Starker on 31/12/2024 at 09:50
I come from one of the countries where education is free at least up to high school and, if you put in at least a modicum of effort, you have a reasonably good chance of being able to obtain free education even at the university level. We don't see it as giving out free stuff, we see it as investing into the young people and thereby the future of the country. This is also why we are one of the few countries in the world that provides universal school lunches for all children in primary and secondary education.
As an educator and as a student who has experienced both systems, I can confidently say that learning is far more effective if the students are not falling asleep in class due to having to work night shifts or stressing about whether they are able to afford food and rent this month.
The results also speak for themselves. According to PISA and similar surveys, we are constantly at the top of the world with our results and the countries we are competing against for the top spots are either countries like South Korea and Japan, where education is valued to a very high degree, or countries like Finland and Denmark, where education is also free. The US, meanwhile, is trailing us or even falls below the average among OECD countries in certain areas.
DuatDweller on 31/12/2024 at 10:46
Quote Posted by Nicker
Exaggerate much, DD?
In the USA, the bulk of healthcare spending by citizens is gobbled up by private insurance companies who soak them for grossly inflated premiums then us that money to pay lawyers to deny payment of the benefits.
A single payer insurance system is neither "a doozy" nor is it "impossible". It is what most of the civilized/enlightened world has been doing for decades. And it's not FREE, it just doesn't pour money into the pockets of corrupt private insurance scams. It still costs money but everybody pays for it and everybody gets to use it. It is EQUITABLE.
Seriously, DD, get a clue.
Man there is no cash to increase the reach of the public health system, we are not the UK, granted we have aa few game developers, but by all standards we are a banana republic exporting wine and fruits.
And this president wants to make public transit system free (at least in the capital), the system costs the state 6 million US dollars, mainly because there is people who can't or wont pay for it, I pay for my ticket, so I maintain the system as the few honest citizens that do pay.
There is no cash to inject into public hospitals, in September there was no money for anesthesia or bandages or syringes or other supplies, several surgeries had to be postponed.
Nicker on 31/12/2024 at 12:32
DD, you talk about these inequities like they are necessary or inevitable. They are engineered.
Feeding everybody's kids, providing cheap or free education, public transportation, health care. These are not pipe dreams. The money to do this exists but in the USA and increasingly everywhere, that wealth is being concentrated with a few individuals. There's is money but the assholes who accumulate it neither provided value in return nor will they share their criminal bounty.
And the people in government who could spend it wisely won't because they want to get re-elected and stay in power. Making complex and difficult decisions is hard and the stupider a population becomes the more they resist good, long range decisions.
Even if you just do the money math, not the quality of life calculations, NOT providing these things to people is false economy. Saving money by not feeding kids in school means they can't learn as well, can't support themselves as well, can't benefit society, are more likely to become a burden, require medical interventions of be warehoused in the "justice system". Every dollar saved not feeding them will be spent a hundred times over, trying and failing to fix them later.
Public transit costs a fraction of what building roads to move people in private vehicles costs. Healthy people go to hospital less.
We know this is true because some places get it mostly right. The USAS gets it mostly wrong, on a monumental scale.
Tocky on 31/12/2024 at 15:12
Quote Posted by DuatDweller
Man there is no cash to increase the reach of the public health system, we are not the UK, granted we have aa few game developers, but by all standards we are a banana republic exporting wine and fruits.
And this president wants to make public transit system free (at least in the capital), the system costs the state 6 million US dollars, mainly because there is people who can't or wont pay for it, I pay for my ticket, so I maintain the system as the few honest citizens that do pay.
There is no cash to inject into public hospitals, in September there was no money for anesthesia or bandages or syringes or other supplies, several surgeries had to be postponed.
No cash? The richest country in the world can't do what the poorer countries do every day? They have SHOWN us it can be done. Do you think poor people stop going to the hospital? Who pays in increased medical bills because they don't? I would say it works out the same anyway but it doesn't. It works out worse our way. The only difference is we have added another layer sponging off of the working man in the form of insurance people. What we NEED to do is to get the super rich, who keep getting richer as shown by the wealth gap, to pay their fair share.
But they have people like you fooled so they don't have to. Why can't we have nice things? Look in the mirror. I sentence you to watch "It's a Wonderful Life" and "A Christmas Carol" until you get it.
Oh and read Jack London's "Wisdom of the Wise" to open your eyes.
Nicker on 2/1/2025 at 07:20
Seems like Elon (the F is silent) Musk, is experiencing Buyer's Remorse.
Normally politicians are bought and paid for in smokey backrooms. This is the first time I can remember that it was televised.
Cipheron on 2/1/2025 at 08:06
I think DD is talking about healthcare where he is, which is not the USA.
However, for the US comparison, the US federal government spends 29% of their budget on healthcare, that was $1.9 trillion dollars in 2023.
US federal government health spending 2023
- $1.9 trillion spent from federal taxes
- 335 million population.
- $5671.64 per citizen
UK national health spending 2023
- £292 billion = $365.64 billion
- 68.35 million population.
- $5349.52 per citizen.
So the UK government spends less tax money per person than the US government yet manages to cover everyone. The USA is paying MORE in healthcare related taxes, but then they have to pay all over again to a private company and they're not even covered half the time after that.
That's how broken the concept of a for-profit healthcare system is. It just doesn't work and they need to pour even more tax money into barely propping it up so people aren't literally dying in the streets.
Nicker on 2/1/2025 at 09:39
DD talks like he is in the USA. Is that correct, DD?
In Canada, some services, like no-charge elder care, are mandated by law but provided by both public and private companies. Somehow the private operators provide the same quality of care as the government run homes, with the same funding AND return a profit as well. Like some sort of money magic. Must be all that good will spontaneously converting into cash.
In my opinion, there's no problem having private clinics contracting for specific, covered procedures, as long as they follow the standards and fee structure of the local health authorities. But massive, long term services like palliative care and elder care, cannot be privatized without massive reductions in the quality of care.
Nicker on 2/1/2025 at 09:44
Personally I believe that all strategic resources, vital utilities and critical services should be owned by the citizens, and operated through their elected government. Still plenty of opportunity for private business to contract for work but turning over the things necessary to stay alive, to private ownership, is a recipe for a level of abuse far worse than government waste.
I know. That's soshulistic commynisum. Come get me.
Cipheron on 2/1/2025 at 15:39
Quote Posted by Nicker
DD talks like he is in the USA. Is that correct, DD?
Read DD's recent posts closely. He says his economy exports wine and fruits, and has a few game developer studios, and her mentions public transport in the capital to be free, but it has costs of $6 million. Keep in mind the Washington DC public transport system has deficits in the hundreds of millions, so that figure doesn't match.
So none of the issues he mentions match specific things happening in the USA.
However, for the reasons an emerging economy might want to make something like transport free - if transport is free it opens up commerce. You can penny-pinch on the transport, but then workers can't get to their jobs, customers can't get to your store etc.
Transport subsidies are a direct economic stimulus. So if you take those away, or don't implement them, then the net effect is to destroy economic activity. Also each dollar going into the economy can in fact create more than one dollar of GDP, because the same dollar gets spent multiple times. So $1 of transport subsidies can create more than $1 of new economic activity by freeing up that $1 to be spent elsewhere and not going straight into government coffers.
So for example if the government saves $10 by not giving a subsidy, then they can cut taxes by $10. However, that also means they destroyed $15 worth of economic activity that would have occurred but now doesn't. So they need to be careful about where the cuts occur (note: they are not careful).
demagogue on 3/1/2025 at 16:09
That reminds me that recently Fareed Zakaria was talking about Trump's beggar thy neighbor world view. In his take, Trump doesn't understand the concept of win-win. There's only win-lose. So to begin with the concept of allies doesn't make sense, and being friendly with adversaries makes sense if there's a direct pay off. Then you have to combine that with the fact that he only sees the next transaction, and his mind won't look much further than the next node or two in the chain. So the point is that his entire foreign policy revolves around one-upping every other country in transactions ... screw Canada, screw the UK, screw Germany if it pays off a few $10K and that's a win for him. And the fall out in bad will for the entire next generation doesn't matter because he can't see that far ahead. He can't see a few months ahead let alone the long term.
But the bigger point is that the US made a very conscious and deliberate decision in the wake of WWII to create a system of economic cooperation, Breton Woods etc, that the US even bankrolled by taking an un-adventageous position (unequal balance of trade, etc.) -- so Trump is even right to notice that as if he made this big discovery -- but it was to boost the countries playing along, and it paid off incredibly, as the US was one of the biggest winners from the rules-based order that paid back in the win-win way that the "four free movements" (goods, services, capital, & labor) always does because economies of scale & macroeconomics.
And a beggar-thy-neighbor policy is just a recipe for dragging the entire world economy down so everybody is impoverished all around except for the egos of the short term winners in really petty transactions that everybody else pays for. It's actually the lose-lose scenario. Y'all are talking about the public services variation of that, but it's the same theme.
You can't explain this on forums to Maga fans as words have no meaning in those contexts though.
