US Healthcare – Reform or Regression?

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Viewing 15 posts - 31 through 45 (of 64 total)
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  • #197150
    kimball
    Member

    Hey, I love capitalistic rampaging. I worked really hard and made a bunch of money. It seems as though some people don’t like that. Unless of course, i give it to them.

    #197151
    edlreed
    Member

    As that icon of the system elitists so eloquently said: “then let them eat cake”. The system hasn’t changed, K, just some alms are being proposed to quell the subspecies and appeal to their humanity. Keep your head down for a minute, and your home boys will take care of things. There’s at least one more GOOD financial jihad awaiting. Keep that broker from Yale on speed dial.

    #197152
    postalx
    Member

    Ed: Not knowing you, I can only surmise from your snarky comments that you’re from that segment of society that feels that “taxes are what we pay for the comfort of civilization”, or more simply put, to keep the less civilized among us from rising up against the ruling class. Fair enough.

    But taken to your extreme, there seems to be no limits on what is acceptably taken. Problem is, a successful society has to provide an atmosphere of opportunity for the high earners to fill your coffers. To simultaneously drain the treasury and create a horrid environment for business activity just doesn’t add up no matter what your lofty goals are. Unless of course the destruction of the capitalist system IS your goal. Then what do you replace it with? Angel farts and fairy dust?

    #197153
    sprite
    Member

    Angel farts and fairy dust is what our currency is headed for thanks to the capitalists banksters who run things.

    It is telling that some see a segment of society as uncivilized and dangerous. Of course, they may BE dangerous from the point of view of those who are exploiting them. In Central America, the elitists simply send in the army to remove any threat that a just distribution of resources may be contemplated by the working people who create the wealth.

    In the States, the masses are kept tranquil with just enough of the crumbs of the wealthy to keep them in better shape than many others in less developed countries. Less than 5% of the population controls 95% of the wealth. But times are hard and the wealthy are worried so they may be withholding even the crumbs soon enough.

    Business should be more than just about money. It should be about creating a healthy life environment for citizens. The focus on profit is bringing everything crashing down around us.

    #197154
    kimball
    Member

    Well Said postalx

    Edited on Jul 28, 2009 13:19

    #197155
    kimball
    Member

    When i was part of the so called “masses”, or as i would say, a bricklayer. I didn’t feel as though i was making crumbs. Was i getting rich like the the business owner, no. But the thought of making alot of money really pushed me. Eventually that great capitalistic nation we live in paid off. Now I’m the one dispersing “crumbs” as you would call it. The fact of the matter is, the more i can make the more i can pay out to my labor. When someone makes it harder for me to profit they make it harder on my workers also. Like the old saying goes, sh!t runs down hill.

    #197156
    Imxploring
    Participant

    Just an update… I heard the news today that the US government is looking at a 10% tax on cosmetic surgery as one of the possible revenue streams to fund this national health plan… as I said… let me see the plan and how you’re going to fund it before we force a vote! We really don’t need to embark on another “new deal” that gets old quickly and saddles our grandchildren with debt that will haunt them their entire lives!

    Show me a PLAN… tell me how it will be PAID FOR… and then we can have a REAL discussion…. so far it’s all smoke and mirrors… and not something ANYONE should be voting on! Part of the push now is that Obama and the boyz are losing political capital and folks are asking too many questions! A couple of teleprompter breakdowns and a president that makes some comments about a situation he knew nothing about have stated to open the eyes of the public… let’s hope they don’t fall back asleep!

    As for how the plan will take shape and provide for folks… the Wall Street Journal had a great article today… food for thought on the plan 99% of the general public will be “enjoying” while those that are designing it (politicians and staff) continue to be served rather well on YOUR dime!!

    #197157
    postalx
    Member

    “Business should be more than just about money. It should be about creating a healthy life environment for citizens.”

    Allow me to offer a more concise version of this statement. “Business should be more than just about money. It should be about creating a healthy life environment for the business owner, the employees, the clients, the suppliers and the investors thereof.”

    When the rest of the sniveling world wants to lay it all on the line, total commitment, with no guarantee of success other than what is possible with a good idea, hard work, focus and commitment; then I’ll listen to others’ opinions as to where my crumbs shall be spread.

    My quaint and possibly archaic notion that the best I can do in life is to be successful, thereby improving the lot of those that made it possible is a hard lump to swallow for those who’ve obviously never been there.

    #197158
    edlreed
    Member

    Mr. P, I’ve offered no extreme, just observations, as I’ve found no source of wisdom or personality that is capable of telling anyone how to live their lives. As a fact, the “haves” do have a vested interest in the status quo not changing. As an observation, I have real sympathy for the good hearted conservatives out there who have been dragged across a line they never meant to cross…and now find themselves unable to retreat. You are with us…or against us. What a declaration to unify a country seemingly “at war”. Statements made by a draft dodger and a Prez that if he wasn’t so protected, could have been charged with desertion. I won’t bore you with the list of failures and ineptitudes these “leaders” piled up. You’re aware. Does my disgust make me a liberal?
    The so-called liberals will not drag US down, Postal. The WE has already been destroyed, and the last president made no bones about it. I just wonder how any thinking person can arrive at the conclusions expressed in these exchanges, re our new President, and ignore the pile of crap sitting at the White House and Capitol Hill doors when he took office. Amazing. At least this guy makes a pretense that it is all about people. Oh, I voted for neither, I’ve never had the indulgence of voting for a person that I thought represented me. I refuse to take the “lessor of two evils” approach to granting the mantle of Leader of the Free World. Forgive me if I point out that this is how we got…well, you catch my drift.

    #197159
    sprite
    Member

    Look around you, Postaxl, and see what a great mess your philosophy has made of the world. We are teetering on the brink of disaster in so many ways due to a century and a half of capitalists pillaging the planet and the people.

    Ownership is not a good goal for members of a species whose survival depends upon cooperation. When profit and ownershp become the driving force in a society, coercion of some sort is always is required since wealth is never distributed in a way which is satisfactory to all. Slavery of some form or another is required in order to amass wealth.

    I am also a business owner. You and I have participated at the bottom and in the middle of this hierarchy of owners and slaves. Most people remain as slaves. That seems to be the human condition and will remain so as long as unenlightened, self centered people like you refuse to see what changes need to be made. Rationalize as much as you want about how wealth trickles down to the those who create it but cannot manage to own it. Those rationalizations do not make a better world, they only perpetuate the mess we have been in since the beginning. Conservatives need to be dragged into progress kicking and screaming.

    #197160
    kimball
    Member

    Remember sprite, Puff Puff Pass.

    #197161
    postalx
    Member

    Sprite; I respect your opinion as a ‘persona apasionada’, but your arguments, when placed in a historical context, don’t quite hold up. First there were tribes and clans slaughtering each other for dibs on the available spoils, then mankind invented royalty to resolve their woes (how’d that work out?) only creating newer versions of the old woes. Then along came the industrial revolution, where the efforts of one man (or woman, heh) could be multiplied into wealth through innovation; capitalism: deriving income through the prudent use of assets.

    At every step along this evolution of society, someone has been the windshield while others were the bugs. Capitalism is the just the latest step in that journey, but has done more to improve the lot of mankind than anything ever tried. If fact, the world has never been a more comfortable place for so many at once.

    I await your detailed vision as to how society could be improved for a larger-yet segment of the world’s population; one in where equality in comfort and quality of life is achieved. No platitudes please; a plan of specifics. A serious discussion among “personas apasionada”.

    #197162
    postalx
    Member

    Thanks Kimball; it’s an uphill battle some days..

    #197163
    sprite
    Member

    The fact that people have behaved savagely with each other since the beginning does not preclude that this behavior can be altered for the better. Natural selection will have the final word on that theme. We may end up tearing ourselves and the world apart before we can change.

    I can think immediately of two steps required to move things solidly in the right direction:
    1. Population control (this means diminishing the influence of religion as much as possible)
    2. Education. The Instruction of people in a morality which has more to do with assisting each other rather than mere profit accumulation.

    Capitalism has been the most destructive force on the planet so far. You may not be aware of all the misery and want in the world right now, much of it due to the ravages of capitalism and the ignorance of religion. “Prudent use of assets” is not how I would describe the behavior of capitalists so far.

    #197164
    grb1063
    Member

    Statistics for today:
    40% bad plan
    36% good plan
    24% undecided
    10% change from good to bad in 2 weeks

    Maybe because people are actually reading the fine print in the actual proposed bill rather than depend on the totally biased, facutal lacking mass media as most of the “sheeple” in the US do. Oblahblahblahma’s approval rating will be below 50% by year’s end.

    Edlreed – Did you not know that elections are simply beauty pageants these days?

    Edited on Jul 29, 2009 19:28

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