Government Shutdown?

[TheBadAgent]

Originally Posted By: Sarachim

No, it's not a misconception any of us have. I agree that this is how healthcare companies work, which is why I favor having the government run them out of business.

In favor of a document that's the average citizen can not possibly understad and is several thousand pages long? To any normal person this would signify that we are meant to be kept unaware of the true bill's purpose. Now, let me point out the other perspective, would it be nice to have a widespread plan in theory? Yes, it would. But, it will not be possible so long as corrupt politicians are in power efficiently. Financially, hospital bills are exorbitant. The government (ours in any case) would not hesitate to grant any method to treat someone. Chemotherapy when you will only live for a week anyway, a hip replacement when you are 80, etc. You will say that everyone deserves a chance, but lets face it, otherwise, nobody could afford it. One other view is that I should not have to pay for your well-being. I just should not have to. You can call me an a-hole or whatever you want or say I have a "moral obligation", but honestly, I don't have to pay, nor even give a damn about your health. This is man providing for themselves, social Darwinism. If you want to do that, go to your church, not the government.

[Sarachim]

Originally Posted By: TheBadAgent

Sara...I know that the reasons I provided aren't the only ones. There are too many agencies, departments and laws to even name that leech money and are completely unneeded. the comment that the rich should pay all these deficits is completely ignorant. The rich cannot possibly pay off the debt or really make a sizable dent in it! Raising taxes just encourages them to take their entire industry outside of the US. If you don't think that will happen, look at China!

Pretty much every developed country taxes the rich more heavily than we do. Those countries still exist, and enjoy standards of living comparable to our own. Or, to look at the other extreme, to actually compete with China for low-end manufacturing jobs, we would have to reduce wages to well below their current level, which is a cure worse than the disease.

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Do you know the taxes that are imposed on a business? Obviously you don't and are inclined to believe that big businesses OWE you a job. Here's an example. Intel was making one of its plants in another country, I believe in Ireland. The people there at the press meeting for this said that they'owed the US people jobs. The CEO casually explained that it would cost them ONE BILLION dollars more to build a plant in the US than in Ireland.

Ah, yes, Ireland, that bastion of free-market miracles. How are they doing these days? Oh, right, the financial crisis hit them even harder than it did us.

I wouldn't mind abolishing the corporate tax entirely and making up the difference by raising the highest marginal rate on income taxes. As for that stuff about Intel owing me a job, that's straw man territory. I never suggested any such thing. I would say, more generally, that anyone who is willing and able to work is entitled to a job and a living wage, and if the free market will not provide it, that is what we have government for. Any economic model that allows poverty to persist above the absolute minimum level possible is both useless and immoral.

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Also, the govenment's TRUE intended role was to be a "necessary evil" by the Founding Fathers and was only intended to have power over ninternational trade and foreign defense. For those healthcare fanatics:
“I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.” – Thomas Jefferson

The Founding Fathers were mostly intelligent men. They were not gods, nor could they see the future. Treating their intent as an argument is denying our own ability to learn from the past 200 years of history.

[TheBadAgent]

Truly, you show you unintelligence and ineptitude in reading and comprehension in your response. I forgot that in any argument with an idiot, they will bring you down to their level and beat you with experience.

 

You obviously think the rich make a huge, overwhelming difference in the taxes. Let me put it this way...if Buffet and Gates dumped ALL their money to the government for the debt...it would not make a differnce. Look at the debt or annual taxes collected, then see their income. It makes no large percent. The tax comes from lower to middle-upper class because not every person has five billion

dollars!! Only a very small percentage do!

 

Irland may have been hit had, but guess what? It is still cheaper to build it there than here! Once again, you didn't understand that topic. And you are a true IDIOT if you believe the government is here to provie you with employment! I refuse to even explain that. Go back to grade school, take your history courses again and read the Constitution and the Federalist Papers.

 

And last of all, you did NOT understand the last part. Jefferson was saying how the people should not

let the government create these socialistic laws that "benefit" people using taxpayer money! The government is there to protect us and to deal with trade. Now, in another quote it descries how anything the government gives us from the taxpayers money can be accomplishd BY THE PEOPLE with no help, should they desire. What you want is charity, in which case, remove yourself from this topic, walk to the church, and give them some money. If you say the founding fathers are completely wrong with what they said, please remove yourself from that baseent and look at the news and research it yourself and retake english courses to comprehend it. I cannot understand how you can be so clueless about what you read right in front of you then make a comment that isn't discussed or is completely different from what I typed.

 

Edit: fixed a couple of mistakes, as I am doing this with a tablet touch screen.

 

I hate going on rampages, but this stuff makes me want to break rocks with my fists.

 

 

[Student of Trinity]

BadAgent: This kind of rude and abusive post is not tolerated here. Please be civil. I am a board moderator.

[Lilith]

for the record most of the people who post regularly here are either socialists or social democrats so you're not going to get far by throwing around "socialistic" like it was a four-letter word

 

how about you stop acting like you're the only person on Earth who's done research and formed a considered opinion, and start treating the people you're trying to convince with some respect

[Sarachim]

Originally Posted By: TheBadAgent

And last of all, you did NOT understand the last part. Jefferson was saying how the people should not let the government create these socialistic laws that "benefit" people using taxpayer money!

I understood it, and then I disagreed with it. If Jefferson was always right, we'd be raping our slaves.

[Dikiyoba]

Originally Posted By: TheBadAgent

This is man providing for themselves, social Darwinism.

Dude, most of the big questions in evolution today deal with altruism. You're behind the times. Catch up.

Dikiyoba.

[Dintiradan]

Hey, guess who's going to derail the topic by quoting posts from a page back...

 

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And if you really insist on whining about ~my healthcare choices~, there's no reason you can't have a private healthcare system operating in parallel with the public sector, so that people who are willing to pay large sums of money for non-urgent surgery can get seen slightly earlier. Australia and the UK both do this and it works reasonably well.

So how is two-tier healthcare regulated down under? This is a topic most Canadian politicians avoid nowadays, but it was pushed a lot around a decade ago, both by Klein and the on the federal level by the Reform party. The main arguments against two-tier were that it would cause a braindrain away from the public tier, and would lead the public tier to eventually cut services that were offered by the private tier.

 

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Finally, one last question: why is a deficit a bad thing? I'm serious. The US has been running one almost continuously for nearly 100 years, and the collapse that deficit hawks warn about still isn't here. If the US has kept it up this long, what makes you say it can't do so indefinitely?

This is just setting off the 'pyramid scheme' klaxon in my head. But I'm not very bright economically -- could someone fill me in how running a continuous deficit, constantly increasing the debt, is sustainable?

 

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And so long as "riders" can be attached to a bill that makes this document many thousand pages, it cannot possibly, even remotely be about true healthcare. Why? Because why does it take several thousand pages to explain it?

Riders have got to be the most stupid political mechanism, but I must admit there's a certain crass beauty about them. More enlightened democracies don't have riders, but I'm sure the same amount compromises happen behind doors. "If you let this bill pass, I'll let this unrelated bill pass." In the States, all of the backroom dealing is posted openly, for all to see. It's beautiful, in an ugly way.

 

Ah, who am I kidding. It's still completely stupid.

 

As for the 'several thousand pages' comment: effective healthcare is complicated. What more can we say?

[Aoslare]

Originally Posted By: Dintiradan

In the States, all of the backroom dealing is posted openly, for all to see.

Uhh... really? Last time I checked, it's a teeny tiny portion of the backroom dealing that is posted openly.

[Dantius]

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Finally, one last question: why is a deficit a bad thing? I'm serious. The US has been running one almost continuously for nearly 100 years, and the collapse that deficit hawks warn about still isn't here. If the US has kept it up this long, what makes you say it can't do so indefinitely?

This is just setting off the 'pyramid scheme' klaxon in my head. But I'm not very bright economically -- could someone fill me in how running a continuous deficit, constantly increasing the debt, is sustainable?

It's actually quite simple. The basic logic doesn't concern the absolute debt or growth thereof, but the debt to GDP ratio and the growth thereof. Essentially, it dosen't matter how much the debt is growing, so long as the economy is growing faster. A trillion dollars growing by ten billion dollars a year is a lot of money(I made up those numbers,FYI), but it's insignificant compared to twenty trillion dollars growing by fifty billion per year. Think of it like taking a limit of a ratio of two polynomials- sure, the bottom just keeps growing, but the ratio itself still reaches a value of 0 if the top grows even faster.

[Dintiradan]

Originally Posted By: Slartucker

Originally Posted By: Dintiradan

In the States, all of the backroom dealing is posted openly, for all to see.

Uhh... really? Last time I checked, it's a teeny tiny portion of the backroom dealing that is posted openly.

What are you talking about? It's there, clear as day, papercliped for all to see.

(To clarify, I am being a teensy bit facetious in my admiration of riders.)

Originally Posted By: Dantius

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Finally, one last question: why is a deficit a bad thing? I'm serious. The US has been running one almost continuously for nearly 100 years, and the collapse that deficit hawks warn about still isn't here. If the US has kept it up this long, what makes you say it can't do so indefinitely?

This is just setting off the 'pyramid scheme' klaxon in my head. But I'm not very bright economically -- could someone fill me in how running a continuous deficit, constantly increasing the debt, is sustainable?

It's actually quite simple. The basic logic doesn't concern the absolute debt or growth thereof, but the debt to GDP ratio and the growth thereof. Essentially, it dosen't matter how much the debt is growing, so long as the economy is growing faster. A trillion dollars growing by ten billion dollars a year is a lot of money(I made up those numbers,FYI), but it's insignificant compared to twenty trillion dollars growing by fifty billion per year. Think of it like taking a limit of a ratio of two polynomials- sure, the bottom just keeps growing, but the ratio itself still reaches a value of 0 if the top grows even faster.

So basically, if the GDP growth slows down, so does the debt growth (i.e. smaller deficit)? And thus if something hit the economy hard, running a deficit would be the wrong thing to do? This just seems a complete reversal of Keynesian economics to me, which is what I thought we were all going for nowadays.

Again, I only have a high school level understanding of economics, so feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

EDIT: Made word choice more clear; previously made it look like I was confusing debt and deficit.

[VCH]

Originally Posted By: Dikiyoba

Originally Posted By: TheBadAgent

This is man providing for themselves, social Darwinism.

Dude, most of the big questions in evolution today deal with altruism. You're behind the times. Catch up.

Dikiyoba.

Altruism is only one of the big questions at the moment. For example, there's also

WHY DO WE HAVE SEX?

WHY DO WE AGE?

WHAT IS A SPECIES?



And Mr Badagent, you can argue without calling people idiots. Doing so will probably make your arguments worth reading.

[Randomizer]

Governments reduce overall debt through devaluing their currency. This means anyone stupid enough to still be holding on to the debt will get back less real money. Right now the world is going through a game of hot potatoe with the US debt and trying to prevent the US from devaluing before they can dump it.

[Alex]

Originally Posted By: Dintiradan

So basically, if the GDP growth slows down, so does the debt growth (i.e. smaller deficit)? And thus if something hit the economy hard, running a deficit would be the wrong thing to do? This just seems a complete reversal of Keynesian economics to me, which is what I thought we were all going for nowadays.

No, I think he meant that the important thing is the size of the debt relative to the size of the economy, not the nominal value of the debt. Deficits tend to go up during recessions.

Analogy: If someone first has 30k annual income and takes a 100k mortgage to buy an apartment, but 10 years later has an annual income of 100k and takes a 250k mortgage to buy a house, that person would now pay a smaller percentage of their income to service the debt (assuming the interest rates, repayments and taxes are still the same).

Link to a plot of US debt/GDP ratio:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/co...y_President.jpg

[Student of Trinity]

It's never entirely clear just what debt exactly means, when the debtor is a nation state that can print pieces of paper and declare them to be legally valid for discharging all debts. It's especially unclear when the debtor in question runs aircraft carriers, stealth bombers, and armored divisions, and when the willingness of its citizens to buy running shoes and iPads keeps many other nations from starving.

 

Quite possibly, debt is still bad, even for a fiscal entity like the United States' federal government. But also possibly, it is not so bad. Because the situation is nothing at all like a private family running up a big credit card bill.

 

My understanding of modern economics goes back to the great eye-opener I had when I bought my first car. I applied to my local bank for a car loan, and was approved. The next day my checking account had suddenly grown, and I wrote a check to buy my car. But I realized: the bank had not gone around to their other depositors, and taken money from them to advance it to me. All the bank had done had been to change the numbers in my account. Period. And that gave me a real, non-virtual car.

 

And my understanding of modern economics is, that there ultimately isn't anything to understand. If we agree that something's valuable, it's valuable. That's it. When each one of us is just a tiny cog in an economy of billions of cogs like us, then the whole system has immense inertia, and behaves almost as if it were based on immutable laws. When there are only a few actors in the drama, though, it boils down almost immediately to nothing but, What do we believe? And on the scale of the US federal budget, there are only a few agents in the world. So nobody knows.

 

Economic naysayers like to insist upon scary basic truths. But the scariest basic truth of economics is, that there are no basic truths.

[Alorael at Large]

BadAgent, I've never understood the awe with which the Founding Fathers are often viewed. They were guys who created a country. Admirable, and they revived the idea of serious democracy, but they weren't all-knowing or perfect. The first time they created the USA, it didn't work. The Articles of Confederation were scrapped and we don't talk about them anymore. The Constitution contains within itself the ability to change. The world and the role of government in it has changed. Our attitudes towards government have changed.

 

—Alorael, who has no desire to become a yeoman-farmer, thanks. He also would be happy to pay taxes, and he'd be happy to pay higher taxes if he earns more money. Okay, not happy. Maybe grudgingly willing.

[Sudanna]

Am I the only person that likes paying taxes? Not that I pay very much, but still, I just think that that's money going to something a hell of a lot better than any stupid [censored] I'd spend it on.

[Sarachim]

Originally Posted By: Thin Gypsy Thief

Am I the only person that likes paying taxes? Not that I pay very much, but still, I just think that that's money going to something a hell of a lot better than any stupid [censored] I'd spend it on.

"I like to pay taxes. With them I buy civilization." - Oliver Wendell Holmes

I feel the same way, but the way the tax burden is distributed in the US is pretty unjust. The idea that taxes are low here is really only true for people who make $250,000 per year or more.

[Dikiyoba]

Originally Posted By: VCH

Altruism is only one of the big questions at the moment. For example, there's also

WHY DO WE HAVE SEX?

WHY DO WE AGE?

WHAT IS A SPECIES?

Allow me the luxury of oversimplifying in my snappy one-liners, okay?

Originally Posted By: Nalyd

Am I the only person that likes paying taxes? Not that I pay very much, but still, I just think that that's money going to something a hell of a lot better than any stupid [censored] I'd spend it on.

Dikiyoba knows not all of Dikiyoba's tax money is going to a good cause, and Dikiyoba has a (somewhat irrational) hatred of sales tax, but no, you aren't alone.

[VCH]

They're not snappy if they're wrong.

[Lilith]

Originally Posted By: Dintiradan

Hey, guess who's going to derail the topic by quoting posts from a page back...

Quote:

And if you really insist on whining about ~my healthcare choices~, there's no reason you can't have a private healthcare system operating in parallel with the public sector, so that people who are willing to pay large sums of money for non-urgent surgery can get seen slightly earlier. Australia and the UK both do this and it works reasonably well.

So how is two-tier healthcare regulated down under? This is a topic most Canadian politicians avoid nowadays, but it was pushed a lot around a decade ago, both by Klein and the on the federal level by the Reform party. The main arguments against two-tier were that it would cause a braindrain away from the public tier, and would lead the public tier to eventually cut services that were offered by the private tier.

i don't know the fine details of how it's regulated, except that neither of these things have happened

some private hospitals are better than some public hospitals. others are worse. in general there's probably more variation in quality in private hospitals, but there hasn't been a general brain drain. private hospitals are generally used only by the minority of people who have private health insurance; there are various tax incentives to encourage people to take up insurance, but it only really makes economic sense if you're upper-middle-class or higher

private hospital treatment tends not to be as ludicrously expensive as it is in the US, either. i suspect the availability of a public option which is always going to outcompete private hospitals on price helps restrain the more outrageous excesses of private greed

[Dantius]

Originally Posted By: Thin Gypsy Thief

Am I the only person that likes paying taxes? Not that I pay very much, but still, I just think that that's money going to something a hell of a lot better than any stupid [censored] I'd spend it on.

I get a feeling of happiness and satisfaction from paying taxes. I like to think it's the cost of getting the chance to elect my own government to represent me, among other things.

[Aoslare]

I enjoy paying my municipal taxes, because the city I live in has the most remarkably efficient, effective, friendly, and egalitarian city services I've ever seen.

 

I guess that's what happens your entire economy revolves around mega-rich universities.

[Sullust]

I don't mind paying taxes. What I hate is having to fill out forms every year to tell the government information they should already know.

[The Mystic]

Originally Posted By: Ars Automata

—Alorael, who assumed all birth control and family planning was renamed abortion. Makes sense, right?

Unfortunately, it does. However, the best birth control and family planning methods can be summed up in one word: abstinence.

Originally Posted By: Randomizer

For two years under Clinton the government ran a surplus and started to reduce the public debt. Then Bush II took over and ran us sharply back into deficit spending with a war whose costs were added as a special item outside the budget and decreasing taxes at a time when total spending was increasing. Reagan and Bush I only look better compared to Bush II. They pushed for tax cuts and didn't cut spending except for minor reductions in social programs.

More proof: The only Bush that should be allowed in the Oval Office is a potted plant.

[Dikiyoba]

Originally Posted By: VCH

They're not snappy if they're wrong.

Yes, please forgive me for failing to mention topics completely unrelated to the discussion at hand.

Originally Posted By: The Mystic

Unfortunately, it does. However, the best birth control and family planning methods can be summed up in one word: abstinence.

Except it doesn't work. Most people will eventually have sex anyway, and if all they've ever learned is abstinence they'll be unprepared for it. Much better to educate people and let them make their own decisions.

Dikiyoba.

[Aoslare]

FWIW, every sex ed program I've ever seen, both when I was a kid and now that I am a middle school teacher, _has_ pushed abstinence — this despite my living in three of the most liberal and urban places in the country. They state repeatedly that abstinence is the only guaranteed way to avoid pregnancy and STIs. After that they usually push monogamy for a while. They do spend a good chunk of time on condoms and other forms of protection, but it's always presented as an auxiliary defense.

 

Frankly, there's a lot less in most sex ed classes to piss off religious people who dislike condoms and abortion, than there is to piss off trans people who are mostly ignored by the curriculum. (At least where I am, the programs have gotten better about GLBTQ stuff.)

[Dantius]

Yeah, abstinence worked great in preventing pregnancy in the Virgin Mary .

[Tyranicus]

Originally Posted By: The Mystic

Originally Posted By: Ars Automata

—Alorael, who assumed all birth control and family planning was renamed abortion. Makes sense, right?

Unfortunately, it does. However, the best birth control and family planning methods can be summed up in one word: abstinence.

Are you seriously suggesting that couples who do not want children when they first get married should abstain from having sex?

[Sullust]

Originally Posted By: Dikiyoba

Originally Posted By: The Mystic

Unfortunately, it does. However, the best birth control and family planning methods can be summed up in one word: abstinence.

Except it doesn't work. Most people will eventually have sex anyway, and if all they've ever learned is abstinence they'll be unprepared for it. Much better to educate people and let them make their own decisions.

Dikiyoba.

In that sense, being gay is a superior form of birth control than abstinence. I propose we start teaching this in our schools