[Raydeus]

I don't know. I've always had the impression that if people had not been distracted with "teh war on teh terrorz" they would've spotted the problems with real state and others much sooner. Otherwise why would they re-elect Bush?

I mean it probably wouldn't have stopped the bubble from bursting, but it would've made things waaaay less painful.

Then again, is not like I know that much about the US economy. XD

[Malacite]

Originally Posted by Raydeus

I don't know. I've always had the impression that if people had not been distracted with "teh war on teh terrorz" they would've spotted the problems with real state and others much sooner. Otherwise why would they re-elect Bush?

Exactly. The war was just one giant, expensive fiasco distracting from the real threats. I still can't believe that the country could have actually paid off the National Debt entirely had Gore been elected . _ .

[Feba]

Appointed, you mean. Al Gore was elected, not only by popular vote but if the Florida process hadn't been botched the electoral college as well. In a way, Bush is a great success of democracy.

And "Could've". Who knows what would've happened if Gore had become president. Things would've been very different, but we have no way of knowing if it would be better. If Gore had created a universal health care system, or spent a lot of money updating the country's infrastructure, there would surely have been a debt, and probably a deficit. While it'll make for good alternative history fiction, it's not like Gore as President would've made every single choice right.

[Malacite]

Well what I know is that he had a plan to pay off the debt in 2 years completely, which I bet you if he'd ran on that he may have done a bit better.


But then he was up against the beast.

[TheGrandMom]

I'm interested to see what he's going to be doing about our healthcare system and I pray he does something soon. I need a double transplant and medicare is only going to cover my meds for 5 years afterwards........hopefully cause thats another can of worms. After that my current insurance will have to pay, if I still have that insurance. My husband is retired from GM and if they go under, so does his pension and healthcare. But even if it doesn't go under, every time the contract comes up to be renewed, its possible that we can loose some benefits and one could be prescriptions. Since I was self employed, I provided my own insurance and now I'm considered "terminal" and uninsurable. Most companies won't touch me for any type of insurance, including life (I have a whopping $10,000 policy), and if they do cover me its insanely expensive. Transplant prescriptions are VERY expensive and without them I'll reject the organs and die.

I know many transplant patients that are going through what I've described above right now. It just absolutely insane. There are so many horrible stories out there and something needs to be done quickly.

[Feba]

The saddest part is when you realize that the largest obstacle to that isn't even in the implementation, it's in convincing people that human lives shouldn't be tossed aside for the sake of money. People that think health should be a commodity.

TGM, if you don't mind my asking, what exactly do you have?

[Kitalrez]

Originally Posted by Feba

yes, but think about how many people we have in out prisons for things like simple possession of marijuana. There's really nothing that can be done about the problem until people stop thinking of prisons as a way of punishing people and start thinking about rehabilitating people. Hell, look at that one warden in Arizona.

That's pretty much the tack my Criminal Law class was taking this week with our discussion on "Theories of Punishment". The law in the US basically recognizes two theories of why, how, and how much to punish someone.

1. Utilitarianism. You punish someone because it serves a purpose in society. It's less about the fact someone broke the law and more that you don't want that person breaking the law again or others breaking the law period.

The first downside to Utilitarianism is that it might serve society's purposes to punish an innocent person for a crime. Say if there's a murder, an angry white mob forms because there's a rumor that a black man committed the crime and starts threatening to string up all the black people in town. Sheriff finds a homeless black man, frames him for the crime and arrests him. White mob disburses, everyone else in town is safe... unless the murderer decides to kill again. The probability here is that there's a smaller body count that you'd get if you didn't do anything at all.

Second downside is that by focusing on rehabilitating criminals, (since the main goal of Utilitarianism is to prevent crime in the first place), you look like you're "coddling" criminals. Utilitarianism was really popular in the early part of our country and became less and less popular as the late 1800's rolled up and the Depression hit. A really good example of where it might not make sense to punish someone is from "The People v. Superior Court (Du)". It didn't make sense to punish Mrs. Du in this case, but that still caused riots. (The judge's opinion, if you can find it, is pretty solidly reasoned on this point).

2. Retributivism. You punish because crime is wrong. Both theories assume the state has a right to punish. This theory takes that one step further and assumes you have a 'duty' to punish the guilty. Punishment is made not because it serve a purpose, but because it is the best way to represent the common dignity of the victim and the criminal. Retributivists like to say "You have a right to be punished for committing crimes". Punishment validates your humanity. This is further broken down into "negative retribution", which is the admonition that you should never punish an innocent person, period. On the other side is "positive retribution", which says not only should you never punish an innocent person, but you should never not punish a guilty person.

The main problem with Retributivism is that its goal really stops with punishment. If the prison has people in it, you've done your job. What happens to these people is only of concern to you in that you don't deny their underlying humanity by torturing them or lowering yourself to their level, even if they've been convicted of torturing others. If you execute someone, you do it as humanely as possible.

Kant was a Retributivist, and he liked some pretty draconian punishments. For instance, he believed that if you were convicted of theft, not only should we take away what you stole, but we should confiscate all your property, and further not let you own any property in the future. Basically forced vagrancy. You weren't imprisoned, but you could not better yourself, either. It was like a combination of exile in your own land and a death sentence. You almost had to steal in order to survive, since you couldn't make money legitimately or hold onto any food you acquired.

If you look at most political speaches on getting tougher on crime, they're pretty much Retributivist. This has tended to lead to fuller prisons, and cycles of recidivism. You're not really retraining criminals so much as removing them from society for a period of time. You then put them in with other criminals, and the only skills they acquire are those to commit more crimes. When released, their factory jobs may be gone or their computer skills obsolete, etc. Morally, this is a superior system, since you can't punish the innocent ever, but socially it may not serve our goals.

Guantanamo is operating on a kind of hybrid theory. It's not solely one or the other. But it has elements of strong Retributivism in how inmates are dealt with, and that leads to the current situation with releasing them.

[Malacite]

Originally Posted by Feba

The saddest part is when you realize that the largest obstacle to that isn't even in the implementation, it's in convincing people that human lives shouldn't be tossed aside for the sake of money. People that think health should be a commodity.

This and getting people to be more active/responsible for their own health.

In Britain, Doctors get paid based on their performance. The more people they help better themselves, the more they make. Yes, a lot of food people consume in North America is far from healthy, but that wouldn't matter quite as much if we didn't generally live such a sedentary life.

Preventative care is the most effective method (economically and physically) and ought to be more strongly enforced or encouraged, but that would mean trampling on people's rights. It's a bit of a conundrum.

[Wise Donkey]

Originally Posted by Raydeus

I don't know. I've always had the impression that if people had not been distracted with "teh war on teh terrorz" they would've spotted the problems with real state and others much sooner.

The mortgage bust is an issue that has been building since the mid to late 90's. For around three decades the national rate of home ownership held around 64%, then from 1994 to 2004 it rose to 69%, mostly due to loose lending practices brought on during the Clinton Administration. That Administration pushed for ways to get lenders to give mortgage loans to first-time buyers with shaky financing and incomes.

When those shaky loans default, the bottom falls out on all the loans banks made on that mortgage money. Sure, a small percentage of people have always defaulted on loans, but the percentage has always been small enough for the banks to just absorb, a risk that was accounted for in their rates, etc. But the shear number of large loans that defaulted created serious problems.

I am not pointing the finger at the just the Clinton Administration, it is not just one Administration's fault, but lets not just heap all of our troubles on just Bush (As easy as it may be, since he was such a moron.) This economic crash has been a long time coming, and there will be more if we don't change the way we do things.

Money As Debt

Money As Debt

[Skoal]

Obama made his first step to improve health care for the world today: more dead babies = less people to have the government to pay for! Yay! My money is now going to go to groups that refer people to abortion places and perform them.

[Feba]

The president is expected to issue an executive order revoking a policy that bars international family-planning organizations that offer abortion services or referrals from receiving U.S. aid. The policy was originally issued by President Reagan and then reversed by President Clinton, before being instituted again by President Bush.

Note: INTERNATIONAL. As in, foreign. IIRC, your money has always been going towards such groups domestically; I believe because Roe v. Wade made abortion constitutionally protected, but I would have to check.


Your tax dollars don't go towards what you want them to go towards. Consider how many things you think should be illegal, that your tax dollars go to, that someone else wants legalized. How many of us pay for a government that has laws against things we do; be it speed limits, drugs, piracy, or anything else? How many of us think that TV needs to be censored? Our taxes still go to the FCC. How many people pay for environmental protection policies that they don't think we need. How much taxing debt have wars placed on us and our children, ones we didn't even want to fight? How many people think we should cut off aid to foreign countries entirely, and spend that money here at home?

Your tax dollars have always and will always go to causes you don't support. You can either get used to it, or stop paying them.

EDIT: tl;dr version:

YouTube

YouTube

[Skoal]

Yeah I can read. That is why I said "world" health care not US. What?!!? My taxes go to all different places and I can't pick where?? What is this, some socialist country? I know my money goes to a bunch of crap. That post was just a tongue-in-cheek because someone else was wanting to know what his health care plan was.

Febar you need to relax in your Snuggie and stare at your collection of Victory Plates.

[Feba]

PolitiFact | No. 234: Allow five days of public comment before signing bills

And promise broken.

Given that the White House posted the bill for comment after it was signed, Obama has only had a full week in office, and the technical infrastructure they inherited was apparently hilariously outdated, my money would be on it being some coordinator somewhere screwing up. And really, I'd be appalled if the President was micromanaging stuff like that. But it's still something he said wouldn't happen.

[Raydeus]

Hopefully there will be a lot of people posting about it on their site, so they pay more attention next time.