BF2S Forums Presidential Election 2016

Jay wrote:

SuperJail Warden wrote:

Jay wrote:

Oh, so we create shortages just for fun and watch people die. I really wish you had taken an economics course. You come across as incredibly stupid when you advocate stuff like this.

We effectively have single payer health insurance right now. Every detail of the plans offered by the insurance companies is dictated to them by HHS. They simply get to collect a small bit of profit in exchange for being the bad guy in the system.

Seriously, go smoke a bong and feel the Bern or something and stop posting. Ktnxbai

We already have healthcare shortages and people. If people want to get ahead of the line for services they can buy private insurance plans like they do in other countries with NHSs.

I have taken economic courses. From what I have learned, the advanced economies of the rest of the world have National Healthcare Services. Many of them with the exact same system I just described. I am sure your college courses at Naval school were better than the economic courses of the top schools in France, U.K. Austria, Japan etc. I'm sure you got some inside knowledge they don't.

When you institute price controls you create shortages. It's economics 101 stuff.

When England and the rest set up their systems they were extensions of military hospitals. Hospitals and health care for the public were new and small. It wasn't until the early 1900s that medical care became common. We've now had a century of private health care with millions of people who have a vested interest in the status quo. Do you think doctors will willingly reduce their pay from $250k a year down to the $80k ot so that doctors in the UK make? No, they'll fucking retire. Same with nurses.

Oh, and you'd need a constitutional amendment for the nationalizations. Good luck.

Dilbert_X wrote:

Nothing would need to be nationalised, derp.

They could follow the theory you throw around for other industries - set up an NHS, pay globally competitive (ie much less than the US) salaries, let anyone from anywhere in the world have free entry to the US if they have a medical degree - shortage problem solved.

The medical industry is another example of how special interest groups manipulate the 'free market'. When you can restrict the available medical training, and restrict qualified people from entering the country then it is easy to bump your salary to $250k plus. This in an industry where its been shown time and again an expert system produces much better outcomes than a GP or consultant on $250k-$1m plus.
Anecdotally all the medical professionals I've dealt with have been lazy ignorant and useless, you're better off looking stuff up in a book and arranging tests yourself.

Jay wrote:

Dilbert_X wrote:

Nothing would need to be nationalised, derp.

They could follow the theory you throw around for other industries - set up an NHS, pay globally competitive (ie much less than the US) salaries, let anyone from anywhere in the world have free entry to the US if they have a medical degree - shortage problem solved.

The medical industry is another example of how special interest groups manipulate the 'free market'. When you can restrict the available medical training, and restrict qualified people from entering the country then it is easy to bump your salary to $250k plus. This in an industry where its been shown time and again an expert system produces much better outcomes than a GP or consultant on $250k-$1m plus.
Anecdotally all the medical professionals I've dealt with have been lazy ignorant and useless, you're better off looking stuff up in a book and arranging tests yourself.

The doctors I've dealt with here are almost all on the frantic side. It's the consequence of not being a lazy unionized government employee with no incentive to see more patients than the minimum prescribed daily quota. The only time I've seen laziness was at the VA hospital where all of that applied.

Ron Paul wrote:

The Republican presidential debates have become so heated and filled with insults, it almost seems we are watching a pro wrestling match. There is no civility, and I wonder whether the candidates are about to come to blows. But despite what appears to be total disagreement among them, there is one area where they all agree. They all promise that if elected they will “rebuild the military.”

What does “rebuild the military” mean? Has the budget been gutted? Have the useless weapons programs like the F-35 finally been shut down? No, the United States still spends more on its military than the next 14 countries combined. And the official military budget is only part of the story. The total spending on the US empire is well over one trillion dollars per year. Under the Obama Administration the military budget is still 41 percent more than it was in 2001, and seven percent higher than at the peak of the Cold War.

Russia, which the neocons claim is the greatest threat to the United States, spends about one-tenth what we do on its military. China, the other “greatest threat,” has a military budget less than 25 percent of ours.

Last week the Pentagon announced it is sending a small naval force of US warships to the South China Sea because, as Commander of the US Pacific Command Adm. Harry Harris told the House Armed Services Committee, China is militarizing the area. Yes, China is supposedly militarizing the area around China, so the US is justified in sending its own military to the area. Is that a wise use of the US military?

The US military maintains over 900 bases in 130 countries. It is actively involved in at least seven wars right now, including in Iraq, Syria, Pakistan, and elsewhere. US Special Forces are deployed in 134 countries across the globe. Does that sound like a military that has been gutted?

I do not agree with the presidential candidates, but I do agree that the military needs to be rebuilt. I would rebuild it in a very different way, however. I would not rebuild it according to the demands of the military-industrial complex, which cares far more about getting rich than about protecting our country. I would not rebuild the military so that it can overthrow more foreign governments who refuse to do the bidding of Washington’s neocons. I would not rebuild the military so that it can better protect our wealthy allies in Europe, NATO, Japan, and South Korea. I would not rebuild the military so that it can better occupy countries overseas and help create conditions for blowback here at home.

No. The best way to really “rebuild” the US military would be to stop abusing the military in the first place. The purpose of the US military is to defend the United States. It is not to make the world safe for oil pipelines, or corrupt Gulf monarchies, or NATO, or Israel. Unlike the neocons who are so eager to send our troops to war, I have actually served in the US military. I understand that to keep our military strong we must constrain our foreign policy. We must adopt a policy of non-intervention and a strong defense of this country. The neocons will weaken our country and our military by promoting more war. We need to “rebuild” the military by restoring as its mission the defense of the United States, not of Washington’s overseas empire.

SuperJail Warden wrote:

Libertarians reject democracy's existence because there has never in history been a libertarian government elected to national office. The only vaguely libertarian countries were the result of social collapse. Voters do not recommend.

Dilbert_X wrote:

Again with this bi-polar thinking....

You can have regulation and democracy at the same time as self-reliance and freedom.
Maybe not America, the people are just too dumb?

uziq wrote:

Jay wrote:

Dilbert_X wrote:

Again with this bi-polar thinking....

You can have regulation and democracy at the same time as self-reliance and freedom.
Maybe not America, the people are just too dumb?

They're mutually exclusive. How can I have a regulation that imposes a tariff on all imports and maintain my freedom of choice when certain companies are favored by the scheme?

no they are not mutually exclusive. governance consists in nuance and subtle thinking, problems understood as particulars rather than generals. your moronic way of blundering from one pole to another is totalitarian and only equals one hypocritical despotism or the other. libertarianism is a pipe dream arising from muddled thinking and rash solutions to complex issues. same shit with fascism and communism. you elevate some unattainable ideal above the lived reality and concrete detail of the thing. society is not a building plan and it doesn't have a mathematical schematic.