In order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a re-read to refresh your memory! The vast majority of you are contributing in a healthy way, keep it up!
NOTE: When providing a source, explain why you feel it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion if it's not obvious. Also take note that unsubstantiated tweets/posts meant only to rekindle old arguments can result in a mod action.
On November 14 2013 02:56 Liquid`Drone wrote: yes. the notion that a CEO needs 600 times entry level salary to be motivated to do a good job is absolutely ridiculous. Some inequality is not bad though, and hardly anyone claims that some inequality is bad. That's why the chart with "this is how americans want wealth to be distributed - this is how they think it is - this is how it really is" chart is so powerful, because how americans want wealth to be distributed is actually very sensible, whereas the reality is so incredibly different from that. (and yes I know wealth distribution is very different from income distribution and the income distribution chart wouldn't be equally as top heavy, but whatever, wealth one was linked and debated recently. )
I don't mind my boss making twice as much as I do. He has more responsibility, he occasionally needs to have some really emotionally taxing meetings, he's not done with his job when he goes home. But would he want to trade jobs and salary with me? No way. He likes his wealth, and twice my pay actually makes him wealthy. Would he prefer 300 times as much as he's getting now? sure, but he does a great job even with just twice my salary, and if he was getting 300 times more, then that would either mean taking 10% of the paycheck from 6000 people, or it would mean that 599 people are out of a job, or somewhere in between those numbers. In the US, and well, many other parts of the world (but I only ever see non-wealthy americans actually defend this system), the salaries of the most wealthy are completely blown out of proportion, there's no reason why your top earners need to make so much, and it greatly hurts your society. CEO's of big companies could literally slice away 99% of their income and they would STILL be rich.
And to add to your point, this idea of incentive is also empirically wrong because when the average workers becomes more productive, more efficient in their work, they are not paid more anymore in the US (and in many developped countries).
The graph is incorrect in terms of the economic theory. It should be productivity vs labor compensation (not wages) and compensation should use the same deflator as productivity (not CPI). There's still a bit of a breakdown, but not as dramatic.
You're spouting nonsense, read the graph you are talking about is below in the article I linked, and it is not more "true" than the first graph.
Everything you say just shows how fragile your knowledge of economy is. All indicators are imperfect, and thus imperfectly reflect reality. For exemple, I could say that average wage or average compensation also is wrong as it is indirectly diminishing the fact that "people are not paid more when they work more efficiently" because one could think high income workers might hide part of this process (something median wage or compensation would be able to see). You can question indicator all you want, but even with a different indicator (labor compensation) the fact still remain : there is a gap between productivity gain and disposable income in most developped countries and this gap is specifically touching middle class worker.
Also the fact that inequality has "positive effect on the economy" doesn't mean shit too. It is just an ideological justification, but it says nothing about the degree of inequality nor about the type of inequalities. Some are acceptable, others are not, some might have positive impact on the economy, some certainly not. We're reaching the same point, were you cannot justify your arguments and your ideology just shows up, just like that time when you argued that market are efficient because market are efficient, without - I'm pretty sure of it - actually understanding what economists means when they say that market are "efficient".
There is supposed to be a link between productivity and compensation, not productivity and wages. The link should be expressed in apples to apples terms. That is, they should both be deflated using the same index.
Moreover, as I already stated if you use the correct terms, there is still a gap. Refuting me on the grounds that there is still a gap is not refuting me at all since I already pointed out that a gap remains!
As for my comment on the positive effects of inequality, I wrote that it has both positive and negative effects. Refuting me on the grounds that "some [types and degrees] are acceptable, others are not" is, again, not refuting me at all!
Really, is something lost in translation here? Read what I write.
Then what's the point of the discussion if you're only pointing out small things that doesn't contribute at all to the main point ? When you asses that there are "positive effect" to inequality, you stay vague and don't explain your point, while you go into the detail of the indicator when something does not go along with your own vision of "the economy". That's why I'm bothered by your answers, nothing is lost in translation.
To clarify, I'll just quote Krugman :
Larry Mishel has a systematic breakdown of the reasons for worker income stagnation since 1973. He starts with the familiar divergence: productivity up 80 percent, the compensation (including benefits) of the median worker up only 11 percent. Where did the productivity go?
The answer is, it’s two-thirds the inequality, stupid. [...]
What this says is that widening inequality makes a huge difference. Income stagnation does not reflect overall economic stagnation; the incomes of typical workers would be 30 or 40 percent higher than they are if inequality hadn’t soared.
WhiteDog, you made specific comments that I disagreed with on the grounds that I believed them to be factually inaccurate. The article you drew your graph from agrees with me, not you, on that point. If that's problematic to the "main point" you are trying to make - too fucking bad. Put on your big kid pants, admit the error, and stress that the main point is still valid.
I'm not sure where you are going with the Krugman quote. Average productivity increases for the entire economy aren't supposed to translate to compensation increases for every job or every industry or every income class. If your main point is that inequality has increased, you don't need to draw odd references to productivity to make that point - just point to the inequality itself.
What ? I'm sorry, but I showed post after post, that there is an income problem, that there are rising inequalities, and that there is indeed a correlation between low marginal taxation rate and inequalities. All you did was saying some nonsense about savings, argue indicators - I only quickly copy/paste a curve because, guess what, I'm french and my own curve are in french (and "compensation" doesn't mean anything to me as we use the term "revenue"). So all in all, you argued over nothing and now you're waving a flag like you've conquered the nothing we've been arguing.
Can we at least agree marginal taxation rate could lower inequality ? Can we at least agree that middle ground income are suffering ? That working more, when you are a middle class worker, doesn't equal in higher wage ? That mobility in the US is weaker than in most other more equal countries ? Because all those are the facts I have been talking about.
This discussion began with my replying to a graph on wealth inequality. You then jumped into an extremely antagonistic and rude discussion over income inequality. Great start. And contrary to your post here, savings does matter in a discussion of wealth accumulation. Way to continue being wrong.
I never disagreed that higher marginal tax rates can lower inequality. Why do you think I did? Did you not read my posts? I wrote that marginal tax rates weren't the whole story, that other tax code aspects matter as well. I'm not sure why that's a controversial statement. Does no one complain when the rich pay far less than the statutory rate?
I never disagreed that the middle class could be doing a whole lot better. Cyclical issues aside, I do disagree over the phrase "suffering" as middle class incomes have been rising.
I didn't disagree that mobility isn't lower in the US. I disagreed that comparing nations is perfectly apples to apples.
Again you are taking a stance on every subject disregarding not only factual evidence but also any of my analysis.
Not to mention your argument means nothing because if the poor actually consume most of the surplus they gain because of the redistribution and even if this money actually goes back in the hand of the rich, the rich will again be taxed and thus the money will go back to the poor : it's a circuit, of course rich gain money from poor's consumption, the goal is not to minimize this flux (because it is beneficial to the economy), but to minimize the accumulation of flux (saving rate, patrimony, etc.) and this is entirely possible if you tax enough.
Yes I'm talking about wealth and since the beginning. Don't make it seems like there are no canals between wealth and income. Your argument is just not enough, at least it's a little sentence one could add to clarify the limits of a short term marginal tax rate increase.
Yes saving does matter, but your point was just out of the picture. You were making a link between the low saving rate in the US and a possible increase in marginal tax rate, saying that one might have a bad influence on the other. Sure but... The saving problem in the US has nothing to do with taxation, and more to do with the high saving rate in some other countries, the financial system (that permit the mobility of global savings from countries with surplus and high savings to the US), the low interest rate, and the "culture" that has clearly shifted from building up giants to consumption for consumption. This argument about saving rate just shows how hard you're trying to find some meaningless facts to refute the idea of increasing taxation and this is where we leave economy and enter the world of ideology. But maybe we were already there since the beginning.
You are proposing to tax the rich to reduce their amount of wealth, or reduce their wealth buildup (reduce their savings via taxes). Are you just assuming that the loss of wealth will be made up for elsewhere or simply agnostic towards it?
On November 14 2013 03:00 WhiteDog wrote: [quote] And to add to your point, this idea of incentive is also empirically wrong because when the average workers becomes more productive, more efficient in their work, they are not paid more anymore in the US (and in many developped countries).
The graph is incorrect in terms of the economic theory. It should be productivity vs labor compensation (not wages) and compensation should use the same deflator as productivity (not CPI). There's still a bit of a breakdown, but not as dramatic.
You're spouting nonsense, read the graph you are talking about is below in the article I linked, and it is not more "true" than the first graph.
Everything you say just shows how fragile your knowledge of economy is. All indicators are imperfect, and thus imperfectly reflect reality. For exemple, I could say that average wage or average compensation also is wrong as it is indirectly diminishing the fact that "people are not paid more when they work more efficiently" because one could think high income workers might hide part of this process (something median wage or compensation would be able to see). You can question indicator all you want, but even with a different indicator (labor compensation) the fact still remain : there is a gap between productivity gain and disposable income in most developped countries and this gap is specifically touching middle class worker.
Also the fact that inequality has "positive effect on the economy" doesn't mean shit too. It is just an ideological justification, but it says nothing about the degree of inequality nor about the type of inequalities. Some are acceptable, others are not, some might have positive impact on the economy, some certainly not. We're reaching the same point, were you cannot justify your arguments and your ideology just shows up, just like that time when you argued that market are efficient because market are efficient, without - I'm pretty sure of it - actually understanding what economists means when they say that market are "efficient".
There is supposed to be a link between productivity and compensation, not productivity and wages. The link should be expressed in apples to apples terms. That is, they should both be deflated using the same index.
Moreover, as I already stated if you use the correct terms, there is still a gap. Refuting me on the grounds that there is still a gap is not refuting me at all since I already pointed out that a gap remains!
As for my comment on the positive effects of inequality, I wrote that it has both positive and negative effects. Refuting me on the grounds that "some [types and degrees] are acceptable, others are not" is, again, not refuting me at all!
Really, is something lost in translation here? Read what I write.
Then what's the point of the discussion if you're only pointing out small things that doesn't contribute at all to the main point ? When you asses that there are "positive effect" to inequality, you stay vague and don't explain your point, while you go into the detail of the indicator when something does not go along with your own vision of "the economy". That's why I'm bothered by your answers, nothing is lost in translation.
To clarify, I'll just quote Krugman :
Larry Mishel has a systematic breakdown of the reasons for worker income stagnation since 1973. He starts with the familiar divergence: productivity up 80 percent, the compensation (including benefits) of the median worker up only 11 percent. Where did the productivity go?
The answer is, it’s two-thirds the inequality, stupid. [...]
What this says is that widening inequality makes a huge difference. Income stagnation does not reflect overall economic stagnation; the incomes of typical workers would be 30 or 40 percent higher than they are if inequality hadn’t soared.
WhiteDog, you made specific comments that I disagreed with on the grounds that I believed them to be factually inaccurate. The article you drew your graph from agrees with me, not you, on that point. If that's problematic to the "main point" you are trying to make - too fucking bad. Put on your big kid pants, admit the error, and stress that the main point is still valid.
I'm not sure where you are going with the Krugman quote. Average productivity increases for the entire economy aren't supposed to translate to compensation increases for every job or every industry or every income class. If your main point is that inequality has increased, you don't need to draw odd references to productivity to make that point - just point to the inequality itself.
What ? I'm sorry, but I showed post after post, that there is an income problem, that there are rising inequalities, and that there is indeed a correlation between low marginal taxation rate and inequalities. All you did was saying some nonsense about savings, argue indicators - I only quickly copy/paste a curve because, guess what, I'm french and my own curve are in french (and "compensation" doesn't mean anything to me as we use the term "revenue"). So all in all, you argued over nothing and now you're waving a flag like you've conquered the nothing we've been arguing.
Can we at least agree marginal taxation rate could lower inequality ? Can we at least agree that middle ground income are suffering ? That working more, when you are a middle class worker, doesn't equal in higher wage ? That mobility in the US is weaker than in most other more equal countries ? Because all those are the facts I have been talking about.
This discussion began with my replying to a graph on wealth inequality. You then jumped into an extremely antagonistic and rude discussion over income inequality. Great start. And contrary to your post here, savings does matter in a discussion of wealth accumulation. Way to continue being wrong.
I never disagreed that higher marginal tax rates can lower inequality. Why do you think I did? Did you not read my posts? I wrote that marginal tax rates weren't the whole story, that other tax code aspects matter as well. I'm not sure why that's a controversial statement. Does no one complain when the rich pay far less than the statutory rate?
I never disagreed that the middle class could be doing a whole lot better. Cyclical issues aside, I do disagree over the phrase "suffering" as middle class incomes have been rising.
I didn't disagree that mobility isn't lower in the US. I disagreed that comparing nations is perfectly apples to apples.
Again you are taking a stance on every subject disregarding not only factual evidence but also any of my analysis.
About the start, this was from my second post :
Not to mention your argument means nothing because if the poor actually consume most of the surplus they gain because of the redistribution and even if this money actually goes back in the hand of the rich, the rich will again be taxed and thus the money will go back to the poor : it's a circuit, of course rich gain money from poor's consumption, the goal is not to minimize this flux (because it is beneficial to the economy), but to minimize the accumulation of flux (saving rate, patrimony, etc.) and this is entirely possible if you tax enough.
Yes I'm talking about wealth and since the beginning. Don't make it seems like there are no canals between wealth and income. Your argument is just not enough, at least it's a little sentence one could add to clarify the limits of a short term marginal tax rate increase.
Yes saving does matter, but your point was just out of the picture. You were making a link between the low saving rate in the US and a possible increase in marginal tax rate, saying that one might have a bad influence on the other. Sure but... The saving problem in the US has nothing to do with taxation, and more to do with the high saving rate in some other countries, the financial system (that permit the mobility of global savings from countries with surplus and high savings to the US), the low interest rate, and the "culture" that has clearly shifted from building up giants to consumption for consumption. This argument about saving rate just shows how hard you're trying to find some meaningless facts to refute the idea of increasing taxation and this is where we leave economy and enter the world of ideology. But maybe we were already there since the beginning.
You are proposing to tax the rich to reduce their amount of wealth, or reduce their wealth buildup (reduce their savings via taxes). Are you just assuming that the loss of wealth will be made up for elsewhere or simply agnostic towards it?
Loss of wealth ? Wut ? Marginal taxation - on income - is made after the production, so after the wealth is created. It's a question of redistribution, and all wealth distributions are pareto optimal (there are no theoric distribution more economically optimal than the other). Now if by loss you are talking about the potential loss due to having less incentive to work, then I don't know what to say.
Why is there so much discussion about the esoteric around here when Obamacare is imploding in grand fashion on the world stage? I'd love to see Stealthblue post at least one news story about the most important story in US politics today, not that I expect him to do so for obvious reasons. It's not every day that a US president gets publicly trapped in his own lies -- much less a democrat president that the press usually will do everything it can to protect.
In fact, I am surprised at how much press that this Obamacare disaster is getting -- and not just in the usual media outlets. I'm hearing people complain about it in very surprising places. For example, flipping through the FM music/radio stations while driving around Denver, I've heard DJ's and other radio jocks rail against Obamacare on numerous occasions, which is incredibly surprising given that these are usually apolitical environments. In short, this is shaping up to be a really big deal.
On November 14 2013 03:10 JonnyBNoHo wrote: [quote] The graph is incorrect in terms of the economic theory. It should be productivity vs labor compensation (not wages) and compensation should use the same deflator as productivity (not CPI). There's still a bit of a breakdown, but not as dramatic.
You're spouting nonsense, read the graph you are talking about is below in the article I linked, and it is not more "true" than the first graph.
Everything you say just shows how fragile your knowledge of economy is. All indicators are imperfect, and thus imperfectly reflect reality. For exemple, I could say that average wage or average compensation also is wrong as it is indirectly diminishing the fact that "people are not paid more when they work more efficiently" because one could think high income workers might hide part of this process (something median wage or compensation would be able to see). You can question indicator all you want, but even with a different indicator (labor compensation) the fact still remain : there is a gap between productivity gain and disposable income in most developped countries and this gap is specifically touching middle class worker.
Also the fact that inequality has "positive effect on the economy" doesn't mean shit too. It is just an ideological justification, but it says nothing about the degree of inequality nor about the type of inequalities. Some are acceptable, others are not, some might have positive impact on the economy, some certainly not. We're reaching the same point, were you cannot justify your arguments and your ideology just shows up, just like that time when you argued that market are efficient because market are efficient, without - I'm pretty sure of it - actually understanding what economists means when they say that market are "efficient".
There is supposed to be a link between productivity and compensation, not productivity and wages. The link should be expressed in apples to apples terms. That is, they should both be deflated using the same index.
Moreover, as I already stated if you use the correct terms, there is still a gap. Refuting me on the grounds that there is still a gap is not refuting me at all since I already pointed out that a gap remains!
As for my comment on the positive effects of inequality, I wrote that it has both positive and negative effects. Refuting me on the grounds that "some [types and degrees] are acceptable, others are not" is, again, not refuting me at all!
Really, is something lost in translation here? Read what I write.
Then what's the point of the discussion if you're only pointing out small things that doesn't contribute at all to the main point ? When you asses that there are "positive effect" to inequality, you stay vague and don't explain your point, while you go into the detail of the indicator when something does not go along with your own vision of "the economy". That's why I'm bothered by your answers, nothing is lost in translation.
To clarify, I'll just quote Krugman :
Larry Mishel has a systematic breakdown of the reasons for worker income stagnation since 1973. He starts with the familiar divergence: productivity up 80 percent, the compensation (including benefits) of the median worker up only 11 percent. Where did the productivity go?
The answer is, it’s two-thirds the inequality, stupid. [...]
What this says is that widening inequality makes a huge difference. Income stagnation does not reflect overall economic stagnation; the incomes of typical workers would be 30 or 40 percent higher than they are if inequality hadn’t soared.
WhiteDog, you made specific comments that I disagreed with on the grounds that I believed them to be factually inaccurate. The article you drew your graph from agrees with me, not you, on that point. If that's problematic to the "main point" you are trying to make - too fucking bad. Put on your big kid pants, admit the error, and stress that the main point is still valid.
I'm not sure where you are going with the Krugman quote. Average productivity increases for the entire economy aren't supposed to translate to compensation increases for every job or every industry or every income class. If your main point is that inequality has increased, you don't need to draw odd references to productivity to make that point - just point to the inequality itself.
What ? I'm sorry, but I showed post after post, that there is an income problem, that there are rising inequalities, and that there is indeed a correlation between low marginal taxation rate and inequalities. All you did was saying some nonsense about savings, argue indicators - I only quickly copy/paste a curve because, guess what, I'm french and my own curve are in french (and "compensation" doesn't mean anything to me as we use the term "revenue"). So all in all, you argued over nothing and now you're waving a flag like you've conquered the nothing we've been arguing.
Can we at least agree marginal taxation rate could lower inequality ? Can we at least agree that middle ground income are suffering ? That working more, when you are a middle class worker, doesn't equal in higher wage ? That mobility in the US is weaker than in most other more equal countries ? Because all those are the facts I have been talking about.
This discussion began with my replying to a graph on wealth inequality. You then jumped into an extremely antagonistic and rude discussion over income inequality. Great start. And contrary to your post here, savings does matter in a discussion of wealth accumulation. Way to continue being wrong.
I never disagreed that higher marginal tax rates can lower inequality. Why do you think I did? Did you not read my posts? I wrote that marginal tax rates weren't the whole story, that other tax code aspects matter as well. I'm not sure why that's a controversial statement. Does no one complain when the rich pay far less than the statutory rate?
I never disagreed that the middle class could be doing a whole lot better. Cyclical issues aside, I do disagree over the phrase "suffering" as middle class incomes have been rising.
I didn't disagree that mobility isn't lower in the US. I disagreed that comparing nations is perfectly apples to apples.
Again you are taking a stance on every subject disregarding not only factual evidence but also any of my analysis.
About the start, this was from my second post :
Not to mention your argument means nothing because if the poor actually consume most of the surplus they gain because of the redistribution and even if this money actually goes back in the hand of the rich, the rich will again be taxed and thus the money will go back to the poor : it's a circuit, of course rich gain money from poor's consumption, the goal is not to minimize this flux (because it is beneficial to the economy), but to minimize the accumulation of flux (saving rate, patrimony, etc.) and this is entirely possible if you tax enough.
Yes I'm talking about wealth and since the beginning. Don't make it seems like there are no canals between wealth and income. Your argument is just not enough, at least it's a little sentence one could add to clarify the limits of a short term marginal tax rate increase.
Yes saving does matter, but your point was just out of the picture. You were making a link between the low saving rate in the US and a possible increase in marginal tax rate, saying that one might have a bad influence on the other. Sure but... The saving problem in the US has nothing to do with taxation, and more to do with the high saving rate in some other countries, the financial system (that permit the mobility of global savings from countries with surplus and high savings to the US), the low interest rate, and the "culture" that has clearly shifted from building up giants to consumption for consumption. This argument about saving rate just shows how hard you're trying to find some meaningless facts to refute the idea of increasing taxation and this is where we leave economy and enter the world of ideology. But maybe we were already there since the beginning.
You are proposing to tax the rich to reduce their amount of wealth, or reduce their wealth buildup (reduce their savings via taxes). Are you just assuming that the loss of wealth will be made up for elsewhere or simply agnostic towards it?
Loss of wealth ? Wut ? Marginal taxation - on income - is made after the production, so after the wealth is created. It's a question of redistribution, and all wealth distributions are pareto optimal (there are no theoric distribution more economically optimal than the other). Now if by loss you are talking about the potential loss due to having less incentive to work, then I don't know what to say.
No, I'm not talking about a loss of income due to disincentives.
If you reduce from X you need to add to Y, otherwise there will be a net loss. Additionally, X and Y can save or dis-save and have different propensities to do so.
My question is how you take from X, which has a high propensity to save, give to Y, which has a propensity to dis-save, and wind up with no net increase or decrease in the amount saved.
Edit: An additional clarification - I don't consider wealth redistribution a success unless the poor and the middle class wind up with more wealth. There's value in holding wealth beyond the income derived from it.
On November 14 2013 13:13 IgnE wrote: Nope. I'm saying that if your argument is that the graph of wages vs productivity makes it look worse than it really is, because employees are getting compensated with higher cost health care plans, then a graph of worker compensation vs productivity is misleading. It's not a good deal to have lower wages even if you are in theory getting more compensation (11% more compensation in return for nearly double productivity) just because your healthcare costs have soared (to the benefit of the insurance and healthcare industries) for the same healthcare.
Where does the 11% come from?
To your larger point, the rise of healthcare costs should be represented in inflation figures. As healthcare costs have risen, inflation has risen as well. Also, benefits are more than just whatever healthcare you could get in 1970.
In what world do the costs soar to benefit the insurance and healthcare industries and not make the same healthcare better healthcare? Are you dying from a terrible disease? Well, it was uncurable 20 years ago but now we have the cure that took this large company dozens of scientists and many years to develop and test. They paid their innovators actual money to search for it, and now they have a chance to recoup losses (and insure against future lawsuits). Wonder why you're sick? Welcome to advanced screening procedures available enough to be purchased by hospitals everwhere.
Costs have soared for the same healthcare to the benefit of the insurance and healthcare industries? Hardly.
I figured you would say that. There is some truth to it but not enough. Average life expectancy has stopped going up. Quality of life into old age isn't much better either. The American health care system is designed to treat symptoms not disease. The great innovators make anti-depression meds that only work about as well as regular physical exercise. As for what world I live in, I live in the world where Quest Diagnostics charges $433 for a regular yearly physical blood panel and the hospital charges $105 for a dose of antibiotics on top of a $408 "medical care" fee for looking at a patient for 15 minutes. Most people don't have uncurable diseases. Most people go to the doctor for common ailments whose treatments haven't substantially changed in the last 20 years. Go on talking about new treatments for previously uncurable diseases if you like (and ignore the fact that those treatments probably cost about $100k a year), but access to run-of-the-mill healthcare doesn't quite make-up for wages that are negative while productivity is rising and corporate profits are soaring.
Maybe you'd prefer a world where the blood panel was free, and it was a regular every-two-years blood panel instead of every year as well! I grant that your experience with private companies may be less than what you would term 'ideal.' I want to see an abundance of competing options and not a few. Just you wait until you have to convince a government bureaucrat that you deserve one once a year instead of the regulatory normal 18 months. Don't worry, once we make those greedy penny-pinchers move out of the business, the new guys will do such a great job, you won't have reason to fear. It'll be free! And if you're not satisfied with the service, you can go to the other guy go soak your head, there isn't anybody else.
I don't want you to get depressed--God knows you think those anti-depression pills are bad enough already. Go take a walk in the park, the exercise that will keep your outlook chipper, and consider what geniuses you want to put in charge of the Governmental Panel on Treating Disease not Symptoms. We've had such success assembling a website where you can shop around for ACA insurance policies that we are certain you will find your experience enjoyable. If you think most people go to the doctor for the common ailments whose treatments have not been helped by current medical research, keep on hoping you'll continue to be "most people" for 100% of medical conditions that might affect you throughout your life. You wouldn't be interested in effective but expensive treatments that would be available for you if that should happen. I'm positive you would prefer death to helping pad the pockets of the healthcare industry.
Maybe you should open your own clinic that caters to the kinds of people that need your "run-of-the-mill" healthcare and doesn't purchase the costly innovative medical treatments. Make sure you charge enough to cover your insurance for tort--we wouldn't want you to go out of business while trying to help suffering people. Oh and be sure you read up, or pay someone to read up on the thousands of pages of government regulation on your services. We wouldn't want you employing all these people to offer basic medical care and not be reimbursed by Medicare for their time and diligence. Are your costs going up? Are you forced to charge your patients more than you wished? Oh, that's too bad now. Maybe once you've celebrated a decrease in corporate profits after the enacting of your policies, you can similarly celebrate the new efficiencies you must now invent to stay in business.
For all your derisory talk about straw men you really built a little city of them in this post. I honestly don't know whether you actually believe the stuff you write or whether you just crank up the sarcasm dial to 11, absurdity be damned.
On November 15 2013 07:24 xDaunt wrote: I don't think that anyone pretends that Obama is good at international relations any more.
Not as good as Clinton being in bed with the Saudis, but no one can be worse than Bush.
Are you kidding? For as bad as Bush was, Obama is infinitely worse. He has alienated most of our key allies (UK, Israel, and Saudis immediately come to mind, not counting numerous other smaller nations like Poland) and ceded American influence in the Middle East to Russia. Obama's foreign policy has been about as disastrous as it can be in terms of managing diplomatic relations. The only thing that he has done a good job of is avoiding getting us entangled in additional wars. However, the way in which he has done it has been completely inept (see Syria).
I'm not sure if its fair to blame Obama for Snowden and the NSA scandal .
For what it's worth... He's still much more liked than bush ever was over here... But well, i doubt bush would have won a popularity contest against cancer...
On November 15 2013 07:24 xDaunt wrote: I don't think that anyone pretends that Obama is good at international relations any more.
Not as good as Clinton being in bed with the Saudis, but no one can be worse than Bush.
Are you kidding? For as bad as Bush was, Obama is infinitely worse. He has alienated most of our key allies (UK, Israel, and Saudis immediately come to mind, not counting numerous other smaller nations like Poland) and ceded American influence in the Middle East to Russia. Obama's foreign policy has been about as disastrous as it can be in terms of managing diplomatic relations. The only thing that he has done a good job of is avoiding getting us entangled in additional wars. However, the way in which he has done it has been completely inept (see Syria).
Totally. The guy who lies to start a war that kills thousands of Americans and wounds tens of thousands of them while setting a trillion dollars on fire is 'infinitely better' than the guy who doesnt automatically jump at the demands of Israel for a war with Iran and Saudi-Qatari demands for a war with Syria.
I am confused. So they are mad that he is too repetitive in his generic praise for allied countries or not repetitive enough? THAT BASTARD!
or that barry is a professional liar? you do realise that not everyone can be the 'strongest and closest ally' at the same time? That's the whole point. And the superiority complex of this guy who is the worst president the US has ever had, possibly. Who gave him the right to judge what countries were 'punching above their weight' or not? Frankly he should critique his own performance.
Gonna agree with Daunt here, Obama is much worse than Bush. Obama's globalised drone terrorist campaign has made the enemies of Europe & the Anglophone world stronger and bankrupted the US of respect in the eyes of the nations of the world - a huge blunder going into the new multipolar 21st century world order: far from retaining 'superpower' status the American Republic is probably going to become the new 'sick man' of the world while they are paying off all the debt they've accumulated
perhaps giving more taxpayers' money to zombie energy firms that go bankrupt like Solyndra will kickstart the American economy, what have you got in the bag, Nobel Peace Prize Winner Barry?
I am confused. So they are mad that he is too repetitive in his generic praise for allied countries or not repetitive enough? THAT BASTARD!
or that barry is a professional liar? you do realise that not everyone can be the 'strongest and closest ally' at the same time? That's the whole point. And the superiority complex of this guy who is the worst president the US has ever had, possibly. Who gave him the right to judge what countries were 'punching above their weight' or not? Frankly he should critique his own performance.
Gonna agree with Daunt here, Obama is much worse than Bush. Obama's globalised drone terrorist campaign has made the enemies of Europe & the Anglophone world stronger and bankrupted the US of respect in the eyes of the nations of the world - a huge blunder going into the new multipolar 21st century world order: far from retaining 'superpower' status the American Republic is probably going to become the new 'sick man' of the world while they are paying off all the debt they've accumulated
perhaps giving more taxpayers' money to zombie energy firms that go bankrupt like Solyndra will kickstart the American economy, what have you got in the bag, Nobel Peace Prize Winner Barry?
I'm not a Obama fan either but damn you don't know what you're talking about. Worst president in history? How is someone like you, who probably can't name more than 5 presidents qualified to judge worst president ever?
I am confused. So they are mad that he is too repetitive in his generic praise for allied countries or not repetitive enough? THAT BASTARD!
or that barry is a professional liar? you do realise that not everyone can be the 'strongest and closest ally' at the same time? That's the whole point. And the superiority complex of this guy who is the worst president the US has ever had, possibly. Who gave him the right to judge what countries were 'punching above their weight' or not? Frankly he should critique his own performance.
Gonna agree with Daunt here, Obama is much worse than Bush. Obama's globalised drone terrorist campaign has made the enemies of Europe & the Anglophone world stronger and bankrupted the US of respect in the eyes of the nations of the world - a huge blunder going into the new multipolar 21st century world order: far from retaining 'superpower' status the American Republic is probably going to become the new 'sick man' of the world while they are paying off all the debt they've accumulated
perhaps giving more taxpayers' money to zombie energy firms that go bankrupt like Solyndra will kickstart the American economy, what have you got in the bag, Nobel Peace Prize Winner Barry?
I'm not a Obama fan either but damn you don't know what you're talking about. Worst president in history? How is someone like you, who probably can't name more than 5 presidents qualified to judge worst president ever?
the American Republic is barely functional, the government has shut down because the two parties can't agree on a healthcare law.
Compare Obama with people like Jefferson, Lincoln and all of the Enlightenment Greats like Franklin, Thomas Paine etc and one can only despair at how fargone the USA is.
Is this democracy? Also Obama got caught spying on the whole world, and the US is being taken over by Corporatism and radical Protestant extremism (see the spread of anti-intellectualism in the Southern US; epitomised by the spread of 'Intelligent Design' and other anti-scientific ideologies)
Don't get me wrong, I am a fan of the USA: but right now it is like a friend who has a severe illness or drug addiction and needs treatment...
obama has been disappointing in many ways but this is the first time I've seriously seen him considered worse than bush from a foreign policy perspective. The invasion of iraq was far, far more tainting to USA's global image than well, NSA, drone warfare and whatever else you want to blame on obama combined.
Israel and Saudi Arabia are not even close to as important American allies as Europe, not historically, not currently, and not anytime in the conceivable future.
Domestically, well, I'd guess it just depends more on perspective, and I can understand that if you hate the idea of ACA then you will also hate Obama, and he has seemed less "capable" than most american presidents in the sense of what he has managed to accomplish. But, I can't think of any president ever who has had to deal with even nearly as polarized political climate, and it seems hard to blame obama for that. The republican party of the past 15 years has turned into a completely ridiculous entity, and aside from israeli settlers it's hard to find anyone outside the US who actually prefer bush.
On November 15 2013 07:49 Scorpion77 wrote: Gonna agree with Daunt here, Obama is much worse than Bush. Obama's globalised drone terrorist campaign has made the enemies of Europe & the Anglophone world stronger and bankrupted the US of respect in the eyes of the nations of the world - a huge blunder going into the new multipolar 21st century world order: far from retaining 'superpower' status the American Republic is probably going to become the new 'sick man' of the world while they are paying off all the debt they've accumulated
Wha, europe doesnt give a shit about your drone programs. It cares about the NSA spying stuff sure but american drone strikes have never made the news here.
As for America's economic problems. No im not blaming that on Obama, I blame that on the most ineffective congress in history.
On November 15 2013 08:28 Liquid`Drone wrote: obama has been disappointing in many ways but this is the first time I've seriously seen him considered worse than bush from a foreign policy perspective. The invasion of iraq was far, far more tainting to USA's global image than well, NSA, drone warfare and whatever else you want to blame on obama combined.
Israel and Saudi Arabia are not even close to as important American allies as Europe, not historically, not currently, and not anytime in the conceivable future.
Domestically, well, I'd guess it just depends more on perspective, and I can understand that if you hate the idea of ACA then you will also hate Obama, and he has seemed less "capable" than most american presidents in the sense of what he has managed to accomplish. But, I can't think of any president ever who has had to deal with even nearly as polarized political climate, and it seems hard to blame obama for that. The republican party of the past 15 years has turned into a completely ridiculous entity, and aside from israeli settlers it's hard to find anyone outside the US who actually prefer bush.
I seem to recall Kwark having an interesting and differing opinion on some of these points, though I'll let him speak for himself rather than put words in his mouth.
EPT![[image loading]](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/files/2013/07/SherkImage1.gif)
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