World Politics

[patricknd]

She is vile...but you two voted for her even though she is obviously a ***.

Redtreviso and sarah palin sittin in a tree
K I s s I n g..........;

 

[Cobblestones]

Back up a few pages. I posted the 2010 Federal Budget.

Yes, but for the tax cuts, we would be solvent.

The debt then, by your reckoning is because of the military expense? Ok, it's your world, I'm just living in it.

Government and inefficiency are nearly synonymous terms.

I have friends in Belgium with free health care. Two come to mind. One works for the State and the other is in private business. Both would argue with your assertion of lower cost. Their tax rates are ridiculously high... so much so that they both transact business in cash whenever possible. There's a hugh incentive to do so and I'll bet you can guess why that may be.

Govt now can force you to buy insurance? That's actually good for me personally, but I am very much opposed to this mostly for the slippery slope argument.

You can't mandate people do the right thing.

Our healthcare system has many problems, but nothing like what will exist once there is a single source.

Obviously, the debt has been accumulated over many decades, but yes, a lot came from the star wars program of Ronald Reagan and most recently the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Remember that a lot of that was kept off the books and only the Obama administration put it on the balance sheet. Remember also that before the Bush tax cuts, the government ran up a surplus which could have been used to reduce the debt.

Government and inefficiency are not synonymous. It's not true because you say so. Look at the data.

Yes, I'm very much aware about shadow economy to avoid taxes. What's your point? People have tried to avoid taxes all the time in all kinds of economic systems. Not different from large companies lobbying for tax loopholes or just using tax shelters altogether.

Yes government should be able to mandate that everybody has health insurance. As I said before, if you're in need of ER care, you'll get it no matter what. It's a de facto mandate. So I don't see anything wrong with forcing everybody to pay for it in principle. Constitutionally it might be difficult to argue for forcing people to buy a product from a private company. But I'm in favor of a progressive tax based, single payer, government system anyway no constitutional issues there.

 

[redtreviso]

There's a hugh incentive to do so and I'll bet you can guess why that may be.

Scotty is a hugh freeper..I'm series... ha ha ha ha ha

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1933896/posts

 

[rhubroma]

I don't know but I am in the middle class and my income has at the very least seen an increase of about 35% from 10 years ago. Before that I guess I was what you would call at the Whiskey Tango level on the salary scale.
I never felt like joining a revolution.

I actually expressed myself inacurately on that point, due to a poor memory. Really, and this is not me speaking, but economic data from Davos World Economic Forum and OSCE, since the mid 80's the growth of annual earnings of the highest register of the social pyramid has been two times superior to that of the rest of the population. In terms of economic inequality, the Western nations are becoming at one with India, Indonesia and China.

According to Kaus Schwab, the founder of Davos, humanity is at a crossroads. The super rich can either continue to be lobbiests for their restricted interests, continuing the same practice that brought about the financial crisis, or else understand what is in the general interests of all.

The myth of Regan, New Labor and the merchantilism of Deng Xiaoping and his successors, which says that simply having more, larger and greater luxurious yachts, so long as there is a sea that keeps them afloat at the same level, is a good thing has been a prooved a false, other than vapid, ideology. It's the idea that economic growth and development renders irrelevant questions about its distribution, so long is there is growth is all that counts. This is the same idea that the "winner takes all," which has lead to the growing disparity between wealth and poverty even in the First World and is nationally infirm.

Whereas the corollary to this theory espoused by economists such as Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson, suggests that greater social inequality caused by neoliberalism is the inevitable consequence of its form of globalization, which are the presumed origins of todays super-èlite. The Davos economist Dan Ariely states it baldly when saying: social inequality renders nationaly unity impossible, causes increases in crime and unrest between the economic oppositions.

We live in a world in which 10% of the population controls 83% of the wealth.

So I'm glad you have seem a 35% increase in your wages over the last ten years, but you are not a typical case. I have seen a decrease in mine over the past 5 and have never exactly earned big bucks, though this isn't the point.

Rather the only economic group in 2009 (in the middle of the crisis) in America (to site the leading case) to have witnessed an increase in their earnings were the richest 5%. And read The Economist this month if there is further need of proof of this plutocracy.

As regards the social discontent and potential for revolution, I'm sure you are well aware of what's been taking place in Tunisia and Egypt. The West may not be at this point, yet, though the recent student demonstrations in France, Britain and Italy, the public rage in Greece, lets us know that e may not be that far away.

 

[Cobblestones]

A few viewpoints on the Arab revolution:

President Obama, say the 'D-Word'

Egypt's new political dawn

Ben Ali Tunisia was model US client

I am reminded of events more than 20 years ago when after a decade of drive for independent unions in Poland, Hungary punched the first hole in the iron curtain by opening the border to neutral Austria for all foreigners. Czechoslovakia was the next to follow. Later that year, the revolution climaxed with the fall of the Berlin Wall. The end was set by the Christmas day executions of the Ceausescus. Sadly, it seems the US is on the wrong side of the revolution this time.

 

[Anonymous]

Not only is ER as family doctor expensive and incredibly ineffective general health wise, it also doesn't really help the people who deserve it the most. The lower income working people who mow Scott's lawn and do his drycleaning and probably take care of his kids (Scott I am using you allegorically here) and who's bosses like Scott "can't afford" to provide them healthcare. They are too honest to steal (which going to the ER when you can't afford the bill is) and too busy working to spend the countless hours that the ER requires anyway, so they go without until their situation becomes a major medical emergency.
Scott will probably explain why I am wrong as soon as he is done with his 5th grader competition with Red.

Except for mowing my own lawn, not having kids and paying my employees health insurance, you have me pegged... allegorically speaking.

BTW, why would any 'group' deserve healthcare more than any other?

 

[Anonymous]

Leave my good name out of this.
You are right the govt. shouldn't be able to require us to buy auto insurance either.
On your last point I believe you are just plain wrong.

Bad analogy with auto insurance. Nobody makes you drive a car. In fact there are only about 130,000,000 licensed drivers in a country of 300,000,00+.

The UK and Canada have systems we seem to want. Just a quick search reveals multitudes of problems. But then we are the USA so I guess we will just avoid all of those issues.

 

[The Hitch]

I am reminded of events more than 20 years ago when after a decade of drive for independent unions in Poland, Hungary punched the first hole in the iron curtain by opening the border to neutral Austria for all foreigners. Czechoslovakia was the next to follow. Later that year, the revolution climaxed with the fall of the Berlin Wall. The end was set by the Christmas day executions of the Ceausescus. Sadly, it seems the US is on the wrong side of the revolution this time.

Hungary did not punch the first hole when the dictatorship opened borders. They punched the first hole when the people put down their lives against the red army in 1954. Then the Prague spring in Czechoslovakia , Protests in poland, trade unions in Poland and free elections in poland. Then the economic decline, and failure of war in Afghanistan. The opening of borders, was far from the first hole. Though it was still more important than the Berlin wall which gets all the credit because the media only cares about symbolism. Who cares about 50 years of protests and fighting when you can show a bunch of bricks being taken apart

 

[Anonymous]

Obviously, the debt has been accumulated over many decades, but yes, a lot came from the star wars program of Ronald Reagan and most recently the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Remember that a lot of that was kept off the books and only the Obama administration put it on the balance sheet. Remember also that before the Bush tax cuts, the government ran up a surplus which could have been used to reduce the debt.

Government and inefficiency are not synonymous. It's not true because you say so. Look at the data.

Yes, I'm very much aware about shadow economy to avoid taxes. What's your point? People have tried to avoid taxes all the time in all kinds of economic systems. Not different from large companies lobbying for tax loopholes or just using tax shelters altogether.


Yes government should be able to mandate that everybody has health insurance. As I said before, if you're in need of ER care, you'll get it no matter what. It's a de facto mandate. So I don't see anything wrong with forcing everybody to pay for it in principle. Constitutionally it might be difficult to argue for forcing people to buy a product from a private company. But I'm in favor of a progressive tax based, single payer, government system anyway no constitutional issues there.

Clinton had a surplus, no argument. There was also a mild recession that started at the tail end of his second term. Oh, then there was 9/11. Even if Clinton was running the show at that time the surplus would have evaporated. And do you not think Clinton would have responded to 9/11 militarily? What would our economy look like had we been attacked a second, third or fourth time on a scale anywhere near 9/11?

Medicare and Social Security are run efficiently? Compared to what?

Here's what I don't get;

You guys act as if corruption is only possible in a private setting. With human nature being what it is, why would you assume a govt apparatus would be any better than what is already in place? Without a motive, what will be the incentive for a govt controlled system to be efficient and effective?

 

[Cobblestones]

Hungary did not punch the first hole when the dictatorship opened borders. They punched the first hole when the people put down their lives against the red army in 1954. Then the Prague spring in Czechoslovakia , Protests in poland, trade unions in Poland and free elections in poland. Then the economic decline, and failure of war in Afghanistan. The opening of borders, was far from the first hole. Though it was still more important than the Berlin wall which gets all the credit because the media only cares about symbolism. Who cares about 50 years of protests and fighting when you can show a bunch of bricks being taken apart

Hitch, thanks for the history lesson, but I was talking specifically about the events in 1989.

 

[redtreviso]

. And do you not think Clinton would have responded to 9/11 militarily? What would our economy look like had we been attacked a second, third or fourth time on a scale anywhere near 9/11?

ooooooooohhhhh thank gawd for George Dubya Buuush and Cheney.. They kept us safe from turrism.....(except for that one thing)

 

[The Hitch]

Hitch, thanks for the history lesson, but I was talking specifically about the events in 1989.

Im not giving you any history lesson. You clearly know about it all yourself. But being raised a Pole, it is in my nature to respond any time someone suggests a country other than Poland was responsible for the fall of USSR

 

[Cobblestones]

Clinton had a surplus, no argument. There was also a mild recession that started at the tail end of his second term. Oh, then there was 9/11. Even if Clinton was running the show at that time the surplus would have evaporated. And do you not think Clinton would have responded to 9/11 militarily? What would our economy look like had we been attacked a second, third or fourth time on a scale anywhere near 9/11?

Medicare and Social Security are run efficiently? Compared to what?

Here's what I don't get;

You guys act as if corruption is only possible in a private setting. With human nature being what it is, why would you assume a govt apparatus would be any better than what is already in place? Without a motive, what will be the incentive for a govt controlled system to be efficient and effective?

9/11 might not even have happened under a more watchful administration, but who knows.

Medicare and Social Security are run efficiently when you think of the amount of $ administrated vs. the amount of $ spent on overhead (the actual administrating). There's mutual funds offered in our alternative retirement plan which take a higher % for administrating, most of which don't even beat the index. Private insurers have an even much higher overhead (+earnings).

Corruption is a problem public and private. No argument. It's actually easier to prosecute in public companies because laws for public administration or much more stringent than corresponding laws for private companies.

Yes, Canada and UK do have problems with health care. No system is perfect. But I can tell you that I had the most problems with US insurers which months after months declined to pay legitimate claims to the point where we got threatening letters from the hospital. In the end they paid out but it was a big hassle every time.

Anyway, I'm done discussing this topic for now. It's not going anywhere. I'd rather follow the development in the Middle East.

 

[Anonymous]

ooooooooohhhhh thank gawd for George Dubya Buuush and Cheney.. They kept us safe from turrism.....(except for that one thing)

One thing you excel at; missing the point.

 

[Cobblestones]

Im not giving you any history lesson. You clearly know about it all yourself. But being raised a Pole, it is in my nature to respond any time someone suggests a country other than Poland was responsible for the fall of USSR

I thought I gave the Polish credit by naming them first.

I followed Solidarnosc basically from the start when it was a local thing at the Lenin shipyards in Gdansk. I remember very well when general Jaruzelski effectively turned Poland into a military dictatorship. It required men of great courage like Lech Walesa to keep demanding the right for independent unions. I would never think to take any of this away from the Polish people.

 

[redtreviso]

One thing you accel at; missing the point.

As long as we are playing "what if" Had the supreme court not decided the 2000 election we might not have been attacked.. Had the aug 6 pdb been listened to by someone not on their 5th scotch we might not have been attacked. Had the prospect of a president bush and its guarantee of war the economy would have corrected and held on. Had someone watched the effects of Gramm Leech Biely the economy would have been fine.

 

[The Hitch]

I thought I gave the Polish credit by naming them first.

I followed Solidarnosc basically from the start when it was a local thing at the Lenin shipyards in Gdansk. I remember very well when general Jaruzelski effectively turned Poland into a military dictatorship. It required men of great courage like Lech Walesa to keep demanding the right for independent unions. I would never think to take any of this away from the Polish people.

There were far more courageous men and women then Walesa. Just like the Berlin wall is seen in the west as the symbol of 1989, Walesa is unfortunately given the same hype.

He had his moments, and his courage, especially at the begining, but so did many others, and the grass roots of solidarnosc claim he sold out. He shook the hands of Jaruzelski and co, and let them claim that they were part of the revolution, let them keep their wealth and in many cases power.

I sure hope that if a revolution succeeds in Egypt, we wont see Kefaya shaking hands with Mubarak and letting him claim he was part of the revolution.

 

[redtreviso]

There were far more courageous men and women then Walesa. Just like the Berlin wall is seen in the west as the symbol of 1989, Walesa is unfortunately given the same hype.

He had his moments, and his courage, especially at the begining, but so did many others, and the grass roots of solidarnosc claim he sold out. He shook the hands of Jaruzelski and co, and let them claim that they were part of the revolution, let them keep their wealth and in many cases power.

I sure hope that if a revolution succeeds in Egypt, we wont see Kefaya shaking hands with Mubarak and letting him claim he was part of the revolution.

C'mon hitch..everyone knows RONALD REAGAN was the most courageous..USA USA USA...Just ask scotty

 

[Anonymous]

As long as we are playing "what if" Had the supreme court not decided the 2000 election we might not have been attacked.. Had the aug 6 pdb been listened to by someone not on their 5th scotch we might not have been attacked. Had the prospect of a president bush and its guarantee of war the economy would have corrected and held on. Had someone watched the effects of Gramm Leech Biely the economy would have been fine.

Wow. I did not know that Islamic extremism only ever acted out against the West after algore had the election stolen from him.

Stunner. I did not know there were so many incompetents in govt.

All are revelations. I will now have to adjust my thinking.

 

[Anonymous]

C'mon hitch..everyone knows RONALD REAGAN was the most courageous..USA USA USA...Just ask scotty

Yes. If only Mondale had of won back in '84....

 

[rhubroma]

There were far more courageous men and women then Walesa. Just like the Berlin wall is seen in the west as the symbol of 1989, Walesa is unfortunately given the same hype.

He had his moments, and his courage, especially at the begining, but so did many others, and the grass roots of solidarnosc claim he sold out. He shook the hands of Jaruzelski and co, and let them claim that they were part of the revolution, let them keep their wealth and in many cases power.

I sure hope that if a revolution succeeds in Egypt, we wont see Kefaya shaking hands with Mubarak and letting him claim he was part of the revolution.

Well we sure will if the US State Department has anything to say about it.

I read an interesting article today by Mohamed El Baradei in which he questions the following: Hillary Clinton declares that the Egyptian government is "stable" and "commited to responding to the needs and intersts of the Egyptian people".

El Baradei: "I'm at once stupified and perplexed. What does she mean by 'stable'? Perhaps she is refering to 29 years of emergency resolutions by a president with 30 years of imperial power, with a parliament that's a joke, with a judicial system that is anything but independent and impartial? This is what is called 'stability'? Really? For he that asks himself in America why the United States doesn't enjoy even a modicum of credibility in the Middle East, this is precisely why".

 

[The Hitch]

Well we sure will if the US State Department has anything to say about it.

I read an interesting article today by Mohamed El Baradei in which he questions the following: Hillary Clinton declares that the Egyptian government is "stable" and "commited to responding to the needs and intersts of the Egyptian people".

Ive had to put up with 3 years of the bbc and the entire world media telling me that Obama is the messiah. Just by getting elected, going to change the world for the best. Hope for the world. Militias would put down their arms, and join obama in the age of unity etc etc. You may think im exagerating, and i am a bit. But only a bit. People still here walk around with huge "Obama Hope"/ "Change we can believe in" t shirts, convinced that he is benevolent, omniscient omnipotent, believing in the hype. A recent advert for sky news here has Obama saying "yes we can" as a man holding a child smiles.

Support for a clear dictatorship under his administration is to me proof that they lied.

Where is the change? where is peace. Where is "rise of the oceans will begin to stop and the world will begin to heal" that was promised.

For every one man with a child smiling in the advert there are thousands crying as Mubarakk continues a brutal dictatorship.

Change we can believe in would involve opposing such a state, especially at a time of weakness. Not supporting it.

Where is the change the world media promised.
I personaly want an apology from the world media for this.

 

[rhubroma]

Ive had to put up with 3 years of the bbc and the entire world media telling me that Obama is the messiah. Just by getting elected, going to change the world for the best. Hope for the world. Militias would put down their arms, and join obama in the age of unity etc etc. You may think im exagerating, and i am a bit. But only a bit. People still here walk around with huge "Obama Hope"/ "Change we can believe in" t shirts, convinced that he is benevolent, omniscient omnipotent, believing in the hype. A recent advert for sky news here has Obama saying "yes we can" as a man holding a child smiles.

Support for a clear dictatorship under his administration is to me proof that they lied.

Where is the change? where is peace. Where is "rise of the oceans will begin to stop and the world will begin to heal" that was promised.

For every one man with a child smiling in the advert there are thousands crying as Mubarakk continues a brutal dictatorship.

Change we can believe in would involve opposing such a state, especially at a time of weakness. Not supporting it.

Where is the change the world media promised.
I personaly want an apology from the world media for this.

Hitch, haven't you gotten it by now? In democracy simulation and appearances are what matters to a distracted populous. Why with all the work and consumtion to be done, who has time to take notice. And that's just how the politicians and plutocrats love it, and why they spend gobs of money to keep us distracted and misinformed.

For them it's money well spent.

Having said that the neocons didn't even provide false hope.

 

[Anonymous]

Ive had to put up with 3 years of the bbc and the entire world media telling me that Obama is the messiah. Just by getting elected, going to change the world for the best. Hope for the world. Militias would put down their arms, and join obama in the age of unity etc etc. You may think im exagerating, and i am a bit. But only a bit. People still here walk around with huge "Obama Hope"/ "Change we can believe in" t shirts, convinced that he is benevolent, omniscient omnipotent, believing in the hype. A recent advert for sky news here has Obama saying "yes we can" as a man holding a child smiles.

Support for a clear dictatorship under his administration is to me proof that they lied.

Where is the change? where is peace. Where is "rise of the oceans will begin to stop and the world will begin to heal" that was promised.

For every one man with a child smiling in the advert there are thousands crying as Mubarakk continues a brutal dictatorship.

Change we can believe in would involve opposing such a state, especially at a time of weakness. Not supporting it.

Where is the change the world media promised.
I personaly want an apology from the world media for this.

Spectacularly good post.

Good luck with that apology.

 

[rhubroma]

Spectacularly good post.

Good luck with that apology.

Scott SoCal, I thought you would have at least given me some credit. I'm so disappointed.