US Politics Mega-thread - Page 3250

On March 10 2016 07:57 Velr wrote:
So your argument is:

The system is broken so lets break it alltogether?

On March 10 2016 08:17 rezoacken wrote:
Isn't finland testing something like that ?

On March 10 2016 08:19 Naracs_Duc wrote:
He is instead suggesting a universal wage law that essentially puts a wage cap, this cap prevents inflation as people can't simply be able to afford the increased cost of goods due to demand.

On March 10 2016 08:17 rezoacken wrote:
Isn't finland testing something like that ?

On March 10 2016 08:27 WhiteDog wrote:

A higher min wage does not impact equally on the entire scale of wages, but actually reduce income inequalities (most of the effect of an increase in min wage are relevant up to 1.6 x the min wage if I remember correctly - the evolution is not heterogeneous). Plus, a general increase of the price of goods (inflation - that could be caused by an increase of the min wage, altho we could discuss this hypothesis) does not change nothing, it would actually decrease the value of savings. It would indeed have no effect on the purchasing power of people that use their entire income for consumption, the poor, but it have negative effect on people that save (because the value of their savings would decrease more) - effectively forcing investment.

I'm all for changing the system by the way. Also, there is nothing bad in constantly increasing the min wage every year.

On March 10 2016 07:05 Velr wrote:
We actually will have a vote about a baseline income for everyone in Switzerland (and the Finns iirc are planning to do some experiment?)

Main reason for it:
It wouldn't be much (if at all) more expensive than normal social services (facture in the whole "social" industry which would become way smaller, not inexistant because people that just can't handle money would still need help).

So you basically cut TONS of buerocracy and people get what they would get anyway whiteout running thru a miriads of loops. Could this be exploited - No/much less (having more babies to get more money could be named an exploit), but the baseline is everyone gets the same no matter what.
Our system right now? Well, a tiny fraction of the people are exploiting the systems, which actually isn't hard at all, but the B I G majority of people still go to work because... More money/dignity/something to do, whatever, tons of reasons .

Now in the US, with its horrid social services, this might seem even more alien than here (it also does here) but it is an interesting tought experiment.

Medicare is going to test new ways to reimburse doctors for medications, in hopes they'll choose less expensive drugs.

The plan would alter Medicare Part B, which pays for medicines administered in doctors offices or outpatient hospital clinics — to eliminate incentives for doctors to use the most expensive drugs.

The changes would have an outsize effect on cancer doctors and clinics. Medicare Part B shelled out about $7.8 billion on cancer drugs in 2014, or 42 percent of its total spending on drugs that year.

The program now reimburses the doctors or clinics for the cost of the medication plus a 6 percent fee. That means doctors and hospitals earn more money when they use pricier drugs.

As it is now, Dr. Patrick Conway, chief medical officer for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, called the reimbursement structure "perverse."

"We've heard from oncologists who feel pressure from their health system to pick higher cost drugs even when they are not appropriate for a patient," he said in a conference call with reporters on Tuesday.

The agency plans to test a reimbursement formula that would pay the cost of the drug, plus a 2.5 percent surcharge and a flat fee of $16.80.

To his colleagues, it’s no mystery why Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) has no endorsements from his fellow senators.

But as Cruz fights to make the case that backing him is the best way to defeat frontrunner Donald Trump, Republican senators aren’t budging, according to a Tuesday report from Bloomberg Politics.

Asked by Bloomberg why they aren’t backing Cruz, senators responded with awkward chuckles, long silences, and evading the reporter by ducking into a restricted elevator. Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) responded by saying he was headed to lunch.

“I think it’s a whole list of things,” Sen. Dan Coats (R-IN) told Bloomberg. He also said “everybody knows why” Cruz lacks support in the Senate.

While a number of senators—Orrin Hatch (R-UT), Jeff Flake (R-AZ), and Pat Roberts (R-KS) among them—said they would stay the course backing Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who dropped out of the presidential race late last year, conceded he at least thinks the Texas senator is a true conservative.

“Ted Cruz is not my preferential choice, but I believe he's a Republican conservative and Trump’s not,” Graham told Bloomberg. “Bottom line is I think he’s more electable than Trump. I don’t know how much that is.”

Others told Bloomberg they were still salty about Cruz’s driving role in the 2013 government shutdown.

On March 10 2016 08:45 iPlaY.NettleS wrote:

Yeah, great idea with 1.5 million destitute migrants flooding Europe every year.Man the floodgates.

On March 10 2016 08:28 trulojucreathrma.com wrote:
Wage cap? Doesn't that usually refer to the top income? Usually called a salary cap?

Donno about inflation. Don't have a PhD in economics, and even if I had, wouldn't dare to predict the economy

With a minimum wage you always either sit it too low, and put people too close to the poverty line.
Or you set it too high, and people can't find an employer willing pay the minimum wage for their skills.
The higher you set the minimum wage, the less people that will actually get it.

The Oregon militia members who occupied a wildlife refuge in protest of the government could face decades in prison under a set of new criminal charges, including firearm offenses, theft of public property and damaging a Native American archaeological site.

Federal prosecutors in Portland have greatly expanded their case against brothers Ammon and Ryan Bundy and more than a dozen defendants who participated in the armed takeover of the Malheur national wildlife refuge in the high-profile standoff that began 2 January and dragged on for 41 days in rural Oregon.

Last month, after the final four occupiers surrendered to the FBI, officials arrested and charged a total of 25 people for their roles in the armed anti-government demonstration on public lands controlled by the federal government.

The rightwing activists, who traveled from across the US to protest the government’s land-use restrictions in the west, are all accused of using “force, intimidation and threats” to conspire against and impede government officials – a federal felony offense that carries a maximum sentence of six years in prison.

But on Wednesday, prosecutors unveiled a slew of new charges against 19 of the 25 defendants in the case – an indication that the federal government plans to aggressively target the protesters, some of whom could face more than 20 years in prison if convicted of all the offenses.

In a newly unsealed grand jury indictment, 19 of them are now also charged with possessing firearms and dangerous weapons in federal facilities – an offense that could carry up to five years in prison.

Nine of those defendants are also facing new charges of using and carrying a firearm in relation to a violent crime – an offense that mandates a minimum sentence of five years. That charge carries a similar mandatory minimum as the offense that led to the prosecution and imprisonment of two Oregon ranchers whose case inspired the Malheur standoff.

On March 10 2016 09:00 Bigtony wrote:


Switzerland isn't part of the EU, so they actually can close the floodgates.