We won't fully recover from this recession. Do you know why? (limitations, credit)
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
With healthcare, I dont think its necessarily, that they aren't "smart enough" to solve the problem. I think the fact is, government bureaucracy in healthcare has gotten so big and tangled, no one can wrap their mind around the problem.
How did they solve healthcare in Canada or Europe or Asia? Are they so much smarter than us? Probably not.
Our system is like a giant ball of string, tangled, wrapped in knots, about 12 or 15 feet in diameter. It'd be like trying to take a ball that big, and trying to find a single strand of string in the center.
Compared to Canada, only 35 million people.
Good point on the health care issue. I would add, though, that health care costs as a % of GDP have gone up in most countries, including Canada. See link below:
No one is going to deny that Europeans have a much smaller slice of their economy devoted to healthcare, but neither can you argue with the fact that all of their economies, individually or as a whole, as less vibrant that of the US. Even in tough times people in the US start companies, sell companies, make and lose fortunes while Europeans hang out for month long vacations, loll their way into antiquated offices, put up with ridiculous taxes, have promised retirements that they now can't be supported with their stagnant population. Oh, and they do ration care, they do not have the kinds of choice / options we do in healthcare, they have less stressful lives, so that probably helps them avoid many unhealthy conditions, but it is not like those less stressed lives are going to be first choice of many used to the US pace / consumer. They pay high prices for many things we take for granted, and get some things we pay high prices for free. Even Canada, where the urban lifestyle is most similar to the US has many differences. In the main their urban poor are less violent, less likely to be exposed to street drugs, more likely to have a decent local school. Those things come at a cost, and most it means that there are less people at the tip top of income, which is taxed much more steeply, and less business start-ups. They also lots more good jobs for low skill workers in a comparative sense. When the whole country covers area equal to the US but population is a fraction it means you need more people doing the basics...
Anyhow, I like Canada. The peaks are less high, the valleys less low. Overall not much the US can do to match, but a nice place to visit...
Yeah, I have a friend who is always extolling the virtues of Germany. Based on my recent visit there last May, I can see his point. But they also pay a 19% sales tax on everything. The cost of living there is not cheap. And while their health care system maybe be both cheaper and more effective than ours, they have much worse demographics than the US does...so their Social Security system is going to come under some terrible strains. So in most cases, I think it's a question of trading one set of problems for another.
Sorry, but I disagree. The legislators will be rebuked in the next two election cycles and freedom will return to the land of opportunity.
Americans don't like oppression.
But in most instances, the politicans are just puppets of a rich elite. I'm not saying they make no difference at all, but not as much as people think.
We have to start seeing how the elite maniulate us through the news media, the entertainment industry, promotion of impure foods, and much, much more.
You put a lot of effort into this, but not much thought. We are Americans. We have the freedom to get into debt, or not to. We also have the freedom to work ourselves out of our problems.
We have, under the last two administrations been taught to look for government to solve our problems.
The fact that you do not want "Obama bashing" speaks volumes.
Can't pay your mortgage, we'll lower your payments. Under Obama, we've become an entitlement society, which in my opinion is far worse than allowing people to fail.
The Obama policies have hurt the recovery.
Actually, the entitlement mentality goes much, much further back than the past 2 administrations. It's birth goes back at least as far as the 1930s....which means the elites were drawing up plans before then.
Did you know that there are dual-income families out there right now who make six figures yet they're struggling to make ends meet? Do you know why that is?
Ummm, yeah. It goes back to your first, (and best, imo) point, Revelated: Indulgence. Why are you contradicting yourself?
I realize 100k with kids is not a lot of money in San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York City & some other large metro areas, but even so, it's certainly middle class, even in expensive areas.
There are people at all income levels who understand the concept of saving. And there are people at all income levels who don't.
Last edited by mysticaltyger; 08-09-2010 at 02:03 AM..
Take Louisiana, it should be one of the richest states in the union with all the oil, gas, and chemical companies. The heavy tourism and fertile soil and sea food industry. Yet it is one of the poorest. Why? Louisiana doesn't charge any property taxes to these companies. So the state can't take in tax revenue.
It wouldn't have anything to do with LA being a corrupt backwater with an uneducated work force, would it?
The really scary part of this whole fiasco is that after 3 years we are basically in the same amount of trouble as when we started, nothing has been fixed. Go on the link, scroll down, and look at the chart called "de leveraging myth" and you will see that while property equity has fallen from $20 trillion to $13 trillion, loans have only fallen from $11.95 trillion to $11.68 trillion. 7 trillion in property value has been lost and practically nothing has been written down. There will be no recovery until de leveraging of the bad debt is done. The present administration has picked up where the last one left off and allowed the fraud in the banking and finance system to continue, which will only ensure the same type of slow motion depression that took place in Japan and which now threatens to place them in danger of sovereign default.
I have similar thoughts on the matter. Consumer debt has dropped....but government debt has exploded, and will continue to explode because of Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid, and now Obamacare.
The Go-Go-Nineties will be back. We did not experience enough financial pain. It will be a very slow recovery since we artificially printed our way out of this mess. Lessons learned = very minimal and the average US citizen still bases their happiness on buying stuff. I feel sorry for anyone who got burned financially. Don't worry our taxes will pay for all the bailouts. The people who were responsible made out great. We citizens are so busy living our lives we don't have time to really understand the situation or to do something about it. However, ultimately we are responsible to pay for it ALL. It's ridiculous.
Ultimately, it's the Average Joe who always pays in one form or another.
That's why it's imperative that the citizens be diligent about reining in the power of the politicians---and not letting them have that power in the first place. That's what our Founding Fathers warned us about--but as is typical, we ignored them. It becomes harder and harder to get that power back when you abdicate your personal responsibility for things and give that responsibility to politicans or some other elite instead. There's a sort of snowball effect, whereby a small ruling class accumulates more and more power with less and less effort, the way a snowball gets larger rolling downhill.
I don't think many want the extreme demographics of Utah either
Let's see...
Utah County, UT 40%+ population growth since 2000.
10% Non-farm employment growth since 2000.
= NOT sustainable
I don't know about Utah county specifically, but I read somewhere recently that the fertility rate in Utah is now only 2.6 children per woman, vs. 2 or 2.1 children in the US as a whole. So Utah's birth rate is sort of high but people seriously exaggerate it.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
