|
Edwynn -> RE: Greece: Police clash with doctors (5/26/2011 8:46:34 AM)
|
~FR~
The situation in Greece is indeed somewhat similar to that in the US. The inability to collect taxes overall in Greece, via numerous large sized loopholes, vs. the less egalitarian but just as damaging inability in the US to collect more than chump change from those who benefit most stupendously from the legal/financial infrastucture in this country. That is, the bonanza obtained by the few largest corporations at great expense to individual taxpayers and honest businesses is leaving us with many thousands of shuttered schools, reduced public transportation, reduced library hours and days of operation, defaulting on muni bonds due to prior fraudulent restructuring by the investment banks, and a host of other ills that will be with us for years to come.
Continental European countries have better health care than Greece, and every developed country and most emerging economies and even a good many third world countries have what the US does not: health care for all citizens. The European countries can afford it and suffer no great fiscal hardship from it because businesses and individuals in those countries actually pay taxes commensurate with the benefit derived from their economic systems. This in addition to the fact that the single payer system is inherently far less costly, a result of its underlying economic structure.
So the OP makes no sense if the proposition is that the US is bound for the same fate as Greece due to any proposed ubiquitous coverage health care plan, because Greece is no different than every country other than the US in that regard.
On the other hand, the comparison makes a lot of sense if we are comparing the fiscal situation.
quote:
Could this be our future? It seems to be the direction we are heading.
If the US keeps dallying about with 'financial reform,' which, lame as it is, is yet being argued by congress for further delay in coming into effect, and toying with 'fiscal reform' by, I kid you not, arguing not only for retention of the large flow of tax dollars to record-profits oil companies, but even further tax cuts for the wealthiest, then we will not merely be 'heading in that direction,' we will zoom downwards right past Greece and into deep third world territory.
And stay there.
|
|
|
|
