union-busting

[Harrison]

Lol all I have to say to that wall of text is, "Where's your tinfoil hat? The government is reading your thoughts and on the way now!" (Clakar's fear of the government wall of text that is...)

[brinstar]

First, all politicians want power and control. To try to say one side doesn't is a bunch of partisan BS. They get this control by trying to use wedge issues to get money from paranoid and ill informed people. They pass huge budgets and say it's for the people. Also a bunch of garbage. How'd that massive stimulus work out? Pretty good for some big DNC supporting companies.

fair enough. not gonna deny the dems do it too. see above re: my comments on corruption.

The private sector did not create the 14 Trillion dollar debt, nor use immoral and unethical kickbacks to public employee unions in a corrupt manner to fill politician campaign coffers. The private sector did not create the travesty of Fannie and Freddie which are bleeding us of tens of billions each year. The public sector did not authorize the wars in the Middle East. State and local government ran surpluses throughout much of the last decade. Yet, they continued to spend and spend, much of it on kickbacks, and with no thought for the future. The private sector did not create these bloated state pension systems that are at the core of why so many states are going broke.

where did the debt come from? inefficiency, poor bidding processes, and political manoeuvring. who wants to be known as "the senator who voted to raise YOUR taxes"? solving a deficit boils down to two general concepts: spending less or taxing more. the best plans incorporate a balance of both. but there is a disconnect in the collective consciousness - we want what we already have, even if there's no long any way to pay for it. polits do their best to keep their friends rich (rock) and avoid the negative press of raising taxes (hard place) which leaves the rest of us stuck with the bill.

I do find it interesting you gripe about the government telling you want to do. I'll let Rand Paul explain my thoughts on what the real problem is.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELDHaeEsNF0

heh no thanks flink sr.

Mark, most people do not share in the leftist pro government views that many on this board do. I'm not a big fan of the tea party, but I do think anyone who rails about how we need to pay more taxes is wrong. What we need to do is simplify the tax system and create a fair way for business to operate. It's great Obama likes his health care bill. It's utter crap he exempts unions and his business buddies from it. It was great Bush wanted to protect the country. Likewise it was terrible he gave billion dollar no bid defense contracts to his business friends. What's fair about that? It's a travesty we have one of the worst corporate tax rates in the world. It's an even bigger travesty that most corporations use loopholes to avoid paying so much of it.

I personally would rather cut the bloated entitlement model and just spend what we have. Heaven forbid if we do that, though. The children would all die and the sun would crash into the earth.

i would agree with most of this. the tax code is already too complicated, but the real problem is there are loopholes big enough to fly a private jet through. and it's getting worse!

[Zanchief]

Lol all I have to say to that wall of text is, "Where's your tinfoil hat? The government is reading your thoughts and on the way now!" (Clakar's fear of the government wall of text that is...)

Lyion's wall of text is just as moronic and tinfoil hatish.

There both wrong in this case, but at least Clakar isn't advocating the economic benefits of the cult of Ayn Rand so there's that.

[Lyion]

It's too bad every country can't have a kick ass, great leader like this who really gets it economically, eh, Zancreampuff.

where did the debt come from? inefficiency, poor bidding processes, and political manoeuvring. who wants to be known as "the senator who voted to raise YOUR taxes"? solving a deficit boils down to two general concepts: spending less or taxing more. the best plans incorporate a balance of both. but there is a disconnect in the collective consciousness - we want what we already have, even if there's no long any way to pay for it. polits do their best to keep their friends rich (rock) and avoid the negative press of raising taxes (hard place) which leaves the rest of us stuck with the bill.

Government does everything inefficiently. It's why anything run by them costs more and is done worse than something run by a private corporation. A bigger problem is our two party system which allows for each side to make deals to ensure they are getting their fair share of the money and power.

We're amassing a debt, but the simple truth is the entitlements that effect seniors are the biggest scare right now. The AARP contingent holds serious power, far more than the Tea party, unionists, or anyone else.

You can bomb countries. You can union bust. You can kill babies. However, fuck with anything within the purview of the AARP and their core focus and your party will pay the price.

[brinstar]

It's too bad every country can't have a kick ass, great leader like this who really gets it economically, eh, Zancreampuff.

where did the debt come from? inefficiency, poor bidding processes, and political manoeuvring. who wants to be known as "the senator who voted to raise YOUR taxes"? solving a deficit boils down to two general concepts: spending less or taxing more. the best plans incorporate a balance of both. but there is a disconnect in the collective consciousness - we want what we already have, even if there's no long any way to pay for it. polits do their best to keep their friends rich (rock) and avoid the negative press of raising taxes (hard place) which leaves the rest of us stuck with the bill.

Government does everything inefficiently. It's why anything run by them costs more and is done worse than something run by a private corporation. A bigger problem is our two party system which allows for each side to make deals to ensure they are getting their fair share of the money and power.

We're amassing a debt, but the simple truth is the entitlements that effect seniors are the biggest scare right now. The AARP contingent holds serious power, far more than the Tea party, unionists, or anyone else.

You can bomb countries. You can union bust. You can kill babies. However, fuck with anything within the purview of the AARP and their core focus and your party will pay the price.

problem is, i think there's a lot of crossover between the AARP voters and the tea party, demographically speaking - both have, at their core, older white people who are fairly well-off. explains the "don't touch what's mine, but go right ahead and take it away from everyone else" teatard mentality quite nicely

here's a quick example of idiotic government efficiency. my program got a $2.5M three-year grant from the feds in november, which has allowed us to double our staff and increase our program capacity accordingly. this also finally gave us the opportunity to get a round of new computers ordered for the first time since the early 2000s (most of our boxes are running winXP on 1gb or less of RAM and <40gb hard drives). we put in the order almost immediately: 5 brand new desktop computers for our core staff and one laptop for field work, with the understanding that our current desktops would be handed down to the part timers and contract counselors. THEIR shitboxes would then be sent back to IT for whatever reason.

we put our order in with the purchasing dept and started our hiring process. a month later we were fully staffed, but the computers were not there yet. counselors were writing out case notes by hand, and my boss brought his personal laptop at work so our new case worker could have a computer to use. this went on into january, when we found out that Dell had won the purchasing dept bid - but IT threw up their hands and said OMG WE ONLY WORK WITH HP HARDWARE THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE. so then began a month-long dick-waving contest between purchasing and IT. in the meantime, we were "allowed" to RENT some shitty old desktops from the IT dept. so we now have a county dept using budgetary funds to pay for preexisting computers that were not being used at all by a different county dept.

finally in mid-feb they solved their little squabble - IT got their way, we're getting HPs now. which of course means that the bidding process is a big steaming farce. it's now been almost six months since we put in the order. no idea what the final bill will be either, but i am guessing at least 50% higher than market value (and probably 75% higher than if we'd just diverted the cash into a slush fund and sent me to newegg.com lol)

[Arlos]

Government does everything inefficiently

That is actually not true. Look at Medicare vs private insurance for just one example.

Medicare has, last I looked, about a 3% overhead. That means 97 cents of every dollar that goes into Medicare gets spent on actual patient care of some kind. Private insurers have a 20-30% overhead.... Yay, efficiency?

-Arlos

[KaiineTN]

Perhaps better stated as governments are prone to inefficiency due to a lack of a profit motive (encouragement to minimize costs, and just plain letting consumers dictate the direction you go in), resistance to change (once a program is in place, it is very hard to remove or change even when private sector counterparts are using newer, better, cheaper technology), and in many cases, competition (either the government has a monopoly, or it has given itself unfair advantages, or its competitors unfair disadvantages, that hide true costs).

[Lyion]

Government does everything inefficiently

That is actually not true. Look at Medicare vs private insurance for just one example.

Medicare has, last I looked, about a 3% overhead. That means 97 cents of every dollar that goes into Medicare gets spent on actual patient care of some kind. Private insurers have a 20-30% overhead.... Yay, efficiency?

http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d11430t.pdf

The federal government spent just a hair over $500 billion on Medicare payments in 2010—and nearly 10 percent of that spending was improper

Medicare, which the GAO notes is already on an “unsustainable” long-run path, shelled out an estimated $48 billion in "improper payments" last year—and the $48 billion figure is probably low, because it doesn’t include any improper payments from the Medicare Part D prescription drug benefit.

Yay proof of how hugely inefficient and shitty government is?

[Gargamellow]

i enjoy politics but not enough to run for city council....

unions are good but striking shows weakness in my opinion...maybe they should get better lawyers or something..i am so glad i don't understand stuff

[Harrison]

HEY SLUT where the fuck you been? Lol hi

[Tikker]

There are certain things that the private sector will never do well

Medicare is one of them

Any time that you have to try and decide whether or not it's profitable to heal someone you're already doing it wrong


Every system will have abuses. People are fuckwads that way


Some things will be better private but some things are better to be run in the public interest

[Drem]

Any time that you have to try and decide whether or not it's profitable to heal someone you're already doing it wrong

agree so hard

[KaiineTN]

You're already doing it wrong when you take from your neighbor to give to someone else who you deem to be in need.

If you want the moral high ground, donate your own money to the cause rather than playing Robin Hood.

Medical care is a service that must be provided, and providers provide their services at a profit. The profit motive motivates them to maintain high quality and low costs. Profit is not a dirty word.

If it was flat out abuse, like oh I hold the key to saving your life but it'll cost you $5000 when it cost me $5, then yeah, there's a problem, but that's not how things work.

[Drem]

oh my god dude, just shut up. or admit to never having worked a signle day in your life

i feel really sorry for you. and that fact that you keep coming at us with more regurgitated ignorant crap is just absolutely hilarious. please, by all means, ignore this post in its entirety because i know you're going to anyway because you're totally gutless, and post later about some more shit that you don't know anything about that makes you look like even more of a fucking loser

if you think charging $5000 for something that costs $5 is absurd, you should talk to people that actually work in the industry. my parents are both in it, and you're just... wow. you're a dumbshit. even the people working in the industry itself think everyone deserves to be healthy and that the whole system is corrupt. what an idealistic self-centered fuck. how is it that you're still single?

[KaiineTN]

How much do their ridiculous malpractice lawsuits cost them? How much does it cost them when they do every little conceivable test out of fear of being sued over not catching something ridiculously improbable? How much does it cost them to deal with all the bureaucratic paperwork that exists in the name of protecting us, when all it really does is increases costs?

Do you REALLY think profit margins are that large? If you do, you're the one who knows nothing about the working world.

Random fact since I mentioned lawsuits: we have 10 times as many lawyers per capita as Japan. Do you think that helps, or hurts, our economy as a whole?

[Drem]

i don't really give a shit, i just think you're an uninformed douche that watches too much youtube and reads too many blogs. all of your opinions are just based on what you read. you have 0 real world knowledge

we have a 500% markup on alcohol at our restaurant. to not think a doctor doesn't charge you out the ass just to have to see your face is absurd. don't even start with me about being uninformed you fuckin retard. this entire country exists on the principles of fucking other people over and making money in the process

[Drem]

and people with the kind of fucked-up self-centered attitudes you promote are the sole cause of it all

[Drem]

long story short, you're preachin to the choir. you take yourself way too seriously. um, what is it you do for a living again? oh that's right, you're a puss that won't even admit what he does or doesn't do on a daily basis. but you chomp at the bit about some stupid fucking financial banter.... what a joke. are you a robot or a human being?

[10sun]

Every time KaiineTN posts I do myself a favor and visualize this speech: http://amberandchaos.com/?page_id=106

and then I laugh and ignore the post.

[Drem]

lol

[Spazz]

Way to go get him drem.

This money your so worried about the man and evil poor people stealing from you ...... How did you come about these funds? WHy is it such a hard question for you to answer? NO one wants to hear you stupid shit any more your a fuckin tool. I really want to understand where it is your coming from but all you do is spout this bullshit. Keep it real son tell us about your real life exps and not some I got mine and fuck everyone else blog that you read. God damn dude I seriously hate you and people like you and wish I could beat your ass.

[Zanchief]

You're already doing it wrong when you take from your neighbor to give to someone else who you deem to be in need.

Why? Every country has taxes, even Pitcairn Island. The idea of taxes isn't unethical. The role of government is to help society. It is not governed by profit which is why it can operate in ways the private sector can't. That's a good thing.

[KaiineTN]

The role of a government in a free society is to protect the rights and freedoms of the citizens it governs. You have a right to any product of your labor, time, and property. If you disagree with this, then that is the root of where we part ways. This is a guiding principle for me.

I don't make the claim that taxation in general is unethical--it depends on the kind of tax, and how the money is spent.

The government has the authority to tax citizens, as long as it is for the benefit of all. It most certainly does not have the right to tax you more than me, and then use that money to fund my education, or health care, or housing, or unemployment benefits. Not only is it unethical to take from one group to give to another, but our economy would have a much better foundation without such government subsidization.

[Lyion]

The government has the authority to tax citizens, as long as it is for the benefit of all. It most certainly does not have the right to tax you more than me, and then use that money to fund my education, or health care, or housing, or unemployment benefits. Not only is it unethical to take from one group to give to another, but our economy would have a much better foundation without such government subsidization.

The whole idea of our republic is to protect the individual. Likewise, it is the right of government to tax business and people at a fair rate to ensure the health of all, but moreso to help the person who needs it. It is not Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, unless you get cancer, than please die quickly and cheaply. Likewise we want to push our best and brightest when we can, and reward their talents regardless of socio-economic situation.

Our economy works best when there is a good free market, but also when people are not left out in the cold in times of recession or emergency, or due to being poor.

There are certain things that the private sector will never do well
Medicare is one of them

Any time that you have to try and decide whether or not it's profitable to heal someone you're already doing it wrong

Every system will have abuses. People are fuckwads that way

Some things will be better private but some things are better to be run in the public interest

The problem with Medicare is it's too complex and over bureaucratic. We'll pay millions for a person's cancer treatments, but it doesn't allow routine physicals. Go figure.

I personally have changed my opinions and think we should transform this program into a base single payer system that covers routine care for everyone. This is pretty much the only progressive platform I support because it makes too much sense not to. However, before this occurs we need to completely overhaul the big pharma industry as well as enact tort reform so huge amounts of medical dollars do not flow into fatcat lawyer pockets.

[Zanchief]

The government has the authority to tax citizens, as long as it is for the benefit of all. It most certainly does not have the right to tax you more than me, and then use that money to fund my education, or health care, or housing, or unemployment benefits. Not only is it unethical to take from one group to give to another, but our economy would have a much better foundation without such government subsidization.

This is simply not true.