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Ghost
climber
A long way from where I started
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Ghost, I have several clients originally from Canada and England, they relate the same story. Sure, everyone gets a basic level of care, usually very slow and not the latest technology, the wealthy then pay to get extra care. really not much different than our current system. The poor always have access to county health or hospitals and the bills are written off.
Jeff, if I said something like "Well my sister has some friends who once lived in the US and they said that the Republican party is all these religious fanatics who want to keep all the black people in poverty," you'd laugh at me, right? And yet now you say you have some clients who once lived somewhere who told you...
Come on, man. Some of us who post here have actually lived in these places you believe have second-rate health care. Some of us have actually lived in both those places and the US.
I'm not trying to tell you that the Canadian -- or any other -- system is perfect. It's not. But it is better than the US system. I suspect, though I don't know for sure, that the systems in places like Germany, Sweden, and Japan, are also much better.
You don't have to give up your conservative credentials to admit that a government-run police or fire system is okay, right? So what is the problem with medical care? Private enterprise is better at some things, goverment is better at some things.
D
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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"Adequate healthcare = A lot..most
Affordable premiums = almost all (you never see the money, deducted, so it works into your lifestyle)"
Wow, that's what you think is the reality on the streets in anysuburb, USA?
Oh, and on a dollar per capita basis, today's republicans are some of the biggest socialists the world has ever seen.
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, Ca.
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By Tom McClintock
Special to the Mercury News
Posted: 03/03/2009 05:18:04 PM PST
Washington's response to the current recession illustrates one of the fundamental laws of political physics: the more that we spend on our mistakes, the less willing we are to admit them.
The conventional wisdom is that if government can "inject" enough money into the economy, it can reverse the recession. Unfortunately, the hard and bitter truth is that government cannot inject a single dollar into the economy that it has not first taken out of that economy.
True, government takes a dollar from Peter and gives it to Paul, Paul has one dollar more to spend and that dollar will ripple through the economy. The problem is that Peter now has one less dollar to spend. On paper it nets to zero.
In practice, it nets to much less than zero, because government is shifting massive amounts of capital away from investments that would have been based on economic calculations and toward investments based on political ones.
How else do you explain the $800 billion spending bill that the president boasts will "save or create" up to 4 million new jobs? Put a pocket calculator to work on the president's own numbers and you will discover it works out to a cost of $200,000 for every job he promises. Sending a $100,000 check to every one of those four million families would save $400 billion.
Of course, the government doesn't have that money. Between our current deficit of $1.2 trillion and the $800 billion more about to be added, our national treasury will spend $2 trillion more than it receives as revenue.
So the government must borrow that $2 trillion or about $6,500 for every man, woman and child in the nation. From where does it borrow? It will borrow from the same pool of funds that would otherwise have been available for loans to employers seeking to add jobs, or homebuyers seeking to buy homes (to stabilize falling housing prices), or consumers seeking to buy new cars and appliances (upon which two-thirds of our economic growth depends).
But that money now will not be there for consumers, homebuyers and employers to borrow to expand the economy because government will have borrowed it instead to expand government.
Indeed, if government spending actually stimulated the economy, America should now be enjoying a period of unprecedented economic expansion. The bailouts, stimulus spending and loan guarantees already approved over the past year total nearly $10 trillion. We've not seen prosperity from this policy because this policy doesn't work.
It didn't work in Japan in the 1990s. The Japanese now refer to their folly as their "lost decade." It didn't work in America in the 1930s. The unemployment rate in 1939, after nearly a decade of New Deal spending, was the same as it was in 1931. And it hasn't worked today.
Fortunately, we know what does work. Reducing the burdens on productivity increases productivity. America suffers the second-highest corporate tax rate in the industrialized world. Economists estimate that reducing taxes on productivity, as proposed by House Republicans, would produce twice the jobs at half the cost of the president's new New Deal.
It worked when John F. Kennedy did it and it worked when Ronald Reagan did it.
No nation in history has ever spent its way to prosperity, but many have spent their way to economic ruin and collapse. It is the economy that needs stimulation, not government, and the best way to do so is to get off its back.
Rep. Tom McClintock, R-Granite Bay, represents California"s Fourth Congressional District. He wrote this article for the Mercury News.
--->Tom's my hero.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Our republican-dominated captains of industry couldn't possibly get more socialistic then they are right now. How many fatcats are being bailed out with lifestyles intact compared to average folks taking it on the chins in this economy with no bailout of any kind. Don't kid yourself - socialism, and hypocrisy, is thriving in America's boardrooms and executive suites.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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"...the more that we spend on our mistakes, the less willing we are to admit them"
You couldn't have summed up the past eight years more succinctly if you tried...
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the Fet
Knackered climber
A bivy sack in the secret campground
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"--->Tom's my hero."
That's all you need to read to know Bluering will never ever see reality.
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, Ca.
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Fet, Tom's a traditional small-govt, fiscal conservative. I could see how socialists and power-hungry govt officials would dislike him, but you too? I thought you were more reasonable.
We need more Tom's in the Congress. I wish he would've beaten Arny too for the gov of this state. He came close.
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Binks
Social climber
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Wall Street is as bad as the government with money or worse. I've seen ZERO benefit from investing! Titans of Wall Street want all our money and claim if the government spends it or guards it in SS it's some kind of "socialism" unless it's bailing them out, then it's necessary. Still think "private accounts" is a good idea? The system is broken all around. I think withdrawing from our addiction to Wall Street is a great idea. As soon as I can I'm taking ALL my money out for good. They aren't going to use my money to subsidize their ridiculous largesse. I've already withdrawn most of it.
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the Fet
Knackered climber
A bivy sack in the secret campground
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Tom is a brainwashed idealougue and career politiican/carpet bagger.
As a congressman fighting for being fiscaly conservative he may actually do some good (along with McCain) since congress is so full of pork lovers, but as governor... no friggin' thanks.
I can tell he is another conservative that doesn't use his own brain to figure out right and wrong, he just believes the shite he wants to believe even in the face of evidence to the contrary. Closed minds do not make good politicians.
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Norton
Social climber
the Wastelands
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Dr F, you are dead right, and here's the proof.
In 1993, taxes were RAISED, and from 1994 through 2000 the economy ADDED 20 MILLION NEW JOBS
In 2003, Bush and the Republican House and Senate put through the LARGEST TAX CUT IN HISTORY, and as a result the economy LOST a net 500,000 jobs, the Dow Jones went down 50 PERCENT, and unemployment is now 8% and RISING RAPIDLY.
Bottom line, the Republicans do NOT know jack about business, how to grow an economy or increase jobs. They have bankrupted this country. They are delusional, marginalized, and increasingly irrelevant. Their voting base reflects this by decreasing to a hard core of only 30%. They are getting thumped in EVERY election at city, county,state, and national levels.
They have NO answers or solutions to our problems.
They are THROUGH as a viable political party and force in America
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Norton
Social climber
the Wastelands
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Fattrad, you are a typical conservative: all you can do is insult others because you have no solutions to problems.
I know you don't like what I wrote, guess what, I don't care.
Why don't you now correct my facts, tell me what numbers I am wrong on. If not, apologize and shut up.
Oh by the way moron, I am short from 12,345 on the DOW.
I have taken and banked a ton. I am now only 20% short from the last sale, with my stops at breakeven
You can't even insult me properly. You just don't know sh!t
about politics, economics, or markets.
You are a Republican, it all stands to reason.
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Reilly
Mountain climber
Monrovia, CA
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Stay tuned for my upcoming book: "Black and White; A History of American Politics"
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, Ca.
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The economy shrinks with tax breaks, and jobs are lost.
The economy grows with tax increases, and jobs are created.
I fail to see the logic in that, are you talking about government jobs?
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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You fail to see the logic in that - reality - because you've been successfully counter-programmed with the denial so essential to the greed-driven republican politics of self-interest.
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Norton
Social climber
the Wastelands
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Typical Fattrad, he can't refute anything I said about tax cuts and job growth under Republican or Democratic administrations, so he resorts to asking me, twice now, if I have ever taken an economics class. That all you got? Figures.
I am not going to even guess if Fatty graduated high school.
His posts already put that in to question.
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Mighty Hiker
Social climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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JPT is doing well. One post, 111 bites.
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, Ca.
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Okay, Healyje, fill me in on how that's supposed to work.
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the Fet
Knackered climber
A bivy sack in the secret campground
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You've really got to look at the economy as a whole, private and public sector combined.
I think one of the prime reasons the US has been so successful is we have had a pretty good balance between the public and private economies. The founders of our nation were geniuses, they built so many check and balances into our system and appropriate methods to make our laws evolve to meet our future needs it's amazing. There were conservative, liberals, and moderates back then even.
When I was in college in the early 90s my marco-economics professor said we had just past the point where 50% of the GDP (from all taxes combined) goes to the public sector. The 90s were great economically so that's probably right around the magic number; half of our GDP goes to public projects and half stays private. To conservatives that's socialism (nevemind that socialism by defition would be 100% public GDP).
So you have to look at where that spending goes, if it's sensible e.g. education, public works, etc. our public spending will get a return on investment and it makes sense, if it's pork barrel e.g. bridge to nowhere it won't repay it's investment and will be a drain on the economy in the long run.
I worry most about govt. borrowing, it makes sense to borrow if the benefits of borrowing outweigh the costs (e.g. a lot of the stimulus plan will help jump start our economy IMO and that will help repay the borrowing), but any spending done with borrowing that doesnt' contribute to the economy (e.g. much of the Iraq war) is going to hurt the economy.
Idealogues can't or won't admit that it's a very complex situation and saying things like "cutting or raising taxes helps/hurts the economy" aren't smart or honest enough to portray the full picture.
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JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
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I find Norton's refusal to answer questions about his economics background an admission of his ignorance. The stimulative effect of tax cuts and increases, as well as spending cuts and increases, is well-documented in the econometric literature. Both government spending increases and tax cuts can stimulate the economy, depending on many other factors. The idea that tax increases lead to job creation ceteris paribus is absurd. Norton's argument is simply a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy.
I could make a similar argument: the Republicans gained control of Congress in the 1994 elections and the economy took off. The Democrats gained control of the Senate in the 2000 elections, and the economy went into a recession. The Republicans regained control in the 2002 elections and the economy took off. The Democrats regained control in the 2006 elections, and the economy started to tank. Therefore, Democratic control of congress leads to job and economic loss, and Republican control leads to job and economic gain. Q.E.D.
I'm also curious, Dr. F, about how you conclude that Reagan raised taxes on the middle class. First, congress, not the president, controls the tax rate. Second, my (very middle class) tax rates declined substantially during Reagan's term, compared with the Carter, Ford, Nixon and Johnson rates. (I didn't make enough money to pay taxes under Kennedy, Ike or Truman).
John
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Norton
Social climber
the Wastelands
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I never "refused" to answer Fatty's question, I chose to ignore it because Fatty refused to refute the facts I presented.
This a simply Fatty's way of diverting the focus.
This time away from the facts and towards me personally by asking
if I had ever taken any economics classes.
Anyone can say anything on the internet, lie all they want to impress people, and it cannot be verified.
For example, I can tell you that I have a Masters in Business from Harvard. That statement would be designed, supposedly, to impress only Fatty. Somehow saying that would make him feel that I am "worthy" enough to debate him. This is asinine.
I could care less if Fatty or I made it through high school and college. Why ? Because it does not matter to the facts presented, and because no one can verify if Fatty made it through high school or not. No one on this forum has ever been asked to scan their college diploma from 30 years ago and a copy of their transcripts to show to others on this forum.
Again, this is Fattrad's only response to my facts, it is his way of diverting attention to something silly because he does not know his ass from second base about economics or markets.
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