Man Robs Bank to get Healthcare. - Page 27

On June 23 2011 03:08 DeepElemBlues wrote:


No I think what you said was dumber. If you don't understand that *most* people already can afford it because they uh kind of already have it, don't tell people what is dumb to say. So much ignorance. 80% = most by any kind of definition.

Edit: DeepElem, I suggest you read Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-5. It explains the chronic condition in the American psyche that the poor hate themselves for being poor because we live in a country where it is shameful to not have money. We think that the poor are in the minority when in reality they are in the majority. I don't know how you get your healthcare, if you're so poor and don't know anybody who can take care of you. Maybe you just don't need it yet... The mentality of working for your money is fantastic, obviously, but turning that into a physical punishment (which is what denial of healthcare is) upon failure is morally reprehensible IMO.

On June 23 2011 02:46 KwarK wrote:
Leaving fires to burn is simply massively wasteful. The cost of putting out fires is always going to be less than the cost of replacing what is burned in the fire. If some guy doesn't pay his fire insurance and his house burns down then you've saved a few bucks in tax money because you didn't have to pay to put it out but he's lost hundreds of thousands in property and possessions. Destruction is wasteful. The guy who is going to take the biggest hit is the guy who is now homeless obviously but society as a whole will have gotten poorer, resources which could have been spent charitably or invested or even put back into the economy by buying shit will now be tied up replacing an entirely preventable loss.
One of the issues with capitalism dealing with these issues is that not everyone makes completely optimal decisions, a lot of people assume things won't happen to them or they get fucked by insurers/employers etc. However these people are still a part of society, just because you may make better decisions does not mean you are disconnected from the results of theirs. Long term, everyone wins if less shit is destroyed in fires and private coverage would be tied to the threat of letting things burn.

On June 23 2011 03:09 The KY wrote:
By the by, the original point I was making with the fire service analogy is that publicly funded services are common and no one (sane) is complaining about having to pay to save people from fires, or pay for people to have access to their right to an education.

On June 23 2011 03:08 DeepElemBlues wrote:


No I think what you said was dumber. If you don't understand that *most* people already can afford it because they uh kind of already have it, don't tell people what is dumb to say. So much ignorance. 80% = most by any kind of definition.



Funniest thing I've heard, the rich are dependent on people paying taxes.

Sorry, the rich are dependent on people being consumers. Consumers are dependent on the rich to put out cheap products.

Both sides need each other, and it isn't a rich vs. poor issue. Not everything is about class, the greatest thing about America is that despite best efforts of people to convince us otherwise, we are not a society of class division and envy the way Europe is and the way Canada has deluded itself into thinking. Class. What a foreign notion.

We are, of course, referring to education here? How many people do you know who could afford a private school? I don't know any.

It is degrading for a rich country like the U.S. to care of their weakest that poorly. I am glad that man did such a thing, and hope he will be followed by many others, to use this exploit to such an amount that there will finally health care for everyone.

Right, which is why this is such a problem. If people can't even afford healthcare, how are they supposed to consume and keep industry flowing?

Welcome to a classic Keynesian recession, where aggregate demand has completely fallen out the bottom (that's what the half-assed stimulus checks were supposed to counteract).

The rich are waging war on the poor, they are using our tax dollars to do their investing for them and they are enriching themselves off the successes.

Unfortunately it is about class, because if you look at the data you will see that the richest in America garner more and more of our net wealth every year.

That means they are taking more and more of our ability to consume and survive away from us, so that they can store that wealth for themselves.

"There's class warfare, all right," Mr. Buffet said, "but it's my class, the rich class, that's making war, and we're winning."

On June 23 2011 03:16 DeepElemBlues wrote:


ROFL

Slaughterhouse-5 is a work of fiction by a man deeply affected by being in the middle of the firebombing of Dresden who also never in his works moved past an emotional maturity of about 14.

I don't hate myself for being poor, guess Kurt wasn't so right after all?

Read Breakfast of Champions, you'll see how limited your understanding of Kurt's work is.

Please don't tell people to go read a book, especially a book of fiction.

The poor are really in the majority, because Slaughterhouse-5 says so?

"Mystification" is a term more useful in theory than in practice.

Don't be so presumptuous as to say that you *know* how the poor think based on a fiction book written 4+ decades ago.

It's fucking ridiculous that these are the kinds of arguments being offered up. Totally fucking ridiculous.

On June 23 2011 03:27 TanGeng wrote:

Yeah, it's the billionaires vs the rest of us. But when pols say tax the rich, they don't mean billionaires. They mean the people making 150k-300k a year.

The solution that you want is more government which is also precisely the apparatus that those billionaires have total control over.

Edit: Wow, now I get it. You're being partisan about all this with that Democrat comment. This is exactly the stonewall in America we're dealing with, as soon as you become convinced it's a liberal you're talking to you shut down and get angry. 3 word sentences don't constitute a valid answer by the way, and you REALLY need to do some proper research.

Notice how I managed to refute your poor understanding of the situation without calling it totally fucking ridiculous? Take notes child.

Hmm, someone sounds angry. Classic American response to being challenged by ideas you don't like or understand.

I'm sorry you don't believe fiction has any relevance to real life; that's your loss.

The poor are in the majority as a statistic, and no I'm not going to waste time digging it up for your ignorant ass.

You can find it yourself if you're so sure you're right. I can tell how the poor think because I can see them voting against their own financial interests in every election.

Vonnegut helped me understand what I was seeing in the real world, which by the way is the point of political commentary that happens to be in the form of fiction.

The poor are in the majority as a statistic

I'm not sure how that's possible. The poverty line is defined as the bottom 10% (or was it 20?). If you are going by some absolute definition of "poor," then very few people in the US are poor. The average world GDP per capita (PPP adjusted) is $10,000 a year, which is even lower than the US poverty line.

On June 22 2011 05:24 Razith wrote:


So I fail to see any sympothay for this guy. He's 59 without any money and without any sort of medical insurance and its America's problem? Since when did life and financial planning fall into the resposibility of the government?

What are the major causes of these rises in healthcare costs?

On June 23 2011 03:53 caruso wrote:


Wow, I don't know what to say.

This is so insanely narrow-minded...

You don't know anything about his live, how can you possible claim it's his own fault that he's in such dire straits? 'Faith' can throw horrible things at any man, things that white middle-class males fail to grasp.

On June 23 2011 03:53 caruso wrote:


Wow, I don't know what to say.

This is so insanely narrow-minded...

You don't know anything about his live, how can you possible claim it's his own fault that he's in such dire straits? 'Faith' can throw horrible things at any man, things that white middle-class males fail to grasp.