Don't want to repost the whole pigged comment, just two highlights:

From USA Today
It's unclear how many Americans use IMSS, but with between 40,000 and 80,000 U.S. retirees living in Mexico, the number probably runs "well into the thousands," said David Warner, a public policy professor at the University of Texas.
"They take very good care of us," said Jessica Moyal, 59, of Hollywood, Fla., who now lives in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, a popular retirement enclave for Americans.

From HealthDay News
An estimated 6 million Americans are traveling each year to such countries as India, Costa Rica, Mexico and Thailand in search of less-expensive treatments for simple and complex procedures. Even France and Belgium tend to be cheaper than the United States.

CR, I'm in Northern Virginia (Fairfax County), but I'm from the south side of Chicago until a decade ago. From the reports I'm getting from friends and family back home, every single tradesman we know who does not work for the government is out of work. Pipefitters, carpenters, bricklayers, crane operators, you name it. If you don't have a government job in the trades, you don't have a job in the trades.

One rather shocking thing I heard last week is that some of the highly-specialized folks are being put on bids to work in other countries, like Canada. Some of these people have never been outside the midwest. Its sort of like country folks from Mexico heading north to look for work in America, except now its specialized U.S. tradesmen heading elsewhere to find work.

Outsider wrote:

I'm still stuck on your comment yesterday about how this is all like one big episode of Survivor.
Truman Show stuff. Mind bending.

Driving to Seattle, stopping for gas. Capitalism is doing what it always does - oversolve the problem, produce lots of stuff and then not pay people enough to sustain the cycle. I used to buy into a lot of The Illusion like Bearly, LBD, Dawg because I was raised with it as a memorized meme, it's only been the past 7-8 years that I sat down and applied critical thinking and quantitative thought to those beliefs and then re-applied to history to see what really happened.

The more I think about Warren Buffet, the more I see a man with an obsessive sickness, a deep hole in his soul that he can't fill up not matter how much money he piles up. It's endemic in our society, a lot of pointless greed which has never reflected upon itself.

broward wrote:

The more I think about Warren Buffet, the more I see a man with an obsessive sickness, a deep hole in his soul that he can't fill up not matter how much money he piles up. It's endemic in our society, a lot of pointless greed which has never reflected upon itself.

People like Buffet are driven, obsessively, to accumulate wealth and "win". You don't become a billionaire without that desire (and without a measure of luck).

edit: I took notice of this in my early twenties when I went to work for EDS, run at the time by Ross Perot. I thought long and hard about how and more importantly why someone would continue to work until they achieved billionaire status.

What's really shocking is that supply is having to move to meet demand. I doubt you'll find THAT in the Constitution.

C

Counterpointer wrote:

What's really shocking is that supply is having to move to meet demand.

As opposed to having supply create its own demand?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Say's_law

Exactly, through regulatory capture, for instance.

C

Bubblisimo Gerkinov wrote:

Do not try to move here. I repeat, stay where you are. Don't come here ... it really really sucks.

Darn it, and I was just about to book my trip to Vancouver to shop for housing this summer.

Josh wrote:
One rather shocking thing I heard last week is that some of the highly-specialized folks are being put on bids to work in other countries, like Canada.

See, this is what I'm talking about ... not good.

Luckily they'll have to be airlifted home by the marines(tm) at the first sign of disease or injury never to return.

One rather shocking thing I heard last week is that some of the highly-specialized folks are being put on bids to work in other countries, like Canada.

With the destruction of the American working class, for us, the new national boundaries are prescribed by wealth, not geographic borders. You either live in banker land or beyond the pale.

Swine flu fizzles out. Here's one for the global health care debate...
WHO published new guidance deleting the requirement that pandemic strains should cause 'enormous morbidity and death'...which 'provoked an unnecessary scare.'
Was swine flu ever a real threat? - Telegraph

Broward,

Ever read American Mania by Peter Whybrow? Pretty good bit of critical thinking on the very points you mentioned regarding accumulation, greed and excess. I recomment the book highly.

Hoopajoops LTD wrote:
the new national boundaries are prescribed by wealth, not geographic borders. You either live in banker land or beyond the pale.
Yes, two classes, two standards, two sets of laws. Parasite and host, with parasite doing all the legislating for both itself and the host. You can see how that will end.

EASTER ISLAND

Earth’s an island, Easter Island -
That became its given name;
On it God was born and died,
He rose on Easter from the tomb

Space around the atmosphere
Defends the virgin from the soiled,
No arrogance escapes from here
To reach the outermost, despoil

But on this island kingly sons,
Men of worth and dignity,
Their monuments of crippled stone
That blindly face the living sea

Pavel
February 5, 2010

broward,
Greed gets worse when it's organized and when most of the public ends up fighting each other over the problems it causes...

Hoopajoops LTD wrote:

Another front in the never-ending war against the youth

The deal was, work, pay medicare insurance for your entire working life and then at 65 you get to claim on the insurance you paid. Now the formula wasn't sufficiently skeptical to anticipate the rise in medical costs nor the life expectancy jump. I think it's hardly fair to blame the poor dope that actually worked their entire life and contributed to the system

the never-ending war against the youth

With any luck they'll become the enemy.

bearly, does that translate to, "whoops, looks like we took too much without contributing enough and enjoyed outrageous, unprecedented wealth while incurring massive debt. Now it's time for you to pay for our continued luxury and lack of discipline and foresight while your own medical needs are left unmet, youngsters. We'll vote out anyone who doesn't loot you for us, by the way, because we have the luxury of time to study the issues and vote that only comes with living on your backs while on the dole."

Sorry for being nasty about it, but the older generation deserves a little nastiness for creating the mess we're in and being so selfish on the way out.

bearly wrote:

I think all the health-care-socialists from the USA ought to get a chance to experience, first hand, the trophy Canadian system

I do not view myself as a socialist (health care or otherwise), but I can say that I lived in Canada for many years and was very happy with its health care

bearly wrote:

I think all the health-care-socialists from the USA ought to get a chance to experience, first hand, the trophy Canadian system that Michael Moore thinks so highly of.

You're right. Let's vote it in.

enjoyed outrageous, unprecedented wealth

Which of the elderly are we talking about here? I've never met anyone who's living in luxury on a SS income. On the contrary....

Medicare was signed into law in 1965.
Age to vote was 21. So born in 1945 (apx)
Age to collect at 65 born in 1900.

Was this to cover those not covered by VA benifits?

Not sure why the young think baby boomers set this up.

sdtfs wrote:

You're right. Let's vote it in

Well, not exactly what I meant. I thought to truly appreciate the CDN system they could move there and experience it first hand

Premier Williams Newfoundland & Labrador: Heart Surgery In U.S. | NowPublic News Coverage

Not sure why the young think baby boomers set this up.

Somebody has to be it.

Is that why we're the only first world industrialized nation in the world that does not have universal health care, bearly? Does that distinction put our workers and businesses at a competitive advantage relative to other countries? How terribly must the citizens of every other first world industrialized country be suffering under such a terrible system. You'd think that they would revolt and try to mimick our mess of a system, if it were so good. I wonder why they haven't done that, given the supposed horror of universal health care, bearly. Care to speculate?

To distract from the corruption that is rampant and more of a cause of our problems than the supposed greed of the retirees.

merchants of fear wrote:

Who's losing more money, savings, & assets now...the babyboomers or the following generations who won't get their inheritance now?

That's easy, the Boomers; they have it to lose. And what right does anyone have to any particular inheritance?

YLSP wrote:

I suggest people listen to Robert Shiller's Financial 252 class online... for those like me who have no financial background... I believe it is called "financial institutions".

It's called "financial markets" and it is a fantastic course. I watched the entire course, and while I don't agree with a lot of the neoclassical theory, like CAPM, it is a great overview. And, I found Shiller to be a captivating speaker and presenter. He makes the material fun.

The "game theory" course is also good, but the professor is not nearly as engaging (to me).

sdtfs wrote:

And what right does anyone have to any particular inheritance

None. Their decision about any inheritance is (generally) explicitly made by the one leaving the inheritance.

This has been fascinating, but I must take my kid to his hockey game (really, I'm not making that part up).

I pray to God (secretly of course, because overt religious devotion is frowned upon up here) that he can get through his game in one piece so as to avoid his inevitable demise in a Godless/windowless waiting room.

Rob Dawg wrote:

My CR alert told me there was a post about construction employment. My bad.

I'm trying!

OT: Responding to greenchutes:

" greenchutes on Sat, 2/6/2010 - 9:40 am

I do, though even the UST considers gold part of our reserves - at $49 an ounce, of course."

The problem of value gets solved at $16,000/oz. This strutting and fretting is such a waste of time.
Buh bye world USD holders. A packet of sugar will be $2.00. That will end this madness.

It would be a mad scramble for economic assets as the value of labor will have gone where it long belongs, worldwide, back into the out house. There's a dream in the minds of labor that they can get ahead of the curve by increased wages. They've so overstepped the boundaries in the govt sector and the union sector as to have been early versions of the banksters.

Screw the USD holders and USD denominated asset holders, and the world will return to competitive, with the US still holding a few senior cards.

Wait, and allow the political power to shift, and the rentier class, the last bastions of the stores of wealth, will bite the dust. World power is not an entitlement, irrespective of the armed services mounted.

The US Govt is so incredibly incompetent, both sides of the aisles, and the foolish people headlining this play.

Where does one go to safety? Gold, physical, in and out of the country, legally held so it can't be confiscated, which means post tax. And patience. The Great Unraveling is in process. I shed a tear for those who founded the USA, and those many millions who died prematurely or were severely wounded doing what they thought would protect the great experiment... in fact, a flood of tears.

MrM wrote:

Fluoride in their drinking water makes them docile

Dr. Stranglove youtube link ... stat.

sdtfs,
Didn't say people in any generation have a right to an inheritance but believe it or not it's the choice of some families or parents to leave their offspring something...as in a will for example...

Rob Dawg wrote:

My CR alert told me there was a post about construction employment

We don't get a futures screen until Sunday evening. Until them it's a little friendly game how wonderful it would be to have a socialist workers' paradise here in the USA.

Looks like the youth are figuring out which end of the leverage ratio they are. Time for the boomers to post more collateral?

C

Must keep working daily on my diaper the butt syndrome, mastered the mouth but not my brain.

Well Dawg...construction employment in AZ and CA had a variety of issues that usually don't get discussed too much about low 'Pay' arrangements for construction workers...but that's a hot button issue better left alone...

Thanks MrM...forgot all about democracy...

merchants of fear wrote:

Didn't say people in any generation have a right to an inheritance

I could give you a fairly long list of people I know who EXPECT an inheritance and don't bother to earn much of a living while they wait. Pretty pathetic.

YouTube - DR FEELGOOD. You shouldn't call the doctor... (if you can't afford the bill)

Heheh.

it's a little friendly game how wonderful it would be to have a socialist workers' paradise here in the USA.

there has to be a happy medium somewhere between a socialist worker's paradise and "The Jungle".

Juvenal Delinquent wrote:

60's Don't trust anybody over 30

10's: Don't trust anybody under 30

JD, exactly! Vested interests are vested.

The young are always crying till some figure it out. Then it becomes game over form the ones who won't engage. After health care whats next. BMW's for every one? I breath I deserve!

After health care whats next. BMW's for every one?

It's socialism, so no beemers. Here in the frozen tundra we all had to settle for Pintos.

I thought the new party car would be the Nanno!

bearly wrote:

Their decision about any inheritance is (generally) explicitly made by the one leaving the inheritance.

So the boomers leaving the younger generations with the burden of keeping the boomer's in SSA and Medicare, after electing reps who spent everything that the boomers had contributed to pay for it, is the boomers gift to the rest of us? How do I send that "gift" back?

Alright, back to our regular programming

FT.com / Global Economy - G7 warms to idea of bank levy
Finance ministers from the world's most advanced nations have begun to coalesce around the idea of imposing levies on banks to help insure the global economy against future financial crises, officials said on Saturday at the end of a Group of Seven meeting in northern Canada.
The G7 ministers will seek support for such a levy, which could take the form of a transaction tax or a fee on deposits held, among the members of the broader G20 before they meet later this year.
...
Timothy Geithner, the US Treasury secretary, and Alistair Darling, his UK counterpart, were among those who voiced support for a forward-looking levy on banks considered “too big to fail”, the officials said on Saturday.
“We discussed in the longer term whether or not it would be appropriate to have a levy on the banking industry to reflect the costs that have been imposed as a result of what has happened. It's early days but...we agreed to work together on this,” Mr Darling told reporters after the meeting.
“We were very clear that we needed to continue to work together on this [regulatory reform]. Of course different countries have different systems. But... the one thing that really came up again and again was that all of these problems require global solutions,” he said.
Mr Geithner earlier said that all the G7 ministers had agreed to work towards implementing a new set of capital requirements for large global institutions by the end of this year.
...
In addition to the bail-out levy, the US is considering forcing “too big to fail” banks to separate their commercial and investment banking arms, and imposing what has become known as “the Volcker rule” because it was proposed by the former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker, that would ban banks from proprietary trading.
In the UK, Mr Darling has imposed a one-time 50 per cent tax on bankers' bonuses and has suggested creating “living wills” that would enable banks to be easily dismantled in the event of another financial crisis.
Other ideas include the introduction of contingency capital planning, which would put bondholders at risk of conversion into equity if a bank’s capital strength falls below a pre-defined level, using so-called contingent convertible instruments, or CoCos.

Thanks kcoop for the ignore list!

I think we ought to abandon Medicare and Medicaid and start health care planning from scratch. Lets see how things shake out if all had to pay their fare share. These programs at the present rate are not sustainable any way!

noob goldberg wrote:

What? Why are you all looking at me like that?

SNAFU wrote:

These programs at the present rate are not sustainable any way!

Actually the overhead costs on Medicare/Medicade are far less than commercial insurance. Personally, I'd like to be able to buy in early, AT COST rather than give my premiums to the monopolist health insurance industry.

JimPortlandOR wrote:

The best jobs program for construction: pay them to reconstruct Haiti's capital.

Haiti has forever needed mandatory fertility clinics. The streets are littered with starving children. I was there for multiple weeks in the mid-60's. It was hellish then. It can only have gotten worse. Spending even a cent for anything but survival of the living and MANDATORY birth reduction is beyond stupid. They decimated their ecology due to a string of factors. It deserves to be paved over, after the living die off. Make it an ecological preserve to start in 100 years.

From above link...G7 will work towards 'a new set of capital requirements for large global institutions by the end of this year.'
Ya know what that means...More bailouts and 'reserves' for TBTF banks because of 'new (higher) capital requirements'...so emergency funding or else systemic network collapse...see the pattern continuing...cut capital requirements in a bubble...crisis...then boost requirements in deflation...crisis...

Off topic ...

China Defaulting Loans Soar, Insolvency Lawyer Says (Update1)

By Shelley Smith

Feb. 5 (Bloomberg) -- Non-performing loans in China have risen into the “trillions of renminbi” because of poor lending practices, an insolvency lawyer said.

“We work really closely with SASAC, the state-owned enterprise regulator in China, and there are literally trillions and trillions of renminbi of, frankly, defaulting loans already in China that no one is doing anything about,” Neil McDonald, a Hong Kong-based business restructuring and insolvency partner with Lovells LLP, said at an Asia-Pacific Loan Market Association conference yesterday. “At some point there’s going to be a reckoning for that.”

China’s government is tightening controls, including banks’ reserve ratios, to prevent record lending from fueling inflation. The Shanghai office of the China Banking Regulatory Commission warned yesterday that a 10 percent fall in property values would treble the number of delinquent loans in the city. Liu Mingkang, chairman of the CBRC, said Jan. 4 that loans were channeled into stock and property speculation last year, which China has been taking measures to stop. CBRC’s press officer is not immediately available for comment today.

Chinese banks issued a record 9.6 trillion yuan ($1.4 trillion) of new loans last year as part of a 4 trillion yuan stimulus package aimed at bolstering growth through the global financial crisis.

“At some point in China, maybe it will be two, three or five years, but at some point there will be in the property markets and in the markets generally, there will be rationalization of very poor lending practices,” McDonald said during the panel discussion on restructuring and refinancing at the Global Loan Market Summit in Hong Kong.

Bad Loan Ratio

Over the past decade China’s government has spent more than $650 billion bailing out state banks after years of government- directed lending caused bad loans to balloon. The average non- performing loan ratio at Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd., China Construction Bank Corp. and Bank of China Ltd. dropped to about 1.6 percent as of Sept. 30 from more than 20 percent before each bank was bailed out, according to earnings reports.

New loans last year helped ignite a Chinese real-estate boom, with prices in 70 cities rising at the fastest pace in 18 months in December.

Should property prices fall 10 percent in Shanghai, China’s second-most-expensive property market, the ratio of delinquent mortgages would almost triple for the city’s banks to 1.18 percent, according to the Shanghai branch of the CBRC yesterday, citing a stress test based on Sept. 30 figures. A 30 percent decline would cause the ratio to jump almost fivefold, the agency said.

Fitch Ratings said Dec. 17 that Chinese banks’ capital strength is probably more “strained” than it appears as lenders use more off-balance sheet transactions to make room for loans.

It was the first time the CBRC announced estimates for how much a property-market slump in Shanghai would hurt banks, underscoring the government’s concern that real-estate speculation may spur bad debts.

The regulator reiterated that banks should monitor property loans more closely and curb lending to developers with weak capital.

The State-Owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission supervises and manages state-owned assets.

To contact the reporter on this story: Shelley Smith in Hong Kong at ssmith118@bloomberg.net
Last Updated: February 5, 2010 04:25 EST

Blackhalo wrote:

Actually the overhead costs on Medicare/Medicade are far less t

True , they are not sustainable in spite! I would like to buy into it NOW if I could! I am about 15 years away. The median age of the US is about my age, IIRC.

ksmithderm wrote:

Off topic ...

How about just an excerpt and a link rather that posting the entire article...

bearly wrote:
convince themselves that free enterprise will be easily outdone by government.
Free enterprise would probably never be outdone by government. The present regime of medical and insurance cartelization is very very far from free enterprise.

Blackhalo wrote:

So the boomers leaving the younger generations with the burden of keeping the boomer's in SSA and Medicare, after electing reps who spent everything that the boomers had contributed to pay for it is the boomers gift to the rest of us? How do I send that "gift" back?

Same thing we said about our paerents decades ago. Good luck!

"Capitalism is considered the opposite of socialism. The poor and disadvantaged fall to the wayside in lieu of unencumbered economic potential, and 'survival-of-the-fittest' is the rule of law. Socialism, on the other hand, values all citizens regardless of their earning potential. "

WikiAnswers - What is the opposite of socialism

When 50million of your citizenry lacks health care and U6 is ~20%, Socialism, as defined above, will be in demand.

Lobbyist Ben Dover wrote:

Same thing we said about our paerents decades ago.

Yeah but your parents spent the SSA and Medicare Tax revenue on Medicare and SSA. The boomers seem to have been spending the proceeds on pork, extensive imperialist military actions, gov subsidies, tax cuts and bailouts for insolvent industries, leaving the younger generations an IOU.

That's taking hypocrisy to a new level...

Blackhalo wrote:
The boomers seem to have been spending the proceeds on pork, extensive imperialist military actions, gov subsidies, tax cuts and bailouts for insolvent industries, leaving the younger generations an IOU.
I read that "leaving the younger generations a giant 'F You'".

Looks like they mis-calculated and all the money was spent on their parents. Given that SSA went cash-flow negative this year...

But won't government support of private SSA and medicare/medicaid vouchers actually help to deflate the costs of health care?

I.O.F.U.?

C

purple wrote:
It's OK, because construction workers can easily move into finance. We can then become a nation of bankers and speculators.
England 2.0 (without the hereditary monarchy)?

Ken Lewis: If I’m Going Down, Hank Paulson and Ben Bernanke Are Coming Down With Me -- Daily Intel

Bubblisimo Gerkinov wrote:

Don't come here ... it really really sucks.

and it always rains in Seattle

Has anyone heard what percentage of the returning construction jobs will be set aside for undocumented workers?

Blaming entire generations for debt bubbles skips the specificity of blaming the higher-up architects, policy makers, and administrators of credit bubble cycles...who seem to have also lived in the GD1 cycle...

merchants of fear wrote:

Ken Lewis: If I’m Going Down, Hank Paulson and Ben Bernanke Are Coming Down With Me -- Daily Intel

"NO WAY will he be a scapegoat, alone, for the people who twisted his arm to go through with the Merrill deal by telling him he would be fired if he didn't. "If this thing goes to trial you can expect both Paulson and Bernanke to be on the witness list." If he's going down, he's bringing them down, too."

That would be TOTALLY awesome. If only we had a real effective SEC they would have already gotten Ken to roll over on Hank and Ben. A double bonus would be the public taking a look at why the prez nominated, and congress approved, the nomination of a likely felon.

volker the viking wrote:

Bubblisimo Gerkinov wrote:
Don't come here ... it really really sucks.
and it always rains in Seattle

portland is really bad too. only one inch of snow so far this season. sun never ever shines. people live in bookstores and make awful local craft beers. and it is too f'ing green: trees everywhere. and don't get me started on bicyllists thinking that since they helped pay for the streets they should be able to use them.

pavel.chichikov wrote:

This antagonism between generations, if widespread enough, is a symptom of a society tearing itself to pieces.

It is estimated that the 70+ generation is cumulatively worth about ~30+ Trillion.( WFC is hiring 1500 new brokers for wealth management, out of St. Louis offices.) The generations after that are broke adding in all the encumbrances. Generational and class(poor class is 50m and growing) warfare is just a question of time.

The older generations don't have the same access to knowledge we enjoy now... while a growing number can see the lootings that occurred today; when did the "lootings" really get started?
I would argue it was during Reagan, when the public debt really took off. Is offloading private debt onto the public moral?
It's just more "in the flashlight" now... because we see it happening and can count.
Did people really have some type of "national debt ticker" back in the 70s and early 80s?

We really forgot what the "wealth of nations" is... traded for the "wealth of individuals"...

Generational and class(poor class is 50m and growing) warfare is just a question of time.

Perhaps an excellent means of psychological displacement? Also known as scapegoating.

MrM wrote:

Even France and Belgium tend to be cheaper than the United States.

My ex mother in law goes to Sweden to get care, even though she is fully covered here. She still has access to Sweden's health system (originally from there), and finds the care superior.
And she is a right wing pawn, but from primary experience, the propaganda has not been able to twist her mind.

SNAFU wrote:

warfare is just a question of time

bullshit, the whole post is unadulterated bullshit

YLSP wrote:

The older generations don't have the same access to knowledge we enjoy now

more bullshit

volker out

Slumdog wrote:

Open your eyes and count the population.

bigot, say you're not, I dare you

Slumdog,
Between the and the and the your new blog is going to be hopping. i look forward to it. My only hope is that it is soon.

Is it time for him to die?

PROGRESS

I passed a hearse in traffic
On the right hand side,
The flowers on the casket
Quivering with progress,
The black hearse shining
On the black tar road

Eternity is calm
As everyone expects
And we are almost there,
The traffic intersects,
Soundless is the way
Of the pale red roses

Is it not in use
The old earth suit?
Spirit having fled
The flesh of it is dead;
Seldom in reverse
The big black hearse

Pavel
February 2, 2010

pavel.chichikov wrote:

Also known as scapegoating.

Blaming the Capitan, for willfully running the ship aground, seems a bit shy of scapegoating.

volker,
Right now we can view Congress live and have access to any Congressional hearing through the joys of C-SPAN... and the internet you're telling me that happened 30 years ago?
Is it easier or hard to control/spread a meme now than 20-30 years ago? That's what I'm talking about.
I'm not about to get on the "generational warfare" bandwagon, I'm trying to make some observations...

Hi, I'm YLSP, when I visit my dad and remember my mom its clouded by all the bitterness I have of them saddling me with this big public debt... and then I inveitably pick up the steak knife with an urge to kill him... yeah, you are right that type of thinking is BS...

pavel.chichikov wrote:

Can someone with a moderate income afford to pick and choose health insurance plans?

That wart you had removed last year now becomes a pre-existing condition, so you have to wait a couple of years for the new company to pay for removing the next one...

Slumdog, I understand your response is probably tongue-in-cheek, but seriously the entitlement that people in our country feel is disgusting.

Boom times come and go. Yet when they go, everyone who profited during the boom thinks they are entitled to a bailout. This country needs a good dose of libertarianism, and fast. We stopped relying on ourselves a long time ago, and that is to our detriment. The carpenter is right, the construction industry is in a depression, but instead of complaining he should be either living off of his savings during the boom and waiting for better days or changing his profession.

pavel.chichikov wrote:

Not if it isn't true.

Voting for tax cuts, coupled with new benefits programs, with no cost containment, like Medicare schedule D, enacted by a Republican president and congress, put in office almost entirely by boomers, seems true enough.

The idea that one man or a few men can singlehandedly bring down the largest economy in history is a delusion. Look to the social system in all its vast complexity, not the actors, who in any case are only reading their lines.

But we resist that with all our might because it would require the sort of insight, guts and self-knowledge which is the moral equivalent of tearing out one's own heart.

Hoopajoops LTD wrote:

So, bearly, if our system is so enviable that your world view has scores of foreigners flocking to us from other industrialized countries with universal health care to enjoy our medical services, why don't any of those other countries adopt our system?

ha!

here:
corruption
cor⋅rup⋅tion  [kuh-ruhp-shuhn] Show IPA
–noun
1. the act of corrupting or state of being corrupt.
2. moral perversion; depravity.
3. perversion of integrity.
4. corrupt or dishonest proceedings.
5. bribery.
6. debasement or alteration, as of language or a text.
7. a debased form of a word.
8. putrefactive decay; rottenness.
9. any corrupting influence or agency.

No one, I repeat, NO ONE, in those other countries profits from socialized medicine. NO ONE.

Voting for tax cuts, coupled with new benefits programs, with no cost containment, like Medicare schedule D, enacted by a Republican president and congress, put in office almost entirely by boomers, seems true enough.

The subjects of our dialogue diverged.

Here is an on topic post. From a fishing forum I hang out in there is a running discussion about the President and the economy. From a poster there,

In the NYC Construction world I have been told in the last few days that around half of the steamfitters are out of work, there are 5,000 local 3 electricians out of work (and the ones who get laid-off now can expect to be out for 44+ weeks), and our Local 1 Union plumbing outfit that normally employs 300 plumbers is down to 35. Several projects finishing up, with very few in the future. The Tin Knocker super was telling me that they have several jobs on their books, but are having a difficult time starting to work on them (scheduling delays, rebidding, etc, etc.). We're going to be breaking ground on a new project soon, but it is less than 1/2 the size of the one we are finishing now.

Link:

Saltwater Fishing Discussion Board Including Inshore Fishing, Offshore Fishing, Saltwater Fly Fishing and Kayak Fishing 3rd post on the page.

pavel.chichikov wrote:

The subjects of our dialogue diverged.

I am off to movies
Later, all

Slumdog,
Actually 'birth rates' in Haiti are down (more than half way down) the list a ways from the Top birth rate nations...

merchants of fear wrote:

Actually 'birth rates' in Haiti are down (more than half way down) the list a ways from the Top birth rate nations...

i suspect there is a strong inverse correlation between the availability of condoms and the birthrate. i don't think it has much to do with skin color or national origin. EDIT: local theologian stance on said condoms probably matters, too.

merchants of fear wrote:

In AZ...there was a crackdown on business that hired undocumented workers...

That was part of my comment. There's a period of ugly that's going to accompany the return of construction jobs.

Mike, that is really dreadful, literally.

RIF - 'delusions sold to the populace'
Probably should still be in present tense...

bearly writes:
Is that a sales pitch ? You trying to sell making it worse ?

No, but if you truly believe what you say, that government run health care is inferior, you should be advocating the abolishment of medicare and medicaid. You should be trying to convince medicare recipients that they would be better off receiving their benefits in the form of vouchers which they can use to buy private insurance. If government run health care is as terrible as you say it is, it should be an easy pitch for you to make. I wonder, bearly, whether the version of reality that you've been pitching to us here, or should I say regurgitating, is one which would stand up to such a test?

'Eternity is calm'
It's the short term that's chaotic...

Hoopajoops LTD wrote:

We can vote them out

Are you serious ? Please list out all the entitlement programs that have simply been voted away. They may get pared back but they never vanish. I don't like medicare because it is poorly managed. We don't have the will to pay for it. That's because it is run by the government and subject to politics. Paygo starts in 2011, until it gets pushed back.

YLSP wrote:

I would argue it was during Reagan, when the public debt really took off. Is offloading private debt onto the public moral?

Only the Monkey was a worse President than Reagan, during my lifetime.
Reagan lied to the middle class when he said he would the protect their savings. His inflation led to a 50% decline in value in the safest of investments, then, the Treasuries.

I happened to be in Sacramento, lobbying for coastline protection, in 1969 or 70. I spoke with about 5 or 6 key sub-staff who worked in his Administration. The idiot Pete Wilson from San Diego, later Governor of CA, was a key ally of Reagan. His position was the same as the Monkey's, "Small Government", "laissez faire" government.

Those below them, the bureaucrats, were as usual too frightened to speak up against that philosophy. Bernie Madoff, the massive rip offs by the banksters, and the subsequent starvation of the working class has now followed the last iteration of Reagan.

Every day that Reagan had dimentia, I smiled internally and wished it would go on, and it would be a lifetime horror for that SOB. He screwed the honest working class. So did Bush. The joke now, which makes the US a stinking pile, is that so many fools voted for him. Even today, that carpenter I just mentioned? He said to me, "It's that nigg.. communist's fault" when he was describing the political cause for his unemployment. I said nothing. That man can starve as far as I'm concerned.

Cordially, The Bigot.

I wonder why these republican leaders railing against government-run healthcare and inciting fear in the people and extolling the virtues of free market solutions to the health care dilemma don't advocate replacing medicare with vouchers?

So the outlook for construction employment in 2010 is grim.

Will the last one Leaving Las Vegas please turn out the lights?

Hoops,
No argument that U.S. healh care is a rip-off...with insurance in the middle driving costs up more...who would argue against that...unless they are in the industry and even many health care workers would agree...it sucks...

Blackhalo wrote:

Lobbyist Ben Dover wrote:
Medical cost would go down...
I don't believe that for a second. What economic pressure would there be to reduce costs?

Well, the sheeple better wake up soon:
"Although doctors can save some sick people, they have no power to make most people live longer. Despite over $2 trillion a year of modern medical care, US life expectancy has dropped to 50th in the world (CIA 2009) behind all of Europe and behind some very poor countries. It seems to me that societal factors account for about 85% of differences in life expectancy, with genetics and individual health care accounting for the remainder.

Social factors- differences in our artificially created everyday living conditions- are the real keys to human health. Health is improved by money, social status, healthy early childhood, education and a good job. Poverty and lack of control hurt health. Chronic stress boosts hormones that may harm health. Health choices (diet, exercise, and smoking) are shaped by the neighborhoods we live in, which are influenced by powerful business interests. Income equality is an interesting and controversial factor influencing health. The health of the wealthy may depend in part on the well being of the rest of society."

Counterpointer wrote:

That's a Half Godwin for both of you.

A half Godwin, followed by a take down. 2 points if you escape.

Blackhalo wrote:

I don't believe that for a second. What economic pressure would there be to reduce costs?

Sure they would most would die of heart attacks using the same methods of those days. No repeat customers. Same with cancer, no CAT scans, modern medicine etc. Basically limited services and earlier death. I defiantly would not be here if this was 1965.

spuderik,
'no rules' monetary policies got us here...

merchants of fear wrote:

Slumdog,
Actually 'birth rates' in Haiti are down (more than half way down) the list a ways from the Top birth rate nations...

MOF, it's one thing to say Haiti is #51, per Wikipedia, and it's another to list the countries with larger growth rates. They're hell holes to the masses who are stuck in them. Oh, it's only 99% of them? Sorry.

The Haitians destroyed their vegetative cover, in a Caribbean land of paradise. Nice lot, eh? Yes, there's worse, and I've been to some of those joyous countries, as I really love their immediacy of life experience. But that doesn't mean there's not a huge problem.

I thought he referred to "the Monkey" as W Bush?

pavel.chichikov wrote:

So much bitterness coming out lately.

Probably going to get worse as the free ride deflates.

That man can starve as far as I'm concerned.

That doesn't help.

Hoopajoops LTD wrote:

I wonder why these republican leaders railing against government-run healthcare and inciting fear in the people and extolling the virtues of free market solutions to the health care dilemma don't advocate replacing medicare with vouchers?

that's exactly what one republican is proposing ...

Rep. Paul's proposal
As you all know by now, the long-term budget deficit is largely driven by health-care costs. To move us to surpluses, Ryan's budget proposes reforms that are nothing short of violent. Medicare is privatized. Seniors get a voucher to buy private insurance, and the voucher's growth is far slower than the expected growth of health-care costs. Medicaid is also privatized. The employer tax exclusion is fully eliminated, replaced by a tax credit that grows more slowly than medical costs. And beyond health care, Social Security gets guaranteed, private accounts that CBO says will actually cost more than the present arrangement, further underscoring how ancillary the program is to our budget problem.

I have no idea where this thread is taking us nor half the points... I just feel like I'm in the middle of Mad Magazine, and instead of Spy v. Spy it's Strawman v. Strawman... sorry for adding fuel further up, what the hell?

Whenever I hear people talking about "government-run-this, government-run that" I just want to scream at the top of my lungs the problem is government-run government!

Rob Dawg, lol. I assume you understand he was referring to George W Bush, and if so, you deserve a funny sticker.

Or we can look to 'black swans' as the cause and not look back as Taleb promotes...that would eliminate arresting people too...

Scapegoats are like shark's teeth - there's always another waiting to replace the one that falls out.

+1

Rob Dawg wrote:

Slumdog wrote:

Only the Monkey was a worse President than Reagan, during my lifetime.

Calling Obama a monkey is way over the line.

Dawg, my apologies for the confusion, The moniker was and will be long associated with George Bush the Second.
He was and remains an idiot, with an IQ of 100 or less, the common man.

Nobody in their right mind would think of Obama as a monkey. He's the great pacifier; but he's way too timid to be a Ghandi. Instead, he and she are the Great Supporters of Volunteerism, as the society goes to hell in a handbasket. But we must never forget that 50% of the US voted for the Bush monkey, twice.

Lobbyist Ben Dover wrote:

the problem is government-run government!

If only that were so. I think special interests, corporations, and the rising costs of getting elected, have a heavy hand in who runs the government.

YLSP, we still live in a constitutional democracy. The government is the people, if they're willing to involve themselves with it and take control. Everything else is run by the wealthy few. The government is the only thing that protects us from that kind of rule. The wealthy few try to convince us that the government isn't ours, that it is to be despised, and that by entrusting ourselves to the power of the wallet over the ballot box, we will be free from the evils invented to frighten us.

They are trying to convince us to despise and destroy our birthright so that our children will be theirs to own.

The only thing that gives the people the power to govern themselves and their society is the ballot, and the ballot is the government. Destroy the ballot, and the arbiter of your society will be the wallet.

Don't forget it.

I'm out of the game...too old.

But, what is the new party to be called?

'so many fools voted for him'
It's in the sales pitch...the close...works every time...

merchants of fear wrote:

spuderik,
'no rules' monetary policies got us here...

MOF, the holy grail of the prior manifestation of the Republican Party was "smaller government". That's what got us here. They screwed up and they know it. But Palin is feeding off of the Monkey's voter block, and ignorance and bigotry are not going to go away, no matter what anyone wishes for.

Buy gold and wait this out.

This thread jumped the shark about 100 posts ago.

So, what do you think of the next week's Goldman 5 year bond issue @3.65? I might bite.

You know that's a cherry-picked statistic. I don't know too many other developed countries that have the drug problems, gang warfare problems, obesity problems...

bearly, your argument here is flawed. Can you answer why other developed countries don't 'have the drug problems, gang warfare problems, obesity problems...'?

extensive imperialist military actions

Umm, some of the "boomer" generation demonstrated against the Vietnam War and were probably a big factor in ending it. Some of them were also very active in the civil rights movement and in equal rights for women (equal pay is still dream). Unable to see how anyone can talk about the "boomers" as if they were monolithic in belief & action and few of the people I know of that generation voted for "gov't subsidies, tax cuts & bail-outs". What percentage of Gen X & Gen Y were in favor of those actions and/or voted for representatives who subsequently voted for laws/appropriations that were examples of pork, extensive imperialist military actions, gov subsidies, tax cuts & bailouts for insolvent industries?

Have to say I have voted for some gov't subsidies: school funding, funding for police, fire protection, parks & some recreational facilities (in the town I live in, in the state I live in, also in favor of gov't support of national parks, wilderness areas, national wildwife refuges, etc.), sewer & water supply/purification facilities & passenger rail. To the extent that I am able, at the national level, to vote for national parks, etc.--it's not like we get to vote on specific budget items.

What's the alternative to government? I would agree that the federal government is too big, too concentrated and unwieldy, and therefor too inefficient. But that doesn't mean we can do nicely without government.

One example: Without federal government funding of basic research we would be heading toward scientific and technological idiocy. Only the federal government can adequately pay for monetarily unprofitable research.

What about food and pharmaceutical health and safety oversight, transportation safety oversight, et. al.?

'we can't afford socialized medicine'
Too many wars and banking bailouts...earmarks and no cost controls...to have 'socialized' medicine...cookie jar's been raided...

YLSP wrote:

I thought he referred to "the Monkey" as W Bush?

machts nicht zu mich

watching Blazing Saddles, the absolute best western in history.

I'll just 'say' this:

We are on the cusp of a wondrous time. The concept of wealth and money will be subsumed by a greater understanding. The need for prejudice will fade, the anger will subside, the culture will implode upon itself in such a way as to make all remark, "Why didn't we always do it this way?"

Magical, and spendiferrous--iron in strength, yet soft as a fuzzy kitten playfully tugging on a bale of cotton. Women will blossom. Men will learn from them, perhaps for the first time since the imposition of Judeo-Christian/Muslim patriarchy.

This thread reminds me of two men in a leaky rowboat on the open ocean.

They're trying to strangle each other.

Meanwhile, the boat fills with water.

You'd think they'd realize it was in their mutual interest to put their differences aside at least long enough to bail the goddamned boat, but no.

I thank everyone's ideological bullshit for this. Instead of confronting the facts and dealing with them, it's all ideological bullshit.

Thank you and good night.

'we can't afford socialized medicine'

We could afford the bailout, we can afford universal health care. The NHS was instituted when Britain was a burned out, debt-strapped, war-wounded shell of a country. They could afford it then. We can afford it now.

Do you think we should throw up our hands while the productive capacity of 20% of the workforce of this country is sitting idle or underutilized and say, "Shucks, I guess we just can't spare the money or effort."

RockyR wrote:

We can't afford socialized medicine. Neither can most of the countries that have it, today. Just sit back and watch it unfold.

We can't afford partially socialized medicine as currently being planned. Neither can most of the countries that have it, today as executed. Just sitting back and watching it unfold will make it a reality.

There. I broke that for ya.

Slumdog,
To get into 3rd World Dependency and national periphery issues...you have to cover the bases of colonialism, neo-colonialism, issues concerning extraction of resources cheaply, sweat shop labor or labor exploitation, IMF & World Bank debt slavery and financialization schemes, etc to discuss the plight of 3rd World nations...

merchants of fear wrote:

Too many wars and banking bailouts...earmarks and no cost controls...to have 'socialized' medicine...cookie jar's been raided...

well, yeah. that. that and the fact that socialized medicine relies on an ever growing population to support the wealth transfer mechanism. we have a word for schemes like that. i think the word is "ponzi"... or something like that.

Ben, I think we do need to decentralize, but wisely, not in a doctrinaire way. States certainly need more control over their budgets. It goes without saying that it must not be corrupt control.

mp wins the award for the best post of the night!

This thread jumped the shark about 100 posts ago.

Yes, indeed. But I don't know if I could stomach buying up bonds. That goes as far against my personal beliefs as pretty much anything I can think of. It's like taking out a bet on when your mother is going to pass away. If I win, I'll feel very dirty.

NaRm would be proud.

nova wrote:

All social engineering is preceded by verbal engineering

always in the military first

think about that

Hoopajoops LTD wrote:

We could afford the bailout, we can afford universal health care. The NHS was instituted when Britain was a burned out, debt-strapped, war-wounded shell of a country. They could afford it then. We can afford it now.

Oh wow, Hoops. You are MUCH too smart for that post. Please rethink what you just typed. We can't afford the bailouts. No way, no how. The bill for the bail out just hasn't come due, yet.

About the UK: have you missed all the talk about the fiscal basket case that country is? They can't afford their lifestyle, either! We start with Greece, we progress to Spain. Then comes Japan. Sometime later, the UK too will be forced to face the music.

This is pre-Super Bowl jitters...

mp's advice was addressed some time ago in the fable of the frog and scorpion.

Signed,
the frog

Uncle Ar wrote:

. Can you answer why other developed countries don't 'have the drug problems, gang warfare problems, obesity problems

I don't know. I suspect it's largely cultural. I'm not sure it's a problem that's easily fixed either. I do know most of Europe has experienced social decline over the past 20 years. They attribute it to massive immigration from 3rd world hovels.

noob goldberg wrote:

The Chinese lending story especially I'd like to hear analyzed by the commentariat.

OK, I'll start. I'm not particularly impressed by the latest news on bad loans in China, as I believe that this has been going on for a very long time, at least as far back as when I visited in 2002, and probably much farther. It's a command economy, and there is a lot of... um... let's just say it's all about who you know. The government is now pulling in the reins on lending a bit, and it's an open question whether or not they can avoid a dramatic problem. With respect to CHina, I am more generally worried about misallocation of resources due to a combination of rapid growth and central planning. It's also unlikely that they can grow domestic consumption fast enough to avoid having to eat the massive overproduction of some things, or convert the entire export manufacturing base for internal consumption. I'm much more worried about their stock market.

FD: Long FXP

If anyone is interesting in downloading the AIG Hearing from 2 weeks ago with Paulson and Geithner (as well as Barofsky and others), I'm seeding the .torrent available here. It literally is 5 hours long... split into 2 mp3s because I didn't like the 2 minute break between panels 2 and 3.

Slumdog,
Rabid partisanship changes the subject from White Collar criminology...

nova wrote:

government is a necessary evil
All social engineering is preceded by verbal engineering

i'm open to running the experiment, but i think a population with a governance mechanism thrives more readily than one in anarchy. no government, however, is a good government. maybe if you conscripted unwilling members of the populace to run the government, you might get something resembling a body that isn't corrupt and evil. otherwise, moral hazard and ambition rule the day.

employment also grim for software developers i.e.people from western countries pretending to be from poorer countries in order to get jobs.
U.S freelancers are pretending to be from philippines on RentACoder to get jobs - Cube Of M

Yikes what's left ?

In 5 years when my C-SPAN competitor service is raking in dough, I'll remember you... (addressed to volker)...
It's practically trivial to audiorip and convert Congressional hearings to mp3 so people can put them into an easily transferrable podcast... unlike other activities which I may or may not have done in the past it's perfectly legal use of my computer and internet resources.

Hoops: you are almost there. Prior to a new beginning there must essentially be a razing of the old.

This will be our finest, most magnificent age.

'Our factories still stand.' Anybody still in the (U.S.) factories.

bearly wrote:

I don't know. I suspect it's largely cultural.

Maybe--

-Cubans spent $363 per person average (7.1% of GDP); life expectancy was 76 years men and 80 years women.

-Americans spent $6714 per person (15.3% of GDP back then); life expectancy was 75 years men and 80 years women.

-statistics from the World Health Organization 2009.