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Cuban Doctors Revolt: ‘You Get Tired of Being a Slave’

nytimes.com

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Re: Cuban Doctors Revolt: ‘You Get Tired of Being a Slave’

#111

Post by adventured »

frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #86
adventured wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the American (capitalist) system in which you need to pay huge amounts for education in order to have the mere chance to get a job that's above sustenace wage You do realize that wasn't true until about 15 years ago, right? You should be asking what happened (hint: it wasn't Capitalism, it was the US Government's inflationary student loan program). Until the mid 1970s when the US Government nearly destroyed the dol…

The costs of university increase on a purely free-market basis because of incredibly expanding demand for a university education, now poor students can't afford to go to school. The government steps in and assures their loans so poor students can attend. Now since these loans are guaranteed capitalist institutions begin seeing just how much they can bilk students for and thus our dilemma. Our problem is the free mark…

That's not what happened at all. The US Government didn't step in to assure the student loans of poor people. The US Government backed student loans for everyone, on a perpetually increasing basis.

You fail to address the most obvious problem with your claims:

How college costs were able to skyrocket in complete disregard to the ability to repay those loans. The lack of the ability to pay back a loan is a normal check against irresponsible lending, unless you have a printing press backing said loans and can afford to disregard defaults. The lack of responsible lending, courtesy of the US Government, is what enabled the universities to perpetually raise their costs against the lack of any economic restraints. You fail to recognize the broken core to the system: there were no cost inflation restraints, because the US Government made it possible for there to be none.

The fundamental you aren't dealing with, is what enabled the cost inflation to be so extreme, radically beyond any reasonable standards of lending or potential to repay.

The lack of a free market in education is precisely what caused the hyper cost inflation. The US Government created a system of lending backed by its ability to print dollars, which stands completely apart from normal economic reality.

Another hint: guess who is making nearly all the money off the student loans? Yep, the US Government. They're yielding tens of billions per year in interest profit, courtesy of their ability to magically make dollars appear and to put an entire generation into vast debt. The US Govt is earning about 20 times what the private sector is making off of student loans.

Re: Cuban Doctors Revolt: ‘You Get Tired of Being a Slave’

#112

Post by oh_sigh »

notyourday wrote: post #32
frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #4

You know I can't really feel their plight. Take this: >Hundreds of miles away, in Minas Gerais State, Dr. Jiménez, 34, found the work rewarding, but also began to harbor feelings of resentment. “You are trained in Cuba and our education is free, health care is free, but at what price?” she said. “You wind up paying for it your whole life.” Is that not the point? The communist government allows anybody to attend their…

The love of communism among those that don't live in places that tried to implement it is something that totally baffles me.

I see it as sort of the same thing as when, say, a city-dweller reveres deer and thinks they are somewhat magical, because they only have intellectual knowledge of deer. Whereas, take a rural-dweller, and they usually see deer as a nuisance and pest.

Re: Cuban Doctors Revolt: ‘You Get Tired of Being a Slave’

#113

Post by zaroth »

ue_ wrote: post #82
AutomationTool wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't have to pay large amounts of money for education and you don't have to pay large amounts of money to get a decent job. You need to get out of your echo chamber.

I'm posting right now on what is by and large a forum hostile to anti-capitalist thinking; this is the very opposite of me being in an echo chamber. Many "decent" jobs require at least a university degree, which almost always entails taking out a loan. So while you don't have to "pay" large amounts of money, you may need to loan it and then pay it back later.

Gosh if we can't even agree on what kind of echo chamber we're in, how will we ever manage to make convincing fallacious arguments?

I think the echo chamber AT spoke of was not HN. The point is that in the US there are a plethora of options for low cost high quality educations/degrees which absolutely can help you earn a very decent living. They may not be famous name-brand cliques which guarantee a plush job right after graduating, but it is a fundamental pillar of Americanism that opportunity is there for those willing to put in the time.

Re: Cuban Doctors Revolt: ‘You Get Tired of Being a Slave’

#114

Post by user5994461 »

jws wrote: post #65

The doctors are outraged at only getting paid 25% of their billing rate. Back in the '90s I worked with a lot of engineers billed out to customers by Digital at $200/hr who were paid less than $50/hr. They certainly didn't consider themselves slaves.

Back in the 90's you could have a better life with $50 an hour than today with twice that.

Re: Cuban Doctors Revolt: ‘You Get Tired of Being a Slave’

#115

Post by koonsolo »

frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #4

You know I can't really feel their plight. Take this: >Hundreds of miles away, in Minas Gerais State, Dr. Jiménez, 34, found the work rewarding, but also began to harbor feelings of resentment. “You are trained in Cuba and our education is free, health care is free, but at what price?” she said. “You wind up paying for it your whole life.” Is that not the point? The communist government allows anybody to attend their…

Do you have a shortage of toilet paper in US? If you think this question is weird, then you don't have the slightest idea of how things work in Cuba.

And if you want a proper education system, take a look at Europe.

Re: Cuban Doctors Revolt: ‘You Get Tired of Being a Slave’

#116

Post by microcolonel »

jrochkind1 wrote: post #110
microcolonel wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Seems weird to come from a country which is explicitly organized around giving everybody a chance to succeed and then upon success saying, yeah but I don't like paying for it. Succeed at what? What success do they gain from being a doctor in a country which prevents them from being rewarded for it? Their returns are fixed by the government, and even when they're working overseas (earning way more money) the governm…

> What success do they gain from being a doctor in a country which prevents them from being rewarded for it? Hmm, do you think most doctors in the U.S. are only in it for monetary rewards, and don't find any other part of the job rewarding? I don't think I want that doctor.

They're in it to have a good life. To some extent that enjoyment can come from serving patients, but they would also like to have a good life at home. Is it so much to ask that people who spend all day saving and improving lives (yes, for pay) should be paid pretty well relative to the supply?

In any walk of life in a capital system, your pay is determined by how you serve people. Doctors serve the very basis of their patients' lives.

If you can put a price on that, it should be pretty darn high.

Re: Cuban Doctors Revolt: ‘You Get Tired of Being a Slave’

#117

Post by jrochkind1 »

gozur88 wrote: post #84
notyourday wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The love of communism among those that don't live in places that tried to implement it is something that totally baffles me.

I think it's understandable. They see parts they like and either ignore or don't know about the rest. The most anti-communist places you'll find are in Eastern Europe where the old people remember going through sub-zero winters without heat.

> The most anti-communist places you'll find are in Eastern Europe

I'm not totally sure that's still true. It might be. But I think a lot of people are now nostalgic for communism after living what is apparently the alternative for them.

The most anti-communist people I know, though, are definitely some people in _the U.S._ from Eastern European countries, who moved here before or shortly after the end of communism. (I also know some people in the U.S. from Russia especially who are not particularly anti-communist. Russia definitely had it better than most other soviet bloc). (Also, the very poor seldom get to immigrate to the U.S. from Eastern Europe either before or after communism, immigrants are not a representative sample. Although I knew a lot of poor-ish undocumented immigrant Poles in Chicago in the late 90s. They weren't particularly anti-communist by and large.)

But yeah, the grass is often greener, as they say.

Re: Cuban Doctors Revolt: ‘You Get Tired of Being a Slave’

#118

Post by oh_sigh »

frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #15
influx wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet those Cuban doctors would give up their entire way of life, access to family members and the country they grew up in to move to the evil capitalist United States. Weird.

Weird how they do it after they became doctors and not before.

How many people coming over on makeshift boats do you suppose are doctors?

Re: Cuban Doctors Revolt: ‘You Get Tired of Being a Slave’

#119

Post by spraak »

jws wrote: post #65

The doctors are outraged at only getting paid 25% of their billing rate. Back in the '90s I worked with a lot of engineers billed out to customers by Digital at $200/hr who were paid less than $50/hr. They certainly didn't consider themselves slaves.

That's not a 1:1 example.

Re: Cuban Doctors Revolt: ‘You Get Tired of Being a Slave’

#120

Post by adventured »

ue_ wrote: post #97
adventured wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the American (capitalist) system in which you need to pay huge amounts for education in order to have the mere chance to get a job that's above sustenace wage You do realize that wasn't true until about 15 years ago, right? You should be asking what happened (hint: it wasn't Capitalism, it was the US Government's inflationary student loan program). Until the mid 1970s when the US Government nearly destroyed the dol…

The very fact that we are talking about student loans, inflation, destroying the dollar and income (wage-labour) means that we are talking about capitalism; though other actors within a capitalist economy by virtue of having more military or property power may influence a capitalist economy, it does not change the fact that it is a capitalist system nevertheless. Nowhere did I claim that "free market" policies led up…

> The very fact that we are talking about student loans, inflation, destroying the dollar and income (wage-labour) means that we are talking about capitalism

We're talking about government abuse of and intervention into a former Capitalist economy (which is now a heavily regulated, heavily taxed mixed economy). The US isn't even remotely close to being a free market system and hasn't been for decades. One quick check at the regulation count, the taxation system, the government involvement in every industry and segment, easily makes that point (further, take a look at the expansion of those things over the last 50 years). Where's the free market part?

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