The Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act

The example of Portugal being one of the nations in serious trouble was correct.

You could have mentioned Spain, though, because they are standing in front of Portugal in the q of nations going bankrupt.

I didnt even say anything about WW2? i am just simply saying that america is too spoiled with freedoms and privileges and are not willing to give any of them up. something that would be required to take a hit for anyhing to really change

and Al Capone said it too

Ireland, Iceland, Italy, Portugal, Spain and Greece (the worst) are the "struggling" countries of Europe and the rich countries, Germany, France, UK, etc. Keep bailing them out. If you balance this out into one nation, (EU), what do you have?

And yes, Health Care is free in Germany and it works great, I also agree with the selfish capitalist system, (that's how it works), do whatever you can for your business and for YOUR individual prosperity.

Are Americans feeling the pinch? Do you experience austerity in the current climate? In what way? services declining? welfare?

I would like some comparison with Europe.

There is no comparison between USA and UK. If I was a man down on his luck, so to speak, I had rather live in the good ol' USA than UK. We might be sufferin' a bit now, but nothing like those feelin' it over there. Here we have so many more services and charities to help people.

@Luke: The WW2 digression was in response to another post that was singling out the Bush dynasty for doing business with Nazi Germany during the war. I should have marked that better. And you may be right, about Al Capone; it does sound like something he would say. Maybe he and Mao got together over tea...

I can agree with Lorelei, when I was living in the USA, it didn't and it doesn't look like its in a bad financial state, its great. Compare it with going to Spain, where you have people getting close to you at Café's and asking you for some money so they can buy food.

Or, another fine example is China, yeah it may seem as if its booming and taking over the world economy or whatever, but if you go and get to know that country, most of the people are living in a bad financial state. Most people are poor, a huge gap between the high and low class... Its a beautiful country but the oppression on the people is huge (no facebook... etc...)

"maybe he and mao got togethor over tea" LAMO

and china is going to pop its economy is to dependent on exports....hopefully

and ive heard britain was more like the US then europe but ive also heard its alot like germany so idk

I dont think there is a reduction in services or welfare. In fact there are more people on welfare now than in the history of the USA. Thats why many have given the name of Welfare President to Obama.

Some people claim that less government is what is needed. Some say there needs to be more government involvement. The truth is that there is a fine balance that needs to be met. There needs to be some gov involvement, but not to much. The problem is that with each politicians own agenda the common good of everyone isnt met. Politicians simply do not have the ability to govern others. Dosent matter how good their intentions are, they just simply cant do it! Just as if I had the brilliant idea that I could leap off a cliff and begin to fly. Cant do it... dont have the ability.

I work in the construction field and sometimes when there is a job to do we begin looking for the tools to complete the task. If I have to plumb the drains in a kitchen sink and all the tools I have are a sledge hammer and a pitchfork I'd correctly say "Cant do it with these tools". In the same manner, if asked to govern others the response has proven to be the same.... "Cant do it with these tools"!

Atleast no ones EU, UK, US or whereever is as bad off as (Southern and Central) Somalia, or Zimbabwe and alot of those other African "States" and i use that word very lightly especially in Somalia's case.

more people on welfare today then ever before,,,alot of that could have to do with the US having the highest population then ever before but idk welfare is a sticky subject


its not very american to just give people who arent working money

but its not very american to let your neighbor and his kids starve

lol americans we are just so good arent we anything thats good well thats american lol

basically i think the welfare system needs to be more efficient less corrupt and more focused on giving people work rather then money i mean there is alot of trash next to the highways

idk if you can just use regular labor for roads anymore kind of a pain isnt it its not like the great depression where we can take a million people and put them to work on making roads


your so optimistic luke

I'm in a good move right now boss lol

Step 1 determine the problem: Done (Too many people suckling the government teet)

Step 2 gain ALL relevant information: Also Done

Step 3 realize the best solution: Not Done, every idealogy in the world used except the obvious solution that would bring the greatest golden age in the history of the planet.

This obvious solution would never be accepted of course because of the twisted mentality of people and an unbridled commitment to capitalism and economics. This solution should be especially available to this community because you all use this except for jan there with her refusal to play the game.

So... all the government needs to do is supply sufficient opportunity to the people. When that is done all kinds of government assistance can be withdrawn. And so as long as opportunities are not available assistance needs to be granted. Even with government assistance handicap people may still not be supplied with opportunity and so they still qualify fpr assistance. Well what is opportunity then? Jobs? Pretty much, if you have unemployment in your country what does the government of your country do (you)? You either try to get a CEO to set up a corp or you build a profitable corp yourself. Now there should be no reason the government can't profit from ownership in for profit unethical industries, such as shoes for example. Building corps in locations were unemployment is at an all time high and such. Notice I said nothing about rationing anything, in fact the opposite force people to work in order to eat. It was an incredibly stupid idea to allow individuals the power over the neccessities of others to begin with. Collosal Government=Forever Existing Golden Age, well if done correctly anyways. See simple. And I'd love a rebuttle as long as it isn't derragotory, any constructive criticism would be great because if I'm wrong I'd love to stop following my false credo here. But I've yet to hear ANY compelling argument against this.

I'm Firmly Socialist.... I believe that all truth lies somewhere in the middle of two extremes.

I see what you're saying there Drew. But your "obvious Solution" presents an "Obvious Problem" (Other than the one you mentioned in the post)

Too often ideas sound golden on paper and end up being catastrophic failures. Capitalism has the Apex and trough cycle (Of which we are currently in a trough) Communism has stability and equality on paper and in idea. and has worked wonders on small scale.(Commune or Tribe) but on Larger scale such as a nation (Russia or China) it fails miserably bc the lack of freedom of Ambition.

The reason I'm saying all this is most of your solution is Golden in concept.... but its completely implausible and dangerous even. The idea has far too many "IF" variables that all are required to be positive.

Yes if life were perfect and humans were interested in advancing themselves AND helping others in the process this would work. But people are not Selfless they never have been and never will be. someone will be the greedy bastard that takes advantage of the system for his own gain.

Your system there would only function like any other. Perfectly only in a perfect world, and if the world were perfect enough for it to perfectly work the world would be perfect enough not to need it.

Your plan seems to me to be more on the Strict side, and i detect a HINT of Inspiration from Roosevelt Style Economics... on short term this would be great to remove debt from the Private Side of the Economy and perhaps would not have as big of an impact of the Governments funding (Hence the money coming in from the companies instead of New Deal style organizations which basically just provided service to the government.) but still would increase the Governments Debt.

I know what your first thought will be when you read this coming from me but... The idea of yours would work better on a state level rather than Federal. AND the reason i say this is because perhaps it would be slightly more acceptable to the masses to have a more local government take that roll. but then again I still have my doubts that it would work at all on anything larger or smaller than a provincial or state level. (IF that) and then only for a short time would it work before someone bent it over a raped it mercilessly . truth is Every ideology is perfect until it is tried bc if the human imagination can create it the human imagination can destroy it.

In the UK the benefit system is under heavy attack. In most ways this is a good thing. It was so easy for youngsters to just have another baby and so get more child benefit, a larger paid for council house, tax credits etc etc. So many drop out of school and have no idea what a job is. Obviously not a sound policy to let this carry on.

The trouble is, if there are no jobs for these people to fill, then what? Our govt. is constantly coming up with schemes to give the banks more cash to lend to small business and start up enterprises, but the banks keep the cash to cover possible hits, like from the payment protection scheme payback, billions of pounds worth.

So non-joined up thinking reigns again. Again, public services are being financially stripped to the bone. Now a lot of liberal types are on their soap boxes crying about how these cuts (and benefit reform) effect the worst off the most. And there does seem to be some truth in it. But the real point is, if the department is run properly, then the cuts are coming from red tape and back office staff, civil servants, whereas the front line services are largely uneffected. Yep, this country is awash with useless beaurocrats, but they also require jobs worthy of their education and experience, managers maybe but constructive ones. Private industry is much harder to hide in than govt.

So boiling down what info I can gleen from reading between the lines, it seems to me the treasury is still just feeding the banks, I can't see why it can't put stricter stipulations on what the banks do with the money, I know there is a LOT more to it than that, but I like to keep it simple, all the detail obscures the fact.

Summary - trim the fat. (efficiency). Distance Govt. from banking and big business.

Britain will be ok, we have the Dunkirk spirit remember. And economies seem cyclic from history. Dunno, maybe an economist can comment on that last bit?

4 authentication errors in a row?

GM, is there a problem here?

Maybe it's that "secret" code that Chiwoo was talking about. Only THEY (the roving eye) can understand it. ha ha ha ha

whats all this debate now. another war thread or something. lol.

Crafty's point seems to meet the opposite of his desired end. If you want greater bank regulations that is more government.

But Luke this was the juicy one! I think you had a very well thought out response to my umm... I guess proposal. But I find it very innacurate. First of all I'd like to point out that I've continously called out for the dismantling of states, and local governments below that the most inefficient small picture governments need to have almost non-existant power at that. I could re-explain why but I don't want to send this off topic to far.

I believe you misinterpretted my suggestion as it appears closely nit to communism. You then associated my systems flaws with those that exist in communism. But there are many fundamental differences that void this system of ethical work and personal progression, far moreso then any other government type. There would be ZERO redistribution wealth this was touched on when I said something like no rationing system. A doctor WILL indeed make more than a custodian. I never implied differently. This lack of motivation and ambition would be much stronger, as the income divide of the world actually rips apart the free-market system at its core in this regard. If a third party was given the ability to determine ther valuation of pay grades then we would have the ability to reward a far more diverse workforce, then just what those shwindler CEO's can get away with. Only rewarding financial services with high salaries is problematic. More problematic when it comes to encouragement then even fully blown communism in which I'll say again I am not suggesting.

Furthermore I'd like to ask you about the IF's. What are they, IF government does supply enough jobs? IF the government can't run profitable corporations? I can't think of anymore, but those two are pretty important IF's. The first IF should never be an issue. Why can't the government have the ability to pick an industry put the competitors out of business enhance productivity with more accessible investment opportunities, whenever employment is low? In fact this IF would allow us even more prosperity as it would allow us the ability to make better jobs than simply just more jobs. Revising the system and bringing forth more incentive to take additional opportunities so people WAY more money. And that is the simple truth of it, as long as the opportunities are present and reasonable the worforce will mobilize, I say that implying as long as their general wellbeing or salary will be enhanced greatly enough people will seek out those opportunities. The second IF is also devastating if it doesn't happen, but this is also a farfetched IF also. To say a macromanaged set of instructions can't be created to ensure each corporation is successful is a little pessimistic. The government with essentially infinite resources (they at least pretend that they do) can't compete with some dude who pays his shareholders half the profits and pays himself an 8 figure salary is very farfetched. Paying executives 500k-750k is amazing there is no need to pay them 10m-20m. This complete inefficiency of the public run enterprise is plagued with these inefficiencies, that don't need to occur. The more inefficiencies you alleiviate the more productive the work force is. So if you have other IF's just let me know.

You also mentioned cost. Cost is definitely unavoidable. So the costs need to be worth those expenses without a doubt. However I implore you to got to the Whitehouse.gov and look at our countries income statement in the form of a budget. The military costs we use are intense yet they make no money. The Social Security we pay out is high, yet I advise we phase that entirely accept pay back to those we owe. We have 16T$ of debt, but what would happen if we spent 1T on this project. That is huge, but how big is that is the business world? I'd say roughly 80Million jobs. We don't need that many though. 1T is more than double the net worth of the largest company. The largest company is in fact smaller than our defense budget. I don't say this merely to deligimitize our military but instead put things into prospective. The amount of good that can be done with a number that once seemed huge far exceeds any other way we can spend our money BECAUSE it has a return that outweighs its expense. This is of course on top of the civil service of employment it offers.

So the only recoognizable fault with the system is that it competes with the private sector. It doesn't outlaw them, but requires them to be more adaptive which will service the stakeholders better, stakeholders referencing consumers. Increased competitions always leads to a better deal for consumers.

So alas I fail to see these IF's? And dismantling entitlement programs because people will no longer need them will also be beneficial. The gov has to be strict, as it doesn't give people access to their civil liberties and as long as we believe in this blatent liberalism we will never be able to access which liberties are a neccisity for human development. Sorry I was vague but I didn't want to completely hijack the thread

Want another simple answer to a problem???? Here it is... Make everyone responsible for their own actions! Then things may get a bit better!

This is authetication error message Christmas here.

We can even see the IP now.

English banks are self-regulating. There is nothing to stop the treasury imposing conditions on loans.

Top CEOs are paid that much because of the demand for them. Pay less, get lower calibre people.

It's 'knit' not nit. Nits are those things in your hair that make your head itch.

Drew, interesting idea, having government run businesses. As you say, you'd think that with such superior resources, and without the need to turn a profit, that they could be more productive. But the fact is that the private business virtually always is more productive than the govt one, producing the good or service that costs less yet is higher quality. It's a well established fact, and you're right to ask why. The free enterprise system seems to have ways of pushing and pulling people into making better decisions and working more efficiently than they do in government run enterprises.

No condescension intended, but what government run enterprise? The one's that do exist most likely aren't run properly

Crafty you are telling me that there isn't a misappropration of skilled labor? Only management gets to decide what people are worth, not any free market mentality. If you think the free market decides and people merely choose whatever job brings them the most money and then this would be true. But that isn't how people should think the free market then we be telling people to do not what makes them happy but do whatever piece of crap will pay you the most. In addition to this I believe that's why progress has slowed in many industries, research in robotics is at a stand still because of the decrease in engineering professionals led to higher wages however outsourcing has replaced technology. This is problematic to the world in many ways.

And yes Serpent I agree, but you can't expect ignored people to have the skills or desire to take care of their own responsibilities. Enlightenment to some extent has to be reached first

BTW drew i'm still here i just have not had along enough moment to read your whole post. only enough time to check and see how many new ones have been posted i'll try to get on that tonight but just letting you know you haven't scared me off lol infact i enjoy debating with you Your Big Government and I'm Small(ish) Government. your actually one that i think actually knows what he's talking about, unlike so many others who just spout out Middle School grade knowledge on civics lol