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Post by mike on Sept 3, 2009 9:31:44 GMT -5
AB,
I agree with your POV. We have many of the signs & symptoms of decline, and I for one would like to slow the process, but of course a single person, or even a small group of people have a hard time doing so.
If you look at England, starting in the '60's and moving into the '70's their labor movement virtually destroyed their manufacturing prowess. There was a time when England was a world leader in many ways, shipbuilding, auto manufacturing, aircraft design - remember the Comet? At the time, England was the only country in the world who made a jet powered passenger or transport aircraft. Then the decline started, until today where England is still nice to visit, and still have some clout in the world's of insurance and finance, but is otherwise irrelevant. Now consider the US, and how it has squandered huge swaths of its manufacturing prowess to China.
When considering the wealth of a nation, one needs to look at several factors in order to predict the future: If the country exports non-renewable assets, such as oil or minerals and imports food or items that will degenerate, eventually it will consume it's capitol. If the country exports renewable assets, such as farmed food, it tends to gather assets, albeit slowly. When the country exports things like technology, the country tends to build assets quickly. Consider; when Boeing exports an airliner, and imports the money it was sold for, it is really exporting some cheap aluminum and stuff (relative to the value of the airplane), but importing money. Now also consider that every time Boeing builds an airplane they get better at building airplanes; the major asset - technology doesn't dissipate, but rather builds upon itself. Exporting is really good economic behavior, that is why countries like Japan and China focused on these areas. We, on the other hand, happily export our money & import technology. Why is almost everything you buy today made in China? Well because although we get it cheaper (not always), we don't seem to understand we are giving away the 'golden goose'. When we bought relatively cheap electronic devices nobody felt much one way or another, but then we started shifting the design process to China, which is a HUGE mistake, but nobody seems to notice or care.
We are now declining as a country, just like England did before us, and by the time anyone notices or cares, we are on a slippery slope and it is getting steeper.
When people express concerns about our economy, we focus on the irresponsible behavior of Wall street, and the ineffective SEC in regulating it, they are correct - but also consider; we cannot continuously export 10's of Billions of dollars per month without impacting our economy. What do we get in return? A lot of junk like toys, but also technology like computers. These items have relatively short lives, but the technology we export has a long-lasting impact. Remember IBM selling their PC business to China? What a monumental mistake.
Now consider how we have allowed our legislative process to become corrupted by money, and consider the political capitol that squanders, and the potentially negative impact of a corrupted legislative process. In the past we developed things such as anti-trust laws specifically to benefit the common citizen. That would not happen today, the corporations would simply buy favor from congress to preclude that. How about the $1.4 million a day lobbyists are spending to influence health care legislation going on today? Would they spend that kind of money if it wasn't effective?
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Post by Dee Dee on Sept 3, 2009 10:40:13 GMT -5
Mike,
I wasn´t upset, when I wrote my previous reply, just sad to see that a serious discussion turned into a bad joke, resting on the traditional assumption that the other party is notoriously corrupt.
Apparently you´re a very rational man, always basing your points of view and arguments on logic and facts, and I obviously respect that; however my own are sometimes based on emotions as well, if that makes you see me as irrational and up-tight, then so be it. Heck, I´m living in a country with a free and well-working health care system; I could very well be indifferent as to the American one, but I´m not. I happen to care about other people; and I´ve seen numerous examples of people having their lives completely ruined due to the incompetence of the workings of the American health care system.
Now, I´m certainly no expert on American politics, but I find that President Obama is really making a difference, not just with regard to health care reforms but also with regard to a lot of other important issues. Could it be, that you´ve had so many bad experiences previously, that you´re not even going to give him and the congress a fair chance? Perhaps you´re too paranoid?
I´ve read your long and detailed description of Medical. The system clearly doesn´t work. I´ve also read other members´posts, and there seems to be better systems working in other states. It´s time for a huge quality check, I believe, maybe something like Kaizer Permanente would be helpful?
In any case, I wonder if Mr. Arnold S. realizes the Kafkan proportions surrounding Medical? The application form alone reminds me of "The Trial", which sadly enough, brings us back to humour ...
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Phil
Junior Member
Posts: 82
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Post by Phil on Sept 3, 2009 18:03:34 GMT -5
We need a medical system. I think most of us agree on that. I do share some of Mike's concerns about trusting politicians to come up with something that both works and is fair. He cites the California system as a dismal failure that is expensive, works poorly, and is unfair. I've used the Massachusetts system to show that it can work, IF people want that. Is it perfect? Certainly not. But it does work.
Ironically, this discussion is being held in a thread about Ted Kennedy. Ted often lamented that he didn't take Richard Nixon's offer for universal health care. Nixon's plan offered MORE than the current plan being discussed. But Kennedy believed it fell short, and rather than settling, he declined. And as it turned out, it was a mistake he'd regret later.
We need to do something. Too many people go without coverage today. The results are poorer overall health, the high costs to "fix" expensive medical issues that should/could have been caught and treated earlier, financial ruin for those that are uninsured, and premature deaths. Those are facts.
I know we can manage to do it, IF we want it bad enough. It works here, just as it could work elsewhere. Can we trust Washington with the task? That's the great unknown.
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Post by Triassic on Sept 3, 2009 23:38:43 GMT -5
i don't think i agree w/AB's pessimistic view. i mean, it kinda depends where you look and what you look at. seems to me that 1939 would have been a very dark looking year w/pitiless militaristic totalitarian systems dominating much of the globe and threatening the rest.
as a kid growing up in the '70s i used to REALLY FEAR-as an actual possibility-global nuclear war, and the DESTRUCTION OF CIVILIZATION. and apparantly, yes, it really could have happened. honestly, does anyone truly fear that now? no.
if you read about WW1, it's like some science fiction war-like in the 'terminator' or something. INCREDIBLE loss of life...the death toll up to now in iraq would be the equivalent of a little side skirmish somewhere in WW1.
BUT...i think things move much, much faster now than they ever used to. there are more people now, and just MORE GOING ON. i believe its now past the point where anyone can really even assimilate the facts on a lot of things...let alone understand them.
consequently there is vehemence and anger and confusion about stuff-like t he health care bill. because people DONT, maybe can't, KNOW if its a good thing or not.
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Post by mike on Sept 4, 2009 0:05:00 GMT -5
Devodiva,
You are basically correct on most of the issues you raised, but I would like to correct some issues:
1. When I used the term 'emotional', that was not intended to be pejorative, we all are emotional beings. What I was trying to convey was that my comments were based on facts, it wasn't because I was angry or anything. That said, we cannot totally separate our emotions from our perceptions, we are humans after all. By the way, we SHOULDN'T separate our emotions in many decisions, otherwise we would be a bunch of heartless cynics.
2. My concern over the healthcare proposal is not so much that it will start out as a lousy system, but rather political and economic realities down the road will kill it. We have had many examples of this over the years, MediCal is just a recent example. I really believe the government COULD come up with something viable, but at the moment it doesn't look to me like that is happening.
3. I believe Obama means well, but you must keep in mind that our laws are not created by the president, only congress can write laws, collect taxes or spend money. We have essentially the same congress we had when Bush was president. This is the same congress that voted to attack Afghanistan, and the same congress that voted to attack Iraq - twice. Even Hillary Clinton, who has worked hard to distance herself from Bush, voted in favor of both wars. So whereas Obama wants a good system, I am dubious we will get it this time.
4. In my opinion, once the public gets another bad system, people will abandon the effort for another couple decades.
5. If we want a good system, similar to what you are benefiting from, the first step is to separate congress from the lobbyists, but that is not what is happening. As Phil pointed out earlier, the insurance companies are spending $1.4 Million per Day to preclude any real reform that would threaten their profits. They wouldn't be doing this if it wasn't effective. The drug companies have been doing it too, and the result has been that collective purchasing, which was very effective for Canada, has been abandoned already.
6. If we create a perfect system on paper, then fail to fund it adequately, it will fail no matter how badly some people want it to succeed. We have seen this virtually every time previously. If congress really cared about the citizens, they would have never allowed the existing systems to fail. Is it any wonder congress itself is exempted from participation in any of the public programs, and has a very good system of their own?
7. Another example of arrogant behavior is here in Calif where ordinary citizens pay into social security, and as someone pointed out earlier, social security is slated to run out of money in a couple more years. Calif has it's own system, called 'CalPers', which is applicable only to state employees, which taxpayers fund, and it is way more lucrative. For example here in Sonoma county, police officers can retire before 50, at 90% of their salary. Ordinary people like me pay LOTS of money into social security, but have no reasonable expectation of collecting even what we put into it, not counting the time value of money. CalPers meanwhile is fully funded, and when it has made bad investments and lost money like they did recently, it is us - the taxpayer, that must pony up the cash to make their system whole. My most recent statement from social security indicates that if I were to begin collecting at age 65, I will receive $1,000 per month. Our property taxes (for our home)are more than that. If I were to receive 20% of my ordinary income I could live really well on that alone.
Not all state implementations of MedicAid are as bad as California's, but part of our problem is that the state is short of money - after all we need to make CalPers whole. Anyone who thinks their state is immune from this sort of behavior is being naive, just because it hasn't happened to them yet.
When you consider the myriad systems of public health this country has tried, it is depressing. I think all of them were intended to address the very problems we are facing today, and virtually all of them have quickly devolved.
MedicAid was first proposed by the president in 1945 and became law in 1965 - 20 years later. It is a program whereby the state and federal governments both pay equally, but actual implementation details are left up to the state. California's system is called MediCal, but it is the same system, just what it is called in California.
If we were really trying to create a sensible system, we would combine the VA, MediCare, MedicAid, The Indian Health service etc. into a single entity, eliminating duplication, waste and confusion. That is not currently under consideration. Although I understand the intent of the 'public option', and that it currently looks like a dead horse, keep in mind that in this country the government is NOT supposed to be in private business competing with it's own citizens. All states have a version of an insurance commission that is intended to preclude the abuses that are currently happening. They have in most cases not been effective, but the solution is not to have the government compete with private industry, but rather enact or enforce existing insurance regulations. This is similar to the issue with the SEC, which was created to ensure Wall Street didn't get out of line and create another 1929 style depression, and ensure fair play for investors. Again they didn't do their job, so the solution was to have the taxpayers cough up billions (trillions?) to bail out the miscreants. Even then the fed's did a poor job.
So what is the solution? I think two things: First get the money out of politics, so our legislators can focus on what is good for us, not what is good for special interests. Second, accountability. When congress decides to raid the system for money, the press should point out which congresspersons decided to do that. As things exist today, in most cases we don't even find out that it happened, much less who is responsible. Therefore the same people are reelected, and the cycle starts again. The difficult part of this however, is that laws are created by congress, not citizens, and congress is not about to kill their golden goose.
Finally: where you said I hoped I had made clear in earlier posts that neither party has a monopoly on truth or virtue. I may give one party or another a hard time, but aside from the tongue in cheek post, I have clearly avoided praising or blaming either party. That is because I believe that when you cut through all the rhetoric, both parties are equally responsible for our current system, and both parties need to be a part of a solution. Neither party is exempt to the influence of money, and which party takes more of it changes back & forth.
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Post by mike on Sept 4, 2009 0:08:23 GMT -5
Tri,
As usual you have created a concise well-thought out reply, thanks. I seem to have trouble distilling my thoughts into a series of pithy, but dead on comments like you do, wish I had your ability.
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