The Well-Mannered Politics Thread

[Inqui]

Ok there's a lot to go over here.

First off capitalism to me is competition and the free market while socialism is govt controlled. If you have single payer health you are not going to have your own choice on who to see, what coverages you would like or how much you would like to pay for it and you're gonna have to pay since hey the poor needs it right so you have to pay for them too. My problem is the rich and politicians do not use what they dole out on the public. Also look at our VA system and how well that's run. I want no parts of it. There's already socialist practices now that I cant stand like Social (probally short for socialist) Security. You pay into this and they tell you how much you gonna get per month. Its laughable and you cant leave this to anybody when you die except spouse. Trust me I could have made more money other ways but since I didn't have a choice...... Public education is another. You're told what school to go to and you pay this tax for life even tho a parent should only have to pay for 12 yrs plus more if they want to go to college, You get either extremely limited or no choice on these things thru socialism whereas with capitalism you would thru competition which helps keep the price down and you can do as to what you can afford.
.Please read Art 1 Sect 8 of the Constitution ( I left a link on pg 60) as to what the federal govt is allowed to do. It doesn't mention health or education.

Now that you're saying net migration is going up in countries like yours with socialistic practices you will find out in a few yrs whether you can sustain. Canada is already starting to freak out. While I agree with the negative Mexico thing its Central/South America that's concerning for the US.

On foreign aid I'm sure you are correct on %'s but why keep giving money if people are gonna continue to flee. Its just more waste. Hell if China gives aid in any ways they get mining rights or something while we don't get a damn thing.

I don't have an awful lot to add that rossihunter hasn't already said, but in principle I think the free market gets better, more efficient outcomes 9 times out of 10. But it can screw with incentives and that makes certain outcomes worse for people - if it were left to the markets there would only be one road in the town I'm in, and no-one pays directly for carbon emissions but once enough get into the atmosphere everyone suffers.

Personally I think healthcare is in that one time out of 10 where free market principles create a worse outcome - especially for nearly perfectly inelastic things like life-saving medication because they have to either fork out big money or die horribly (the asswipe who raised the price of that cancer drug 5000% overnight is a good example). There's still plenty of room for the private sector through the likes of private health insurance (which is still a strong sector everywhere else, but it complements the public system for those who can afford it), patents and R&D grants, but in every other developed country we genuinely find it mind-blowing that if someone gets shot (or gets in a car crash or has a bowling ball fall on their head or whatever) they have to fork out big money or go bankrupt. And it's not really an unsustainable system either - single-payer enables price controls, and when everyone pays in that gives the single payer an economies of scale that would otherwise be taken on solely by those who need it. As a result, "socialist" healthcare is 16.2% of the NZ budget, compared to 24.51% of the budget in the US. I suspect you'd find similar figures elsewhere.

Migration numbers fluctuate pretty wildly because they have a ton of variables, but Australia and Canada have had higher migration rates than the US for at least a decade and they're doing fine (Canada's debt to GDP is 92.3% and Australia's is 41% - both lower than the US at 106% so neither country is on the brink of going bankrupt).

About a third of that foreign aid budget goes to embassies and the like as well (caviar in the Vatican ain't cheap!), but tbh even paring foreign aid back to 0 probably won't move the needle much.

 

[rossihunter2]

Personally I think healthcare is in that one time out of 10 where free market principles create a worse outcome - especially for nearly perfectly inelastic things like life-saving medication because they have to either fork out big money or die horribly (the asswipe who raised the price of that cancer drug 5000% overnight is a good example). There's still plenty of room for the private sector through the likes of private health insurance (which is still a strong sector everywhere else, but it complements the public system for those who can afford it), patents and R&D grants, but in every other developed country we genuinely find it mind-blowing that if someone gets shot (or gets in a car crash or has a bowling ball fall on their head or whatever) they have to fork out big money or go bankrupt. And it's not really an unsustainable system either - single-payer enables price controls, and when everyone pays in that gives the single payer an economies of scale that would otherwise be taken on solely by those who need it. As a result, "socialist" healthcare is 16.2% of the NZ budget, compared to 24.51% of the budget in the US. I suspect you'd find similar figures elsewhere.

just to add to this point - the public healthcare also undercuts the private system so that their prices are kept down too and are not going to bankrupt anyone either

which makes sense given that most necessity goods are untaxed in some places and their prices are kept down while the ultimate necessity (i.e. lifesaving medicine) for some reason is not capped price-wise

 

[rossihunter2]

About a third of that foreign aid budget goes to embassies and the like as well (caviar in the Vatican ain't cheap!), but tbh even paring foreign aid back to 0 probably won't move the needle much.

it's such a tiny proportion of the budget that it makes next to no difference to anything else

 

[rossihunter2]

@Willbacker
i realise this is a little off the current train of thoughts but im genuinely interested in a few things and have a couple of questions for you...

1. How do you think Trump has done generally so far?
2. What do you think about man-made climate change? (you might have said before but i cant remember what you thought)
3. What do you think of Trump's appointments?

 

[Inqui]

I like every one of your ideas except scrapping the electoral colleges since in this country you'd be handing all the power to urbanites.

Good vid. I liked it even with the accents lol. Interesting cuz when we talk about 3rd party candidates I've actually done this twice voting for the liberation candidate in 2008 ( the name is eluding me) cuz I couldn't stand neither candidate and Ross Perot who effectively got the Clinton admin started. I would love to see more parties but most people just think its a wasted vote and it actually takes away from the candidate they'd rather have from the 2 big parties. Really quite a shame.

It's a good system - no party's ever been able to get 50% of the vote on its own so the bigger parties have to make friends with the smaller ones so they can form a coalition that represents more than 50% of the constituency. Our third-most popular party (a party I generally despise but hey, that's democracy) just formed a coalition with the second-most popular one so now there's a new call from some sore losers to dump the system and go back to FPP (which the UK uses and which you guys use for House elections).

I'm in an electorate where there are a ton of farmers so the farmer-friendly party will win this seat for every election until the end of time. It's pretty depressing feeling like the best case scenario for your vote is that it forms a mild protest that will probably be ignored. So if we go back to the old system I'll probably just draw a dick and balls on every ballot. There's not much point in voting if every result is a foregone conclusion, so I can't blame people in safe states for just not turning up to the polls.

 

[Inqui]

@Willbacker
i realise this is a little off the current train of thoughts but im genuinely interested in a few things and have a couple of questions for you...

1. How do you think Trump has done generally so far?
2. What do you think about man-made climate change? (you might have said before but i cant remember what you thought)
3. What do you think of Trump's appointments?

I just wanted to add that Jay Powell is the most Donald Trump pick that Donald Trump could have made. He spent so much time on the campaign trail railing against Janet Yellen and promising to replace her, and he ends up appointing her deputy - who's never voted against a Fed decision in the 30 meetings (or however many it was) he's been involved in.

It was probably the right call given the precarious position the Fed's in with the current environment and with its massive asset sheet (see Japan and Venezuela as separate examples of what can go wrong if not handled correctly), so I'd say he was the right call if Trump was that hell-bent on replacing Yellen. But I'm still trying to work out why he replaced Yellen in the first place beyond simply replacing an Obama pick (which amounts to sheer bloody-mindedness, and putting more effort into looking like something's being done in place of actually doing anything).

It's like complaining at length about the way Ozzie's building the team, only to replace him with Eric DeCosta after you've bought out Steve Bisciotti's controlling share. If you like the way Ozzie was building the team that's fine, but why not just stick with the OG?

 

[Willbacker]

I don't have an awful lot to add that rossihunter hasn't already said, but in principle I think the free market gets better, more efficient outcomes 9 times out of 10. But it can screw with incentives and that makes certain outcomes worse for people - if it were left to the markets there would only be one road in the town I'm in, and no-one pays directly for carbon emissions but once enough get into the atmosphere everyone suffers.

Personally I think healthcare is in that one time out of 10 where free market principles create a worse outcome - especially for nearly perfectly inelastic things like life-saving medication because they have to either fork out big money or die horribly (the asswipe who raised the price of that cancer drug 5000% overnight is a good example). There's still plenty of room for the private sector through the likes of private health insurance (which is still a strong sector everywhere else, but it complements the public system for those who can afford it), patents and R&D grants, but in every other developed country we genuinely find it mind-blowing that if someone gets shot (or gets in a car crash or has a bowling ball fall on their head or whatever) they have to fork out big money or go bankrupt. And it's not really an unsustainable system either - single-payer enables price controls, and when everyone pays in that gives the single payer an economies of scale that would otherwise be taken on solely by those who need it. As a result, "socialist" healthcare is 16.2% of the NZ budget, compared to 24.51% of the budget in the US. I suspect you'd find similar figures elsewhere.

Migration numbers fluctuate pretty wildly because they have a ton of variables, but Australia and Canada have had higher migration rates than the US for at least a decade and they're doing fine (Canada's debt to GDP is 92.3% and Australia's is 41% - both lower than the US at 106% so neither country is on the brink of going bankrupt).

About a third of that foreign aid budget goes to embassies and the like as well (caviar in the Vatican ain't cheap!), but tbh even paring foreign aid back to 0 probably won't move the needle much.

I said in a previous post that if there is no competition for a certain drug since only 1 company has the patent I have noproblem with some sort of regulation. We already have a system that takes care of people that cant afford insurance its called Medicaid.So whenever anybody says we have no insurance for the poor..... but no Obamacare had to be created to FORCE people to buy insurance or pay a penalty. Now choices are limited and premiums have skyrocketed dramatically. Obama lied!!! Keep your doctor. Keep your plan. Lower costs. Lol,,,,Young people who don't get insurance thru their job had no choices except get full coverage thru Obamacare when they used to be able to buy just catastrophic insurance (which means those people that get shot and car crashes) so they're paying way more money than they need to. Now the question to you is you know we already have a 39% tax bracket what programs should be cut without the Democrats falling all over themselves or should we just fork out more money in taxes so we can have no decisions?

Ok on immigration how can you get proper numbers for any sort of illegal immigration. Census? Guesswork? How's it done? And why is Austrailia trying to ship immigrants that they don't want to the US? Oh yes Obama did it again lol thru an agreement he made with Turnbull. As I said Canada is starting to freak out ( I swear do you guys actually read what I post) and Austrailia has a strong merit based system and I strongly believe you guys will be feeling the pinch in a few years. It takes time.

Heck just an example about illegal immigration and healthcare but we just had a female come across the border illegally to get an abortion and damn if some liberal judge didn't agree with her and she got it. See what we deal with?

 

[Willbacker]

@Willbacker
i realise this is a little off the current train of thoughts but im genuinely interested in a few things and have a couple of questions for you...

1. How do you think Trump has done generally so far?
2. What do you think about man-made climate change? (you might have said before but i cant remember what you thought)
3. What do you think of Trump's appointments?

Question 1/ Yes I love Trump so much I want to get a fathead of him with his power tie and stick it down in my bar. . The job he has done so far is he's been doing his best to pass his agenda which is what got him elected in the 1st place but you know the inept congress...... Just an example while Obama was in office ALL THE REPUBLICANS put a bill in front of him to rplace and repeal Obamacare just knowing he was going to veto it just so they could puff out their chests but now that somebody will sign it..... get what I mean. Plus he has had to deal with horrible media and false accusations ( Trump/Russia). I also believe he's doing a great job overseas regaining respect for us after Obama constantly apologized for our shortcomings and was handing money over fist to terrorist countries.

Question2/ I think they go way overboard on climate change but I'm all for researching better green energy and reducing carbon but at a slower clip to where companies can have time to convert changes to their emissions. Its extremely costly. Now people I'm sure are talking about the catastrophic hurricanes we've had this year but to point out this is the 1st year since 2006 we've even had a cat 3. What if we don't have another for another 10 yrs? Look man I'm big on recycling and I love crabbing and fishing so I want clean water too!! I was concerned when Trump relaxed the rules for the coalmining industry in W Va on what could be deposited into the streams but there is still strong regulations especially with filtration and clean up but again he had to keep his promises. Right now we still do need coal energy to survive and even with green energy think about all the acreage right now you would need to support it espcially wind energy but also solar panels. There's also been a lot of talk about putting these structures out in the ocean.

Question 3/ Jeff Sessions Is pissing me off with his recusing and the lack of an investigation into the Democrats involvement with Russia. Other than that I like that he has generals running defense and homeland security and the like and he lets them make crucial decisions and he listens to them. I also like that hid stick money people into treasury and commerce. I mean do politicians know better than them on how to handle finances. I've also made it clear that the Dept of both Health and Education can be eliminated. So some bad some good on his apointments but that's on every president.

 

[rossihunter2]

Thank you that’s helped me a lot

I also believe he's doing a great job overseas regaining respect for us after Obama constantly apologized for our shortcomings and was handing money over fist to terrorist countries.

I will say this based on this quote from you though: I’d say that objectively trump commands less respect than any president I can remember overseas - he’s openly mocked and belittled by liberals and conservatives alike and his demeanour doesn’t endear him to foreign leaders or citizens generally - and a lot of the more powerful nations see him as someone who can easily be manipulated

 

[Dom McRaven]

Question 1/ Plus he has had to deal with horrible media and false accusations ( Trump/Russia). I also believe he's doing a great job overseas regaining respect for us after Obama constantly apologized for our shortcomings and was handing money over fist to terrorist countries.

Question 3/ Jeff Sessions Is pissing me off with his recusing and the lack of an investigation into the Democrats involvement with Russia. So some bad some good on his apointments but that's on every president.

What's more encouraging is that more people are waking up from the BS from mainstream media as a whole. I mean seriously, feeding koi is now a controversy? Give me a break.

As for Sessions, I'm surprised he hasn't been fired yet. Either he's pussy or he's compromised.

 

[Willbacker]

Thank you that’s helped me a lot



I will say this based on this quote from you though: I’d say that objectively trump commands less respect than any president I can remember overseas - he’s openly mocked and belittled by liberals and conservatives alike and his demeanour doesn’t endear him to foreign leaders or citizens generally - and a lot of the more powerful nations see him as someone who can easily be manipulated

 

[Inqui]

I said in a previous post that if there is no competition for a certain drug since only 1 company has the patent I have noproblem with some sort of regulation. We already have a system that takes care of people that cant afford insurance its called Medicaid.So whenever anybody says we have no insurance for the poor..... but no Obamacare had to be created to FORCE people to buy insurance or pay a penalty. Now choices are limited and premiums have skyrocketed dramatically. Obama lied!!! Keep your doctor. Keep your plan. Lower costs. Lol,,,,Young people who don't get insurance thru their job had no choices except get full coverage thru Obamacare when they used to be able to buy just catastrophic insurance (which means those people that get shot and car crashes) so they're paying way more money than they need to. Now the question to you is you know we already have a 39% tax bracket what programs should be cut without the Democrats falling all over themselves or should we just fork out more money in taxes so we can have no decisions?

Ok on immigration how can you get proper numbers for any sort of illegal immigration. Census? Guesswork? How's it done? And why is Austrailia trying to ship immigrants that they don't want to the US? Oh yes Obama did it again lol thru an agreement he made with Turnbull. As I said Canada is starting to freak out ( I swear do you guys actually read what I post) and Austrailia has a strong merit based system and I strongly believe you guys will be feeling the pinch in a few years. It takes time.

Heck just an example about illegal immigration and healthcare but we just had a female come across the border illegally to get an abortion and damn if some liberal judge didn't agree with her and she got it. See what we deal with?

You'll find no disagreement here that it's a clusterfuck how costs haven't improved and you can't pick your doctor and all of that. All of that's the norm everywhere else (you can pick your doctor and usually they're subsidised). As to what to cut, I mentioned the likes of the NSA quite a few pages ago, but like I say single-payer's less of a burden in pretty much every developed economy than your system is: If every government had $100, the US would be spending $21.30 on healthcare, while Australia would be spending $17.30, Canada $18.80, France $15.70, Germany $19.70, Sweden $19 and the UK $16.50. That's the 2014 fiscal year and I can't be bothered getting more up-to-date figures for every country, but like I say the US is up to $24.50 this year. They're all getting better, more equitable outcomes and they're getting it done at a lower cost per person.

Illegal immigration for any country is essentially guesswork, but very detailed guesswork. That Turnbull deal was a refugee swap (you take some of ours and I'll take some of yours and I'll owe you one) so none of Australia's refugee intake would be "boat people" (it's all about semantics and it's a long and stupid story with the Coalition), but I'm not sure what that's got to do with healthcare costs. How is Canada starting to freak out? I didn't know where to respond because you didn't back your statement up. Like I said earlier the Canadian federal government is doing fine financially. Fiscally I'm more concerned an ageing population than immigration as a recent long-term Treasury report indicates (with super projected to balloon out faster than healthcare costs but then dragging the latter up, but I digress).

 

[RavensMania]

libs have been compromising all over the world for years to get moderate candidates into office - has stopped working which has caused liberals to go back to more liberal candidates hence this new massive political void occurring globally

Whatever happened to voting for the better candidate. I’m Libertarian, but I’ll vote for democrat or republican If I feel like they are the better candidate.

 

[rossihunter2]

Whatever happened to voting for the better candidate. I’m Libertarian, but I’ll vote for democrat or republican If I feel like they are the better candidate.

in the uk until recently we had "new labour" the lib dems and the tories as the 3 main parties - the tories are literally the conservative party, the lib dems are centrist (or slightly left of centre) and labour is normally to the left but from the late 90s through the til 2011 or so shifted itself further to the right

us young people and liberals in general were kind of stuffed in terms of choice because the parties themselves compromised to try and get into power rather than staying in their lane new labour had become more palatable to conservatives and gave liberals a less palatable option but with no alternative they won 3 successive elections on those terms but when that regime finally ended it left the conservative party with a much stronger position than in the past

indirectly it has kind of destroyed the need for the liberal democrats and now we are starting to see more of a 2 party system

but voting for the "better" candidate has finally come back in style with the recent election showing huge swings in some places away from a conservative campaign that was like watching the circus against a borderline socialist candidate who went door-door and promised to end austerity

 

[RavensMania]

in the uk until recently we had "new labour" the lib dems and the tories as the 3 main parties - the tories are literally the conservative party, the lib dems are centrist (or slightly left of centre) and labour is normally to the left but from the late 90s through the til 2011 or so shifted itself further to the right

us young people and liberals in general were kind of stuffed in terms of choice because the parties themselves compromised to try and get into power rather than staying in their lane new labour had become more palatable to conservatives and gave liberals a less palatable option but with no alternative they won 3 successive elections on those terms but when that regime finally ended it left the conservative party with a much stronger position than in the past

indirectly it has kind of destroyed the need for the liberal democrats and now we are starting to see more of a 2 party system

but voting for the "better" candidate has finally come back in style with the recent election showing huge swings in some places away from a conservative campaign that was like watching the circus against a borderline socialist candidate who went door-door and promised to end austerity

Living in the dc area or anywhere near that our local news is everyone’s national news. Although I enjoy politics, I get so sick and tired of liberal this and conservative that. With every election the beaurocratic bullshit gets worse ams worse. There was a time where the two parties would negotiate to get the laws passed for their constituents. Now if it doesn’t help them they don’t give a crap.

 

[JO_75]

GQ Magazine named Colin Kaepernick "Citizen of The Year".............

First it was the death of the DNC and the continued death of it after it was exposed they colluded with Russia, and now this will be the demise of GQ Magazine.

 

[rossihunter2]

GQ Magazine named Colin Kaepernick "Citizen of The Year".............

First it was the death of the DNC and the continued death of it after it was exposed they colluded with Russia, and now this will be the demise of GQ Magazine.

quick question... why is alleged russia collusion the death of the DNC but pretty clear Trump collusion with russia not the death of his regime?

 

[Willbacker]

quick question... why is alleged russia collusion the death of the DNC but pretty clear Trump collusion with russia not the death of his regime?

There is no pretty clear Trump collusion with Russia. lol. Keep chasing the dreams......

 

[rossihunter2]

There is no pretty clear Trump collusion with Russia. lol. Keep chasing the dreams......

except for the steadily increasing number of indictments against his circle by the fbi

 

[Willbacker]

except for the steadily increasing number of indictments against his circle by the fbi

You talking about Manafort? You know the guy that was working with Podesta ( Hillary's campaign manager)