 44th president immediately. A tectonic shift has broadened the gap between the two parties wider than the chasm of the Grand Canyon, and 30 states are planning to secede to keep socialized medicine outside their borders, sparking a second civil war. So I thought it would be timely to invite my friend Pat from across the border in Vancouver to lunch, where national health care has been in force in some form since the fifties. Pat and I survived the 1968 Paris student riots together. He managed to keep his front teeth. I didn't. He managed to get the girl and take off for Greece. I didn't get that either. Pat thought the people south of the border were mad. For $125 a month he gets outstanding health care for himself and his wife. When his significant other broke her leg skiing at Whistler a few years ago, they couldn't helicopter her off the slopes fast enough. The doctors did a fabulous job taking care of her, and it was all free. Sure, there are plenty of Canadians heading to the US for medical care, but they are mostly for face lifts and boob jobs not covered by the Canadian plan, or for procedures so advanced that the technology doesn't yet exist in the Frozen Wasteland of the North. There are far greater numbers of Americans flocking North to buy subsidized prescription drugs. Nor has the plan taken Canada to hell in a hand basket, with the Canadian dollar (FXC) among the world's strongest currencies, and the Toronto Stock Exchange (EWC) one of the most bullish. After the harangues from the car radio became redundant, I switched to a golden oldies station and had a much more enjoyable drive. Maybe the country that gave birth to Buddy Holly, Patsy Cline, and Chubby Checker will survive this after all.
