There's ten thousand in the hungry mob for every thug with a gun you can hire. They still win, loot all you've got, burn everything else, and now society sucks for EVERYONE.
Care to try again? Here's a tip: any solution which relies on vast swathes of humanity quietly laying down and resigning themselves to starving to death without a fuss isn't going to work.
The disconnect here is that some people seem to think that if they're worth less to the market, they're therefore worth less as a human being. There's a level of dignity and prosperity that every person is entitled to, that our society is more than capable of providing, that we are failing to distribute adequately. If market forces alone could accomplish this you'd hear no more from me, but the markets have empirically failed to keep everyone out of poverty, to keep the environment clean, to intelligently manage natural resources (the birthright of every human), and to provide for those unable to help themselves.
When you don't use the word "Obamacare" and you go through the ACA provision by provision, it's overwhelmingly supported. You have to use scaremongering and knee-jerk words, to get people to say they are against it. Ask people, do they think insurance providers should be able to deny coverage based on pre-existing conditions? Overwhelming answer is no. ACA does this. Children stay on until 26? They answer yes. ACA does this. And on and on.
And why do you think the Democrats controlled all three branches? How did that happen? They were voted in.
The Republicans biggest fear right now is that they won't be able to stop the ACA in time before people start seeing the benefits, and then they'll never be able to get rid of it just like Social Security and Medicare. Once people see first hand that social programs can actually work, and work well, it becomes a lot harder to sell their private market, anti-government, rhetoric. The ACA is a threat to their brand.
The ACA is the compromise. The Democrat idea was single payer Medicare for all. We compromised and used the Republican model proposed in the 90s, and implemented a decade later by Republican Governor Romney in Massachusetts. The ACA passed both houses of Congress. It was signed by the President. It was upheld by the Supreme Court. The Republicans in the house tried over 40 times to repeal it and failed. They are now throwing a temper tantrum because they can't get their way through the established, official, channels. They're not willing to accept that they lost this fight. They'd rather burn everything down than see the other side score a legitimate victory. It's scorched Earth. Spite.
If you're below the poverty line (actually 133% of it) you will now qualify for Medicaid. So, actually, the ACA does the most for those people. They have single payer now with almost no out of pocket expenses--and literally none for a lot of the worst off. Now, getting them to actually utilize preventative care and routine doctor visits instead of the ER is going to be harder. People in poverty are notoriously non-compliant with their physician's directions.
Doctors and healthcare professionals will decide based on empirical data and studying the problem scientifically.
A market bases system always results in higher prices and worse healthcare outcomes. See, I can make sweeping generalizations too. Mine are closer to the truth, however. The evidence supports my claims and is against yours. Countries with national healthcare programs simply pay less for healthcare as a percentage of their GDP. That didn't have to be true. It could have been the other way. It just happens to be true when you look at the facts. Same with healthcare outcomes. It just happens to be true that they do better when it comes to measurable qualities relating to outcomes like infant mortality, life expectancy, obesity rates, et al. We can measure all of these things, and the socialized systems do a better job--even with their flaws.
Again, you'd take the US system because you have enough money to participate. Millions don't, and that's not acceptable in a prosperous Western democracy in the 21st century. Imagine not having insurance, and not having enough money to pay out of pocket expenses. It doesn't matter if the streets are paved with MRI machines if the system restricts access to them to those who can pay. The best healthcare in the world does me no good if I don't have access to it, and in the US, if you don't have insurance or can't just pay cash for everything you ARE denied the highest levels of care and you ARE denied nearly all preventative care, and you ARE denied most medication. Then there's the inconvenient fact that the majority of people who are driven into bankruptcy due to medical expenses HAD INSURANCE. So even with insurance, most people cannot financially handle a catastrophic health crisis. Go to the ER? ER is the most expensive option for everyone, and doesn't cover routine preventative medicine which would save our country billions.
Rationing care based on a market solution is insane. It's perverse. It's against humanity.
The NSA was not balancing anything. They are a rogue agency operating outside of the law and outside of meaningful oversight. Snowden is a patriot and a hero for exposing the criminals at the NSA for what they are. The NSA does not make America safer or more competitive at business. It's a liability to our freedom, our safety, and our economic security.
You'd take the US system because you have enough money to participate in it. Healthcare is ALWAYS rationed. Currently we ration it based on who can pay the most. I'd rather it be rationed based on who needs care most urgently. Societies that choose this method always pay less as percentage of their GDP on healthcare, and get better healthcare outcomes than the US system.
Just put a small, fraction of a penny, fee on every trade executed. It won't even be noticed by people using the market for its intended purpose; long term bets on a company's quality. It would stop the high frequency trading nonsense since that relies on, of course, high speed trades and the fact that an essentially unlimited number of trade orders can be made.
It's just sad at this point, watching them hemorrhage money in every hardware space except their video game console division, and even that seems successful DESPITE their mismanagement, not for any brilliant strategy. They need to refocus on their core competencies and give up chasing every market that's just not in their DNA. Give up phones. Give up tablets. Make a solid enterprise and corporate OS/Office Suite. Windows 7 is a great OS that deserves a proper successor without an abhorrent touch interface grafted onto it.
Their customers are screaming at them to sell them what they want but MS is refusing to make those products. The problem is there's a lot more competition these days. MS isn't the only game in town anymore and they can't afford to ignore their customers--which are the OEMs and enterprise.
A potential employer is in no more powerful a position as you are. They need workers, you need a job.
Bull. Fucking. Shit. Please read section 2.5 for a succinct explanation of why this is patent nonsense. This argument has been closed. Your position is simply erroneous. You are deluded, or being intentionally misleading when you repeat this piffle.
It also has huge historical implications. The Qur'an was written in Arabic (and according to Islam, a Qur'an is only a Qur'an in Arabic, a translation is at best a rough approximation. God was apparently a monoglot). So we have today this historical collection of works which many people base their lives on and take as a matter of life and death (their own and others') which can be interpreted in multiple, mutually incompatible, ways. People die over these disagreements literally every single day, and have been for centuries.
If only Allah had seen fit to dictate his holy words in Lojban we'd have been spared this horror--or at least some of it.
Also, from at least 2006 through 2011 there was a desktop notification program which alerted users to news articles, posts, and comments, all over the internet which were critical of Israel so that the comment section could be flooded with pro-Israel replies giving the illusion of consensus in favor of Israel and Zionism.
Actually, in much of the world it would take more than a little bravery to speak out thus. Being flippant doesn't actually refute your opponent at all, in case you didn't know.
I don't see how that's a bad thing. It seems socially beneficial to educate people, even if it doesn't translate into jobs. There are benefits to society that can't be translated into dollars, that aren't subject to ROI calculations. I feel like people are having two different conversations. One side sees education as a means to an end: finding a job. The other side sees educate as intrinsically good and thus worth spending money on even if it's not a self-sufficient process. I tend to come down on the latter side, with a nod to the fact that more and better jobs will be an unintended consequence of educating as many people as possible up to their maximum potential--which is the primary goal.
The majority of student debt won't be repaid. One way or another we'll have to accept that. It'll either happen through a sensible, structured, measured write down and forgiveness program, or it'll happen by blowing up our economy and ruining EVERYONE. The sad thing is there are a lot of people who want to send us over that cliff out of pure spite. They'd rather watch it all burn to the ground than let someone get a "free" ride.
This is the best comment in the thread (currently) in my opinion. Thank you for clearly spelling exactly how my generation is being screwed over by the boomers who got theirs'. Now that they're on top of the shed they're doing their hardest to kick the ladder away so they can squeeze a bit more spending money out of the economy to enjoy during their retirement. They're the most selfish narcissists our country has ever produced, and they have the gall to call US entitled brats who don't want to work.
This is the only sensible system I've ever seen proposed and it's the one that's almost universally reviled by the majority of the those who'd have to implement it.
Actually, it does make sense. Burdening people with lifetime debt they'll never repay hurts the entire economy, which hurts everyone. These people will never be customers of any business, never contribute fully to the economy, and never have successful lives unless they can start over. It hurts society much more to "punish" them by making them tough it out and keep trying to service debt. If you want to hold them totally accountable, at least admit that you're cutting off your nose to spite your face just to exact some ideological, punitive, justice.
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There's ten thousand in the hungry mob for every thug with a gun you can hire. They still win, loot all you've got, burn everything else, and now society sucks for EVERYONE.
Care to try again? Here's a tip: any solution which relies on vast swathes of humanity quietly laying down and resigning themselves to starving to death without a fuss isn't going to work.
The disconnect here is that some people seem to think that if they're worth less to the market, they're therefore worth less as a human being. There's a level of dignity and prosperity that every person is entitled to, that our society is more than capable of providing, that we are failing to distribute adequately. If market forces alone could accomplish this you'd hear no more from me, but the markets have empirically failed to keep everyone out of poverty, to keep the environment clean, to intelligently manage natural resources (the birthright of every human), and to provide for those unable to help themselves.
When you don't use the word "Obamacare" and you go through the ACA provision by provision, it's overwhelmingly supported. You have to use scaremongering and knee-jerk words, to get people to say they are against it. Ask people, do they think insurance providers should be able to deny coverage based on pre-existing conditions? Overwhelming answer is no. ACA does this. Children stay on until 26? They answer yes. ACA does this. And on and on.
And why do you think the Democrats controlled all three branches? How did that happen? They were voted in.
The Republicans biggest fear right now is that they won't be able to stop the ACA in time before people start seeing the benefits, and then they'll never be able to get rid of it just like Social Security and Medicare. Once people see first hand that social programs can actually work, and work well, it becomes a lot harder to sell their private market, anti-government, rhetoric. The ACA is a threat to their brand.
The ACA is the compromise. The Democrat idea was single payer Medicare for all. We compromised and used the Republican model proposed in the 90s, and implemented a decade later by Republican Governor Romney in Massachusetts. The ACA passed both houses of Congress. It was signed by the President. It was upheld by the Supreme Court. The Republicans in the house tried over 40 times to repeal it and failed. They are now throwing a temper tantrum because they can't get their way through the established, official, channels. They're not willing to accept that they lost this fight. They'd rather burn everything down than see the other side score a legitimate victory. It's scorched Earth. Spite.
If you're below the poverty line (actually 133% of it) you will now qualify for Medicaid. So, actually, the ACA does the most for those people. They have single payer now with almost no out of pocket expenses--and literally none for a lot of the worst off. Now, getting them to actually utilize preventative care and routine doctor visits instead of the ER is going to be harder. People in poverty are notoriously non-compliant with their physician's directions.
That was a result of gerrymandering, and thus, invalid. Doesn't count.
You sound like a petulant child who blames his sibling for tattling on him for stealing cookies.
Doctors and healthcare professionals will decide based on empirical data and studying the problem scientifically.
A market bases system always results in higher prices and worse healthcare outcomes. See, I can make sweeping generalizations too. Mine are closer to the truth, however. The evidence supports my claims and is against yours. Countries with national healthcare programs simply pay less for healthcare as a percentage of their GDP. That didn't have to be true. It could have been the other way. It just happens to be true when you look at the facts. Same with healthcare outcomes. It just happens to be true that they do better when it comes to measurable qualities relating to outcomes like infant mortality, life expectancy, obesity rates, et al. We can measure all of these things, and the socialized systems do a better job--even with their flaws.
Again, you'd take the US system because you have enough money to participate. Millions don't, and that's not acceptable in a prosperous Western democracy in the 21st century. Imagine not having insurance, and not having enough money to pay out of pocket expenses. It doesn't matter if the streets are paved with MRI machines if the system restricts access to them to those who can pay. The best healthcare in the world does me no good if I don't have access to it, and in the US, if you don't have insurance or can't just pay cash for everything you ARE denied the highest levels of care and you ARE denied nearly all preventative care, and you ARE denied most medication. Then there's the inconvenient fact that the majority of people who are driven into bankruptcy due to medical expenses HAD INSURANCE. So even with insurance, most people cannot financially handle a catastrophic health crisis. Go to the ER? ER is the most expensive option for everyone, and doesn't cover routine preventative medicine which would save our country billions.
Rationing care based on a market solution is insane. It's perverse. It's against humanity.
The NSA was not balancing anything. They are a rogue agency operating outside of the law and outside of meaningful oversight. Snowden is a patriot and a hero for exposing the criminals at the NSA for what they are. The NSA does not make America safer or more competitive at business. It's a liability to our freedom, our safety, and our economic security.
You'd take the US system because you have enough money to participate in it. Healthcare is ALWAYS rationed. Currently we ration it based on who can pay the most. I'd rather it be rationed based on who needs care most urgently. Societies that choose this method always pay less as percentage of their GDP on healthcare, and get better healthcare outcomes than the US system.
Just put a small, fraction of a penny, fee on every trade executed. It won't even be noticed by people using the market for its intended purpose; long term bets on a company's quality. It would stop the high frequency trading nonsense since that relies on, of course, high speed trades and the fact that an essentially unlimited number of trade orders can be made.
The majority of internet traffic is P2P filesharing (bittorrent).
It's just sad at this point, watching them hemorrhage money in every hardware space except their video game console division, and even that seems successful DESPITE their mismanagement, not for any brilliant strategy. They need to refocus on their core competencies and give up chasing every market that's just not in their DNA. Give up phones. Give up tablets. Make a solid enterprise and corporate OS/Office Suite. Windows 7 is a great OS that deserves a proper successor without an abhorrent touch interface grafted onto it.
Their customers are screaming at them to sell them what they want but MS is refusing to make those products. The problem is there's a lot more competition these days. MS isn't the only game in town anymore and they can't afford to ignore their customers--which are the OEMs and enterprise.
I totally believe you. I bet your boss hides in fear when you swagger passed in Ron Paul 2008 campaign T-shirt. Fuckin' OG.
A potential employer is in no more powerful a position as you are. They need workers, you need a job.
Bull. Fucking. Shit. Please read section 2.5 for a succinct explanation of why this is patent nonsense. This argument has been closed. Your position is simply erroneous. You are deluded, or being intentionally misleading when you repeat this piffle.
The original sources were unaccented. Try to keep up.
It also has huge historical implications. The Qur'an was written in Arabic (and according to Islam, a Qur'an is only a Qur'an in Arabic, a translation is at best a rough approximation. God was apparently a monoglot). So we have today this historical collection of works which many people base their lives on and take as a matter of life and death (their own and others') which can be interpreted in multiple, mutually incompatible, ways. People die over these disagreements literally every single day, and have been for centuries.
If only Allah had seen fit to dictate his holy words in Lojban we'd have been spared this horror--or at least some of it.
You might find this interesting.
Also, from at least 2006 through 2011 there was a desktop notification program which alerted users to news articles, posts, and comments, all over the internet which were critical of Israel so that the comment section could be flooded with pro-Israel replies giving the illusion of consensus in favor of Israel and Zionism.
Do you believe the level of sincerity of the believer has an effect on whether or not some belief is true?
Actually, in much of the world it would take more than a little bravery to speak out thus. Being flippant doesn't actually refute your opponent at all, in case you didn't know.
I don't see how that's a bad thing. It seems socially beneficial to educate people, even if it doesn't translate into jobs. There are benefits to society that can't be translated into dollars, that aren't subject to ROI calculations. I feel like people are having two different conversations. One side sees education as a means to an end: finding a job. The other side sees educate as intrinsically good and thus worth spending money on even if it's not a self-sufficient process. I tend to come down on the latter side, with a nod to the fact that more and better jobs will be an unintended consequence of educating as many people as possible up to their maximum potential--which is the primary goal.
The majority of student debt won't be repaid. One way or another we'll have to accept that. It'll either happen through a sensible, structured, measured write down and forgiveness program, or it'll happen by blowing up our economy and ruining EVERYONE. The sad thing is there are a lot of people who want to send us over that cliff out of pure spite. They'd rather watch it all burn to the ground than let someone get a "free" ride.
This is the best comment in the thread (currently) in my opinion. Thank you for clearly spelling exactly how my generation is being screwed over by the boomers who got theirs'. Now that they're on top of the shed they're doing their hardest to kick the ladder away so they can squeeze a bit more spending money out of the economy to enjoy during their retirement. They're the most selfish narcissists our country has ever produced, and they have the gall to call US entitled brats who don't want to work.
This is the only sensible system I've ever seen proposed and it's the one that's almost universally reviled by the majority of the those who'd have to implement it.
Actually, it does make sense. Burdening people with lifetime debt they'll never repay hurts the entire economy, which hurts everyone. These people will never be customers of any business, never contribute fully to the economy, and never have successful lives unless they can start over. It hurts society much more to "punish" them by making them tough it out and keep trying to service debt. If you want to hold them totally accountable, at least admit that you're cutting off your nose to spite your face just to exact some ideological, punitive, justice.