Pastoral Resources

Obviously, people with low or even moderate incomes could not afford such savings rates, and even diligent savings from their low wages would not be enough to pay for either retirement or healthcare.

If US per capita income continues to grow at a rate of 1.5 percent a year, the country will have plenty of money to finance comfortable retirements and high-quality healthcare for all citizens, including those at the bottom of the wage ladder.

The beliefs concerning reincarnation have great ethical impact on human life and our relationship to the world.

Whether or not we believe in survival of consciousness after death, reincarnation, and karma, it has very serious implications for our behavior.

Many cultures have independently developed a belief system in reincarnation that includes return of the unit of consciousness to another physical lifetime on Earth.

Today, nearly 40 percent of a senior's healthcare spending is on pharmaceutical medications.

At their core, Americans all want the same basic things: a quality education for their children, a good job so they can provide for their families, healthcare and affordable prescription drugs, security during retirement, a strongly equipped military and national security.

Today, diabetes is now epidemic, according to the Centers for Disease Control, the National Institutes of Health, the American Diabetes Association and other national healthcare leaders.

I'm not sure it's the stimulus money that will necessarily allow the economy to recover. It will help to fortify our budgets, frankly, to ensure that there isn't as much backsliding in the areas of education and healthcare, for example.

But Buddy was an upper. He was happy. He loved music, and he was really happy. I don't know... I don't believe in reincarnation at all, but if all that stuff is true, then he might have been on his last time around.

They suggested I should introduce an element of reincarnation in the story. At first, I thought that was silly. But then, this whole time dimension began to fascinate me.

In general President Obama's policies have been very, very skewed and very, very extreme. Like on healthcare for example, I don't think that trying to ram healthcare through was a smart idea politically, because he wasted a lot of capital and now he doesn't have any of that same capital with even his own party that he used to have.

In the past week it has become clear that the vote on the final healthcare bill will be very close. I take this vote with the utmost seriousness. I am quite aware of the historic fight that has lasted the better part of the last century to bring America in line with other modern democracies in providing single payer health care.

Financial literacy is an issue that should command our attention because many Americans are not adequately organizing finances for their education, healthcare and retirement.

Our Nation must provide sufficient access to healthcare, adequate benefits, and the supplemental resources our veterans were promised and so dearly need. We owe our heroes no less.

And a friend of mine in the Christys, we used to sit up at night and talk and read and wonder if reincarnation, and if it wasn't reality, what would happen to the human spirit when the body dies? Is there an afterlife? Just questions like that.

After 16 months of teaching, consulting, fellowship, and special project activities on matters ranging from conservation to healthcare to international trade, Gov. Ventura appointed me to the Minnesota Court of Appeals.

Providing patients and consumers with solid information on the cost and quality of their healthcare options can literally make the difference between life or death; and play a decisive role in whether a family or employer can afford healthcare.

Healthcare providers will compete to offer the best record of patient safety at the lowest prices. Hospitals and patients will benefit from having accurate information about areas of excellence and areas that must be improved.

I am pleased that the President has signed an Executive Order this week requiring federal agencies to disclose information about prices and quality of healthcare services.