Papa John Is Mad About Obama Care

nobody ever asked me how much i give to charity, so the study at the moment is at best incomplete.

 

you're doing a personality change

I'm surprised to hear you use that word.

 

Uncle Sam should be the sheeple.

Just keep contributing to your 401K...

We know corporate media will keep us well informed before any crash. Just like in 2008. We know this because corporate media does not directly profit from the corporations that employ them.

 

pensfan13:

out: Yeah but your solutions favor wealth over society.

Pen: tell me one thing, when is the last time a poor person gave you a job that let you live any sort of lifestyle more than being able to buy a snack.

out: That never happened to me. What is your point?

Pen: I think it is obvious if it isnt then nothing i say will let you see why rich people get tax breaks.

out: I think you're saying that since poor people need jobs, and the rich provide them, wealth should rightly be favored over society. Is that correct?

But I challenge the assertion: wealth should be favored over society.

Are we talking about the same thing?

 

You shouldn't be if you read and understood my previous posts.

 

Ok mister Ayn Rand.

 

im not thinking to much about this before posting im just reading your last question and i would say, it depends on what kind of society you want.

 

Actually, making another government program (sponsored by big healthcare industries,) seems a lot less likely to work than the free market. Since government has been involved with healthcare (medicare) 40 some odd years, and we're still paying out the ass. And we have less people insured now.

 

And when you're overcharged by the hospital for services you did not receive, and complain to medicare, they respond by telling you "Don't worry about it , the government will pay the bill." - Actually happened to my Grandfather. Obviously no one spends money as carelessly as government does.

 

Before the NHS in the UK we had basically a ‘free market’ system based on people’s ability to pay - meaning that many in middle and lower class groups could find illness (and childbirth) expensive or beyond there means (leading to premature deaths especially associated with childbirth, and long suffering from curable diseases) . There was some limited provision from charities and local government under the Poor Laws but they as I say were limited. A national insurance scheme was enacted in 1911 but again it was limited and rather haphazard and difficult to work.

 

I want a society that does not favor wealth.

 

Exactly! It seems like Liberals/Democrats want a nanny-state in America. It reminds me of when OBD pulled up to the welfare office in his limo and picked up his government money. It's messed up that the poor is just as guilty as the rich in stealing from government. But most government income comes from the middle class, and not the former. That's why we see the middle class shrinking in this country.

 

:blush5:

 

There are lots of communes that you can join. You can find quite a few right here on this site.

 

Are you being flippant because you do want a society that favors wealth?

 

The problem with communes, even when they work, is that they seldom produce more than the most basic needs, and leave absent most every labor intensive want and need.

 

25


Your post would probably be better placed in the welfare thread (I’ll put a copy there) –

I’m not sure what you mean by ‘nanny state’ can you explain?

If that had happened in the UK the man would have been prosecuted for fraud. Why didn’t that happen in the US?

Can you back this up? In what way are the ‘rich’ and ‘poor’ stealing from government?

 

25

When the US was doing well economically - and there was a huge rise in the number of the middle class - was in the period from the end of WWII to the rise of neoliberal ideas. During those periods the top tax rate was much higher (94% in 1945, down to around 70% in 1970) and the national debt was reduced from the war time high of 117% of GDP to a reasonable 32.5% in 81.

But in the thirty odd years of neoliberal ideas there was a huge increase in the wealth of a few while the real term incomes of those below have either stagnated or fell. While the policies pursued have also caused a ballooning of the national debt and brought about a social and political system where wealth have great (and in my opinion too much) power and influence.

The problem I see with much right wing ideas is that it would most likely increase the power and influence of wealth even more while making life worse for most people in society through the implementation of even great neoliberal policies.

Here is something I posted earlier

After WWII the US’s national debt was up to around 117% of GDP it was brought down in just 36 years less than one generation (by 1981 it was down to 32.5%) until successive right wing and neo-liberal policies (tax cuts and anti-communist military spending) from the 1980 onward increased it cumulating in the profligate spending and tax cuts of the Bush Admin. At the same time the free market ideology (deregulation, hollowing out of manufacturing and a belief that the ‘new’ markets were safe) set up the financial sector for a fall and has caused the debt to rise to around 80-90% of GDP.

The problem isn’t ‘government’ the problem is a right wing, wealth supported, neo-liberal, free market ideology that hijacked the system.

Try - The Decline and Fall of the America Empire: Part One 1945-
http://www.hipforums.com/newforums/s...?t=435209&f=36

Fall in top rate tax
1945 - 94%
1970 – 70%
1982 - 50%
1990 - 28%
2010 – 33%


Rise in top levels of pay
In the 1950’s CEO pay was 25-50 times that of an average worker that has risen to 300-500 times by 2007.
A bigger gap than any other developed nation.

Trade deficit
1960 – Trade surplus of 3.5 billion
2008 – Trade deficit of 690 billion
(The last time the US posted a trade surplus was in 1975)

Decline in manufacturing
1965 - Manufacturing accounted for 53% of the US’s economy.
2004 – It accounted for 9%
The Economist (10/1/2005) stated: “For the first time since the industrial revolution, fewer than 10% of American workers are now employed in manufacturing.”

 

that was kind of my point. there is no incentive to invent a better mouse trap unless you will get paid to do so. if your going to have to give all your extra earnings away when you make a new invention why would anyone put the time and risk into making anything new?