Levi Bard wrote:
<snip>
>> > That's why the US has the second highest poverty rate in the developed
>> > world,
>>
>> Really? This is like comparing apples and oranges. "Poor" people in the
>> U.S. would be considered rich in any other country in the world.
>
> In terms of converted currency value of available cash, sure.
> Unfortunately, I can't use my US dollars to pay Uganda prices, so it
> really doesn't matter if I'm "richer" than someone there if they make
> 3x their cost of living, and I make 1.1x (or 0.5x) of mine.
>
Not just cash, but also assets. Poor Americans have far more in assets
than poor people in the rest of the world.
I don't know that the margin of your cash versus your cost of living is
a valid measure for the poorness of someone.
> BTW, these are UN stats. I meant to link them (
> http://hdr.undp.org/statistics/data/ )in the original post; obviously
> I forgot.
>
> There are plenty more disturbing statistics, but I tried to leave out
> the ones not semi-directly related to our government, such as the fact
> that the US has double the infant mortality rate and pre-5-year-old
> mortality rate of other developed nations.
Well, my opinion of the UN hasn't improved here. Knowing the UN as I do,
I'd consider any statistics they come out with strongly suspect. Despite
its charter, the UN has grown into a highly political and corrupt
organization, one of whose purposes is the target the U.S. Don't even
get me started on that.
<snip>
> But we *don't* have better healthcare. I personally know a dozen
> people who are in need of medical treatment that can't get it because
> their employers' insurance won't cover it (yes, they're all employed
> full time), their employers don't offer insurance, or the insurance is
> too expensive for them to pay it and still eat. And *nobody* will
> take you without insurance. In places like Sweden, Great Britain, or
> Canada, these people would just be able to walk into the doctor's
> office.
>
Anecdotal evidence doesn't prove our healthcare is better or worse. And
yes, there are places that will take you without insurance. But that's a
cottage industry for rich healthcare buyers. And public hospitals will
take you without anything; they have to.
Again, people don't flock to Canada or GB for their healthcare. They
come here. QED.
>> I'll stipulate this, though. One of the reasons we spend so much on
>> health care is because the people of the U.S. have become intensely
>> narcissistic. Remember, all those boob and face jobs are figured into
>> those health care costs. But with affluence tends to come narcissism. It
>> causes people to excessively fuss over themselves and be obsessed with
>> their looks and their health. This, in turn, tends to magnify problems
>> of health and appearance. Years ago, before health care became so
>> universal, families had their own remedies, and rarely went to see a
>> doctor. These days, people tend to see a doctor for the sniffles.
>
> Cosmetic surgery isn't classified as health care. A big reason we
> spend so much on health care here is that it's a competitive business.
What?! Competition drives prices *up*? That's the first time I've ever
heard that.
I don't actually think the healthcare industry is all that competitive.
When I go to a hospital and they want to give me an aspirin for $100,
I'm pretty sure I'm a victim of *lack* of competition. I can't say,
"Hey, that hospital over there only charges me $50 for an aspirin", and
then have them come down on the price. In fact, I think doctors have
rigged the system so that it's very uncompetitive, with the aid of
insurance companies.
And BTW, less than a hundred years ago, no one had insurance. Somehow
people struggled through regardless. But somehow in the last hundred
years, everyone *has* to have insurance. There is even discussion these
days about health care being a *right*, of all things.
Of course, in a narrow sense, this has little to do with government.
Government doesn't run the healthcare industry. They do regulate it
somewhat.
> A city that has enough people keep one MRI machine occupied maybe
> 75% of its available time has 10 of them, because every hospital has
> to have one to compete with the other hospitals. It's like that with
> lots of equipment. And the cost gets passed on to us.
>
>> > the highest economic inequality in the
>> > developed world (in the same area as Iran, Kenya, and Cambodia),
>>
>> It's called capitalism, and it's one of the faults of this system.
>> Capitalism (not just free markets) tends to produce a greater inequity
>> as time goes on. The solution to this is usually socialism. But a better
>> solution is some limits on capitalism. For example, one of the main
>> reasons your gas is so high is speculation on the futures markets.
>> People buy and sell contracts for things they never actually intend to
>> own, simply to make money. In the end, they haven't actually done
>> anything of value except siphon money off of transactions going through
>> the system. This activity adds cost to every other transaction in the
>> system. And a great many people make a great deal of money for really
>> doing nothing at all.
>
> By this reasoning, Iran, Kenya, and Cambodia (along with Senegal,
> Ghana, and Turkmenistan) would be shining examples of capitalism,
> since they have similar economic inequity rates, and other countries,
> like Japan, Denmark, Sweden, and Belgium, would be socialist regimes.
> How well does this align with reality?
>
It's not their inequities that make them capitalists. My point here is
that one of the major faults of capitalism is that it lends itself to a
class of people who drag the economy down by producing nothing of value.
Instead, the play with money, moving it around to make more of it for
themselves. The other problem with capitalism is that it tends to widen
the gap between rich and poor. Unfortunately, socialism just makes
everyone poor.
<snip>
> The government is monitoring your communications, and its rationale
> for doing so is preventing terrorism. Therefore, you must be
> considered a suspected terrorist, or they wouldn't need to monitor
> your communications.
>
I don't know that they are monitoring *my* communications. And if they
are, they will find nothing of interest. And as I mentioned, if in fact
the NSA are monitoring domestic communications, part of the reason for
this is that it's exceptionally difficult to separate one class of
traffic from all traffic.
But if spying on me will prevent 3000 more people from getting killed,
and the american economy from crashing, I'd say that's a good trade.
<snip>
>> That the government has tapped into your communications with Carnivore,
>> Echelon, et al, shouldn't particularly concern you unless you are in
>> fact engaged in illegal activities.
>
> There it is again - "if you're not doing anything wrong, why do you care?"
>
Yes, I'm aware of Ben Franklin's quote, and in general I agree. But the
fact is that the government takes advantage of technologies that weren't
available in eras past. I'd be surprised if they didn't. You simply
can't reinsert the genie into the bottle. Now, perhaps you could
advocate for a moratorium on domestic spying by entities like the NSA.
Assuming they're actually doing this. This will protect not only your
liberties, but also all the criminals and terrorists. But you may find
that when the next bomb goes off in Denver or LA, it could have been
prevented if there weren't such a moratorium. In fact, some of what
occurred on 9/11 could have been prevented had there not been an
artificially constructed wall of separation between entities like the
CIA and the FBI. Yes, they protected everyone's liberties, but at what cost?
>> The only reason it didn't happen
>> sooner is that the technology didn't exist. Once it came into existence,
>> the government (or someone else, like Google) would use it to look into
>> your business. Google keeps track of surfing habits. Tivo keeps track of
>> viewing habits. Microsoft keeps track of your hardware. Where have you
>> been? Governments tapped into deep ocean phone cables almost as soon as
>> they could be laid. Now all they have to do is point a dish up and get
>> all the data they'd like.
>
> And here I thought little things like the US Constitution were
> supposed to make a difference.
>
Heh. The Constitution says nothing at all about privacy or the right of
the government to snoop on you. The "right to privacy" was invented by a
court in order to allow women to get abortions. Whether it exists a
priori is another matter entirely. The Constitution grants no rights. It
merely designates what the Congress can and cannot do with regards to
rights already considered inalienable.
You can cite the "unreasonable search and seizure" clause, I suppose.
They you have to answer the question of what is unreasonable, and
whether I consider the same things unreasonable that you do.
>> And another point, specifically about the NSA program. This is not a new
>> capability, and has been exercised by our government for a long time,
>> through several administrations. Congress, regardless of what they say
>> now, were well informed on it. One of the problems the NSA has is that
>> it's virtually impossible to monitor phone conversations and internet
>> traffic going to or coming from overseas without also picking up
>> domestic traffic as well. Unfortunately for us, when the NSA picks up
>> domestic traffic that indicates the commission of a crime or conspiracy
>> to commit one, they must ash can it. Just because they have no brief to
>> pursue or turn it over to other governmental agencies.
>
> Because it has existed for a long time doesn't make it not wrong. I'm
> sure previous administrations attributed it to the war on communism,
> or the war on drugs. Next it will be the war on illegal immigration.
> Or maybe the war on "piracy."
>
My point here what that all of a sudden people are making this big
honking deal about something which has been going on for a long time,
and which Congress has known about for a long time. Where has everyone
been? Asleep? Judging by the weakly reasoned and patently false
arguments of congressmen who complain about this, I'm inclined to
believe this really has nothing to do with privacy, and everything to do
with politics and the desperate need of some to pull down the current
administration.
<snip>
>> You can whine and cry about the government using the technology (that
>> other entities are also using), but you're pissing in the wind. If the
>> technology exists, it will be used, both for good and evil. It so
>> happens your government is using it. So get a law passed preventing its
>> use. Of course, that doesn't mean it won't be. But the problem will be
>> that if it is used, its *benefits* can't be realized. Which is part of
>> the reason that the warning signs before 9/11, known by one part of the
>> government, couldn't be shared with another part of the government.
>> Great law.
>
> Heh, that's not the reason the government had warning signs before 9/11.
>
No, it's not the reason they have warning signs. It's the reason they
couldn't act on them.
> So, because the government is already wrong, and uses all the
> resources at its disposal to do things it's specifically forbidden to
> do, we should just quit whining about it and take it? It's already
> done, we may as well welcome our new overlords?
>
First off, the government is not using *all* its resources on this.
Second, these activities are not specifically forbidden. Which
congressmen have called for an end to the NSA spying program? Many
complaints, yes, but few or no calls to end the program. Why? Because it
isn't forbidden. If it were, believe me, there would be massive activity
to stop it.
<snip>
>
> Prepare for inconclusive ending in 3...2...1...now!
>
Nobody every wins these things. They usually just trail off. It's
unbelievably difficult to convince someone that their political beliefs
are incorrect, for a variety of reasons. I don't even know why I bother.
I guess I'm just ornery. ;-}
-- Paul M. Foster
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