What has Joe done to me?

[ImprobableJoe]

We every so often run into people who are members of the "free market" cult, and they always start with demonstrably incorrect assumptions that lead directly to ridiculous and nonsensical conclusions. The numbers don't lie: America was more prosperous when taxes were higher, industry grew at a faster rate and we had a thriving manufacturing sector, we had a strong middle class... and the cultists and parasites have ruined it not only for America but increasingly the globalization of American faith-based economics is wrecking the world economy.

 

[televator]

We every so often run into people who are members of the "free market" cult, and they always start with demonstrably incorrect assumptions that lead directly to ridiculous and nonsensical conclusions...

and then top it off with willful ignorance to the pitfalls of human nature, apathy for people in need, reverence for the sacrosanctity of the wealthy, and pity for the poor multinational corporations that are perpetually held in bondage by big evil governments.

 

[ImprobableJoe]

and then top it off with willful ignorance to the pitfalls of human nature, apathy for people in need, reverence for the sacrosanctity of the wealthy, and pity for the poor multinational corporations that are perpetually held in bondage by big evil governments.

... well, I wanted to save some of the enumeration of those personality/intellectual defects for the rest of you.

 

[ArthurWilborn]

Anyone going to put out any sources, or is this just a chance to hurl insults?

 

[RigelKentaurusA]

Overall efficiency [of health system] in all WHO member states

1 France 0.994
37 United States of America 0.838

How is the efficiency defined here?

 

[devilsadvocate]

This paper from WHO discusses the methodology used:

http://www.who.int/whr/2000/en/whr00_ch2_en.pdf

The whole report: http://www.who.int/whr/2000/en/whr00_en.pdf

(The annex tables starting from page 152 give lots of "raw" data to compare)

 

[kenandkids]

Anyone going to put out any sources, or is this just a chance to hurl insults?

You're right... can't seem to find your cites or sources...

 

[)O( Hytegia )O(]

Anyone going to put out any sources, or is this just a chance to hurl insults?

You're right... can't seem to find your cites or sources...

What are you talking about?
I can find TONS of places that share Arthur's same view point for reference.

Conservapedia. You should all read it sometime. :lol:

 

[devilsadvocate]

To RigelKentaurusA,

Here's the report I was originally trying to find but unable to do so, so I took the rankings off another WHO chart:

THE COMPARATIVE EFFICIENCY OF NATIONAL HEALTH
SYSTEMS IN PRODUCING HEALTH:
AN ANALYSIS OF 191 COUNTRIES

http://www.who.int/healthinfo/paper29.pdf


Here France is 4th and the U.S ranks 72th.

 

[televator]

Anyone going to put out any sources, or is this just a chance to hurl insults?

You want sources for "insults"? Don't be silly Arthur. You don't have to read these things that you find insulting. They aren't overtly trying to insult...these are opinions, and you did say so yourself that you can't prove an opinion wrong... don't tell me you're going to contradict yourself and act like you're still right all over again.

Besides, I don't see you making a hoopla over ohcac's lack of sources either...how surprising.

 

[ArthurWilborn]

Anyone going to put out any sources, or is this just a chance to hurl insults?

You're right... can't seem to find your cites or sources...

Yes, excuse me. Here you go.

http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/sowell050503.asp

You don't have to read these things that you find insulting. They aren't overtly trying to insult...these are opinions, and you did say so yourself that you can't prove an opinion wrong... don't tell me you're going to contradict yourself and act like you're still right all over again.

Ah, the constant cry of the bully, that the target is just taking things too seriously. Come on, now, do I really:

"hate minorities, gays, non-Christians, and pretty much everyone else so much"

or have

"willful ignorance to the pitfalls of human nature, apathy for people in need"

All of this would really be news to the immigrant children I do volunteer tutoring for, or the exceptional (read: special needs) minority children I work with professionally.

Besides, I don't see you making a hoopla over ohcac's lack of sources either...how surprising.

I'm not talking with ohcac, and he's not insulting me by basically saying I'm an uncaring psychopath. Priorities. Oh, come now, you've should have seen me jump on people I agree with often enough by now.

 

[Gnug215]

I don't understand why they think you are jealous and greedy. The kind of viewpoints you are displaying, if they come from any emotional response, arise from compassion for others. The benefits of arranging a country in this way go to everyone in society not to the individual who is arguing for them. Are they so stuck on the concept of 'everyone out for themselves' that they can't comprehend not all people are like that?

It is projection. Right-wingers are jealous, greedy, and spiteful... and they can't imagine people acting from any other possible motivation. They can't picture someone advocating for other people from a positive or selfless perspective, they can only see what they would do in that situation... which is to say positive things in order to exploit others.

It is projection, but it stems from the Typical Mind Fallacy.

 

[kenandkids]

Yes, excuse me. Here you go.

http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/sowell050503.asp

How big was the bull that dropped that patty in your path?





Some choice selections of nonsense from the link:

"Studies that follow the same individuals over time have found that those in the top 20 percent and those in the bottom 20 percent are mostly the same people at different stages of their lives."

"To reach the top 5 percent, you need an income of about $150,000 -- again, for a whole household."

"Despite all the hand-wringing about the fact that the bottom 20 percent get a smaller share than in times past, the real income of the bottom 20 percent has gone up by thousands of dollars. "

As far as the last statement

Moreover, the people who were in that bottom 20 percent in the past have also gone up into higher brackets.

It is true. Nearly all of them gained more income by attending subsidised education, driving jobs on tax funded roads, job placement and advancement programs, being able to eat, not spending every last dime on rent or energy, being healthy due to clean air and water, and dozens of other places that taxes and programs make our ENTIRE society stronger.


The teapublican programs aren't quite as helpful.

Teapublican plan for housing for the poor:

Teapublican plans for the environment: (edit: it should probably be noted that this picture is inaccurate, they would definitely have harvested every tree first...)

Teapublican plans for water safety:

 

[televator]

Ah, the constant cry of the bully, that the target is just taking things too seriously. Come on, now, do I really:

"hate minorities, gays, non-Christians, and pretty much everyone else so much"

or have

"willful ignorance to the pitfalls of human nature, apathy for people in need"

All of this would really be news to the immigrant children I do volunteer tutoring for, or the exceptional (read: special needs) minority children I work with professionally.

Besides, I don't see you making a hoopla over ohcac's lack of sources either...how surprising.

I'm not talking with ohcac, and he's not insulting me by basically saying I'm an uncaring psychopath. Priorities. Oh, come now, you've should have seen me jump on people I agree with often enough by now.

I was being flippant, Arthur. I wasn't really suggesting that you not take any of this seriously. I was seeing if you'd take your own previous points seriously, and you didn't.

You continue to be a ball of contradiction. You like helping special needs kids eh? But big evil governments are taking your money and the money of millions of people to help pay for special accommodations for them. How dare they?! They also create regulations to protect some of these people when they get older and look for jobs, if they can. Can you believe it? According to your ideology, the government should stop that. Who cares if all those special needs kids get left out, at least everyone gets to keep their money. We can all just hope that private charities are enough and just put it out of mind by pretending that we have the best system in the world.

And about Ohac: I've yet to see you pull the ol' "sources?" card on him/her or anyone else who agrees with you. If you have, you definitely don't require it so fervently as you do for us....even now as our comments didn't really target you specifically. Heck you don't even apply this to yourself, as you often demand sources while providing little only when it's pressed upon you.

I really am just about done playing that game with you. No more will I accommodate your demands, while you sit and continue to assert your own claims and your few sources as the only things that count with facts behind them even in the face of evidence to the contrary.

 

[ArthurWilborn]

Moreover, the people who were in that bottom 20 percent in the past have also gone up into higher brackets.

It is true. Nearly all of them gained more income by attending subsidised education, driving jobs on tax funded roads, job placement and advancement programs, being able to eat, not spending every last dime on rent or energy, being healthy due to clean air and water, and dozens of other places that taxes and programs make our ENTIRE society stronger.

Or, you know, getting older, gaining experience, moving into better paying positions. Go into a typical minimum wage job site and look around - the people there are going to be younger then people doing engineering or management. You are assuming that people do not change and improve on their own - blatantly false from everything behavioral psychology tells us.

I was being flippant, Arthur. I wasn't really suggesting that you not take any of this seriously. I was seeing if you'd take your own previous points seriously, and you didn't.

My previous point was that opinions could not be proven objectively wrong, not that opinions held no value. You are making an emotional connection between these two ideas that does not actually exist.

I urge you to reflect on your own behavior. Making or defending broad negative generalizations and then claiming you were not serious is classic bullying behavior. (How many times have you heard "I'm not a racist, but here's a mean-spirited joke about those filthy Xs."?) This is why bullying is so insidious; it's easy to support when it's an issue you agree with.

You like helping special needs kids eh? But big evil governments are taking your money and the money of millions of people to help pay for special accommodations for them. How dare they?! They also create regulations to protect some of these people when they get older and look for jobs, if they can. Can you believe it? According to your ideology, the government should stop that. Who cares if all those special needs kids get left out, at least everyone gets to keep their money. We can all just hope that private charities are enough and just put it out of mind by pretending that we have the best system in the world.

If a program actually works, I support it. However, they usually don't. Take the ADA for example. It tried to improve employment of people with disabilities; however, after its passage employment of disabled persons actually decreased:

http://www.law.yale.edu/documents/pdf/Faculty/Jolls_and_Prescott_2_11_052.pdf

It is not sufficient to have good intent. There must also be good results.

 

[Welshidiot]

I would've replied sooner, but I've had connection problems.

Pre-emptive moddery:

Let's not let this turn into a childish flame war please.

It was not my intention to start any kind of unproductive confrontation, and I think I can clear things up with some further explanation.

So you decided to counter sweeping generalisations and vituperative rhetoric, with more sweeping generalisations and vituperative rhetoric.

I stand by this. Ohcac was attacking generalisations with generalisations, and ideological caricatures with ideological caricatures.

But I have a feeling that you were referring more to the next line:

Speaking as a resident of the non-USA, I sometimes wonder how you Yanks have managed to avoid another civil war.

Brevity and flippancy have obscured my intended meaning here.
What I was really getting at was that the partisan and adversarial nature of US politics seems from the outside at least to be getting worse. I am used to Republicans towing their party line and indulging in reactionary anti-Democrat actions and rhetoric, but recently it would seem that more and more Democrats are adopting a similar posture in return, and in my view that is a very bad thing.

Inter-party communication, and sometimes cooperation, are vital elements in good governance and healthy democracy. Over-the-top partisanship strangles such endeavours at birth, and it should be avoided.

My caustic remark wasn't quite as facetious as it probably sounded, and I am sometimes genuinely concerned that the political process in the US will become untenable if the level of partisanship increases.

I hope that's cleared things up.

 

[RichardMNixon]

Why *should* a fat-ass, lazy, irresponsible dufus who has inherited his fathers money in a situation akin to Billy Madison have more of his money extracted from him just because he doesn't work hard?

He's not being tossed out on the street, he'll still be richer than 99.9% of Americans could ever hope to be. Billy Madison is just a counter-argument to Ayn Rand style worship of billionaire uebermenschen.

As for "why progressive taxation," the US needs more revenue. This is a fact. No matter how many times Republicans say otherwise, it doesn't change the fact that we need more revenue. Meanwhile, the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. Clearly the current tax burden on the rich isn't crippling. I think annoying would be an overstatement. Their wealth continues to grow while working class America continues to stagnate. Tying it together: we need revenue, and it makes more sense to get it from the people who can shoulder the burden than from people who can't. Every civilized country in the world understands this, except America.

 

[Welshidiot]

Tying it together: we need revenue, and it makes more sense to get it from the people who can shoulder the burden than from people who can't. Every civilized country in the world understands this, except America.

Unfortunately that isn't true, we have the same problem in the UK.

 

[kenandkids]

Or, you know, getting older, gaining experience, moving into better paying positions. Go into a typical minimum wage job site and look around - the people there are going to be younger then people doing engineering or management. You are assuming that people do not change and improve on their own - blatantly false from everything behavioral psychology tells us.

WOW! Millions of Americans are going to be very heartened that even though they used to have good jobs before those jobs were outsourced or the unions busted and they had to take minimum wage or $10 per hour jobs, all they have to do is get older to go back to having living wage jobs. Thanks Arthur, you provided a much needed feeling of relief.

Meanwhile, back in RealityLand, more and more people of all ages are working at minimum wage, or slightly higher waged, jobs because decent wages are so scarce. McDonalds just hired 50k people, most of whom were NOT kids. Walmart is the number one employer, and most people make slightly over minimum wage. The overwhelming majority of jobs in most regions are market, retail, or food, and these jobs do not pay well, nor are they filled exclusively by young people.

 

[ImprobableJoe]

WOW! Millions of Americans are going to be very heartened that even though they used to have good jobs before those jobs were outsourced or the unions busted and they had to take minimum wage or $10 per hour jobs, all they have to do is get older to go back to having living wage jobs. Thanks Arthur, you provided a much needed feeling of relief.

Meanwhile, back in RealityLand, more and more people of all ages are working at minimum wage, or slightly higher waged, jobs because decent wages are so scarce. McDonalds just hired 50k people, most of whom were NOT kids. Walmart is the number one employer, and most people make slightly over minimum wage. The overwhelming majority of jobs in most regions are market, retail, or food, and these jobs do not pay well, nor are they filled exclusively by young people.

See, that's the problem in a nutshell right there. The "conservative" ideology is demonstrably, stupidly wrong in every particular. Of course people who believe that nonsense have no real answers, because they have a faith-based position that simply ignores all the evidence. America has been on a non-stop tax cut spree for the last decade, and these morons are still calling for more tax cuts. Job creation was a joke under Bush, we got a little bit thanks to the stimulus, and with that over we're losing all the jobs again, and the answer is right-wing platitudes about working harder. Wages have been stagnant forever, industries are just sitting on money and not spending, and the right-wing answer is to eliminate more jobs and give companies more money that they can't spend because there's no demand.

"Conservatives" are delusional and "ahistorical"(yes, I created a word)... we have evidence and records that show that higher taxes lead to better outcomes for America. Lower taxes stifle job growth, innovation, and general societal health. The right-wingers just ignore reality, and fall back on the same empty slogans: lower taxes, eliminate social programs, and hate gays. What else do they really have? And when reality doesn't match their stupid economic religious cult's proclamations? Just ignore reality and call Obama a socialist. Oh, and if possible pretend that the recession that started in 2007 was under Obama, and also pretend that Bush kept us safe from terrorists.