Child Abuse & Neglect Cost Alabama $3.7B in 2018

Direct economic losses attributable to child abuse and neglect cost the State of Alabama $3.7 billion in 2018, according to a study conducted by The University of Alabama College of Human Environmental Sciences and The University of Alabama Center for Business and Economic Research.

Researchers found that “the tangible cost of child maltreatment (or child abuse and neglect) to the Alabama economy in 2018 is conservatively estimated to be $3.7 billion.”

The report entitled “The Cost of Child Maltreatment to the Alabama Economy” found that figure is the direct cost which the state bears if only the child victims are considered, and does not include associated costs to families (including extended ones) and communities that are known to occur.

The research which was conducted in collaboration with the Alabama Department of Child Abuse and Neglect Prevention and The Children’s Trust Fund, found that cost of lost worker productivity of victims was the single greatest financial cost – $2,629,685,802, while costs to the state child welfare system exceed $281,886,848, and Adult Criminality costs were conservatively found to be $109,469,664.

Child maltreatment causes preventable infant mortality and low birthweight, chronic health and mental health problems, developmental and educational delays, lower work productivity, and higher involvement with the criminal justice system.

The cost to the state is

Alabama Governor Bentley demonstrates fiscal incompetence

Part of the Great Hypocrisy of Alabama‘s über GOP-dominated state government is that on September 18, 2012, voters approved the Governor’s request to take money from the Alabama Trust Fund using the specific language in the Special Election to Amend the state’s Constitution “to provide adequate funding for the State General Fund budget”… “by transferring funds from the Alabama Trust Fund to the State General Fund beginning with the state’s 2012-2013 fiscal year and concluding with the state’s 2014-2015 fiscal year.”

It’s equally important to understand and know, that the time of the election, however, there was no repayment plan, and only recently has the legislature acted, and has the governor signed, to repay any monies taken.

And now, the Governor wants to TAKE $6 Million earmarked for the State Parks and put it into the General Fund.

It’s prima facie evidence of utter incompetency, pure & simple.

More to the point, however, specifically regarding any contract with private entities to operate any private enterprise on public property, it seems to me that such an operation is also prima facie evidence of incompetency because to do so says in essence that ‘we’re not capable, nor do we have the ability to operate any operation profitably.’ And that, my friends, is a most damning indictment.

It’s bad not only for that reason, but because since private enterprise holds the key to the operations, they can call the shots, and raise the prices (cost of operations) at will, by merely citing an increase in cost of operations (without justification or evidence). And then, the state is left holding the contractual bag, while the private entity claims squatter’s rights on public property.

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Gov. Robert Bentley says Gulf convention center a key to help parks survive funding cuts

By Mike Cason | mcason@al.com
March 27, 2013 at 10:39 PM, updated March 28, 2013 at 7:02 AM

MONTGOMERY, Alabama — Gov. Robert Bentley said Wednesday he hopes to help minimize the effect of funding cutbacks on the state parks system.

Bentley’s budget plan for fiscal 2014 called for taking $6 million earmarked for state parks and placing that money in the General Fund.

This week, State Parks Director Gregory Lein wrote a letter to elected officials and others saying some parks could close and

Why Mitt Romney’s Big Bird & PBS “budget saving” is asinine.

Imagine if the Federal Budget was $1.00.

Then, take a penny, and

Taxpayers’ $182B TARP bailout of AIG Now Fully Recovered

As the president and others – nonpartisan and partisan alike – have noted, BIG BUSINESS should NOT need a bailout. They should be operated in such a manner as to allow the Free Market to decide how, to what extent, and if they prosper. As part of that process, ironclad and strong regulation to prevent fraud and abuse should be vigorously enforced. And chief executives

Govenor Bentley begs, borrows or steals. -OR- What’s it like living in Alabama? Ever been continuously anally gang-raped?

Not only does Governor Bentley send another man out to do his work, but he steadfastly refuses to do the right thing.

And the Huntsville Times REFUSES to cover Dr. Don Williamson’s stumping-for-the-governor’s “Let me borrow-nearly-a-half-BILLION-dollars-without-a-repayment-plan” appearance at City Hall.

Remember: Whatever you do,

• DO NOT increase tax rates on the wealthiest Alabamians, who already pay a lower rate than the impoverished – who also pay the 3d highest tax rate in the USA (why, even former Republican Governor Bob Riley called for tax change saying, “It is immoral to charge somebody making $5,000 an income tax.”);

• DO NOT increase property tax rates on corporate timber landowners who pay a lower rate than homeowners – who already pay 66% less than the national average;

• DO NOT increase severance tax rates on big oil & gas companies who are extracting those natural resources from under Alabama soil; and for goodness sake, whatever you do,

• DO NOT stop earmarking 9 out of every $10 of state tax revenue. God – and Governing Magazine – knows that our 50th place rank among our nation’s 50 states for fiscal management is as best as the whole state of retards can do.

Face it, folks. Alabama continues to be anally gang-raped by dogdamn retards, who call themselves “politicians.”

And, sadly enough, we apparently like it.

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Medicaid crisis if Sept. 18 vote fails, state’s chief medical officer says

Written by Bob Johnson, Associated Press
3:11 AM, Aug. 27, 2012

Dr. Don Williamson, State Health Officer with the Alabama Department of Public Health, announces an emergency ruling that two dangerous chemicals marketed as ‘bath salts’ are being added to the Alabama Controlled Substances List during a press conference in Montgomery, Ala., on Tuesday, Feb. 22, 2011. (Montgomery Advertiser, Lloyd Gallman) / Advertiser file

Alabama’s chief public health official said Medicaid will be in deep trouble if voters do not approve a Sept. 18 referendum to take more than $437 million from a state trust fund and use it to prevent huge cuts in spending on state programs for three years.

The constitutional amendment, if approved by voters, would take $145.8 million a year for three years out of the Alabama Trust Fund to help balance the budget during a time when tax collections are expected to see little growth.

Some critics say the Alabama Trust Fund was initially set up more than 30 years ago to prevent state officials from raiding oil and gas revenue every time the state has a funding crisis.

State Health Officer Don Williamson, who is temporarily overseeing funding for Alabama’s health care program for the poor, said without receiving money from the trust fund the Medicaid program would be $100 million in the red.

He said this could jeopardize programs that provide medicine for poor patients, reduce payments for doctors who treat Medicaid patients, send more poor patients to emergency rooms and eliminate optional Medicaid programs such as providing life-saving dialysis treatment.

“These are life-threatening choices,” Williamson said.

Williamson told The Associated Press that

Something Stinks in Denmark: “TOO BIG TO FAIL,” Bank Corruption, LIBOR, and the Federal Reserve

No… no… no…

Banks don’t need to be regulated.

They’re doing quite fine with all the money they’ve stolen from you already.

No, they don’t need regulation.

And no, we don’t need to re-enact the Glass-Steagall Act – the federal law that kept Wall Street Brokerage Houses, Insurance Companies, and Banks separate and out of each other’s business. Right now, as things stand with them, they’re enjoying an incestuous fiscal orgy. And that’s good. We need more incest. We need more orgies. They’re all good. In fact, the more mammon… er, money you have, the more holy you are, the more the Almighty has blessed you – and not someone else (those lazy slobs who don’t deserve anything). {/sarcasm}

But there’s really no reason to worry… the banks will get what’s comin’ to ’em – and the ‘what’ is NOT your money. They have that already.

Come a-courtin’ time (that’d be in the court room), the Banksters be ruled against in a BIG way.

Just wait.

It’s coming.

Next thing you’ll hear in the news are the BIG BANKSTERS wanting legal protection from Congress for the wrongdoing they’ve done.

Just wait.

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Losing With LIBOR: One Trader’s Story

by David Kestenbaum

Listen to the Story All Things Considered [3 min 18 sec] Download

We’ve been talking a lot lately about what’s been dubbed the “LIBOR rate fixing scandal,” where some of the biggest banks in the world have been accused of manipulating a key global interest rate.

London-based Barclays Bank agreed to pay a $453 million fine over charges it manipulated the London Interbank Offered Rate — LIBOR — a key global interest rate. Oli Scarff/Getty Images

If those words — “manipulation of a key interest rate” — leave you wondering what the big deal is, and who would be harmed, meet Dan Sullivan. He says the manipulation of LIBOR cost him a million dollars, in just 24 hours.

Dan Sullivan used to work

Credit Default Swaps: Why should they be outlawed?

“Credit-default swaps – where you insure your neighbor’s house just to destroy it and make money from it – that’s exactly what we have to curb.”

How dangerous is it for money traders to take bets on, and therefore exploit, a nation’s budget deficit or any other fiscal crisis?

Regarding the quote, if you guessed that Harry Reid, President Obama, Janet Reno, George W. Bush,

You Wall Street Mother Fucking Sons of Bitches!

Brian Williams has reported Thursday, December 17, 2009 on the NBC Nightly News that,

“New York state finance officials said today Wall Street is on track to shatter all profitability records this year.

Profits came in at just under FIFTY BILLION dollars

– that’s profit for the first three quarters of 2009 –

and that is much more than was expected for the entire year,

and a stunning TWO-AND-A-HALF times more than the previous record set back in the year 2000.

Bonus payments for bankers and traders could be as much as FORTY percent HIGHER than last year.”

Download the New York State Comptroller‘s report – Review of the Financial Plan of the City of New York, December 2009,  Report 16-2010, by Thomas P. DiNapoli, New York State Comptroller –  here:

http://www.osc.state.ny.us/osdc/rpt16-2010.pdf

See NBC Nightly News video here:

http://www.videonewslive.com/view/404951/video_wall_street_sees_recordbreaking_profits

-AND-

here:

http://www.bing.com/videos/watch/video/wall-street-sees-record-breaking-profits/60a1dyr

Two Numbers – ONE BIG, one small

$9,100,000,000,000

Nine TRILLION, one hundred BILLION…

Remember another number.

Two.

During the reign of King George W. Bush, just TWO of his failed policies have cost Americans $9,100,000,000,000.

What two failed policies are those?

The Bu$h tax cuts, and the creation of a Rx (prescription drug “benefit” written wholly by Big Pharmaceutical industry cronies.

The U.S. Census Bureau’s most current estimation of the population of the United States places 308,171,505 people in the United States as of December 17, 2009.

Put another way, that’s a cost of $29, 529 per person.

As a result of deregulation of the financial industries – banks, insurance and stock brokerages – thus creating one giant incestuous financial orgy, Americans have directly suffered under the thumbs of bankers and insurance companies, while their Wall Street cohorts, in conjunction with imaginative thieves, have twiddled and fiddled to create “investment derivatives” – essentially a Ponzi schemed fiscal fraud – out of thin air. That house of cards having collapsed, has revealed what was suspected all along. Outside the transparent dressing room of his glass house, the king had no clothes.

Driven by greed and an insatiable lust for more,