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Workers of the world, wake up!
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/a...RTICLE_ID=43730
Workers of the world, wake up!
by Joseph Farah
Posted: April 11, 2005 1:00 a.m. Eastern
Imagine you want to buy a new car. You find the make and model you like. You're pretty certain about the color and the options. You take your choice for a test drive.
Then you get down to haggling over the price.
"Now what about the price?" you ask the salesman.
"Depends," he says. "How much money do you earn?"
"Why is that any of your business?" you respond.
"Because," he says, "the price of the car depends on your salary."
"Why?" you ask incredulously.
"Oh, yeah," he explains. "If you make $100,000 or more, you pay 50 percent more than someone who only earns say $50,000. We're now selling cars the progressive way. We use a graduated cost index � or GCI � to figure out what our customers pay."
I'm sure if this happened to you, you'd be pretty steamed. Imagine if the cost of goods was determined by a sliding scale based on what we earned. It would be outrageous, unthinkable, un-American.
Yet, why is it that we as Americans sit idly by while the federal government uses just such an unfair system of sliding scales to determine what our individual tax burdens are?
Isn't that just what the so-called "progressive" tax system is all about? Isn't that what the graduated income tax is?
In fact, the government's scam is even worse than my hypothetical. We each pay to the federal government according to what we earn. But we don't even necessarily get anything when we pay more. In fact, generally speaking, those who pay nothing or less get more under the Infernal Revenue Disservice plan.
Think about it. My hypothetical example is not so imaginative at all. Have you ever gone to the grocery store and watched the person in line ahead of you present food stamps as payment? In effect, his groceries are cheaper than yours because he earns less. You get to pay for your groceries and his � and you don't have any choice about it, not even about whether he buys groceries that are healthy for him and his family.
Until we dismantle � once and for all � the criminal tax code, more of this fraud and thievery will find its way into American life.
Why do we accept such a system as rational?
Why do we accept this as just?
Why do we accept this as legal?
Why do we accept this as moral?
Why do we accept this as inevitable?
Doesn't such a system clearly diminish our hard work? Doesn't it provide disincentives to make more money, to put capital at risk and provide jobs for others? How is any of that beneficial to society?
In other words, we accept irrational actions from the supposedly accountable government that we would never accept from private industry.
In fact, I'm sure there are laws against charging customers different prices for the same product. Yet, the government believes it has the right and the duty to charge us different amounts for goods and services we may or may not want, and to use force if necessary to extract those funds from us.
As April 15 approaches, the day all Americans think about taxes, there's a bill in Congress to scrap the 55,000-page federal tax code and abolish the Internal Revenue Service.
Rep. John Linder, R-Ga., would replace the income tax with a 23 percent national sales tax. That may be a big percentage, but it's a small price to pay for us to eliminate the intrusiveness of the income tax, which requires each of us to share the most intimate, private, personal, financial details of our lives with unseen, unnamed government bureaucrats who are supposed to be our public servants.
This is not the Soviet Union. It's the United States of America.
It's time for a change. It's time to de-Sovietize America.
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| LIBERTY, n. One of Imagination's most precious possessions. The rising People, hot and out of breath, Roared around the palace: "Liberty or death!" "If death will do," the King said, "let me reign; You'll have, I'm sure, no reason to complain." Martha Braymance |
Why is it everytime summat like this pops up its always looked upon from above. If I went to buy a car and I got it dead cheap cos I wasn't rich I'd be chuffed to bits!
Capitalist, maybe you are rich but your in the minority...
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| Think about it. My hypothetical example is not so imaginative at all. Have you ever gone to the grocery store and watched the person in line ahead of you present food stamps as payment? In effect, his groceries are cheaper than yours because he earns less. You get to pay for your groceries and his � and you don't have any choice about it, not even about whether he buys groceries that are healthy for him and his family. |
Poor poor Sammy Sosa. He really is taxed way too much to play baseball everyday, he earned every cent of the nearly $20 he earns per year and it's really beneficial to let him keep it. Warren Buffet really is hurting too, he has no money to invest back into his business.
I don't think the car analogy is good one to make, because I'm not sure who's advocating progrssive prices for automobiles. Us lefties are concerned with ensuring people have minimal access to food, shelter, healthcare and education. I still would like to know how it is more efficient to have more money in Sammy Sosa's bank account, not doing anything, than making sure working families at least get enough to live on. Just because someone makes a lot of money does not mean that they are reinvesting it into markets or using capital to promote growth of the economy. The rich tend to save more money, while people with little tend to spend it, hence reinvesting into companies.
Less taxes for everyone would be great, let's start by cutting the bloated defense budget, which we spend more on than any other country in the world. We can't even identify what happend to over $9 billion in Iraq and if we didn't have progressive taxation the overall cost for Iraq would be somewhere approaching $6,000 for a family of 4. Hmm,that would further help break apart the family structure, as kids spend even less time with their parents, eh? (see the gay marriage thread) Maybe make sure companies pay taxes rather than constantly finding every loophole possible if we're going to place an even greater burden on those with the least?
Since it's always great in every case to give more capital with those who earn the most, why don't we just have regressive taxation?
I'm all in favor of cutting taxes for everyone, but it's kind of difficult right now, when we owe massive debt and we continue to spend money on "promoting freedom" abroad, pork barrel spending or faith-based initiatives, going almost exclusively to Evangelical groups. Where is all that money going to come from if taxes were to be drastically cut for the upper class? It's very inaccurate to put the blame social programs and the poor for everything, since they're not the biggest expenditure we're "wasting" money on and there are benefits that come from investing in them.
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| Think about it. My hypothetical example is not so imaginative at all. Have you ever gone to the grocery store and watched the person in line ahead of you present food stamps as payment? In effect, his groceries are cheaper than yours because he earns less. You get to pay for your groceries and his � and you don't have any choice about it, not even about whether he buys groceries that are healthy for him and his family. |
Re: Workers of the world, wake up!
You really seem to have a vitriol toward the poor, dear Capitalizt. You really honestly think they're all just lazy fucks who'd love nothing but to live off of welfare? It just seems to be the reoccurring theme in the majority of your posts. But let's just take Linder's example of 23% in the most basic terms and see who really gets hit here. First a guy who earns 20K:
23% of 20K = $4600, giving that guy a total of $15,400, before payroll taxes and insurance (if he can even afford it). Now try and live off of 15.4K in today's world anywhere and see just how far you get.
Contrast that with a guy who earns 2 million. 23% of 2 million is $460,000. No chump change, to be sure, but that leaves him with $1.54 million left before payroll and insurance (and I'm pretty sure he can afford it). Now we must also take into account how many folks who make this much also have a great deal of $ lined up in the stock market, and make a pretty hefty amount on interest alone, let alone dividends (since we're no longer taxing that). Does the 23% cover this? I honestly don't know, but what I do know is I won't pity the man too much for his $1.54 million he's able to keep and somehow, some way able to "get by". Call me cruel, but I think he'll survive okay.
So it's pretty clear who gets hurt the most by such regressive tax schemes, and who's $ value clearly gets crunched the most. If you agree to such a scheme, my only question is - why do you hate the poor so much?
But let's be real here, in present-day terms with the gigantic debt that YOUR president created with his HUGE tax cuts that he wants to go on forever, someone has to generate the revenue lost by those tax cuts. By adding such a scheme in the mix, whom do you think will pay for that lost revenue?
(Hint: it's not the upper class)
Yep, it is the middle class - and we're already seeing this occur with this Administration doing a splendid job ignoring the Alternative Minimum Tax that's slowly engulfing more and more of the middle class:
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| April 10, 2005 ECONOMIC VIEW A Tax Increase That Bush Didn't Mention By EDMUND L. ANDREWS WASHINGTON CYNICS have long predicted that the Bush administration, plagued by budget deficits, will eventually start raising taxes. But now it is becoming clear how it would do so: the alternative minimum tax. Baffling in its complexity and often bizarre in its impact, the alternative minimum tax is a giant undeclared tax increase that will ensnare tens of millions of moderate-income families in the next several years. It was created in 1969 to prevent the very rich from using tax deductions to avoid paying a fair share of taxes. But when the deadline for filing income tax returns arrives on Friday, the alternative minimum tax will require 2.9 million families to pay an average of about $6,000 more than what they would owe under traditional calculations That is just the start. If current law remains unchanged, the alternative minimum tax is expected to wring an extra $33.9 billion from 18 million households in 2006. In 2010, it will rake in an additional $100 billion, and by 2015 an extra $200 billion. Make no mistake: no one says they want that to happen. But it is one thing to rein in or eliminate the tax itself, and an entirely different matter to give up the money that it would generate. President Bush has promised to fix the alternative minimum tax as part a fundamental overhaul of the tax code, and he has ordered a bipartisan advisory panel to come up with recommendations by the end of July. But in giving the panel its marching orders, White House officials made it clear that they are counting on the extra money regardless of what happens to the alternative tax. Under the president's instructions, the panel's recommendations on addressing the alternative minimum tax are supposed to be "revenue neutral," neither raising nor lowering taxes, and to assume that his income-tax cuts will be made permanent rather than expire in 2010, as required under current law. Making those ordinary income-tax cuts permanent would reduce the amount of available revenue by about $1.8 trillion over 10 years. But White House officials told the panel that any change to reduce or eliminate the alternative minimum tax would have to be offset by higher taxes someplace else. "My understanding is that any reform in the A.M.T. that loses money would have to be made up with offsetting revenue," said Elizabeth Garrett, a panel member and a professor of law at the University of Southern California. Jeffrey F. Kupfer, executive director of the tax panel and a former Treasury official, confirmed that interpretation. "Our mandate is to be revenue-neutral, and we are interpreting that with respect to the president's policy baseline, which does not include a permanent fix to the A.M.T.," he said in an interview last week. Tax experts have long complained that the alternative minimum tax is a "stealth tax increase," one that Congress never intended and that is likely to catch millions of taxpayers by surprise. But a tax increase through tax reform could be even stealthier. If the alternative tax is reduced, the offsetting revenue increases are likely to be buried in so many other changes that most people would never know what hit them. Seen or unseen, the looming tax increases are almost as large as the president's tax cuts. Leonard E. Burman, a senior fellow at the Urban Institute, estimated that the government would have to raise ordinary income tax rates substantially in every bracket to offset the money lost in each bracket by the elimination of the alternative minimum tax. People in today's 28 percent bracket, for example, would have to pay a top rate of 35 percent. Those who now pay a top rate of 33 percent would pay 41.4 percent. "The A.M.T. is a huge tax increase built into current law," Mr. Burman said. "What the current law assumes is that over time we move to a tax that is much less progressive, that has atrocious marriage penalties and penalizes people with children who live in high-tax states." Taylor Griffin, a spokesman for the Treasury Department, said the administration's goal was to prevent a hidden tax increase by replacing the alternative tax with something that was easier to understand and more predictable. "What we are trying to do is prevent a stealth tax that sneaks up on you," he said. "If we don't do something, millions of Americans will be facing unanticipated tax increases." The alternative minimum tax is similar in some ways to a flat tax that blocks people from using most of the big deductions that reduce their taxable income under the normal rules. A married couple with a gross income of $100,000, for example, must first calculate its tax bill the traditional way, then again under the A.M.T. In the alternative calculation, the couple gets to exclude $58,000 from taxation, but it must also strip out all the personal exemptions and most itemized deductions. The prohibited deductions include those for state and local taxes, medical expenses, employee business expenses and interest on home-equity loans. The A.M.T. would then apply a flat tax of 26 percent (28 percent for couples who earn more than $175,000). The couple must pay whichever is higher, the tax calculated under the traditional method or the one under the A.M.T. The huge looming tax increase is caused by two things. The first is that the exclusion level for the alternative minimum tax is not adjusted for inflation, so the tax affects more people each year as nominal incomes go up. The second, paradoxically, stems from Mr. Bush's tax cuts of 2001 and 2003. Those cuts reduced regular tax rates at all income levels but did not change the alternative minimum tax. At the same time, some of the cuts came in the form of expanded deductions - the child tax credit, child care tax credits and bigger exemptions for married couples - that are not allowed under the alternative formula. The effect of making Mr. Bush's ordinary income tax cuts permanent would be significant. Mr. Burman, at the Urban Institute, estimated that the alternative minimum tax would generate about $69.2 billion in extra tax revenue in 2015 if the president's income tax cuts expired on schedule. But if the White House persuaded Congress to make the cuts permanent, the alternative minimum tax would raise a staggering $200.8 billion in that one year. If the A.M.T. itself is pared back, how would that tax increase show up in practice? The possibilities are almost limitless, from higher tax rates for everybody to the abolition of popular tax deductions. Administration officials are almost certain to insist that any tax reform result in lower tax rates and fewer deductions. Many Republicans long for a flat tax or a national sales tax, but that would mean abolishing or reducing sacred cows like the tax deduction for mortgage interest. A potential trade-off, but a politically explosive one, would be to eliminate deductions for state and local taxes, which cost the Treasury about $40 billion a year and are a big reason that many people become subject to the alternative tax. But getting rid of those deductions would cause howls of protest in Democratic-leaning states like New York and California, which tend to have above-average tax burdens. Thus far, the issues have been so tangled and vexing that both the White House and Congress have simply opted to block increases in the alternative minimum tax with one-year and two-year patches. But that will become expensive. By about 2008, Mr. Burman estimates, the alternative minimum tax will generate so much money that it would be cheaper to abolish the regular income tax. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/10/b...ney/10view.html |
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| I still would like to know how it is more efficient to have more money in Sammy Sosa's bank account, not doing anything, than making sure working families at least get enough to live on. |
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| Originally posted by Capitalizt Wow man, I thought you knew at least a little something about economics before I saw this. The money sitting in Sosa's bank account ENSURES that many people put food on their table. It provides capital for entrepreneurs to start small businesses and for people to buy homes. And to the rest of you folks...Let's be clear, I don't hate the poor. I make $9.24 an hour myself, but I do believe a progressive/socialist tax system does far more damage to our economy than any amount of left wing social programs can cancel out. I think we need a low flat rate tax on everyone. Success should NOT be considered a sin, and dependancy should not be rewarded/encouraged by generous benefits. Maybe that's asking too much in the "land of the free". |
Isn't that headline a registered trademark of communism?
Where will we cut? Let's start with ending ALL federal subsidies to corporations, farmers, big unions, and every other special interest group in the country. That will knock about 10% off our $2.5 trillion budget right there.
And I have no problem with an emergency safety net for the truly needy...those disabled or unable to work for legitimate reasons, but I do think would be better administered on the local level by states, not the federal government where it is clearly unconstitutional.
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| Originally posted by Capitalizt Wow man, I thought you knew at least a little something about economics before I saw this. The money sitting in Sosa's bank account ENSURES that many people put food on their table. It provides capital for entrepreneurs to start small businesses and for people to buy homes. |
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I still would like to know how it is more efficient to have more money in Sammy Sosa's bank account, not doing anything, than making sure working families at least get enough to live on. |
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| You get to pay for your groceries and his � and you don't have any choice about it, not even about whether he buys groceries that are healthy for him and his family. |
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| Originally posted by zig And you want to be the food police as well..... |
Wolverine, when you say this:
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| I still would like to know how it is more efficient to have more money in Sammy Sosa's bank account, not doing anything, than making sure working families at least get enough to live on. |
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| Originally posted by Shakka Wolverine, when you say this: It's not that I disagree that Sammy's money may or may not be doing anything better than anyone elses' bank account. The problem, IMO, with this line of reasoning is that you completely ignore the fact that it's SAMMY's money. He made it, he earned it, it's his to do whatever he likes with, whether that be buying more bling and steroids, sending more money back to the Dominican Republic, or using it for firewood. I believe that you assume all wealth belongs to the government to distribute as it sees fit, whereas I see all wealth as an asset created and owned by the people who do the work to create said wealth. It's not that Sammy makes too much money, it's that we place too much value on baseball as an entertainment outlet, therefore directly favoring those who have worked their entire lives to be good at baseball and are fortunate enough that Americans place such a high dollar value on it and are willing to pay so much to see him hit the ball 450 feet. What about my right to do what I want with my money? This discussion is really making me feel like you want people to be shackled by the yoke of government...starts to lean towards communism/socialism, IMO. Again, I contend that wealth is not owned by the government(it sure as hell wasn't created by the government!) and therefore, the government technically and has no right to lay a hand on it, let alone redistribute it at their will as they best see fit. However, in the end, I recognize that the government does provide public goods like highways, radio, network TV, defense, etc, not to mention organizational structure, so I reluctantly am willing to part with a certain percentage of my own hard earned wealth to cover those expenses. I also realize that government is the only entity with a legal(questionable!) monopoly on the use of force. I disagree with entitlements and redistribution of income, but at the same time, I am willing to accept a certain degree of "necessary evil". However, I think that we are currently well past what I consider to be an acceptable level. Our society has spiralled out of control with its "entitlement" mentality and the fact that I work the better part of 4 months out of every year for the government before I ever get to keep what's rightfully mine is pretty shitty. I do pity those who are less fortunate, but I do not see any "categorical or moral imperatives" that would dictate I am wholly responsible for the welfare of other people, or that they somehow have a rightful claim to my earnings before I, the creator of said wealth, have any access to it myself. |
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| Originally posted by wolverine16 An important other thing to note is that far more than 90% of welfare beneficiaries have children. |
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| Originally posted by wolverine16 I recognize where you're coming and I have no vendetta against Sammy Sosa, other than his outburst with the Cubs last year, but the thing is high taxation is not really due the "welfare queens", especially since the passage of welfare reform in the 90's. I agreed with aspects of that reform and don't think people should be rewarded for not wanting to work. At the same time, while capitalism has many good qualities, the fact there is the "working poor" is certainly a flaw. That I think it is suitable for society to ensure that all productive members reach the poverty line and earn at least a minimal amount to live on. The bottom line is tax revenue has to come from somewhere and if a flat tax were to go into effect, cutting entitlements are not going to resolve the difference. So then what do we do if we are not to further go into debt? I would add that welfare programs are often used by people temporarily to help them get back on their feet and eventually they do. It is not just that there is a class of lazy people that live well off everyone else, many people need to support their families in hard times. I would reference back to the bankruptcy statistics that show more than half of all bankruptcies extend from illness. An important other thing to note is that far more than 90% of welfare beneficiaries have children. |
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| Originally posted by ogvh5150 Yellow highlights: Introducing Karl Marx, the father of communism: "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need". This is where your rhetoric comes from. White highlights: Numbers. Show numbers from any sources you are referencing to. Just saying what you're saying is not a basis for fact. |
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| Originally posted by wolverine16 -Socialism and communism are very different things. Also, how is saying I agree with parts of welfare reform that passed Marxist in any way? Link I often post in this forum during the day from work, so I normally don't spend as much time citing sources as others, but I didn't make this up. This one in particular I didn't think I needed to cite, since I had just made the linked thread about the issue a few weeks ago. The % of welfare recipients # comes from a book called "Why Americans Hate Welfare : Race, Media, and the Politics of Antipoverty Policy (Studies in Communication, Media, and Public Opinion)" by Martin Gilens, which you can find on Amazon. The 90% figure alone was just single mothers, so even a greater percentage had children. Now where's the figures that show that when you take into account defense spending, the EPA, FBI, FDA, Social Security, medicare, interest on the national debt, pork barrell spending, education, election funds, etc. that it is means tested programs paid for those unwilling to work that are the reason that our taxes are high? |
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| Originally posted by wolverine16 I agreed with aspects of that reform and don't think people should be rewarded for not wanting to work. |
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| Originally posted by wolverine16 That I think it is suitable for society to ensure that all productive members reach the poverty line and earn at least a minimal amount to live on. |
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| Originally posted by Karl Marx "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need" |
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| Originally posted by CONSTITUTION (FUNDAMENTAL LAW) OF THE UNION OF SOVIET SOCIALIST REPUBLICS As Amended to January 1, 1964 http://www.psr.keele.ac.uk/docs/ussr64.htm Article 12 Work in the U.S.S.R. is a duty and a matter of honour for every able-bodied citizen, in accordance with the principle: "He who does not work, neither shall he eat." The principle applied in the U.S.S.R. is that of socialism: "From each according to his ability, to each according to his work." |
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| Originally posted by ogvh5150 There is no economic difference between socialism and communism. Both terms, socialism and communism, denote the same system of society�s economic organization, i.e., public control of all the means of production as distinct from private control of the means of production, namely capitalism. The two terms, socialism and communism, are synonyms. The document which all Marxian socialists consider as the unshakable foundation of their creed is called the Communist Manifesto. On the other hand, the official name of the communist Russian empire is Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R.). Ludwig van Mises On your next question: and From this: And this: |
I smell sarcasm.
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| Originally posted by wolverine16 I wasn't aware that Sweden, Norway, Canada, Germany or many others like them are communist countries, but apparently there's no difference and I'm really advocating bringing back the U.S.S.R. because I advocate national healthcare! By the way national healthcare would have quite a number of benefits for businesses as well in comparison to the current HMO system. |
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Canadians Dissatisfied With Socialized Medicine American for-profit health care would come to Alberta, Canada, under a proposal from Premier Ralph Klein. To reduce waiting lists at hospitals, he would let the provincial government pay private clinics to perform surgery, such as hip replacements. The widely discussed plan points out the growing discontent with socialized medicine in Canada. A survey by Toronto-based Polara showed:
Over the last 30 years, say critics, Canada's socialized health care system -- known as medicare -- has destroyed what was arguably the second-best health care system in the world, next to the U.S. Rationing of health care by waiting is becoming increasingly common, and there are shortages of hospital rooms and doctors. For instance, Ontario recently conceded it needs an additional 1,000 doctors, and according to the New York Times, 23 of Toronto's 25 hospitals had to turn away ambulances one day in January. Finally, an official at Vancouver General Hospital estimates that 20 percent of heart attack patients, who should be treated in 15 minutes, are waiting an hour or more for care. Source: Editorial, "Tired of Socialized Medicine," Investor's Business Daily, January 26, 2000. http://www.ncpa.org/pi/health/pd012600d.html |
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| Socialized Health-Care Nightmare Published in The Freeman: Ideas on Liberty - November 1994 by Yuri N. Maltsev and Louise Omdahl Printable Format Dr. Maltsev gained his insight as an adviser to the last Soviet government on issues of social policy, including health care, and as a patient in the system. He teaches at Carthage College in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Louise Omdahl, a nursing educator and manager, is actively involved in humanitarian assistance through nursing contacts in Russia and has visited numerous Russian health-care facilities. In 1918, the Soviet Union� s universal �cradle-to-grave� health-care coverage, to be accomplished through the complete socialization of medicine, was introduced by the Communist government of Vladimir Lenin. �Right to health� was introduced as one of the �constitutional rights� of Soviet citizens. Other socioeconomic �rights� on the �mass-enticing� socialist menu included the right to vacation, free dental care, housing, and a clean and safe environment. As in other fields, the provision of health care was planned and delivered through a special ministry. The Ministry of Health, through its regional Directorates of Health, would pool and distribute centrally provided resources for delivery of medical and sanitary services to the entire population. The �official� vision of socialists was clean, clear, and simple: all needed care would be provided on an equal basis to the entire population by the state-owned and state-managed health industry. The entire cost of medical services was socialized through the central budget. The advantages of this system were proclaimed to be that a fully socialized health-care system elimi nates �waste� that stems to �unnecessary duplication and parallelism� (i.e., competition) while providing full coverage of all health-care problems from birth until death. But as we have learned from our own separate experiences, the Russian health care system is neither modern nor efficient. In contrast to the impression created by the liberal American media, health-care institutions in Russia were at least fifty years behind the average U.S. level. Moreover, the filth, odors, cats roaming the halls, and absence of soap and cleaning supplies added to an overall impression of hopelessness and frustration which paralyzed the system. The part of Russia�s GNP destined for medical needs is negligible[1] and, according to our estimates; is less than 2.5 percent (compared to 14 percent in the United States, 11 percent in Canada, 8 percent in the U.K., etc.). Polyclinics and hospitals in big cities have extremely large numbers of beds allotted for patients reflecting typical megalomania of bureaucratic planning. The number of beds in big cities would usually range from 800 to 5,000 beds. Despite the difference in average length of stay, less than one-half were utilized. In the United States hospital stays for surgery are three to seven days; in Russia stays average three weeks. American mothers typically leave the hospital a day or two after giving birth. New mothers in Russia remain for at least a week. It was explained that the length of stay was necessary due to unavailability of follow-up care after hospitalization. A physician was reluctant to discharge a patient before the majority of healing had occurred. In addition, there was no financial incentive for early discharge, as reimbursement was directly related to number of �patient-days,� not the necessity for those days. Scarce Supplies, Inadequate Personnel Supplies are painstakingly scarce�surgeries at a major trauma-emergency center in Moscow that we observed had no oxygen supply for an entire floor of operating rooms. Monitoring equipment consisted of a manual blood pressure cuff, no airway, and no central monitoring of the heart rate. Intravenous tubing was in such poor condition that it had clearly been reused many times. The surgeon�s gloves were also reused and were so stretched that they slid partially off during the surgery. Needles for suturing were so dull that it was difficult to penetrate the skin. All of this took place in 95 degree F temperature with unscreened windows open; though the hospital was built less than twenty years ago, there was no air conditioning. Utilization of medical/nursing personnel was very different from our model. The ratio of nurses to patients in the ordinary hospitals was 1 to 30, compared to 1 to 5 in the United States. Duties of the nurse ranged from housekeeping to following medical orders. When asked for her �best nurse,� a head nurse in Moscow helped a young woman up from scrubbing the floor. Five minutes later she was practicing intravenous insertions with equipment donated by us. Both of these functions were in her �job description,� however unofficial that may be. Nurses are unlicensed and are not considered an independent profession in Russia. As a result, all their duties are delegated, with assessment and most documentation completed by physicians. The education of nurses occurs at an age comparable to the last two to three years of American high school.[2] Nurses are educated by physicians, not other nurses. A separate body of scientific knowledge in nursing does not exist. The role of a patient advocate, heavily assumed by nurses in the United States was distinctly lacking in Russia. Nurses were subjugated to medical bureaucracy. Patients� rights and patients� privacy were all but ignored. There is no legal mechanism to protect patients from malpractice. To our amazement we were asked to photograph freely in patient-care settings without seeking patient consent. Patient education and informed consent were dismissed by the socialized system as an unnecessary increase in time and the cost of care. If the society does not respect individual rights in general, it would not do it in hospitals. The Russian medical oath protects the �good of the people,� not necessarily the �good of the person.�[3] Apathy and Irresponsibility Widespread apathy and low quality of work paralyzed the health-care system in the same way as all other sectors of Russian economy. Irresponsibility, expressed by a popular Russian saying (�They pretend they are paying us and we pretend we are working.�) resulted in the appalling quality of the �free� services, widespread corruption, and loss of life. According to official Russian estimates, 78 percent of all AIDS victims in Russia contracted the virus through dirty needles or HIV-tainted blood in the state-run hospitals. To receive minimal attention by doctors and nursing personnel the patient was supposed to pay bribes. Dr. Maltsev witnessed a case when a �non-paying� patient died trying to reach a lavatory at the end of the long corridor after brain surgery. Anesthesia usually would �not be available� for abortions or minor ear, nose, throat, and skin surgeries, and was used as a means of extortion by unscrupulous medical bureaucrats. Being a People�s Deputy in the Moscow region in 1987-89, Dr. Maltsev received many complaints about criminal negligence, bribes taken by medical apparatchiks, drunken ambulance crews, and food poisoning in hospitals and child-care facilities. Not surprisingly, government bureaucrats and Communist party officials as early as 1921 (two years after Lenin�s socialization of medicine) realized that the egalitarian system of health care is good only for their personal interest as providers, managers, and rationers, but not as private users of the system. So, in all countries with socialized medicine we observe a two-tier system�one for the �gray masses,� and the other, with a completely different level of service for the bureaucrats and their intellectual servants. In the USSR it was often the case that while workers and peasants would be dying in the state hospitals, the medicines and equipment which could save their lives were sitting unused in the nomenklatura system.[4] A �Privileged Class�? Western admirers of socialism would praise Russia for its concern with the planned� scientific� approach to childbearing and care of children. �There is only one privileged class in Russia�children,� proclaimed Clementine Churchill on her visit to a showcase Stalinist kindergarten in Moscow in 1947. The real �privileged class�-Stalin�s nomenklatura�were so pleased with the wife of the �chief imperialist� Winston Churchill that they awarded her with an �Order of the Red Banner.� Facts, however, testify to the opposite of Mrs. Churchill�s opinion. The official infant mortality rate in Russia is more than 2.5 times as large as in the United States and more than five times that of Japan. The rate of 24.5 deaths per 1,000 live births was questioned recently by several deputies to the Russian Parliament who claim that it is seven times higher than in the United States. This would make the Russian death rate 55 compared to the U.S. rate of 8.1 percent per 1,000 live births. In the rural regions of Sakha, Kalmykia, and Ingushetia, the infant mortality rate is close to 100 per 1,000 births, putting these regions in the same category as Angola, Chad, and Bangladesh. Tens of thousands of infants fall victim to influenza every year, and the proportion of children dying from pneumonia is on the increase. Rickets, caused by a lack of vitamin D and unknown in the rest of the modern world, is killing many young people.[5] Uterine damage is widespread, thanks to the 7.3 abortions the average Russian woman undergoes during childbearing years. After seventy years of socialist economizing, 57 percent of all Russian hospitals do not have running hot water, while 36 percent of hospitals located in rural areas of Russia do not have water or sewage. Isn�t it amazing that socialist governments, while developing sophisticated systems of weapons and space exploration would completely ignore basic human needs of their citizens?�It was no secret that on many occasions in the past 70 years, workers� health had been sacrificed to the needs of the economy�although the cost of treating the resulting diseases had eventually outweighed the supposed gains,�[6] stated Russian State Public Health Inspector E. Belyaev. Man-made ecological disasters like catastrophes at nuclear power stations near Chelyabinsk and then Chernobyl, the literal liquidation of the Aral Sea, serious contamination of the Volga River, Azov Sea and great Siberian rivers, have made unbearable the quality of life both in the major cities and the countryside. According to Alexei Yablokov, the Minister for Health and Environment of the Russian Federation, 20 percent of the people live in �ecological disaster zones,� and an additional 35-40 percent in �ecologically unfavorable conditions.�[7] As a sad legacy of the socialist experiment, we observe a marked decline in the population of Russia and experts predict a continuation of this trend through the end of the century. From Russian State Statistical Office data, it appears that in 1993 there were 1.4 million births and 2.2 million deaths. Because of inward migration of Russians from the �near abroad��former �republics� of the Soviet empire, the net fall in population was limited to 500,000. The dramatic rise in mortality and significant decline in fertility is attributed primarily to the appalling quality of health services, and the deteriorating environment. The head of the Department of Human Resources reckons that the fertility index will remain at around 1.5 until the end of the century, whereas an index of 2.11 would be necessary to maintain the present population.[8] But, �the only lesson of history is that it does not teach us anything� says a popular Russian aphorism. Despite the obvious collapse of socialist medicine in Russia, and its bankruptcy everywhere else, it is still alive and growing in the United States. It possesses a mortal danger to freedom, health, and the quality of life for us and generations to come. Incentives Matter The chief reason for the dire state of the Russian health-care system is the incentive structure based on the absence of property rights. The current lack of goods and education within health care has caused Russians to look to the United States for assistance and guidance. In 1991 Yeltsin signed into law a Proposal for Insurance Medicine.[9] The intent is to privatize the health- care system in the long run and decentralize medical control. �The private ownership of hospitals and other units is seen as a critical determining factor of the new system of �insurance� medicine.�[10] It is moving to the direction the United States is leaving�less government control over health care. While national licensing and accreditation within health-care professions and institutions are still lacking in Russia, they are needed for self-governance as opposed to central government control. Decay and the appalling quality of services is characteristic of not only �barbarous� Russia and other Eastern European nations, it is a direct result of the government monopoly on health care. In �civilized� England, for example, the waiting list for surgery is nearly 800,000 out of a population of 55 million. State of the art equipment is non-existent in most British hospitals. In England only 10 percent of the health-care spending is derived from private sources. Britain pioneered in developing kidney dialysis technology, and yet the country has one of the lowest dialysis rates in the world. The Brookings Institution (hardly a supporter of free markets) found 7,000 Britons in need of hip replacement, between 4,000 and 20,000 in need of coronary bypass surgery, and some 10,000 to 15,000 in need of cancer chemotherapy are denied medical attention in Britain each year.[11] Age discrimination is particularly apparent in all government-run or heavily regulated systems of health care. In Russia patients over 60 years are considered worthless parasites and those over 70 years are often denied even elementary forms of the health care. In the U.K., in the treatment of chronic kidney failure, those who were 55 years old were refused treatment at 35 percent of dialysis centers. At age 65, 45 percent at the centers were denied treatment, while patients 75 or older rarely received any medical attention at these centers. In Canada, the population is divided into three age groups�below 45; 45-65; and over 65, in terms of their access to health care. Needless to say, the first group, who could be called the �active taxpayers,� enjoy priority treatment. Socialized medicine creates massive government bureaucracies, imposes costly job-destroying mandates on employers to provide the coverage, imposes price-controls which will inevitably lead to shortages and poor quality of service. It could lead to non-price rationing (i.e., based on political considerations, corruption, and nepotism) of health care by government bureaucrats. Socialized medical systems have not served to raise general health or living standards anywhere. There is no analytical reason or empirical evidence that would lead us to expect it to do so. And in fact both analytical reasoning and empirical evidence point to the opposite conclusion. But the failure of socialized medicine to raise health and longevity has not affected its appeal for politicians, administrators, and intellectuals, that is, for actual or potential seekers of power. [] 1. Pavel D. Tichtchenko and Boris G. Yudin, �Toward a Bioethics in Post-Communist Russia,� Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics, No. 4, 1992, p. 296. 2. C. Fleischman and V. Lubamudrov, �Heart to Heart: Teaching Pediatric Cardiology and Cardiac Surgery to Nurses in St. Petersburg, Russia,� Journal of Pediatric Nursing, Vol. 8, No. 2, April, 1993, p. 135. 3. Pavel D. Tichtchenko and Boris G. Yudin, �Toward a Bioethics in Post-Communist Russia,� Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics, No. 4, 1992, p. 298. 4. Here in the United States the system of fully socialized medicine is not yet complete, but we already observe the �parallel� system of health care for bureaucrats who enjoy coverage practically unseen in the private sector. Referring to this system, Dr. Stuart Butler of the Heritage Foundation remarked: �Why reinvent the wheel? If a working health-care system already exists, that�s good enough for official Wash-ington, why not to use it as our model, improve upon it and let the rest of America enjoy the same kind of program as members of Congress and Clinton�s White House staff,� Heritage Today, Winter 1994, p. 4. 5. N. Eberstadt, The Poverty of Communism {New Brunswick: Transaction Books, 1990), p. 14-15. 6. The Lancet, Vol. 337, June 15, 1991, p. 1469. 7. The Economist, November 4, 1989, p. 24. 8. Radio Free Europe-Radio Liberty Daily Report, Feb-mary 16, 1994. 9. George Schieber, �Health Care Financing Reform in Russia and Ukraine,� Health Affairs, Supplement 1993, p. 294. 10. Michael Ryan, �Health Care in Moscow, British Medical Journal, Vol. 307, September 1993,� p. 782. 11. Joseph L. Bast, Richard C. Rue, and Stuart A. Wes-bury, Jr., Why We Spend Too Much on Health Care and What We Can Do About It (Chicago: The Heartland Institute, 1993), p. 101. http://www.fee.org/vnews.php?nid=3032 |
Okay first of all there isn't a difference between communism and socialism. In the economic world they are banned together to be called Command. Somebody or some system is advocating or becoming more command or more market oriented. What's the best way to demonstrate this? Well lets say some marxist representatives actually get elected, but instead of having absolute power like is marxist countries they have to run things through legislatively. So what would the Marxist party first try to accomplish? The first target is always most likely national healthcare. They would try to implement a nationalized healthcare for the country, then from there to huge taxes on the wealthy to provide welfare to the poor. If a communist party was in power instead of a labor, liberal, democrat party, they would do the exact same measures. Why is this? Because it is all command economy--the government is controlling more of the private sector=command economy which is communism, socialism, leftism, etc. Less government control and more private sector control=market economy oriented which is capatalism, conservatism, republicanism, libertarianism, etc.
Now as far as taxes go I am going to borrow this from somebody else. If you want somebody else to come and pay for your parents retirement, your healthcare cost, etc. why don't you try walking down the street and asking all your neighbors to give you money so you don't have to pay for those things. But you wont do that why? Because you know they wont give you any money so you have to go find some government official that has the crushers to force people to pay for your bs when you should pay for your own damn healthcare and either pay for your parents yourselves or how about maybe they should have actually've planned ahead and saved themselves.
Okay if their is one thing that you left should take from this though, is rejection of the idea that we leave the rich with more and poor with less. That is the biggest crock that is ever shot out from the left that we hear. Now we are interested in economic growth okay and that does more for the poor than any bs social program could ever do with any amount of money.
So how do I illustrate this? Okay lets go back 50 years ago, what did the poor have back then? The poverty level back was pretty much if you don't live on the street you are not in poverty(for the most part). Now poverty is considered living in either an apartment or an old tiny house, you have maybe 1 car, you never go hungry, etc. Astonishingly this is pretty much middle class in Europe(hahaha socialists thats what you get for ignoring economics). So we see here that growth has ellevated the poor in great detail in the U.S.
Economics is a science that people spend their lives on. It's soul purpose is to advance everybody in an economies standards of living past what they were after faster rates, etc. then before. THIS INCLUDES THE POOR. Now I have also come to figure out that the United States could be within the next 40 years or so, could be overtaken by an economy that really isn't its own country at all. This place is Hong Kong a small spik of land and a few islands that have no natural resources and the only thing that it has thats good is a nice harbor. And because of an income tax rate less than %20 percent, no welfare state, no socialized medicine, etc. this little miniscule spik of land is an economic giant that beats any European economy and is about to overtake the United States, its that good. Now you leftists try to explain that one. If that doesn't show that market economics work than I don't know what does. If you can't realize, "Gee maybe we could be wrong about this whole welfare, socialized medicine thing." Then there is no hope for ever convincing you guys into anything else when there is any amount of evidence in front of your face. Thats just it the only closed minded people I meet are liberals and I suggest you break the stereotype.
Oh by the way, but many you guys and I think also many on our side don't know this either, but this shit has already been proven. We have had tons of our economic theories 50 years ago become law in the last 30-40 years. For example, Gammonds Law is probably the economic equivalent to E=MC^2 because of the truth of this law and its essence as it pertains to policy. This one is kind of earth shattering to liberals because it actually proved that a growing government has an automatic destructive effect on the economy, and every sector(including the poor) of an economy. It proved that for x amount dollars taken in by a government from the private sector it will provide a fraction of that back in services to the people, and for the same amount of money that fraction will continue to get smaller and smaller, hence you have government required to come back and ask for more money later, every single time for every sector just to keep operating at the same level. Not only did it prove the fact that this does happen it also proved along with it by how much i.e. in terms of input(tax revenue) and output(services provided)
Law of comparative advantage proves free trade. This one I'll demonstrate. The T.V. industry goes down to Mexico for manufacturing okay. Now because of cheaper labor the price drops a huge amount. Because of this more people buy tvs right--instead of owning 1 or 2 tvs you have 4, 5, or 8. Well this huge upsurge in purchases means that you have to have more people extracting metal for wires. More people making plastic for the boxes. More people making glass for the screen. Then because so many people are buying them you have to have more truck drivers to transport the tvs. Then you need more retail salesman to sell them. More advertising because people are buying more, etc. the list keeps on going. I've always said that with NAFTA you see the growth of companies like Best Buy, Circuit City, etc. and all the employees working for them wouldn't be there without NAFTA.
Now have any of you liberals heard of these laws. I don't think so because if you did you wouldn't be liberals. They economically proved you wrong.
Lets take a look at attempts of Liberals to help the poor with their social programs. LBJ's Great Society that was going to end poverty as we knew it in America. Well it was an ABJACT FAILURE. After spending a complete and total Sh*tload of money, actually more people went into poverty. Wow. Now based on results that is a complete failure.
Now after all this evidence and trust me I have millions more I could throw out there with it, but it would almost get boring, I bet with all the completely closed mined liberals out there I might get lucky if I convince one of you that maybe I'm right. Now believe me I honestly know that when you look at social programs and stuff it is very very very believable that if you give the poor handout money like welfare that they are going to be so much better off, and I'm telling you with 100 percent certainty that isn't the case. I know it seems it would work. It looks very good on paper, I know, but economically it isn't correct. I just want you guys to take a step back and not look at conservatives as heartless people anymore. I care so deeply about the poor you have no idea. I have asperations for my life in the business community for the sole purpose of helping poor with what I know in economics. I mean when you go to work for a business and you are getting paid x amount of dollars and stuff, the business just doesn't pay their taxes out of their own pockets. They actually have already figured the tax the company has to pay in their accounting which they get from 2 areas. They raise prices to y more to pay for that tax or they pay you z less amount of dollars in wages because they have to pay that tax. That's why there is no such thing as tax on the wealthy because every wage earner and consumer in the country is effected by it which is everybody.
^^^^^What a great post....lets fuck the poor up the ass.....but ill just throw this in at the end to show i care.....
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