Health care

[wdmso]

Originally Posted by Jim in CT

How many of the 49 countries that were ahead of us, have an open border with Mexico, and millions of poor blacks living in horrible poverty? Answer - zilch.

When you are Norway - a tiny, isolated nation where everyone has an oil well in their backyard, and you don't allow any immigration - it's easy, for a while at least, to score well on those surveys. We allow millions of penniless immigrants to come here, most countries don't.

Move Mexico to the southern border of any of those 49 countries, make it a wide open border, and see how that country scores in 25 years.

yea ok its the immigrant's that ruined health care you need to find a new Horse to beat

[Jim in CT]

Originally Posted by wdmso

yea ok its the immigrant's that ruined health care you need to find a new Horse to beat

Sigh...immigrants don't ruin the survey scores, but poverty does. We let a lot of poor people into our country. Most places, don't. That means if you just look at national averages, we are at a disadvantage. You need to compare apples to apples.

[JohnR]

Originally Posted by Jim in CT

Sigh...immigrants don't ruin the survey scores, but poverty does. We let a lot of poor people into our country. Most places, don't. That means if you just look at national averages, we are at a disadvantage. You need to compare apples to apples.

Yes - lets keep filling the low wage brackets with more and more low wage earners - ya know for the jobs others don't want to do - and keep growing the bottom third of the pool. There will then always be poor to champion for. Automation and AI are going to blow the whole thing open anyway and we'll have even LESS people to tax and rerdistribute.

We are out of balance now and have been for some time, this will get drastically worse in the coming 2-3 decades (plus things like GDP/unfunded liabilities) and our kids and GKs will pay for it.

[Jim in CT]

Originally Posted by JohnR

Yes - lets keep filling the low wage brackets with more and more low wage earners - ya know for the jobs others don't want to do - and keep growing the bottom third of the pool. There will then always be poor to champion for. Automation and AI are going to blow the whole thing open anyway and we'll have even LESS people to tax and rerdistribute.

We are out of balance now and have been for some time, this will get drastically worse in the coming 2-3 decades (plus things like GDP/unfunded liabilities) and our kids and GKs will pay for it.

GREAT post.

The last crisis was the subprime mortgage crisis. The next crisis will be what I call the "sovereign debt" crisis. The feds and many states, thanks to the Baby Boomers aging (and living longer) are about to be up to their eyeballs in unfunded liabilities.

Here in CT, we jacked up the income tax last year, and tax revenue collected dropped like a rock (the opposite of what the Democrats said would happen). Just at the time when we need to start paying pensions to Baby Boomers. The Dems will respond, naturally, by raising taxes more, driving more people out. In the private sector, when an entity is stuck in a self-perpetuating cycle of declining revenues and increasing costs, it is called the "death spiral", and it is a perfect term for what is happening. Very tough to get out of.

[JohnR]

Jim. It drives me n#^&#^&#^&#^&#^&g futs how exposed we are. Big picture is we are forked, little picture is we are forked.

Roll in the high drug use, major addiction, and video gamers reduced from productive society and it is an increasingly smaller pool to provide for the masses.

20TrillBaby in 12 years. Goiing to be 50 trill in the not distant future. The Perpetual Motion machine IS the debt clock.

And we'll be lucky to live through it.

[Jim in CT]

Originally Posted by JohnR

Jim. It drives me n#^&#^&#^&#^&#^&g futs how exposed we are. Big picture is we are forked, little picture is we are forked.

Roll in the high drug use, major addiction, and video gamers reduced from productive society and it is an increasingly smaller pool to provide for the masses.

20TrillBaby in 12 years. Goiing to be 50 trill in the not distant future. The Perpetual Motion machine IS the debt clock.

And we'll be lucky to live through it.

It will likely be north of 50 trillion before you and I are gone. Some legacy we are leaving for the future.

[JohnR]

Originally Posted by Jim in CT

It will likely be north of 50 trillion before you and I are gone. Some legacy we are leaving for the future.

That is the thing. At 50 trillion and such, massive debt alternatives are few: economic enslavement within the system or abolishing the monetary system and having Big Gov determine the trading standard.

StarTrek harmony it ain't going to be