The Politics Thread (PLAY NICELY!)

Trump only came up in the last "few" pages, the massive divide in philosophy has become apparent quite a lot earlier I think.

@cdrkf

I've been seeing the "let's wait and see" argument for some time now. The fact Trump supports repealing the ACA alone is evidence that people don't need to wait and see any longer.

A "traditional" Republican he might not be (but then again a lot of people would argue the GOP have been a rather unique political gathering since the early 00s, which is when the ideological shift became more obvious), but he's already supporting things that are deserving of criticism and indicative of the kind of leader he is going to be.

Republican actions are already harming minorities, and the sick, and the destitute, etc. Waiting does nobody any good, except Trump's campaign staff time to rewrite what has already been said.

(see: Trump's visit to the National African-American Museum, the official line I think now is that he never intended to visit?)

It's like I'm arguing with at least three different people who repeatedly reply to different parts of my post with intentional bad-faith tangents

No, I don't. I'm simply pointing out the hypocrisy in being against it when your entire existence is predicated on multiple historic and wide-reaching instances of it. Continuing to this day, with regards to the erasure of Native lands and holdings (see: the recent Dakota Access Pipeline situation).

I've known nobody the ACA helps, and that includes tons of people that make 18-26k yearly, and we do NOT have good public works in America. I've seen a laundry list of bullshit, including:
-Healthcare that nobody could afford costing $100/m, now costing $300/m.
-Prohibitive multi-thousand dollar deductibles, which I'm no accountant, but am pretty sure poor people can't afford alone, much less after the equivalent in monthly payments. Hard to live paycheck-to-paycheck, and your paycheck's not enough to cover the deductible, and expected to pay a check and 2/3rds in one setting.
-Mishandling spellings of names simply to snub any chance of using healthcare.
-Fines if you don't pursue this useless healthcare insurance, though they still are waived for low-income, that essentially helps them ****-none as they are still without healthcare, like they were from the start.

If anyone has a problem with this, please contact your local European representative and discuss aggressive annexation of America so you can appoint us a Prime Minister, because our liberals are broken. If we were going to function properly with European-style social works, our best chance was Sanders, but it's become apparent it just isn't going to happen with the powers that be.

Ask for Trump, no, he's not a classic Republican. Those want to jail homosexuals and minorities, and strip all government aide to the poor. His tax brackets aren't that bad, I take issue they start in on the middle-class at 32k a little early, but the perks of his rogue-nature is tolerance of same-sex marriage and consideration to keep the clause in the ACA that prevents healthcare factoring in existing conditions. That decent law, was stapled to a bunch of bullshit holding it hostage.

From reading what people wrote in various reddit "what did it do to you" threads it seems people with "pre-existing conditions" who were "uninsurable" before ACA now can get medical help. Some of those are afraid they'll basically not be able to pay life saving treatment without ACA.

On the flipside it seems that the exact implementation of ACA has not really attempted to solve the american problem of "health care is way too expensive, because there is too much profit interest in it", so the costs have gone up for many people since now they have to pay the overpriced treatment of others on top of their own overpriced treatment.

The sad part is that people point their fingers at "this socialist demon of forcing everyone to have healthcare" instead on the capitalist demon of insurance/medical companies that try to squeeze out as much profit as they can for a life saving service that every human should have a right to.

This again enforces my belief that some things should be provided by the state, @elodea. Having a largely tax funded insurance system means the state itself is very interested in pressing down medical cost, so that kind of setup optimizes for a low cost of treatment, which is kinda what you want.
A private insurance company is optimizing for their own gain only and when they manage to control the market and work together they will optimize their prices to make them as much money as possible. That means to set a price that not everyone can afford, as you are not interest in selling to people who have nothing.

Seems that way indeed.

Your massive military spending is making sure we can't help you that way. Sorry.

@Gorbles, I wasn't saying anything either way on what I think of Trump- frankly it's somewhat irrelevant what we think given the decision has been made- he's going to take office (unless you subscribe to the latest 'end of the world' theory saying everything is about to collapse in the few days before Trump actually gets to take office- in which case we have bigger things to worry about haha).

I mean if / when he puts forward an actual policy which I think is harmful, I'll speak out. It seems pointless to waste energy on something we really cannot change. I honestly think no matter *how bad* you think Trump is as an individual, not even the US president has enough say to push through anything that radical, honestly I doubt much will actually change.

The UK's National Health Service is a shining example of exactly how this doesn't work. Politician after politician pledges to throw yet more money into the bottomless pit that is the NHS, and any that even hint at any sort of reduction in spending on it get castigated by the press. It is a writhing, sprawling mass of bureaucracy and inefficiency. Care standards are falling even as taxpayer investment continues to increase.

During the economic boom of the early 2000s the UK government started something called a 'private finance initiative' which mixed the worst of the private sector (naked profiteering over healthcare facilities) with the worst of the public sector (responsibility for other people's money with no culpability for mistakes made).

It is the sacred cow of UK politics. It cannot be touched without effectively ending the career of any politician that tries to alter it. They even had a massive segment at the opening of the 2012 Olympics over it.

And then we end up with stuff like this: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/201...arning-nhs-chases-350000-bill-nigerian-woman/

State-funded healthcare sounds great and very egalitarian in principle, but be careful what you wish for. It sucks up nearly 20% of the UK government's spending. I'm not saying the US healthcare system is great - it's not. I don't have an ideal solution to propose for for this, but I am confident in saying that the NHS shows that an entirely state-funded (taxpayer-funded) solution is very much not what you want to aim for.

There are better reasons not to sit back:
Trump's cabinet is the richest cabinet ever installed. If you don't have at least 100m, you're not even in. Draining the swamp my ***, he's filling it further. He's breaking campaign promises already. He's already picking feuds with companies while creating a precedent for essentially free government aid (a company just threatens to leave and they can get benefits!). And remember when avoiding war with Russia was an argument for trump? he's fuelling the fires with China in stead. Not to mention, his and his cronie's endless questionable business ties. Remember when people were against Clinton and her supposed Wall Street ties? I don't see them on the barricades for the same thing with trump

You see I wholeheartedly disagree with this, several members of my family who have had serious, life threatening conditions have received excellent care that has literally saved their lives on the nhs. We're not a poor family (very well educated on the whole), however the type of operations in question would not have been possible for us in the states (or at best would have resulted in the sale of a house). Most of the US insurance based solutions require cash up front.

The nhs has many issues for sure, as with all things there are things that could and should be improved upon, however I view myself as truly lucky to know that when it comes down to it there is healthcare there for the most serious problems. The nhs fails when dealing with less serious illnesses, leaving people on long waiting lists- which results in a lot of very vocal angry people. The thing is though when it matters the care is accessible without question, something you simply don't get in most countries unless you are extremely wealthy.

That's a pretty deep moral problem actually. It seems those babies were in need of some serious intense care, considering that high price, it seems likely that the woman in question did not have the resources to pay that much money and it seems also likely that in her home country she did not have access to free healthcare as well. Meaning the moment somebody like that is in front of your doorstep your decision comes down to: Help them for free or watch them die.

Look at it that way: If the cost of such health tourism adds up to ~280m a year and the vast majority of those cases are life-or-death cases than you are paying ~4.375 gbp a year that help 13k people to get help when they need it.

Is that really that bad?

Sure if people are starting to get beauty operations on your cost that would be sort of problematic, but as long as we're talking of people that have a life threatening situation I don't see the problem.

hehe, I agree the moment when reality clashes into these dreamy theories is when they all start to fail. Free market? Yeah you'll get corporate monopolies that suck you dry. Socialist system? Yeah you'll have irresponsible government people screw it up somehow.

But at least you and I have a guarantee that we get treatment when we need it. Unlike some poor Americans and apparently some Nigerians as well.

Although I don't have to wish for it, Germany has a state based system since 100+ years and it works for us I'd say.

EDIT:
Some numbers for Germany. (source is the German financial ministry, actual numbers for 2015)
Germany spend 3.88% for the "Bundesministerium für Gesundheit", which basically represents the health care system. In raw numbers that was ~12 billion €.

That's pretty low compared to the UK I guess. Does the UK system somehow not require you to pay insurance fees on a monthly basis and is 100% tax based? That would make these numbers pretty much incomparable. You 119bn seems ridiculous without some screw up in the comparability of these numbers.

Actually these numbers compare weird all the way through. The UK is on a spending level of ~772bn. Germany has more citizens and is spending 311bn. And that's ignoring that the GBP is still more worth than the EUR. Although not all that much anymore...
Something probably is off between these numbers, like they're counting in some other way?

The UK charges 'national insurance' on earnings that is to pay for healthcare and the state pension. The rates are 12% of personal earnings and an additional 14% paid by employers, though those only apply in specific bands.

The issue of course is the statistics role ni and other taxes together as overall government income.

Edit: updated ni rates

On the health tourism - yes, I would absolutely be willing to spend that amount to safe even one life. That's not the moral conundrum. I do not begrudge that one individual woman the treatment she received.

However, if that sort of thing becomes acceptable / the norm, then what happens is that the sheer numbers of people engaging in such activity (a) start to overwhelm the system, meaning that people who have paid into it cannot access it or get stuck behind them in waiting lines and (b) the cost will increase significantly. Individual moral judgements don't scale up that well. We simply cannot afford to provide healthcare for the whole world, free of charge.

I've only ever heard good things about the German healthcare system, without claiming to know much about how it operates or is funded. If those figures are accurate it sounds like there is an awful lot we could learn from it here in the UK. That sounds like an example of a state-run insurance system that actually works (you can colour me truly surprised).

That's the moral problem. You can't deny that person in front of you life saving treatment, but you can't treat the whole world, should they decide to come ask you for help.

Looking at the refugee situation the "solution" to that so far is to build walls and ignore the people who die behind it. Obviously not really a solution as well.

I really don't have an answer to this. But when a person managed to get in front of your hospital and needs help, you need to help them. That much is clear. The best long term solution would obviously be to "fix the world", provide everything everyone needs to everyone. One day.

One thing that might be worth is considering is to make sure you know who it is you are treating. Just so you can check up on them. If they happen to be rich enough to pay the bill, make them pay it obviously. But if they can't pay the bill let them go.

I've so far had no big need to be engaged with it personally all that much. From things I see in German media and hear from people who had to do with it more: It isn't perfect obviously. Many problems, often as a result of under-staffing and under-funding.
But all and all it works. The question would be how does it compare to the system in other nations. I don't know tbh.

... i just occasionaly take a look on here to get out depressed ..

I just occasionally take a look on here just to show how hipster I am.

You made the #2000 post in this thread. I am not sure if I am happy about that, but it makes you quite hipster for sure.

As far as healthcare and helping the world is concerned, you can't help the world, if they are subjects of a leader, who imprisons and kill them and you alike.

To an extreme, one can extend their resources so far, that it because fair only in the sense that every dies miserably instead of just those in bad circumstances.

There'd be a lot more resources to extend if a lot of the world had better civics, but some people sit pretty comfortably on a million bucks to goof off with. It'd be better if it went into the company, the government, or social works, indeed.

I just don't think there's no way to 100% help everyone, if 100% of people aren't involved. Helping Iranians, for instance, if they defect then it's reasonable because they become part of your resources and population, but trying to help the people where they currently are, only helps their government kill them or goof off their own resources. Not until their resources are yours, and you can improve their actual living conditions, can you really help them.

Free Market systems do not and cannot lead to corporate monopolies. The only sustainable monopolies in the marketplace are those funded and regulated by government entities. There has not been a single example of a free market with few regulations that leads to a monopoly.

Here's why.

Company 1 is aiming to become a monopoly with or without Company 2. Company 1 owns over 40% of said market, while Company 2 owns 30%. Company 1 is confident they can buy out or push out Company 2 given enough time. They also believe they can push out all other competitors in the remaining 30% (most of which are local businesses). The problem is, they cannot finish the job because there is a low barrier for entry into the marketplace. No government license or registry or regulation or patent system exists to create an artificial barrier for entry. Thus, if (somehow, against all market forces) they succeed in creating this monopoly, it will fall apart as soon as they start raising prices to exploit their consumers and raise their profit. New competitors will enter the scene with a better, cheaper product, and will thus dominate the old, slow, and big company. Eventually, Company 1 will fall back to their old share of the market, and if they do not adjust their ways, they may quickly go bankrupt or be bought out.

Please note that Company 1 cannot undercut new competition, because the exorbitant cost of doing so would bankrupt their business locally and destabilize their share in the market. Then, more competition rolls in and displaces the old competitor.

tl;dr:
A monopoly still obeys the laws of competition in a marketplace. They can never push out all competition because they cannot beat their quality and price on a large scale. A small business is much more flexible than that of a large corporation, so long as the barrier for entry is low and no government regulation further restricts the market.

What development?
Are you high?

Post-WWII, Germany was divided into a police state in the east and a puppet Reconstruction-era capitalist government in the west. The east was an economic disaster (communism and collectivism). The West struggled for years, all the way up to Reunification.

Post-ColdWar, Germany finally became whole. And their GDP growth consistently declined for the next 20 years, as did the rest of Europe.

Source: https://www.google.com/publicdata/e...tp_kd_zg&idim=country:DEU:GBR:USA&hl=en&dl=en

If Germany and the rest of Europe were the only countries on Earth, they would have starved on the supposed *good intentions* of their collectivist policies years ago.

mered, that chart shows very, very little except to point out that we've been a global economy for decades (as all of the troughs and peaks roughly match up).

Had someone tell me why I was "sticking my nose" into US affairs the other day (on social media). It's almost like what happens in America has ramifications, and vice versa

As @Devak said, there are already policies and the like which are harmful. If you don't think they are, then maybe open the debate there? As it is this is a bit tone-police-y for my liking, sorry.

Many markets have a natural entry barrier. That is the problem, not many people have the resources to setup serious competition, even less if the existing companies work against you.
If you want to read more on this, check the past of this thread, we had this topic before.

As gorbles said that Graph shows nothing. If you want to argue using that metric, we should all go for communism.
Why? Well just add China to your Graph:
https://www.google.com/publicdata/e...USA:CHN&ifdim=region&hl=en_US&dl=en&ind=false

It had to rescale to whole thing for that lol
That scale also shows even better what Gorbles said: Germany has been a global economy for quite some time.