Sarah Palin not running for president?
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Spartan, I think you are greatly misinformed about what Obama's health care system actually was presented as. The plan was to have free health care for those who could not afford it, but still have top notch treatment for those who could. I don't blame you though, the conservative propagandists of this country do a good job of misleading those who take them at their word without any actual research on their own.
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http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-qGIN-iCng5A/T ... rchart.jpg
Some research on their own.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kuTG19C ... _embedded#!
"Obama concedes that cutting the capital gains tax actually increased revenues, but says that he’d raise it anyway for the sake of “fairness.â€
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It’s amazing that Obama isn’t embarrassed to make such economically illiterate, down-right socialist, comments in public.
I'm curious, are you implying that socialism must go hand in hand with economic illiteracy, and any movement towards socialism from where you are now would be automatically bad?
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@Leaders:
Spartan, I think you are greatly misinformed about what Obama's health care system actually was presented as. The plan was to have free health care for those who could not afford it, but still have top notch treatment for those who could. I don't blame you though, the conservative propagandists of this country do a good job of misleading those who take them at their word without any actual research on their own.
And how precisely pray tell is Obama going to provide for free health care for the poorest? If not by a state knows best model? I confess while I perhaps don't know the precise details of where Obamacare is at present, I understood all so well what Obama wanted to do in the beginning, before the American Republican Party piled on the pressure.
Seriously as a citizen in one of the nations which actually has a socialised health system, I have got to tell you it doesn't work. The state doesn't know best. The British are not living in a healthy utopia from our cherished state provided for health system.
America is easily and by far one of the most prosperous and free nations on Earth, perhaps even I think the most prosperous and free. It is also the nation which has historically had the least desire for the state to do things for them. These two facts are very much linked.
By contrast nations which have had the most state, like Russia when it was a communist nation, always had the worst quality of life.
Even generally when western nations go state heavy it never ends well. The seventies in Great Britain, when the state knew best, brought misery and poverty to the nation, when Thatcher came and liberalised Great Britain, things got a lot better, in terms of prosperity and freedom. Same goes for Ronald Regan in America, one of my favorite of all statesmen (number two after Sir Winston Churchill).
A great book I have read is the New Road to Serfdom by Daniel Hannan:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/New-Road-Serfdo ... 834&sr=1-1
In it, he basically encourages Americans not to embrace all this big state nonsense from Obama and instead embrace the principles of the small state and limited government, principles he says and I completely agree, have led to American greatness.
The British have just had one of the longest periods of left wing rule in our history, some thirteen years and we are not keen to go back there in a hurry. Lots of big government in our country brought big unemployment, a big increase in the poverty gap and a big loss of civil rights and freedoms.
Spartan
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If not by a state knows best and free market model?
What do you mean by this sentence? If the state knows best, shouldn't it be involved in what's going on economically, not stay as far away as possible as free market requires?
And could you explain how a free market, where everything, including medicine, is sold for as much as one could get it for (well out of range of the 'poorest'), would make medic care available to them?
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If not by a state knows best and free market model?
What do you mean by this sentence? If the state knows best, shouldn't it be involved in what's going on economically, not stay as far away as possible as free market requires?
And could you explain how a free market, where everything, including medicine, is sold for as much as one could get it for (well out of range of the 'poorest'), would make medic care available to them?
Typo
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I'm curious, are you implying that socialism must go hand in hand with economic illiteracy, and any movement towards socialism from where you are now would be automatically bad?
Yes and Yes?
It has never worked anyplace at any time. It aint working now.
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If not by a state knows best and free market model?
What do you mean by this sentence? If the state knows best, shouldn't it be involved in what's going on economically, not stay as far away as possible as free market requires?
And could you explain how a free market, where everything, including medicine, is sold for as much as one could get it for (well out of range of the 'poorest'), would make medic care available to them?
OK then since you asked, here is why the market is best for the consumer for a product:
Lets say I want to buy myself a new mobile phone. As a consumer what I desire from my product is to get the best quality phone, with the most features for the price I am willing to pay for it. On the other hand what the suppliers of phones want to get naturally from the sale of mobile phones is the most money possible.
This is the basic start point in in any transaction and one that assumes both buyers and sellers in a market are motivated by rational self interest and want to maximise what they get from the deal.
Now when the market is strong, this means, that there is lots of competition on a market and lots of competition is absolutely great for the consumer. This means that there is lots of different producers, or lets say mobile phone companies, all trying to make the most money from the consumer.
Now as every mobile phone company, on the market wants to make the most money from the consumer, they must offer to the consumer, one or more features that other competitors don't or they will lose business or at worst go under and be removed from the market. As it is in the rational self interest of all mobile phone companies to do this, as their directors want to make money, take a large market share and avoid failure, they must therefore make themselves better than their competitors.
Now in this competition, there are lots of ways a company can take the market share from its rivals and so walk away with more of the overall market and so more of the overall money of consumers. One of which is price, although it is correct that all businesses want to maximise their profits, if they try and rip off their consumers, another competitor will undercut them, as this would be in the rational self interests of said competitor and the firm ripping off consumers will lose market share to the company lowering prices.
Likewise as a consumer if I see two mobile phones which are being sold for the same price and I want a new mobile phone, I will purchase the phone which has the most features, such as texting, video messaging and so on. This is because another way in which mobile phone companies can compete, so as to get more market share and so make more profits, is through innovation.
As a consumer firms competing on a strong market will always benefit me, as firms will always want to outdo each other, in order to get my money, because if an individual company does not, I will go to another, who is better in terms of price or in terms of features.
This is why when you buy a mobile phone, its price has decreased in the decades since they were first released, they are lighter then they were originally and have lots of nice features such as a camera and texting.
This is why the free market works.
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Or for example the Apple? http://www.nationalreview.com/planet-go ... enry-payne
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Some research on their own.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kuTG19C ... _embedded#!
"Obama concedes that cutting the capital gains tax actually increased revenues, but says that he’d raise it anyway for the sake of “fairness.â€
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In terms of a health care model I would use, the much simplified one would be thus:
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The state ensures that no company operating on the medical market is causing harm, which means in this context, no physical harm, the state also ensures that claims made by any company providing medicine is objectively correct. The purpose of this regulation is simply so that no one gets hurt, as the first and most important duty of government is the preservation of life.
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The state also ensures that both the producers and consumers involved in a transaction, honour their side of the deal. This is to prevent people being ripped off.
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Within this very basic regulatory framework the state doesn't involve itself in the provision of health, but allows independent medical companies to produce both pharmaceuticals and provide for health care. As different health care providers must compete with each other, this forces them to raise the quality of their individual product/service and lower prices, which all benefit the consumer or patient.
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For lower income families; ie single parents, first time home owners or the unemployed; the state pays for the treatment of patients. Patients continue to receive payments from the state for health care, until such a time they can afford for their own health insurance. The patient however still chooses which medical provider receives the cheques on behalf of the state, so the poor has their health looked after, but the health providers and drug companies must still remain competitive, or the patient will go elsewhere.
This is the rough version of the free market health model I would use, when I get time, I will post up the long hand version.
Spartan
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I mean, I get why the rich hate Obama's policies, its the rest of you that baffle me.
"Obama concedes that cutting the capital gains tax actually increased revenues, but says that he’d raise it anyway for the sake of “fairness.â€
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@Leaders:
Some research on their own.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kuTG19C ... _embedded#!
"Obama concedes that cutting the capital gains tax actually increased revenues, but says that he’d raise it anyway for the sake of “fairness.â€
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And how precisely pray tell is Obama going to provide for free health care for the poorest?
Raise taxes. The answer to every conservative argument is easy and it solves every major problem the US is facing. It's fiscally irresponsible to have the such low taxes on the wealthy.
Health care should be a human right, not a privilege and it's morally reprehensible to argue otherwise. We already pay to have roads, police, fire fighters, education and numerable other infrastructure services that allow the country to run efficiently, I fail to see how people assume healthcare is any different. A healthy person is a happier person and also more likely to be a functioning member of society.
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Deadlock shoots and he scores!
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Please stay on topic, ULK
Spartan I noticed you quoted the daily mail as your first source, but isn't that a fictional paper? It's like the Brit's version of The Onion right?
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@LaF:
This is why liberals call conservatives idiots on a regular basis… And, as for raising taxes, I'm all for keeping the rich happy in this country because they do create jobs... But congradulations to all of you middle class and down people who buy into the propoganda machine, you just won the "patsies of our lifetime" award. I mean, I get why the rich hate Obama's policies, its the rest of you that baffle me.
You're being totally unfair in your first quoted statement. I think most people call conservatives idiots (if they do at all) because of the makeup of the party. The rich have a reason to be in favor of conservative policy, because it keeps them rich and in a position to continue to be rich. Guess what though, you know who the rest of the conservative party is? Flag waving uneducated poor white trash that have nothing that live by a bronze age myth. This is a hugely broad and inflammatory statement, but no more so than your own general statement.
You don't even have a foot in reality if you think that low taxes on the rich create more jobs. This is exactly why we are in the situation we're in now. Reaganomics was an utter disaster, one which we're seeing 20/20 hindsight now. Wealth does not trickle down; and if it does at all, it's literal. A TRICKLE. The rich will keep a $1,000,000 for every $1 that manages to escape their grasp. This destroys an economy. Wealth must travel between parties, but it doesn't do that now, it is static, sitting in bank accounts.
The rich do not create jobs, supply and demand does. If the rich stop making jobs because they don't want to lose money, someone else will step in and create those jobs. This is called capitalism (which is not the opposite of socialism).
Your last quoted statement is again just stupid. You have no real argument so you're avoiding making one. You're just saying that anyone who disagrees with you is buying into propaganda, I'm sorry but I think that you are. It sounds like we have a lot of people who watch Fox News here.
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@AWESOMEMAN:
And how precisely pray tell is Obama going to provide for free health care for the poorest?
Raise taxes. The answer to every conservative argument is easy and it solves every major problem the US is facing. It's fiscally irresponsible to have the such low taxes on the wealthy.
Health care should be a human right, not a privilege and it's morally reprehensible to argue otherwise. We already pay to have roads, police, fire fighters, education and numerable other infrastructure services that allow the country to run efficiently, I fail to see how people assume healthcare is any different. A healthy person is a happier person and also more likely to be a functioning member of society.
The points were Awesomeman that:
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Increasing taxes ad infinitum as a general principle has 'always' left a nation worse off, including the poorest and usually especially the poorest.
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That the argument on health care, from the political right, wasn't that the poor shouldn't receive health care, but that a market driven model is both cheaper and more effective way of delivering health care than a state driven model.
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@AWESOMEMAN:
@LaF:
This is why liberals call conservatives idiots on a regular basis… And, as for raising taxes, I'm all for keeping the rich happy in this country because they do create jobs... But congradulations to all of you middle class and down people who buy into the propoganda machine, you just won the "patsies of our lifetime" award. I mean, I get why the rich hate Obama's policies, its the rest of you that baffle me.
You're being totally unfair in your first quoted statement. I think most people call conservatives idiots (if they do at all) because of the makeup of the party. The rich have a reason to be in favor of conservative policy, because it keeps them rich and in a position to continue to be rich. Guess what though, you know who the rest of the conservative party is? Flag waving uneducated poor white trash that have nothing that live by a bronze age myth. This is a hugely broad and inflammatory statement, but no more so than your own general statement.
You don't even have a foot in reality if you think that low taxes on the rich create more jobs. This is exactly why we are in the situation we're in now. Reaganomics was an utter disaster, one which we're seeing 20/20 hindsight now. Wealth does not trickle down; and if it does at all, it's literal. A TRICKLE. The rich will keep a $1,000,000 for every $1 that manages to escape their grasp. This destroys an economy. Wealth must travel between parties, but it doesn't do that now, it is static, sitting in bank accounts.
The rich do not create jobs, supply and demand does. If the rich stop making jobs because they don't want to lose money, someone else will step in and create those jobs. This is called capitalism (which is not the opposite of socialism).
Your last quoted statement is again just stupid. You have no real argument so you're avoiding making one. You're just saying that anyone who disagrees with you is buying into propaganda, I'm sorry but I think that you are. It sounds like we have a lot of people who watch Fox News here.
Glow, you baffle me more then conservatives. If you ever read what anyone else said instead of just skimming and turning it into your own rant, you would realize we are on the same side on this issue. LOL you are silly.
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It's fiscally irresponsible to have the such low taxes on the wealthy.
Low taxes on the wealthy?
•In 2002 the latest year of available data, the top 5 percent of taxpayers paid more than one-half (53.8 percent) of all individual income taxes, but reported roughly one-third (30.6 percent) of income.•The top 1 percent of taxpayers paid 33.7 percent of all individual income taxes in 2002. This group of taxpayers has paid more than 30 percent of individual income taxes since 1995.
•Taxpayers who rank in the top 50 percent of taxpayers by income pay virtually all individual income taxes.
http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/incometax ... ysmost.htm
"Let's try Michael Moore's plan, and balance our budgets by confiscating all the wealth of the nation's 400 billionaires! Turns out that doesn't get us very far." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbwMPzbz ... re=related
Oh well it shoulda worked.