4/28/2017 4 Comments Seoul missile defenseSo in retaliation for some of the things happening recently in North Korea, South Korea and the U.S. have agreed to put in a missile defense system just in case anything gets shot at Seoul. One of the portions of the agreement was that the U.S. would provide the funding for the weapons, if North Korea would provide the land to build upon. Now though, president Trump wants North Korea to pay for it all, and of course North Korea does not like that idea.
Trump sure seems to be hanging on to the idea that he can convince other countries to pay for things he wants by blustering about it. the South Korean government is already taking flak from the local population of Seongju who don't like it being installed there. China was hugely upset that Korea installed the THAAD, and a lot of Chinese boycotted Korean goods. As a result, the Korean economy took a hit (Lotte alone closed 85 of 99 stores in China). Furthermore, there was a group in Korea that didn't want to install it because they didn't want to be so chummy with the US. It was a political and economic risk for Korea to side with the Americans. Seoul retorted that under the Status of Forces Agreement that governs the US military presence in the country, the South would provide the THAAD site and infrastructure while the US would pay to deploy and operate it. SOURCE
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4/22/2017 5 Comments North korea 2017Every year there seems to be without delay some sort of threat from the North Korean Kim regime. It usually lands somewhere near the time they celebrate the Day of the Sun, or the birthday of their dictator Kim. This threat most usually entails some sort of missile threat, demonstration or nuclear weapons test that they use to show their own people their imminent power and to get more resources from their allies China.
Though, in the not so recent times China has stopped supporting North Korea, in fact it has completely stopped buying coal from North Korea, which is North Korea's main export. It has also meet and spoke with the U.S. regarding the matters of what to do with the now unwanted state. China should be concerned. If North Korea launches even a single nuke in the general direction of the US we can all safely assume the US response will be to obliterate North Korea. China doesn't want that kind of action so close to its borders. Although, I feel China is more worried of an imminent refugee crisis if something were to happen. A conflict between the US and North Korea would end pretty quickly, but China would get the brunt of the fleeing refugees. In all actuality, there are two types of Chinese, those who feel like yeah, its time we should probably do something about North Korea, and another more idealistic type who thinks NK is the last holdout against capitalism and China should do everything to help North Korea against US. This brings up another large and hidden point. Who is to take on the refugees from North Korea? If the South Koreans were to unite and take them all in, then in the eyes of China, the U.S. has won. Yet on the other side of the spectrum, if China takes the refugees, then China has won and the possibility of uniting both Koreas is lost. So along with the genetic testing that companies want to do to their employees, they are most likely going to get away with blending it with their wellness programs.
If you already did not know, many larger corporations offer wellness programs to help with lowering insurance costs by teaching and allowing their employees to live healthier lives. But are these programs really there to help the employee, or are they there more so for the employer who benefits the most from not having to pay for the now healthier employees healthcare costs. I think that they are doing this for the companies own personal gain solely, and with no care for the employees. Well, now they are taking it to a whole new level by attempting to gene test their potential employees before they even become employees. This serves two fold, first, since they now have a generally healthier employee population, they have a smaller chance of paying high insurance costs due to unhealthy employees. Secondly, they get to say to everyone that their company has a healthier population, and possibly even credit their in house wellness programs. A win-win for the company, and a win-lose for those trying to work for them. Additionally, this can be used as a sneaky way to screen unwanted employees who the company may not want to hire. For example, if employee A and employee B are applying for company X, then if company X can get employee B working for less money, then they might say that employee A's genetic test does not fit the companies health motto well enough. I personally hope that employers don't get the power to access any employees genetic or health data, and that health screenings do not become the norm for companies in the future. SOURCE 4/7/2017 2 Comments Gene testing passesAs many may know, there has been a lot of controversy going on in congress with the bill for repealing and replacing the afordable care act, and replacing it with the republican administration's AHCA, or also known as the afordable health care act. None the less, there was also another, possibly even more important bill that passed, HR1313. This bill goes around the 2008 bill for genetic privacy and nondiscrimination law known as GINA. This bill gets around that by adding it as part of the companies wellness programs, that allow them to require employees to give in to mandatory genetic testing, and to release other health related information.
Now, this is not all done without fair reason. Benefits for the company also tend to overflow into the overall general health of the workforce. That means that due to the initial screening from the employer, they technically are able to keep a more healthy workforce by simply not hiring or charging an excess for those employees who carry a less healthy life. I personally feel that this is extremely discriminating, and since gene testing is not entirely accurate, they may be missing and getting a lot of false positives during the testing. Furthermore, it has been shown that genetic screening does not in fact improve the overall health of benefit the employees at all SOURCE. So for me, this entire bill seems like very much a money grab for the business side of things. SOURCE |
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