On Friday 11 April 2008 02:01:43 pm Ron Johnson wrote:
> On 04/11/08 15:19, Paul Johnson wrote:
> > On Friday 11 April 2008 08:17:56 am Ron Johnson wrote:
> >> On 04/11/08 10:03, Paul Johnson wrote:
>
> [snip]
>
> >>> Depends on the country. In France, they pay less taxes, and with those
> >>> taxes they get college and healthcare at no extra charge.
> >>
> >> And labor unions so stifling they create 25% unemployment among
> >> young people.
> >
> > The labor movement is not a bad thing. Once you do get a job, you get
> > paid a family living wage with decent benefits. We once had the same
> > thing in the US, and the American middle class was far and away better
> > off then, than we are now.
>
> Sure, back in the generation following WW2 when the US economy
> dominated the world.
>
> The big reason why so much manufacturing has fled the US is because
> unions and liberals are just as short-sighted and selfish as
> business owners.
Tell that to the labor union-dominated EU and Canada, they're kicking ass at
our expense, and they're not cheaper than us...
> > > We coulda done
> > > that
> >>>
> >>> ourselves
> >>
> >> Sure, and pigs could fly out my arse if I pushed hard enough. Got
> >> any more fantasies?
> >
> > We're talking about $12 billion every month. That's a shit-ton of money
> > by any standard, and it's not like it's going to productive use the way
> > it's currently being spent.
>
> The money's not being taken out back and tossed in the incinerator.
> Someone's getting the money.
Right, and they're not spending it back out. Trickle-down economics fail to
take into account the rich spend only a small fraction of their money. We
ought to repeal all the tax cuts going back to Reagan (so you pay SSI on
every dollar you make, not just the first $91,000 per year, and the highest
income tax bracket, affecting the top 2% of income earners, is set at 71%
like it was for decades prior to Reagan) so we can cover the cost of this
occupation, which is estimated to double the existing national deficiet by
the time it's over if we don't do something about it now. Eliminating all
corporate tax breaks would be a good idea, as well: After World War II,
corporations accounted for nearly 40% of US tax revenue, today it's less than
5%.
> >>> over the last 8 years if the conservatives didn't think it to
> >>> be more productive to flush it down the war...
> >>
> >> Clinton didn't do it, so what makes you think that Gore or JFK would
> >> have done it?
> >
> > Probably because FDR did it last time we were this fucked.
>
> FDR implemented universal health care?
No, but the British did at that time, and the British were far and away much
worse off economically after world war II than we have ever been. The
British didn't even have basic infrastructure left, and one of the first
things they did after the war was give everybody healthcare.
And Bush implemented universal healthcare, so he's clearly hypocritical on the
subject: America's idea of national healthcare is that every man, woman and
child in Iraq's borders gets healthcare on our dime. If we're so generous
that we can provide healthcare for everybody in some other country that
doesn't pay us any taxes, why can't we be so generous as to do the same for
ourselves as a country? As it stands now, only about half of Americans can
afford health insurance, and playing the law of averages even those who do
have health insurance will discover they're turned down and forced into
financial ruin over medical expenses if they ever claim anything more severe
than an afternoon in the ER or routine checkup. Remember, the operating
principal behind any insurance provider is to collect the premium and find
any way you can to weasel your way out of ever paying anything out.
Just because
> > he's dead now doesn't mean he didn't have good ideas that worked wonders,
> > contrary to what Rush thinks.
>
> Why do we care what an aging art-rock band thinks?
Wrong Rush. I'm talking about the hypocritical blowhard on EIB, who by his
own admission should be lynched.
--
Paul Johnson
baloo@ursine.ca
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