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I'm 38 and I Can't Support Myself Anymore

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Re: I'm 38 and I Can't Support Myself Anymore

#451

Post by WarmWash »

juvvel wrote: post #433
aianus wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US healthcare system is incredible compared to socialized systems if you can afford it. That's at least part of the reason it represents 17% of GDP. The same procedure I needed had a 2 day wait time in the US and a 10 month wait time in Canada.

If you have the money, you can get excellent healthcare in almost any civilized country. You're free to pay for your treatment in Canada, too.

The US has (without much debate) the absolute best healthcare on Earth if money isn't an issue. There are so many more experts in so many more fields with access to so much more cutting edge technology that...well rich people travel to the US to get care.

Re: I'm 38 and I Can't Support Myself Anymore

#452

Post by WarmWash »

_DeadFred_ wrote: post #379
nate_meurer wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, we're not. It just seems like there's excess because the costs of running social programs are being paid with runaway debt. Those bills will eventually require settling, and it will become obvious how much excess there really is.

[flagged]

Starving the beast and gorging the beast both accomplish the same thing.

Re: I'm 38 and I Can't Support Myself Anymore

#453

Post by amanaplanacanal »

nate_meurer wrote: post #366
amanaplanacanal wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Debt is just accounting, and has nothing to do with whether or not a surplus exists and who gets to consume it. The surplus exists, it doesn't magically appear because of your accounting system.

My point is not that economic surpluses don't ever exist, but that the perceived surpluses that people invoke in order to defend the present welfare state are unsustainable, and that the system will inevitably collapse without a miraculous increase in economic productivity. Debt (both private and sovereign) is literally the thing that tells us whether a society is able to pay for the things it demands. That's not an…

You appear to only be looking at the debt, and not that those debts are held by other people as assets. Do you think it's still a net negative if you add that in too?

Re: I'm 38 and I Can't Support Myself Anymore

#454

Post by WarmWash »

juvvel wrote: post #437
chung8123 wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think people realize how much evening out society will impact them. This is a very US (and probably EU) way of thinking. Everyone thinks they are middle class but when it comes down to it there are far more people in poverty and that evening things out will bring down the quality of life for the people advocating for evening out things.

No. This is what capitalists want you to believe. The truth is that we are all subsiziding the capital gains of the wealthiest 2%. You could easily pay for generous social security programs by taxing property and capital more (as opposed to labor). But the ultra-wealthy point at the weakest and poorest and tell the average worker "look, they're coming for your house and your humble savings!". This is a very deliberat…

Have you looked at wealth distribution or do you just read social media headlines and comments all day?

https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/z1/dataviz/dfa/distr...

See that 50-90% and 90-99%?

That's where all the money is. Moreover, the top 1% have tons of assets, but not much actual money.

Any "evening out" will come mostly from the 50-99% class.

If you want to see a crack in the echochamber, ask yourself why no publication has ever published this chart?

Re: I'm 38 and I Can't Support Myself Anymore

#455

Post by arbitrary_name »

aianus wrote: post #364
Telaneo wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pensions probably ought to be reduced/readjusted in accordance with life time expectancy, or some other maths that actually ends up in the green somehow while still allowing those who cannot take care of themselves to live a decent life. I've seen enough rich pensioners (my own grandmother among them...) to come to that conclusion. The US spends an inordinate amount on healthcare since the system is covered in leeche…

The US healthcare system is incredible compared to socialized systems if you can afford it. That's at least part of the reason it represents 17% of GDP. The same procedure I needed had a 2 day wait time in the US and a 10 month wait time in Canada.

you are a funny man. i live in the one of the wealthiest areas of the US, c with good healthcare: specialists are very hard to get. service rationing is everywhere. we are losing doctors.

your argument is ideological, not rooted in reality.

Re: I'm 38 and I Can't Support Myself Anymore

#456

Post by arbitrary_name »

hogehoge51 wrote: post #384
mvc wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the cost of distributing it has been increasing at a far higher rate than the rate of increasing surplus. Is it? Or is it that an increasing proportion of total income ends up going to the people who find ways of hiding it such that it does not get distributed.

How do you hide something in a closed loop system such as an economy?

offshore Swiss accounts. opaque and complex corporate ownership structures. land.

Re: I'm 38 and I Can't Support Myself Anymore

#457

Post by senordevnyc »

reverius42 wrote: post #435
inigyou wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's right-libertarianism, which is incompatible with capitalism.

That's melting my brain. My understanding is that right-libertarianism and capitalism are not only compatible, they are best friends.

These people use “capitalism” to mean crony capitalism, oligarchy, and corporatocracy.

Re: I'm 38 and I Can't Support Myself Anymore

#458

Post by krapp »

senordevnyc wrote: post #457
reverius42 wrote: post #435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's melting my brain. My understanding is that right-libertarianism and capitalism are not only compatible, they are best friends.

These people use “capitalism” to mean crony capitalism, oligarchy, and corporatocracy.

Those are the forms of capitalism actually practiced in the real world. As opposed to pure free market capitalism, which doesn't actually exist.

Re: I'm 38 and I Can't Support Myself Anymore

#459

Post by xhkkffbf »

avalys wrote: post #8
Telaneo wrote: post #5

> If your worth is not determined by your productivity, then what remains of you underneath it all? Everything else. You are worth so much more than your productivity. I'm glad I never got sucked into the protestant work ethic, since defining yourself based on your labour and the value you generate from that sounds woefully narrow-minded (this doesn't feel like quite the right word, but close enough). It's probably h…

Who produces the food you eat, the clothes you wear, the house you live in, the energy you use, the medicine you consume, etc. while you airily define ‘productivity’ as reading the classics and spending time with friends?

Exactly. And later the person just insists that even the best of rely on the care of others-- while omitting the fact that the "care" is really the labor of others.

Yes, we must recognize that we're more than the sum total of our job, but it's also important to celebrate the people who work hard to develop a talent and deliver the fruits of this talent.

Re: I'm 38 and I Can't Support Myself Anymore

#460

Post by ElevenLathe »

butlike wrote: post #115
disgruntledphd2 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My reading of this is that the threshhold for the USA government to withdraw financial (and other?) support for disabled people is too low, is that right? In general, step functions (earn 200 get benefits, 201 no benefits) are really really bad from a public policy perspective. If you want to get people out of these dependency traps then you need to taper them more effectively. Even tapering them is problematic as…

But at a certain level, you'll need a step function to go from 0 (none; no taper) to 1 (taper).

This is true only in the trivial sense that one can't process a payment for less than a penny.
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