How to Obtain a Phd (Penalty for Hardworking Dummies) in the United States: Inside Out

By Pearson Nurse

In the event of effacing the American Dream that has motivated both American born and immigrants for more than two hundred years, the author offers answers to mind-boggling questions why this is happening. The policy of unhealthy diet, irresponsible debts, and overmedicating Americans, promoted by the government, is the triple betrayal that devalues the famous traditional American belief in hard work leading to success. The author warns that America is replacing the values of high work ethic and free competition with crony capitalism, that favors chosen elite companies allowing them to socialize their loss and privatize their gain.

Because of her multi-cultural background, Tamara Hammond has an original perspective of the United States and sees America from both the inside and the outside. Through the prism of these opposite views the author offers the unique angle of her perception and alerts the reader about some hurtful policies that are ruining the greatest country in the world.
The insiders-outsiders outlooks are suggested in light of key events from recent American history that led to the current critical situation in the U.S.A. The author presents her ideas, observations, and analysis based on her thorough research and personal experience.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Apr 1, 2011
• ISBN: 9781456743062

Pearson Nurse

Although Tamara Hammond was born and raised in Bulgaria, she has also lived in the Mediterranean countries of Italy, Greece, and Cyprus, where she developed her passion for exploring new cultures, and studied their languages and traditions. In her new homeland, the U.S., Tamara Hammond majored in History at Utah Valley University for her BA, and in Russian for her Masters at Columbia University. She has published two lead articles in Crescat Scientia, a journal of history, and in Anamesa, an interdisciplinary journal issued by New York University. As an artist, Tamara Hammond had her sculptures featured at Ciel Salon in New York City, NY, as well as Woodbury Art Museum, Coleman Art Gallery, Springville Art Museum, and Harris Fine Art Center in Utah. Currently Tamara Hammond resides in Provo, Utah, with her husband of twelve years, Ernie Hammond.

Book preview

Acknowledgements:

A special thank you to my husband, Ernie, for his unconditional support even when he disagreed with me.

Thanks to my family, and especially to my sister Maria for believing in me, and my nephew Dimmy, for helping me from far, far away.

Thanks to my friend Linda, for her generous help, and to all my loyal friends here and overseas who encouraged me when I most needed it.

Finally, thanks to AuthorHouse and its adroit professionals that made this book accessible to the world, and made the process easy and painless.

Contents

Acknowledgements:

Introduction

Chapter I

WHAT HAPPENED TO THE AMERICAN DREAM

Chapter 2

WHERE IS THE RICHEST MIDDLE CLASS IN THE WORLD?

Chapter 3

If YOU ARE MIDDLE CLASS IN NEW YORK CITY, YOU HAVE TWO CHOICES: TO BECOME RICH, OR BECOME POOR, BUT EITHER WAY YOU HAVE TO DISAPPEAR AS A REPRESENTATIVE OF THE MC

Chapter 4

WHO IS PACKING THE RICH AND THE POOR?

Chapter 5

THE VANISHING MIDDLE CLASS IN NYC, OR A NEW VERSION OF FRANK SINATRA’S LYRICS

Chapter 6

FOR THOSE WHO DIDN’T MAKE IT

Chapter 7

BIGGER, FATTER, CHEAPER, FASTER

Chapter 8

HOW WE HAVE GOTTEN THERE

Chapter 9

TIME TO ACCEDE TO COMMON SENSE

Chapter 10

IT IS HARD TO MAKE IT IN THIS COUNTRY, YET EVERYWHERE ELSE IS WORSE

Bibliography

Introduction

At the risk of giving the ending away: the dream is over, but still worth trying.

A wise observation by my Physical Education coach at Utah Valley University is a proper notion to start this book, When foreigners come to the U.S., first facts they notice are the wealth and the abundance of overweight people. I noticed an additional couple of phenomena at first sight: people working more than their counterparts all over the world, and especially in comparison with the developed European countries, and American people being able to express gratitude as easily and graciously as no other nation. There is plenty to like about America, and scarcely anything to dislike, but two trends I stubbornly resented in spite of many adopted positive customs: the habit of unhealthy eating and the rampant living on credit. Unfortunately, the health problems related to poor nutrition are constantly taking a toll, and the reckless borrowing of money is resulting in a great economic collapse right now.

It took me awhile to notice a not so obvious fact: Americans are hopelessly, terribly overmedicated, and they don’t even know it! After my shocking discovery I tried to speak to a number of folks who couldn’t even begin to understand what I was talking about, being mostly in denial and oblivious of their addictions to painkillers and antidepressants. It should’ve raised a red flag when my future husband came to visit me in Bulgaria with a bag full of medications that he innocuously called my vitamins, because nobody in Europe travels equipped with pills like that! However, I was too happy and euphoric to pay attention to signs like these. Later, when the family doctor prescribed Prozac to my teenage daughter, I was appalled and resistant, while everyone else seemed to be fine with it. The doctor’s justification for the prescription was my daughter’s depression. Since she had to face a number of problems connected to her being taken out of her environment, friends and family, and dealing with culture shock, it was perfectly natural for her to be depressed. Nevertheless, last thing she needed was an antidepressant, because she had to cope with her problems and go through the adjustment process like everybody else. Unfortunately, not in the doctor’s view who was the authority; and had I succumbed to his methods, my daughter would have become a prescription drug addict as are many other teenagers and adults in America. According to the U.S. National Library of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health, as of May 2010, an estimate of twenty percent of the American people use prescription drugs for non-medical reasons, defined as drug abuse. This meant every one in five Americans were abusing prescription drugs without breaking the law, notwithstanding the ones that were addicted to illegal drugs.

Therefore, I slowly came to the realization that something was horribly wrong. Gradually I started gathering the facts, and discovered a history of a planned hurtful policy of prescription drug abuse, orchestrated by the drug magnates and legitimized by the FDA, and inflicted on Americans more than a hundred years ago. This actually constitutes the second of the three major betrayals committed by the ruling class against the American people: nutritional, medical, and financial. The first and the third, shrewdly noted by my coach, I will analyze respectively in chapters one and seven.

In reference to the second betrayal, according to author Suzanne Somers, the entire over-consuming drugs campaign against innocent, not suspecting anything Americans started back in 1910 with prominent figures such as Carnegie and Rockefeller who owned pharmacies and were thinking of a clever way of increasing their profits. As a result they came up with the brilliant idea to hire a doctor who would go to all prestigious medical schools such as Johns Hopkins and offer them huge funding if they would alter their curriculum and promote pills and surgeries over other remedies and procedures. This is how the entire clever plot for overmedicating Americans started. And it is prospering today more than ever, because after a century of medication abuse, people are sicker than ever.

It is so simple and genius, it is unbelievable: everybody is happy: the population gets its quick fix with a pill, no pain, no efforts involved, and the magnates get their fabulous profits. If somebody is still unhappy, hey there is always more Prozac to consume.

In her bestseller Ageless: The Naked Truth About Bioidentical Hormones Suzanne Somers reveals very disturbing statistics that show Americans consume more medications than the entire world combined. Consequently, we have one of the highest rates of cancer in the world. According to Somers, by 2008 every one in eight women in the U.S. will have breast cancer. Currently, one in four deaths in the U.S. is due to cancer[1]. Even a more ominous statistic, recently reported in May 2010 by Nickolas D. Kristof, a New York Times columnist, shows that about forty-one percent of Americans will be diagnosed with cancer at some point of their lives.[2] It doesn’t take a PhD in medicine to realize that our bodies are not capable of absorbing the enormous amount of drugs that we devour every day driven by hectic schedules in hope of a quick fix. Combined with toxic foods, polluted air and stress, this hurtful chemistry attacks our bodies and they collapse under voluntary abuse and silently struggle to restore the natural balance and health.

This is how I ultimately discovered the shocking fraud of the American health care system. I was forced to realize the second of the three greatest frauds against American people: the health care system in coalition with medical schools and doctors, facilitated by the government. The first fraud, of course, is committed by the irresponsible food industry making people fat in the name of profit, and the third – by the financial monopoly that is bankrupting the country as we speak. Notably, the first two phenomena about America mentioned by my coach (Americans being both wealthy and overweight), are also part of the triple betrayal of the American people by their government, namely – nutritional, medical, and financial.

Accidentally, my suspicions about health care were confirmed by a number of other authors that I came across while I wasn’t even searching for proof. These authors are just regular folks that happened to learn the truth the hard way: by being sick and therefore becoming victims of a merciless system designed to serve as a money machine.

Kevin Trudeau, the whistle blower of this prominent fraud in the U.S. observes that: Hospitals, drug companies, and the entire health care industry should be called ‘sick care’ industry. This money machine does not make their profits by keeping people healthy but rather finding sick people, then selling them their outrageously expensive drugs, surgical procedures, and other medical procedures… health care is the most profitable in the world and as long as people are sick, people are making billions of dollars in profit.[3]

The author continues with his conclusions, based on a thorough research and facts listed in his book Natural Cures that They Don’t Want You to Know About: The pharmaceutical industry focuses more time and money on marketing than on developing new drugs. The pharmaceutical industry is categorically not interested in curing or preventing disease…. The only thing drug companies want to do is sell more drugs and increase profits. They do not want to cure and prevent disease. They do not care about your health. They do not care about finding the truth about why people are sick and the best ways to prevent sickness and cure illness. Drug companies only want to develop and sell patented drugs.[4] Unfortunately, I also had to learn this truth the hard way, not just from books and theoretical research. I would only add to Trudeau’s comment that the health care system does not merely rely on finding sick people to sell them drugs, but rather on producing sick people in order to ensure customers: every drug approved by the FDA has side effects that are inevitable and are supposed to be eliminated by yet another drug, once and again, therefore, the vicious circle never ends.

It was hopeless; however, I wasn’t going to give up. I was determined to finish my mission of revealing the truth, the way I saw it, and nobody or nothing could prevent me from doing it. Clearly, it is an honest attempt to share my experience and observations from both inside and outside points of view, because I came here twelve years ago and as an outsider, I see facts that are unnoticeable to people who are used to them; however, with my assimilation and becoming a citizen, I pay taxes as the insiders do and with my going through college and dealing with health care insurances, I am fully adapted to this culture. All I can do in return for the benefits and the great experience as an American citizen is to offer my point of view on essentially important topics.

Because of my background I have a different perspective and dare to say that I see more clearly many facts precisely as an outsider. This is my thorough analysis and I sincerely hope that my insights can help many people to realize that not everything that they are used to is normal, and being used to something is not a rationale for normality. Sometimes it is hard to detect facts that we see every day and are part of our daily routine. My advantage is that as a newcomer I have a fresh view of the reality and with my inclination for analysis and clarification I can offer a solution based on my multicultural experiences.

True and vital observation of mine is that the best phenomena as well as some of the worst ones come from this great country, and it is our task to endorse the positive and eliminate the negative. Admittedly not an easy task, but the first step is to acknowledge this fact. Then we can find a solution, given that everything