Year-end reports

[Rich]

Two reports just came out. The first is good news, the Affordable Care Act/Obamacare is doing quite well and has several million people signed up. 2.1 million have signed up via HealthCare.gov and 3.9 million more have gotten coverage through expanded Medicare and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP).

http://www.hhs.gov/healthcare/facts/blog/2013/12/nationwide-enrollment-surges.html#PAGE_4

The second report is not so good, well, it's really good for the 1%, not so much for the rest of us. NAFTA reached its' 20^th anniversary on January 1^st, 2014. How has it worked out for people who are not in the 1%? Not so well and while Mexico has made some gains, they haven't seen much of what was promised way back when. The website Crooks & Liars summarizes the main findings and then gives a link to Public Citizen's report.

http://crooksandliars.com/2013/12/nafta-20-1-million-lost-jobs-580-increase

From Public Citizen's report:

"NAFTA created new privileges and protections for foreign investors that incentivized the offshoring of investment and jobs by eliminating many of the risks normally associated with moving production to low-wage countries. NAFTA allowed foreign investors to directly challenge before foreign tribunals domestic policies and actions, demanding government compensation for policies that they claimed undermined their expected future profits. NAFTA also contained chapters that required the three countries to limit regulation of services, such as trucking and banking; extend medicine patent monopolies; limit food and product safety standards and border inspection; and waive domestic procurement preferences, such as Buy American."

[Marlena Santoyo]

Thanks Rich. Yeah there's the good side and the not so good. And after has not been good for Mexico. Compass Sena can no longer stay on their farms and Group corns as they have done for thousands of years off once again, capitalism rears its ugly head leaving behind 99%.

 See you soon,

Your friend Marlena

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How to prevent or overcome the holiday blues:

• Be realistic about your plans. If you spend all your energy on frantic holiday preparations, you may be “making over” the stress but it will still accumulate and could lead to the blues. Instead, create space to enjoy yourself and the people in your life whom you love or enjoy being with.

• Practice kindness and patience. These are heart feelings that nourish you and others, but they need to be engaged to provide the benefits. A simple adaption of HeartMath’s Quick Coherence® technique can help you activate positive feelings of kindness and patience when you are irritable. It takes less than a minute to do.

Heart Focus – Focus your attention in the area of your heart.
Heart-Focused Breathing – As you focus in the area of your heart, imagine your breath is flowing in and out through that area. Breathe slowly and gently in through your heart and slowly and easily out through your heart.
Heart Feeling - Continue to breathe through the area of your heart. Activate feelings of genuine kindness and patience as you breathe. Keep doing this until you feel impatience, irritation or stress release.

• If you’re feeling sad, don’t expect to feel differently just because it’s the holidays. But do reach out to others. Doing something with a friend can yield a quiet warmth of the heart that will nurture you, even if you don’t feel like “celebrating.”

• If a loved one is absent or a relationship was broken, don’t pretend it didn’t happen. Talk about missed loved ones and fond memories, and emphasize the positive aspects of a relationship that has been lost. Allow yourself to put more energy into the relationships you do have now.

• Cultivate an attitude of appreciation. Each year brings its changes. Make a list of all you have to appreciate.

More resources: “Overcoming Depression” is a free resource in the Solutions for Well-Being section on IHM’s web site. Transforming Depression -The HeartMath Solution to Feeling Overwhelmed, Sad and Stressed by Doc Childre and Deborah Rozman, provides step-by-step tools for understanding and transforming depression through the power of the heart.

Read more: http://www.care2.com/greenliving/5-ways-to-stop-the-holiday-blues.html#ixzz2odSp5Gvu