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It costs billions and take years to develop drugs

And in that case patents would serve their purpose if we're talking about completely new stuff. Sadly, this is not the case - so you need something to convince companies to not just create even more copycat drugs and dump money that should go into R&D in marketing. See this article.

Maybe you are right - http://www.conservativenannystate.org/cns.html#5 I suppose only proper western states would understand that speech.

I'm right about here:

http://www.conservativenannystate.org/cns.html

And here:

http://thelibertychannel.blogspot.com/

It's time to reframe the debate over economic policy.

You're right. That's because the Republicans are advancing the cause of the Conservative Nanny State. You can read more about it here: http://www.conservativenannystate.org/ Enjoy.

Because... the point of raising and lowering the prime rate is to "heat up" or "slow down" the economy. Simplisticly, lower rates equals more investment, more jobs, more inflation and higher rates equals less investment, less jobs, and lower inflation. There should be representatives on that board who are looking out for the working people of America and not just the bank's bottom line. Maybe it would be better for Americans to have a 2% unemployment rate rather than a 5% rate? Let's put some people on the board who will at least ask that question.

What it really boils down to is to try and pull the country away from the nanny state conservatives (also known as "cheap labor conservatives"). Asthe economy and laws of the country are being managed (as inexact a science as that is) we should start looking to see if we can include the interests of more Americans than only the CEOs of Haliburton and their ilk.

I've worked within a union within the State government (at a University no less). Despite my knee-jerk liberalism, I'm not sure I would voluntarly join a union again. In my anecdotal experience, the union didn't appear to save jobs when the State budget tightened and seemed to protect employees that probably should have been let go. On the other hand, I'll be enjoying my weekends, health insurance, overtime pay, paid holidays, and other benefits that were brought to us by unions whether or not I join one myself.

Anyway, more to the point, the issue shouldn't be a "Rush told me unions are bad" or, even, "unions will save our jobs". The cheap labor conservatives (e.g. the nanny state conservatives) love arguments like this since it pretty much distracts everyone from the fundamental point: the U.S. economy balance of power is tilting so far in the direction of the corporate entities that by the time we're done argueing about unions it will be too late.

I'm not sure about banning multi-national corporations because it would be pointless as long as all world corporations were similarly limited including pseudo-governmental corporations (e.g. from China, Dubai, Russia). How about a much smaller step: bring in 33% of the Federal Reserve Board's voting membership from labor organizations instead of from banks? At least in one aspect of the economy middle class American's interests could be represented.