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ORIGINAL: MercTech

The U.S. economy has been steadily eroding since the early 1970s. Except for a few bubbles it has been a slow slide down the slope.


TRUTH

If you apply the "official" rate of inflation to the minimum wage paid in 1973 you would be over $40 and hour in 2000. Only the very rich who can leverage investment better than 10% return really make a profit any more. Everyone else gets any gains eaten by inflation. Inflation has eaten the average guy alive over the last 40 years. The Federal Reserve saying that a 6% per annum inflation rate is "healthy" for the economy simply means it is easer for large companies to show black in a quarterly bottom line while everyone else gets their income diluted to ineffective.
TRUTH

Toss in the U.S. being unwilling to manufacture to international standards, and you have a recipe for a nasty trade imbalance. Yes, ANSI standards were first and the U.S. was first for much standardization. But, when the U.S. has its own standards and the rest of the world works to International Standards Organization (ISO), who wants the hassle of U.S. goods? Different size fasteners and small parts aren't available off the shelf locally is recipe for low sales numbers on the international market. On paper, the Metric system has been the official system in the U.S. since the late 18th century. It is past time to dance to the same tune as the rest of the world instead of insisting on going our way alone.

Health care in the U.S. is an abomination when looked at from a cost basis. Corporate medicine has taken over health care providing leaving the older private practice model as a quaint nostalgia of the past. It is past time to get some SEC controls over the medical monopolies that run the health provider business. Medical professionals have suffered wage stagnation and ever increasing work load. Patients have suffered ever escalating charges that are totally insane and often over 1000% of the cost of the service. (Based on time, materials, & equipment depreciation model such as most business uses.) Providing a sinecure for insurance companies by the mandate done in the AHA just makes the problem worst. It insulates the patient from ever knowing how much he was charged for his treatment while passing on the majority of the cost of treatment to the taxpayers with a very very hefty cut to the bureaucrats administering the program. Health care reform needs to reform health care services in the U.S. and not try to equate health care with health insurance. All the insurance in the world doesn't give you competent and affordable health care. Forcing the average worker to pay an extra house payment each month for crap insurance is in no way the answer. And it grates when the marginally employed get insurance subsidy letting them have a Platinum plan while the guy who makes just above the cut off for subsidy has to pay almost $1000 a month for a bronze plan. And the gold plan, equivalent to what most employer plans were, comes in at $1400 a month.

TRUTH

The Veteran's Administration medical system is one very very significant reason that the rank and file working class people in the U.S. absolutely do not trust the U.S. Government to administer a health care plan.
https://www.google.com/search?q=V.A.+Health+Care+problem&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8
With the extra money allocated to my local V.A. Hospital; they put a sun roof over the parking lot, repaved the employee parking lot, and redecorated the lobby of the hospital. It still takes over 6 months to get to see a doctor for a non emergency issue.
And, if you do have an emergency issue; they will deny paying the cost of an ambulance and you can expect an out of pocket bill for a couple of grand. But they will pay you 25 cents a mile if you live more than 50 miles from the facility.
TRUTH

quote:

ORIGINAL: Hardwild

By honest people surely you do not mean trump or anyone who enables its arse spraying mayhem. People like that would scare me and I would be compelled to visit them with a big stick and go to town.

quote:

ORIGINAL: MercTech

The U.S. economy has been steadily eroding since the early 1970s. Except for a few bubbles it has been a slow slide down the slope.

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If you apply the "official" rate of inflation to the minimum wage paid in 1973 you would be over $40 and hour in 2000.

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The Federal Reserve saying that a 6% per annum inflation rate is "healthy" for the economy

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ORIGINAL: Hardwild
Have any of you fuking idiots ever seen a genuine scuffed knee bint approach me on here?

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ORIGINAL: MasterJaguar01

Face palm....

<rant>You ALL missed the point of my post. Every single time I try to have a discussion that is above ideological wars, it devolves into this. Bosco, I understand, but it's not just him. It is truly maddening. I enjoy the conversation with all of you, (Bosco, included), but the minute I walk away to spend time with my family, someone completely misses the point of my post and we are off into a left VS right bash war</rant>

I am on my phone and in the car now, but will try to clarify my post once I get to the central part of the state

smh

quote:

ORIGINAL: heavyblinker

You ARE incorrect because Economic Nationalism LEADS to trade wars... you are using the term here so I assumed you would know that most economists believe that this is a real possibility.

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Economic nationalism isn't merely about limiting the amount of immigrants that arrive in the country, that isn't even integral... the real core of it is anti-free trade and anti-globalization.

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Immigrants can be part of the domestic economy even if it is protected from the allure of cheap labor, tax shelters, etc... the anti-immigration stuff isn't about whether or not immigrants are a burden, it's mostly just about racism and paranoia over terrorism.

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In the US, especially in a GOP-controlled US, immigrants don't get free health care, don't get free college educations, don't really get much of anything.
So why does it matter if they're skilled or not?

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You blamed immigrants for burdening the health care system (I am assuming that is the point of bringing up all the unskilled, unworthy people burdening the UK health care system), and I said that the real cause of the issues within the health care system in the UK is the austerity measures that lead to slashed budgets.
If the system had remained unchanged and the sole factor leading to the UK health care apocalypse was immigrants, then okay, maybe you have a point... but that's not it. The budget cuts ARE the reason.

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I am saying you are WRONG to suggest that immigrants are the reason behind all of the overworked, underpaid doctors trying and failing to deal with all of their patients-- the austerity measures and slashed budgets are the REAL reason.
SO not letting them in isn't going to make anything better, because the system is broken for budgetary reasons, NOT because of the foreigners wrecking it for everyone.

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I also said that the US is already shit in terms of public services, so it's not like these unskilled, unworthy people are ruining anything for anyone else.
The system is already ruined enough.
If the US started offering decent public services, then yes, I can see why a merits system would make sense... but it hasn't.

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Bannon isn't talking about Economic Nationalism in the UK, he is talking about it in the US-- and the fact that so many things are privatized or on the verge of being privatized or just flat out failing in the US means it needs it less than the UK does.
Unless of course, the US plays catchup and starts offering better public services.

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ORIGINAL: Edwird

~FR~

Somebody here needs to get out more. Seriously.

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If national healthcare is so inferior, then why are 30 out of 33 OECD countries doing it, and been at it for decades? And why is the that the cost of healthcare is 50% higher in the US than in any other country? And why, after that, do health outcomes in the US rank lower than in 5-12 other countries, depending on particular ailments treated? It's all in OECD and other national accounts data, as I have posted several times. Not that anybody was interested. Ideological saber rattling is the order of the day.

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In other news, nobody else cares about "economic nationalism" because it makes no sense for them, fuck whatever political idiots in the US think. Do you think any other country is going to entertain the notion of mollycoddling the richest nation in the world? Please. BTW, the US is the richest nation in the world due to combination of size and a legal/regulatory regime which emphasizes channeling of wealth produced by the many to bank accounts of the few.

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Everybody thinks of China when it comes to export/import, but the fact is that the US ranks second in total exports, and Germany is close behind in third place (and is a net exporter), -with only 27% of US population-. Why is that? It's because their education system is far superior in training those destined for the lower echelon jobs (thereby garnering a decent wage), and then having much lower cost higher education for the others. Across the board, they do a much better job in providing what economists call "human capital" to society than does the US, and it's not even close.

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And now to this notion of something like "merit based" immigration. In the first place, every Mexican and Chinese and Eritrean and Indian and Madagascan et al. I see in everyday life are working their ass off at low wages. Most of them, anyway. Some few of them actually make good money. That's probably what pisses some people off.

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So, what would be the "measure" in regards to "merit" regarding immigration? That they benefit the US by way of cheap labor (which is obviously the case), or by way of improving "human capital" (which is also obviously the case) by having all these Chinese practically taking over math departments in US universities? (My Chinese probability and statistics instructor and calculus instructor were up to the task, I had no issue, but it was funny in class sometimes).

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It's true that import of more workers devalues the market value of workers in general, but it's also true, and more to the point, that the demand/supply thing only works, to some extent, in the realm of supply vs. consumption. How are we to say what is actually supplied vs, what is demanded when it comes to workers? We have all these rules and regulations to keep corporations from being in collusion when it comes to pricing. But not so when it comes to labor.

Walmart has what's described as "monopsony power," the counterpart to monopoly power, by way of their large-sized purchases. We have all these rules (sometimes loosely enforced) to prevent monopoly, but nothing in regard to monopsony.

So there it is with "supply of labor."

If the worker is applying for a job because of need for food/clothing/shelter, the employer automatically has monopsony power before it goes any further.

When the focus is on lowering cost of labor, which focus is incessant and utterly relentless in every US business school, lowering the value of labor by any means is front and center.

So here we are.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Marini

quote:

ORIGINAL: MasterJaguar01

Face palm....

<rant>You ALL missed the point of my post. Every single time I try to have a discussion that is above ideological wars, it devolves into this. Bosco, I understand, but it's not just him. It is truly maddening. I enjoy the conversation with all of you, (Bosco, included), but the minute I walk away to spend time with my family, someone completely misses the point of my post and we are off into a left VS right bash war</rant>

I am on my phone and in the car now, but will try to clarify my post once I get to the central part of the state

smh

Thanks for trying, but most here are blinded by partisanship and beyond hope.
A few of us are not, but we are in the clear minority.

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ORIGINAL: bounty44
I don't buy this judgment for a second.

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I don't know a thing in life that cannot ultimately be traced back to differences between left and right.

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that's not being "blinded by partisanship", that's being true to oneself and a reasoned, developed worldview.