Sowell: Who Shut Down the Government? (great read)

Evidently NOT if you feel the need to hurl unprovoked insults at my state to make yourself feel better....

It's okay kid,I've got your number now.

 

Well, to be fair, "enough money to retire" is a relative statement. It's relative to where you want to retire, and relative to what style of living you wish to retire at.

My Grand Mother, retired to a small $30,000 house, in Portsmouth Ohio. You can find some massive houses, for a tiny fraction of the cost. Just in looking Zillow real quick, I found a house that is double the size of my condo, for $14,000. My condo was $60,000 when I bought it.

Then you have factors like do you cook at home, or go out to eat at high-end restaurants all the time? My Grand Mother cooked nearly every meal she ever ate.

Most people at this level could retire on $300,000.

But you don't want to retire at this level. That's fine! But it's not that you do not have enough money to retire... it's that you do not have enough to retire at the level you wish.

Nothing wrong with that (unless you are a liberal who demands everyone give their money to the poor and live off government).

The problem I have is that so many people think they "can't save for retirement", and that's false.

Let's say that you and your wife are minimum wage McDonald's employees. Currently that would be $30,000 a year. If you earn $30,000 a year, you *CAN* save just $100.

If you save $100 a month, and put it until a good quality growth stock mutual fund from age 25 to 65, and you will be a millionaire, or close to it.... on a minimum wage income.

That's assuming an 8% annual ROI. My mutual fund did 25% last year. I have two mutual funds that over their life time, have had 12% ROI.

Most people can easily retire on a million dollars.

 

Of course. It's obvious. He's black. Can't have a black guy succeed. It's very important to make him fail, so that in the future if another black guy runs, they can say; "Hey...we tried that before and look how bad it turned out. Maybe we can try it again in another 200 years. They just aren't ready yet". So everything depends on their ability to destroy his administration, even if that means stopping the government, and pushing the country into default...and when it happens...blame him for not surrendering to their demands.

If you try to call Boehner's office, or Harry Reid's office, or even the White House, you'll run into a brick wall. There is nobody to take a call because the government is shut down. The people are now shut out of this process, since the Government is closed and there's nobody to complain to. We're all relegated to watching the play by play on TV

The crazies that think that a default will not have any damaging effect take great pride in their insanity, which has given them a self-righteous attitude and a feeling of empowerment. They are willing to take the country into default. The only way out that I can see is invoking the 14th Amendment and raising the debt limit by ignoring congress and ensure that our debts are paid. We cannot allow ideology to destroy the full faith and credit of the United States.

 

Ok kid. Give me a call sometime and I'll let you know what the reality based world is like.

 

I might be able to get behind that if you will also reverse soaring healthcare costs and the 30% "administrative mark-up" insurers set-aside for themselves. And you'd also have to break-up the out-and-out collusion going on between the insurers.

 

Exactly!!

It really astounds me, that people afford corporations (profit machines) such implicit honor and trust.

 

Sorry kid,but you haven't got a clue what reality is beyond your own bloated opinions.

 

Done. You are ignored. Go join the rest of the non-existent posters that no one cares about, and whose posts I will thankfully never read, or even see, for the rest of your rather unimportant life.

Best feature this forum has, is a way to make worthless posters like you, instantly and permanently disappear. You will not be missed, given you never said anything of value to say to start with.

 

Exactly what the Republicans are doing. They don't have the votes to repeal ACA so they're pouting by shutting down the government. Seems like if the entire country hated ACA and the Republican had this so called "mandate", they wouldn't need to do this ransom nonsense because they would have won enough elections to actually repeal it.

 

I wouldn't. Free-market Capitalism. Let the people buy their own health care.

The American people are the ones who voted the Republicans into office. Sucks to be you.

So when they had the 3/5th compromise, all the anti-slavery groups should have been told "you lost, you don't get to force your losing argument on everyone else"?

Repeal is an option. We elected Republicans into the house, for the purpose of representing our views. They are doing what we want them to do. Obviously the argument is not lost, or we would not be having this shut down right now... would we? Too bad. We can vote, sucks to be you.

Now, it's right because every socialized system has failed throughout all of history, and to this very day.

Yeah, the framers were radical against your ideology.

“I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents.”

― James Madison

What is he saying? He is saying that he can't find anything anywhere in the constitution where Congress is granted the power to give out stuff to people, from the tax money it collects. He's saying that Congress doesn't have the right, according to the constitution to tax one person, and give that money to another.

Translation: You are wrong. The Supreme Court is wrong. Obama Care, is wrong. Sorry.... all your blaw blaw blaw, doesn't matter. You are wrong.

Well the alternative is, we keep the government shut down until you lose your delusions that he doesn't have to negotiate. If need be, I support the government being shut down for the next year.... even two years. In fact, the longer it's shut down, the more I'll support the Republicans. I may even renew my GOP membership, if they keep this up. That's why the silence is deafening. As long as you pretend you don't have to negotiate, hopefully they'll keep the government shut down for the next five years! I'd LOVE that.

 

No. Of course not. They should obstruct, if that's what the people who elected them, want. I voted for some republicans that are in the House right now. They are representing my views. You don't like us obstructing... too bad! When I care, I'll let you know!

 

How... would not funding something, crash the economy, let alone the rest of the world? That sounds more irrational than anything else you've said.

 

No, it's not that at all. There is no 30% administration mark-up. And profit is how EVERYTHING exists.
No one does anything, unless there is profit involved. If you didn't profit from going to work in the morning, you wouldn't do it. There is cost to going to work. It costs you money in having transportation. It costs you money in clothes. It costs you money in training. It costs you money a number of ways.

If those costs of going to work, was higher than how much you got paid for doing that work.... you wouldn't do it.
Well... guess what! Everything else in society is exactly the same way.
The only exception is government, where you spend multiple trillions on things that don't make a profit, and you end up with Greece, or Spain, and the rest.
No company is going to do anything, for anyone, unless they profit.

Now as to that myth about the 30% administrative markup, is a joke. It's just not true.

It's the nature of "insurance". Insurance, is a system of transferring the risk of improbable events. Of course, that involves 'chance'. If you buy a health insurance policy, and never get sick, and never use it, theoretically that's a 100% administrative markup.

But that cost is not actually administrative markup. It's a premium for a cost at transferring risk. There are other people who have dozens and dozen of health problems, that the company makes 0% administrative markup, and loses thousands on.

Here's the problem.

Obama Care, has made it less able to reduce the risk. For example, starting 2014, companies will be forced to accept all applicants, regardless of pre-existing conditions.

Well say you have a guy who refuses to get health insurance, and he gets cancer. He applies for insurance at your insurance company, and they have to accept.

Who do you think is going to pay for that? YOU ARE. As we said before, if you yourself, are not able to make a profit from working, then you are not going to work. Same is true of the insurance company.

So they are going to make a profit, or they going out of business. So this guy shows up. He never paid in. He's got cancer. The insurance company must accept him, and must pay all his bills.

What do you think the insurance company is going to have to do?

(jepordy theme song here)

"What is, raise insurance premiums on everyone??"

And that is exactly what is going to happen. Same is true with manditory coverage. When the state steps in and says all insurance policies must cover X, Y, and Z... what do you think the insurance company is going to do? Raise insurance premiums.

The only other option, is to drastically reduce the quality of care, or have the government pay for it, which means raising taxes.

We're starting to see this trend even now, with the Obama-Care Market place.

The Columbus Dispatch, our local news paper, ran an article just Yesterday.
Obamacare’s low-cost premiums offer fewer health providers
http://www.dispatch.com/content/sto...-thin-out-providers.html#sthash.N23SSmBs.dpuf

Read this....

Ok so government mandated all these regulations, and then wants low cost insurance. Ok, so you can get that... but you can only go ONE PLACE in the entire central ohio area. And what place is that? Ohio State University’s Wexner Medical Center.... where they got $78 Million in grants from the state, and $100 million from the Federal government last year.

And having been there, I can tell you first hand, it is the worst place you can go to for customer service. They treat you like dogs there. (just being honest, I hated that place for ages. The people there at the government funded place, are so rude, and so unhelpful and uncaring. I hate that entire hospital).

And ironically for second place, is Mount Carmel. They have nice people, but if there is any hospital system where you are likely to get botched surgeries, and complications, it's Mount Carmel. Again, the people are way nicer. But I would be scared to send anyone to this hospital.

So one low cost government plan, limits you to ONE SINGLE FACILITY, that's heavily government funded, and the other low cost limits you to another low quality SINGLE FACILITY.

But of course most people are going to refuse to go to either of those. One you'll be treated like a dog, and the other you'll die like one.
As a result:

So if you don't want to go these crappy places, and you go to a quality hospital, like Riverside or Dublin, you can't nailed with lots of extra fees.

Why? Because insurance companies don't work without profit.

 

You are naive if you think the democrats don't gerrymander their districts.

 

Of course they do. Which is something that ought to be addressed in a general sense (i.e., a compact among states to draw districts by computer algorithm rather than let politicians do it, said compact only taking effect when 3/4 of states have signed it).

But in the current specific event, here's what happened:
1. Districts are redrawn once every 10 years, based on the decennial census;
2. The last census was in 2010;
3. the GOP wave of 2010 meant the GOP had big majorities in a lot of statehouses in 2011, and so they got to gerrymander a whole bunch more districts than Democrats did.

So for the next 7 years, the GOP will have a built-in (and rather undemocratic) advantage in House elections, unless demographics change rapidly enough to undermine that.

 

You are misguided AND delusional, if you think corporations should be implicitly trusted. Insurance companies were hardly 'needy'... and they SURELY ripped people off, in substantial ways. That's well-known.

Nice thing is, most people know better than to do that.

 

Yep, Republicans got less vote than Democrats in 2012 but still held a significant majority of the seats.

Ya gotta give them credit for knowing how to work the system.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...publicans-yet-boehner-says-hes-got-a-mandate/

 

The repubs are not trying to repeal the ACA, nor shutdown the government. The republicans have offered funding for the entire federal government, including the ACA.

All the repubs want to do is negotiate a delay of the ACA's personal mandate. I don't understand the left's opposition to this, I really don't. Why is 0nbama so against this, that he refuses to even negotiate on it? 0bama funds 83% of the government, but refuses to allow the last 17%, so as not to delay the personal mandate.

0bama ordered the IRS not to enforce the employer mandate, while demanding the personal mandate must be enforced. WHY?



This is why I don't understand your position on this.

1) You support 0bama letting big businesses and the evil rich corporations to ignore the mandate that foirces them to provide health care insurance to their employees.

2) You support people who lost their employer insurance, and are now forced onto the more expensive exchanges, with costs they may not be able to afford

3) You support 0bama keeping the personal mandate enforced, to punish people who dare to go w/o government approved insurance

 

To quote some of the dems on this thread "Try winning some elections!!!!"

The dems have been crowing about 0bama winning, as if that was all that counts. Meanwhile I've been pointing out that the republicans are winning the majority of state elections.

 

The Republicans have been saying SHUT DOWN THE GOVERNMENT for months. Watch this video if you don't believe me.

[video=youtube;TMhf9SrbY3U]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMhf9SrbY3U[/video]

 

Strange interpretation there. They've been saying stop the funding of Obamacare for months. Obama is the one whose been talking about shutting down the government if the House doesn't fund Obamacare, for months.

 

All 0bama has to do is agree to delay the personal mandate, but he'd rather shut down parts of the government then delay the mandate.

 

Are you lazy? Didn't you read further and discover that the effective rate was less and going down? How much less? I leave that as an exercise for you to do at your leisure.

You have the pretense of knowledge. I could have worded it better. You also have the pretense of wisdom.

Actually I didn't. You failed this task that according to you should have been simple. You are all pretense. Or you are lazy.

Obama care is unconstitutional. It will bankrupt the people and the nation. It is a very bad law. I understand that you do not see it. Or worse, it is what you want as you realize it will create a new, very poor US. This law will change the character of the people in ways that are not repairable.

Historicism?

Article V. The fight has already started.

Hayek got this wrong. So do you. In this instance you are, at least, in good company. That does not make you any less wrong.

I admire his brilliance. I did not say I agree with everything he wrote. He and I disagree over what a conservative is. He accepted a great deal more welfare spending than I ever would. That does not mean I cannot admire him on those points where we agree.

Agreed.

Agreed again.

Is this a poor appeal to authority by one Marxist on behalf of another? Awesome.

It is an easy document to read and to understand. You might try it just to see if you like it.

 

Watch the video. Marco Rubio is saying that they should SHUT DOWN the government while Ted Cruz nods in the background.

[video=youtube;TMhf9SrbY3U]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMhf9SrbY3U[/video]

 

It's not "the American people speaking". Most Americans don't want this shutdown. It's a few overpaid old white dudes playing russian roulette with the economy because of their fear that the ACA will actually be successful and damage the long-term credibility of their party. Of course, by holding the economy hostage, they're damaging the credibility of their party anyway, but the folks who believed Mitt Romney (remember him?) could win are obviously pretty good at deluding themselves.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/30/us-usa-fiscal-poll-idUSBRE98T0J720130930
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-250_162...n-end-government-shutdown-dont-allow-default/
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/09/u...ner-as-gop-meeting-yields-no-offers.html?_r=0

Obama being reelected on the promise of the ACA was the American people speaking - the actual majority.