whereas governnent, in contrast, by definition, has to take everyone's welfare into account, not just the few who own everything.
You must be dealing with a different species, because I assure you human being are not magically altruistic once they step into political roles. Politicians care about advancing and keeping their career the same way corporate tools do -- I assure you that our welfare is not the first thing on their minds. You think Obamacare was forced through because they actually thought it was good legislation? Or was it because failing to pass it would have been disastrous for Obama's chances of re-election? Nearly 70% of the country disapproved of the bill that was passed. Hell, Congress has a 10% approval rating -- and you still think they have our best interests at heart? It's a huge error in judgment to assume that government is going to "be more kind to us" simply because "they're the government". Every empire in the history of the world has devolved into tyrants consolidating power at the top, using the government (and its military) to further their own ends. Ever ask yourself -- "how many poor politicians have I seen in the news?" Even among the Democrats? Not many...this I assure you.
That's the price you pay for living on a country with a government. Not coincidentally, everyplace with a decent standard of living has a very expensive government.
So at what point does it become theft then? If the government decided one day to take 100% of your income, would you still defend it as "the price you pay"? Or does it suddenly become something else? And more important, where do you draw that line? I believe the "theft" argument, although hyperbolic, is a fair one. If the government is taking way more than they need to meet the necessities of society (particularly when it comes to their enumerated Constitutional tasks), I would certainly cry foul.
Ziggitz is right. While we all love to grouse about government waste, government is not really all that unique. The stereotypical hyper-efficient corporation is a myth - most of us know of stunning wastes of money at our own employer. And our vaunted household finances, while smaller in magnitude, probably include some waste too
I think it's the degree of waste that's important here, and I know of no corporation that measures up to the government in that respect. Hell, I certainly don't know of any corporations that allow their divisions to engage in "Use it or lose it" budgeting for cost estimating. Or the usual "hire lowest bidder that claims they can do the job, pay out for shitty job that doesn't get it done, restart bidding process, hire same company". It takes a uniquely wasteful mind to pull off that kind of inefficiency.
This requirement was passed by public-sector hating Republicans who wanted to gut the post office.
Who cares who it was passed by? You can't use some fictional "perfect" set of politicians when you go spouting off about how nonprofits are superior in every way. You must work within our real-life political system, which whether you like it or not, does NOT breed efficiency. It breeds career-agenda corruption and short sightedness.
If you put a government-hating communist from North Korea in charge of a major corporation would you use the resulting failure as an indictment of corporations in general?
If that was the "norm" for the majority of corporations, HELL YES I would. Except it's not -- in the aggregate, dysfunctional companies go bankrupt as the system corrects. Dysfunctional government on the other hand just leads to one layer of crap on top of another one -- shit like spending hundreds of millions of dollars researching some new jet fighter and then scrapping it at the 95% point. Or having one inefficient, wasteful social spending program -- and then "protecting" that while lopping another one on top. There is no accountability, and even if there was, it takes YEARS to incur change. You can't "fire" a politician -- all you can do is wait out the term while they fuck everything up in the meantime. Then you cross your fingers and hope the next guy doesn't do the same. It moves at a snail's pace and rarely accomplishes anything.
Speaking of, by that standard, we should be banning banks and investment firms for crashing the economy three years ago.
Yes, they should all be bankrupt. Blame the government you're so in love with for not allowing it to happen. In fact, blame your own Democrats, since they had free run of the government during pretty much that entire time segment.
It's no "improvement" to make millions of poor people even more miserable because you're selling the sophistry that they are poor because they don't want to work.
If it's truly a sophistry, then the change from welfare to workfare is irrelevant. So either we did kick off a bunch of freeloaders who didn't want to work, or we changed nothing. It's win-win. The only way you could think this would make poor people's lives more miserable is if they had no intention of seeking work and you're cool with that.
repeal Social Security and Medicare entirely. And through the wonders of Libertarian Magic Dust, private insurance and 401k's blossom and become great replacements for the two government programs.
Nothing in his plan calls for the repeal of Medicare. They may have to pay more to keep the same benefit package, which is something they're already going to have to do by virtue of the fact we can't afford the going cost of healthcare. Given the choice of forced scaled back benefits, as determined by some bureaucrat, or having the choice to choose what level of "spending vs benefits" that person gets, I think the latter is way more sensible.
Since you didn't address it the first time:
Again, on what planet is it equal to compare a middle class worker giving a three bedroom house to her oldest child equal to the Walton family being permanently exempt from work because billions are passed down?
Fair enough, you're an unreasonable person. I didn't realize this at first. You should have just told me upfront that fairness meant absolutely dick to you as long as a rich person is involved, and we could have avoided this debate.
That's funny. I feel *exactly* the same way about public fire service. Why should *I* pay to subsidize the lazy bums who have fires in their houses. Makes my taxes go up - takes more money out of my pocket. After all, I'm sure I could negotiate with the fire-service people after my house is on FIRE to get the rate down. It's not like it's a service everyone needs, right ?
Nice straw man there. If a person's home burns down, you the taxpayer are not required to buy them a new one. Not to mention they lose all their shit, which holds some degree of value to them. There are a great number of negative factors keeping people from willfully abusing the fire department. And that said, we're STILL regulated ten ways from Sunday to prevent us from doing stupid shit in our homes to lower the chances of fire (electrical codes, leaf burning regulations, and so forth). Where are the equivalent regulations preventing people from becoming fat asses? Or forcing them to exercise? Or making them not engage in dangerous activities? I guarantee you that if some arsonist out there was burning a bunch of buildings for kicks to take "full advantage of his fire department taxes", it wouldn't exactly fly. Yet you seem to think people should be able to "do anything they want with their bodies" and then have society float the tab? I might also add, just for icing on your idiotic cake, that there are MAGNITUDES of difference in cost between what we spend on "useful public services" like police/fire and what we spend on "healthcare". They aren't even remotely in the same fiscal ballpark. But clearly I'm just an anarchist who doesn't believe any government function is useful and we should just be living in Somalia, because all us libertarians are like that, right?
Morons...well I guess the bottom 50% of the average has to come from somewhere.
Imagine just NOT HAVING TO WORRY about healthcare or costs. Seriously - NOT HAVING TO WORRY ABOUT IT AT ALL. Ever.
There's no such thing as a free lunch. I'd argue having that "no worry about cost" mentality would in fact be a net negative since it would encourage waste and overuse of resources that are already strained. You might seem like you're saving money, since the direct bill is never sent to you, but when your taxes go up to cover the indirect cost to the taxpayer, it could take even more money out of your pocket than if you just paid the bill up front with some discriminating over cost.
The USPS is the only entity in America, private or public, required to fully fund pension and health care benefits 75 years in advance, for workers who haven't even been born yet.
How is that a bad example? It's a fantastic example. It proves that not only can a nonprofit be run in an exceedingly stupid fashion (by bleeding idiot congresses), but also that for-profits can do it better (namely, by reacting more quickly and adjusting to declining markets).
Imagine if Medicare had some similar asinine measure in it, requiring 75 years of pre-funding. Now imagine trying to get that changed with a bunch of people yelling "hands off my Medicare". For-profit has way more going for it than you give it credit for.
And it is nationally acknowledge (by people on both sides of the spectrum) to be a vast improvement over what it was. So how can you call it destroyed?
Again, on what planet is it equal to compare a middle class worker giving a three bedroom house to her oldest child equal to the Walton family being permanently exempt from work because billions are passed down?
On a fair one? Where people aren't treated unequally? Most middle class workers, when their parents die, are established already. They have families, homes, assets of their own. Why should they get an extra home just because of their income status? That said, having some amount of assets exempted from the estate tax isn't the worst idea. I just see it as unnecessary (unless both parents die at a very very early age, say when the child is still in school).
But that's why we have the Estate Tax. Which you must be a big supporter of, reformed sense of proportion and all....
Love it. Though it's far too lenient. A 5 million exemption with a sub-50% rate is way too forgiving.
1: Climate science is very complex. You don't seem to realise this.
How do I not? It's the exact complexity you mention which causes me to doubt the veracity of "100% proven science".
2: It is a good thing that they are being scrutinized, but please leave the scrutinizing to people who are qualified to do so.
And I'm assuming you mean "climate scientists" with that statement? And how do we account for bias then?
but these numbers are based on complex physics-based models.
Models which are changing frequently as our understanding of climate changes over time. Which brings us right back to climate complexity and the flawed nature of our understanding of it. So how can I not doubt the certainty these scientists approach the topic with?
My question to you is, what would it take for you to believe that global warming will be a problem in the not-so-distant future? What evidence would convince you?
In truth? Consistency would be a good start, or even a little bit of humbling of the climate scientists (as in toning back the "sky is falling" dialogue). If they could start getting things right without going "oops, forgot this" or "ack, that doesn't match what we expected, it must be this" or "crap, that model is wrong, we need to muck with these coefficients". Basically, if their actual results showed the kind of certainty their publicity does, I could more easily get on board. And that's just going to take time. Right now, our own understanding of climate is simply changing far too frequently to be certain of future trends. Hell, our understanding of aerosols alone saw a dramatic shift just three years ago (a time when climate scientists were just as 100% certain of their predictions): http://www.treehugger.com/natural-sciences/aerosols-more-important-to-global-warming-than-acknowledged.html
I think they have a good theory, and clearly alot of knowledge in their field...but I also think that like many people who are experts in their field, they're also subject to confirmation bias, anchoring in particular: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anchoring
Are you kidding? For-profit insurance by definition must take in more premiums than it pays out in claims. Just what do you think that replacing a single-payer system with a for profit system is going to do?
Umm, just about anything? There are just as many nonprofits that are run piss-poorly as ones that are run well (see prime example of bankrupt Postal Service vs successful FedEx/UPS companies with positive profit margins).
Because "destroy" implies "removal" rather than "reform". Or did Obama also "destroy" Medicare when he yanked 700 billion out to repurpose towards his new healthcare agenda? Or do you not use such parlance in that case because even though he "took away your house", he promised to replace it with a mansion at some point down the road? *fingers crossed*
Because you hate people in the middle class being able to pass down property and assets to their offspring rather than liquidating them to pay for medical care?
Actually, I hate generational wealth transfer of all kinds. Why the hell do you think we have a wealth gap in this country? It's because a bunch of rich people just keep shoveling their money from generation to generation. At some point, you just become a caste system that way. No thank you. People should develop assets and then use those assets to live their life. When they die, the government should take it all. That's the only way you guarantee a level and fair playing field for everyone. We need more innovators and less Paris Hiltons in this world.
I think the reality is that no matter how much we armchair pontificate, there are people who have PhD's in this stuff and have spent the last 40 years of their life thinking about it, working on it, and sharing ideas with those who are in a similar field.
Except that that is irrelevant. The methods of science can be understood by a layman -- and extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. If a quantum physicist told me "hey, I just discovered a new particle that is going to end the world tomorrow, trust me", I'd still hold that opinion with a degree of incredulity, despite him being an expert in his field. This is especially true when you take into account confirmation bias, which happens to actually be more likely within focused slices of the populace moreso than in the general populace. For example, there's plenty of peer-reviewed scientific papers in the pharmaceutical business but that doesn't stop selection bias from occurring: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/sim.4780130518/abstract
like I'd get pissed off if some climatologist heard something on TV and started lecturing me on the inaccuracies of the work I'm doing because there's no chance he'll understand all the nuances without years of work in the subject
I doubt you make such grand claims in your field. The environmental finding are being scrutinized more heavily specifically because of the grandiosity of the claims.
And I don't think it's too unreasonable to predict the next 100 years given the past 100 years.
Really? Name any field we can do that in. Hell, in just the past 20 years, we've seen computers leap from less than a megabyte of storage to several terabytes. We've gone from 200 baud modems to multi gigabit ethernet connections. Could you have predicted the emergence and popularity of the internet 30 years ago? Based on the trends of the previous 30 years? How about economics? Human beings are _awful_ at predicting the future. We see patterns where we want to see them.
But Paul wants to roll things back 900 years, to when juries could make any decision they wanted, could interpret the law any way they wanted, or even ignore the law altogether.
Like politicians do every single day in this country? Sorry, but I don't exactly see a tremendous difference in letting the common man have a say when we can't even trust our own leaders to not abuse their own power. The Constitution is used for toilet paper these days.
Oh yeah, and Social Security is just a "Ponzi scheme" and should be done away with. That puts him on the fringe all by itself.
Alot of people are calling for change in Social Security, and Medicare as well. I'd hardly call that fringe. The programs are far from pinnacles of success. They could stand to be reformed, or replaced with something better.
Here's one position that makes me lose any respect for him: he's hyper-libertarian on almost every issue, but he still believes that the government should regulate private sexual behavior.
Well this I'll grant you. Ron Paul tends to let his religious beliefs float into politics more than I'd like as well. But nobody is perfect -- when viewed as a package deal with his total legislative history on display, he's not the hypocrite everyone makes him out to be. And he at least respects the Constitution, which is a far cry better than most politicians. For me, it's a matter of integrity and consistency, something far too rare in politics (you know, where they tell me one thing, and then actually do that thing. I'm willing to except a few minor flaws to get that.
But stacking him up against an insane-right-wing Ayn Rand ideologue who wants to abolish Medicare and Social Security to give tax cuts to the wealthy is a pretty fucking great way to motivate them
You do realize that Ryan's Medicare proposals were cosponsored by Democrats? (Alice Rivlin and Ron Wyden) And the Clinton administration is pretty much on the same page as him? (http://hotair.com/greenroom/archives/2012/08/14/clinton-white-house-chief-of-staff-calls-ryan-amazing-honest-sincere/). So where you getting all this insane-right-wing ideologue stuff from? I guess this is indicative of how hyper polarized and partisan this country has gotten.
How is that a lie? His plan is to "privatize" Medicare for those under 55. That will, in effect, destroy the Medicare program. It might create a new program of some kind (though I'm guessing it's more of an every man for himself kind of deal), but it would most certainly destroy the existing one.
By that logic, Clinton destroyed Welfare and then created a new program of some kind (with the same name). A weird way to view life, but hey if it works for you. In the meantime, I'm looking forward to reforming, ermm sorry, destroying healthcare/Medicare.
There's no coercion on the doctors in a public system. They treat everyone, and they get paid for all of them. Government (i.e. taxpayers) foots the bill from taxes.
And where does all this magical money come from? You're aware that we have a bit of an overspending/debt problem already, yes?
I'm arguing in support of a true public option, as seen in Canada, Germany etc
Canada would be a fantastic system. I'm rather surprised you ever call it a "true public option" since the federal government is very "hands-off" over there. The provinces are left to implement whatever they wish. It's a state's rights advocate's wet dream. Sadly, no one in this country does anything on a state level. Everyone insists law occur at the federal level. So kiss any implementation of the Canadian system goodbye.
Actually, yes, it does, because the government acts as a single payer and can force the prices to be no higher than the cost. Whereas in a private model with insurance, the prices chase that insurance without regard to the actual cost. Which is why US consistently ranks highest in cost of health care in the developed world.
You say "wealthy enough". That's not the same as Wealthy. Those are all solid upper middle class vocations.
That's just it -- those who villianize the rich equate the two. They honestly believe an upper middle class family has more in common will Bill Gates than with Joe Schmoe. That's why you see ludicrous proposals like tax hikes at the 250k level, rather than at the million+ level where CEOs really live.
I don't get where the idea comes from that letting the rich keep extra money somehow creates extra investment in the economy when a lot of that investment goes offshore.
Because the offshoring is going to happen regardless. Globalization is a problem capitalism can not fight -- it's the free market working against us. So that's a constant in the equation. How much money job creators have to create jobs however is a variable that can actually have a dynamic effect on the economy. There's actually quite a bit of talk right now that our economic recovery is currently stalled because business owners won't commit to expanding their ranks because government won't commit to a sensible path forward. Uncertainty in politics (such as the fiscal cliff, budget, and final tax allocations) are keeping business owners on the sidelines.
Wouldn't that make them left rather than center? I always hear about these "European standards", but outside of closet cases like France with its 75% rich tax, I never really hear of any real examples that differentiate DEMs there from DEMs here. They generally all want high taxes and a bunch of social programs.
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Fantastic empirical study you did there. Try facts next time.
"It matters not -- He is your king" - Braveheart
You must be dealing with a different species, because I assure you human being are not magically altruistic once they step into political roles. Politicians care about advancing and keeping their career the same way corporate tools do -- I assure you that our welfare is not the first thing on their minds. You think Obamacare was forced through because they actually thought it was good legislation? Or was it because failing to pass it would have been disastrous for Obama's chances of re-election? Nearly 70% of the country disapproved of the bill that was passed. Hell, Congress has a 10% approval rating -- and you still think they have our best interests at heart? It's a huge error in judgment to assume that government is going to "be more kind to us" simply because "they're the government". Every empire in the history of the world has devolved into tyrants consolidating power at the top, using the government (and its military) to further their own ends. Ever ask yourself -- "how many poor politicians have I seen in the news?" Even among the Democrats? Not many...this I assure you.
So at what point does it become theft then? If the government decided one day to take 100% of your income, would you still defend it as "the price you pay"? Or does it suddenly become something else? And more important, where do you draw that line? I believe the "theft" argument, although hyperbolic, is a fair one. If the government is taking way more than they need to meet the necessities of society (particularly when it comes to their enumerated Constitutional tasks), I would certainly cry foul.
I think it's the degree of waste that's important here, and I know of no corporation that measures up to the government in that respect. Hell, I certainly don't know of any corporations that allow their divisions to engage in "Use it or lose it" budgeting for cost estimating. Or the usual "hire lowest bidder that claims they can do the job, pay out for shitty job that doesn't get it done, restart bidding process, hire same company". It takes a uniquely wasteful mind to pull off that kind of inefficiency.
Who cares who it was passed by? You can't use some fictional "perfect" set of politicians when you go spouting off about how nonprofits are superior in every way. You must work within our real-life political system, which whether you like it or not, does NOT breed efficiency. It breeds career-agenda corruption and short sightedness.
If that was the "norm" for the majority of corporations, HELL YES I would. Except it's not -- in the aggregate, dysfunctional companies go bankrupt as the system corrects. Dysfunctional government on the other hand just leads to one layer of crap on top of another one -- shit like spending hundreds of millions of dollars researching some new jet fighter and then scrapping it at the 95% point. Or having one inefficient, wasteful social spending program -- and then "protecting" that while lopping another one on top. There is no accountability, and even if there was, it takes YEARS to incur change. You can't "fire" a politician -- all you can do is wait out the term while they fuck everything up in the meantime. Then you cross your fingers and hope the next guy doesn't do the same. It moves at a snail's pace and rarely accomplishes anything.
Yes, they should all be bankrupt. Blame the government you're so in love with for not allowing it to happen. In fact, blame your own Democrats, since they had free run of the government during pretty much that entire time segment.
If it's truly a sophistry, then the change from welfare to workfare is irrelevant. So either we did kick off a bunch of freeloaders who didn't want to work, or we changed nothing. It's win-win. The only way you could think this would make poor people's lives more miserable is if they had no intention of seeking work and you're cool with that.
Nothing in his plan calls for the repeal of Medicare. They may have to pay more to keep the same benefit package, which is something they're already going to have to do by virtue of the fact we can't afford the going cost of healthcare. Given the choice of forced scaled back benefits, as determined by some bureaucrat, or having the choice to choose what level of "spending vs benefits" that person gets, I think the latter is way more sensible.
Fair enough, you're an unreasonable person. I didn't realize this at first. You should have just told me upfront that fairness meant absolutely dick to you as long as a rich person is involved, and we could have avoided this debate.
Nice straw man there. If a person's home burns down, you the taxpayer are not required to buy them a new one. Not to mention they lose all their shit, which holds some degree of value to them. There are a great number of negative factors keeping people from willfully abusing the fire department. And that said, we're STILL regulated ten ways from Sunday to prevent us from doing stupid shit in our homes to lower the chances of fire (electrical codes, leaf burning regulations, and so forth). Where are the equivalent regulations preventing people from becoming fat asses? Or forcing them to exercise? Or making them not engage in dangerous activities? I guarantee you that if some arsonist out there was burning a bunch of buildings for kicks to take "full advantage of his fire department taxes", it wouldn't exactly fly. Yet you seem to think people should be able to "do anything they want with their bodies" and then have society float the tab? I might also add, just for icing on your idiotic cake, that there are MAGNITUDES of difference in cost between what we spend on "useful public services" like police/fire and what we spend on "healthcare". They aren't even remotely in the same fiscal ballpark. But clearly I'm just an anarchist who doesn't believe any government function is useful and we should just be living in Somalia, because all us libertarians are like that, right?
Morons...well I guess the bottom 50% of the average has to come from somewhere.
There's no such thing as a free lunch. I'd argue having that "no worry about cost" mentality would in fact be a net negative since it would encourage waste and overuse of resources that are already strained. You might seem like you're saving money, since the direct bill is never sent to you, but when your taxes go up to cover the indirect cost to the taxpayer, it could take even more money out of your pocket than if you just paid the bill up front with some discriminating over cost.
How is that a bad example? It's a fantastic example. It proves that not only can a nonprofit be run in an exceedingly stupid fashion (by bleeding idiot congresses), but also that for-profits can do it better (namely, by reacting more quickly and adjusting to declining markets).
Imagine if Medicare had some similar asinine measure in it, requiring 75 years of pre-funding. Now imagine trying to get that changed with a bunch of people yelling "hands off my Medicare". For-profit has way more going for it than you give it credit for.
And it is nationally acknowledge (by people on both sides of the spectrum) to be a vast improvement over what it was. So how can you call it destroyed?
On a fair one? Where people aren't treated unequally? Most middle class workers, when their parents die, are established already. They have families, homes, assets of their own. Why should they get an extra home just because of their income status? That said, having some amount of assets exempted from the estate tax isn't the worst idea. I just see it as unnecessary (unless both parents die at a very very early age, say when the child is still in school).
Love it. Though it's far too lenient. A 5 million exemption with a sub-50% rate is way too forgiving.
How do I not? It's the exact complexity you mention which causes me to doubt the veracity of "100% proven science".
And I'm assuming you mean "climate scientists" with that statement? And how do we account for bias then?
Models which are changing frequently as our understanding of climate changes over time. Which brings us right back to climate complexity and the flawed nature of our understanding of it. So how can I not doubt the certainty these scientists approach the topic with?
In truth? Consistency would be a good start, or even a little bit of humbling of the climate scientists (as in toning back the "sky is falling" dialogue). If they could start getting things right without going "oops, forgot this" or "ack, that doesn't match what we expected, it must be this" or "crap, that model is wrong, we need to muck with these coefficients". Basically, if their actual results showed the kind of certainty their publicity does, I could more easily get on board. And that's just going to take time. Right now, our own understanding of climate is simply changing far too frequently to be certain of future trends. Hell, our understanding of aerosols alone saw a dramatic shift just three years ago (a time when climate scientists were just as 100% certain of their predictions): http://www.treehugger.com/natural-sciences/aerosols-more-important-to-global-warming-than-acknowledged.html
I think they have a good theory, and clearly alot of knowledge in their field...but I also think that like many people who are experts in their field, they're also subject to confirmation bias, anchoring in particular: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anchoring
Umm, just about anything? There are just as many nonprofits that are run piss-poorly as ones that are run well (see prime example of bankrupt Postal Service vs successful FedEx/UPS companies with positive profit margins).
Because "destroy" implies "removal" rather than "reform". Or did Obama also "destroy" Medicare when he yanked 700 billion out to repurpose towards his new healthcare agenda? Or do you not use such parlance in that case because even though he "took away your house", he promised to replace it with a mansion at some point down the road? *fingers crossed*
Actually, I hate generational wealth transfer of all kinds. Why the hell do you think we have a wealth gap in this country? It's because a bunch of rich people just keep shoveling their money from generation to generation. At some point, you just become a caste system that way. No thank you. People should develop assets and then use those assets to live their life. When they die, the government should take it all. That's the only way you guarantee a level and fair playing field for everyone. We need more innovators and less Paris Hiltons in this world.
Except that that is irrelevant. The methods of science can be understood by a layman -- and extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. If a quantum physicist told me "hey, I just discovered a new particle that is going to end the world tomorrow, trust me", I'd still hold that opinion with a degree of incredulity, despite him being an expert in his field. This is especially true when you take into account confirmation bias, which happens to actually be more likely within focused slices of the populace moreso than in the general populace. For example, there's plenty of peer-reviewed scientific papers in the pharmaceutical business but that doesn't stop selection bias from occurring: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/sim.4780130518/abstract
I doubt you make such grand claims in your field. The environmental finding are being scrutinized more heavily specifically because of the grandiosity of the claims.
Really? Name any field we can do that in. Hell, in just the past 20 years, we've seen computers leap from less than a megabyte of storage to several terabytes. We've gone from 200 baud modems to multi gigabit ethernet connections. Could you have predicted the emergence and popularity of the internet 30 years ago? Based on the trends of the previous 30 years? How about economics? Human beings are _awful_ at predicting the future. We see patterns where we want to see them.
Like politicians do every single day in this country? Sorry, but I don't exactly see a tremendous difference in letting the common man have a say when we can't even trust our own leaders to not abuse their own power. The Constitution is used for toilet paper these days.
Alot of people are calling for change in Social Security, and Medicare as well. I'd hardly call that fringe. The programs are far from pinnacles of success. They could stand to be reformed, or replaced with something better.
Well this I'll grant you. Ron Paul tends to let his religious beliefs float into politics more than I'd like as well. But nobody is perfect -- when viewed as a package deal with his total legislative history on display, he's not the hypocrite everyone makes him out to be. And he at least respects the Constitution, which is a far cry better than most politicians. For me, it's a matter of integrity and consistency, something far too rare in politics (you know, where they tell me one thing, and then actually do that thing. I'm willing to except a few minor flaws to get that.
You do realize that Ryan's Medicare proposals were cosponsored by Democrats? (Alice Rivlin and Ron Wyden) And the Clinton administration is pretty much on the same page as him? (http://hotair.com/greenroom/archives/2012/08/14/clinton-white-house-chief-of-staff-calls-ryan-amazing-honest-sincere/). So where you getting all this insane-right-wing ideologue stuff from? I guess this is indicative of how hyper polarized and partisan this country has gotten.
Do you have any proof or facts whatsoever as to these claims?
By that logic, Clinton destroyed Welfare and then created a new program of some kind (with the same name). A weird way to view life, but hey if it works for you. In the meantime, I'm looking forward to reforming, ermm sorry, destroying healthcare/Medicare.
And where does all this magical money come from? You're aware that we have a bit of an overspending/debt problem already, yes?
Canada would be a fantastic system. I'm rather surprised you ever call it a "true public option" since the federal government is very "hands-off" over there. The provinces are left to implement whatever they wish. It's a state's rights advocate's wet dream. Sadly, no one in this country does anything on a state level. Everyone insists law occur at the federal level. So kiss any implementation of the Canadian system goodbye.
Stop perpetuating this lie. The IMR is high because of differences in definitions of "live births" from country to country: http://www.nationalreview.com/critical-condition/253314/debunking-richard-cohen-how-does-us-health-care-system-stack-thomas-p-mill
If this were in any way true, we should be seeing ludicrous profits in the insurance industry, and we don't: http://larrycheng.com/2010/03/08/just-how-profitable-are-healthcare-insurers/
It's a liberal wet dream that high health care costs are somehow due to "greedy people making it so" -- it is not reality.
That's just it -- those who villianize the rich equate the two. They honestly believe an upper middle class family has more in common will Bill Gates than with Joe Schmoe. That's why you see ludicrous proposals like tax hikes at the 250k level, rather than at the million+ level where CEOs really live.
Because the offshoring is going to happen regardless. Globalization is a problem capitalism can not fight -- it's the free market working against us. So that's a constant in the equation. How much money job creators have to create jobs however is a variable that can actually have a dynamic effect on the economy. There's actually quite a bit of talk right now that our economic recovery is currently stalled because business owners won't commit to expanding their ranks because government won't commit to a sensible path forward. Uncertainty in politics (such as the fiscal cliff, budget, and final tax allocations) are keeping business owners on the sidelines.
Wouldn't that make them left rather than center? I always hear about these "European standards", but outside of closet cases like France with its 75% rich tax, I never really hear of any real examples that differentiate DEMs there from DEMs here. They generally all want high taxes and a bunch of social programs.