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John Day MD's avatar

https://www.oftwominds.com/blogoct21/scarcity-permanent10-21.html

https://www.ecosophia.net/that-untraversed-land/

I opened with these two pieces because​ where we might go and how we might get there seem to be questions that I should personally work on, at street level, not a lofty perch. Right now, for the next 3 weeks, I am perched in a public health clinic, a Federally Qualified Health Center, which began in 1970 as "The People's Free Clinic" in a church basement across the street from the UT campus. I remember going by there as a student, and seeing people waiting outside the basement steps for their friends. A friend of mine at the co-op where I lived, Sam, was proud to go there. There is a black and white photo of the volunteer staff in that basement one day in the 1970s, with some of their kids and babies; one fellow not wearing a shirt that day. I knew some of those people, and I know one of the babies. She's a Nurse, now.

The clinic, now in a very expansive, open and expensive new building, is effectively an arm of the federal government, and compliance is far more important to the survival of the clinic as an entity, than is taking care of any particular patient. It has become incorporated into a nationwide compliance bureaucracy, even as it has professed it's earlier ideals, with earnest countenance..

There is no way out of this kind of success, not that I can see. It is what has happened to medicine. I cannot go see people for free, or what they can pay, because I would make about what a teacher makes, or less, and I would be breaking so many laws and regulations, that I would be a criminal for my efforts. I did something like this with support from Luling, Texas from 1992-1994. It was the hardest I ever worked. They paid 2 office employees and gave me half a mobile building for a clinic. I did hospital and ER work and delivered babies and did c-sections, and made what Jenny had made as a first through third year teacher. Texas Medicaid reliably paid me $19 per clinic visit and about $560 per baby delivered. Individuals and most insurance (Medicare and commercial) typically just failed to pay me.

Those were the good days. They are over. I'm older, too.

I am about to work the last 3 weeks before the vaccine mandate takes effect November 1, 2021. I am not seeing any job postings for unvaccinated doctors, and any place that is hiring now is in the "intermediation" business, and needs doctors to crank patients through the line, one-problem-per-visit, as if that's how people's needs are met. I've never been able to do that, and I'm sort of an old-dog at this point; unlikely to learn that trick.

Jenny is still working as a school librarian. I have vegetable gardening, the Yoakum homestead, meditation/prayer and am assessing and chronicling the patch of history we are navigating together. I'm a good doctor, but without a format in which to legally practice medicine.

I'll see if a practice opportunity presents itself I'll work on vegetable gardening systems for central Texas, and on "the economy" at a personal and local scale, with as little "intermediation" as possible.

Cash is going to work better than digital central bank currency, at least for the persons, not for the central banks. Vote with your cash transactions.

https://www.johndayblog.com/2021/10/again-why-shortages-are-permanent.html

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joe jacovino's avatar

the freefall into a lawless state, some days it feels like it's greed based, other days like an ai program run amok , while at other times it seems like all the books and movies that were (supposed) to serve as warnings instead became blueprints. right now it's survival of the fittest on steroids. thanks for these incredible columns

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