American Poor still better then European

[Jebus]

That's entirely the point of our welfare state. Everybody pays along for social security, and though everybody pays a lot, everybody is also sure they'll get their medical, dental or hospitalisation aid whenever they need it.
And actually, considering our families medical history, it might very well be possible he's gotten more money back from the state than he has payed them...

Fine, fine, just don't neglect the hidden costs when you compare the cost of healthcare between continents (and systems), that's my point.

Well, of course there's not all that big a diffence in cost of healthcare: after all, docters here prolly charge just as much as they do there.
The diffence is, though, that you have to PAY a lot less to get yourself treated... Because the state pays back most of the costs.

And perhaps, yes, we pay as much for our healthcare as you do in the long (very, very long) run, but the point is nobody here's going to have to suddenly cough up thousands of euros when they fall seriously ill...


/offtopic

On a sidenote, after I have been confused with the you're/your issue, there's this one:

- Than = compared to
- Then = diffence in time

Correct?

(If I am, damn you CCR: go back to primary school.)

 

[Murdoch]

True, you do not have any large out of pocket expenses with respect to healthcare, but everytime you pay the VAT, income tax, etc, it adds up, although through much more insidious ways, IMO.

meh.

Then: Once I graduate from school, then I can make money
Than: Murdoch is way cooler than Jebus

So yes, you're (not your) correct in your question about the English language. I think; dunno really, I just sort of use whatever looks write.

 

[John Uskglass]

Prove it.

Oh, come on. Do you want a graph or something? You know it just as well as I do that Britan's economy was not only in the shit, it was diving into it head first ala Trainspotting.

Ahahahaha!

Sometimes you can be a real moron, CC.

Funny, but a moron

I'm serious. The vast majority of Welsh people I know have known are nutcases . This one guy, Aniren, once hijacked a teacher's little rascal, and drove it out of the school screaming lines from Mad Max.

Are you saying it was impossible to save the UK from economic collapse without turning their social system to shit?

Look, deflating a bloated wellfare state is no problem, but the way Thatcher did it wasn't the best. Even the much-despite Dutch Paars I/II way of deflating the wellfare state, which hurt it as a total and privatised too many companies, is better than that of Thatcher.

Still, it was entirely nessicary with Thatcher to prevent the collapse of the British economy. I don't care if there was a total lack of social securtity for all of Thatcher's reign (which there was'nt), but it was entirly nessicary to ensure the wellbeing of the British state.

Yeah, that's true. But you go off on a strange foot and keep on measuring "wealth of a nation" by the strength of their economy. Go back to my original post in this thread and read my opinion on that kind of measuring of wealth.

No, it is'nt, but it very often goes hand in hand and is'nt total crap.

If the world would be divided neo-liberal and democratic socialist, he would fall under neo-liberals.

But the world is not, Chirac is a conservatist, hence he's neither neo-liberal or social democrat.

Yep.

Yes, you've mentioned this several times, but you've shown no proof. Germany has been a booming nation under various social democrat governments in its history, same for much of Western Europe.

Yes, we're still in a lagging economic crisis here. Remember Europe always walks in America's wake. The crisis started with you, then it moved over here. Once the crisis stops on your side, it'll stop here. It's unlikely, tho' possible, that the crisi will stop here sooner. But I'm not bettin' on it.

I see no reason for Germany to collapse. Theyre not the ones with the 1 trillion dollar debt

German Unemployment is at 10.5%. That's endemic. It's totally impossible to invest in Germany due to taxes. http://edition.cnn.com/2004/BUSINESS/06/08/germany.jobless.reut/
Let's compare that to America with amazing job growth and highest level of home ownership in American history.

Christian Democrats are fine rulers, and have run several countries here in good ways, but Christian Democrats sway around too much. In the Rhineland system, they're usually allied to either a rightwing neo-liberal party or a left-wing social democrat.

Christian Democrats + Neo-Liberals = teh suck, country goes to shit

Christian Democrats + Social Democrats = teh cool, country does well

Social Democrats alone = bye-bye nation

Neo-Liberals alone = bye-bye nation pt. 2

The Rhineland model (Benelux and Germany have it) works well as a balancer of power in this sense, since countries constantly switch between powerblocks and keep a good balance in the way they're run. If a country needs a boost, or needs to stop it's wellfare state, like the Netherlands at the start of the 90's, some neo-liberal party join the alliance and does so...They could also stay too long tho', like now, which is teh suck

.
You forgot SocDems+Greens=Emigrate ASAP

 

[John Uskglass]

/offtopic

On a sidenote, after I have been confused with the you're/your issue, there's this one:

- Than = compared to
- Then = diffence in time

Correct?

(If I am, damn you CCR: go back to primary school.)

Goddamnit, how thick are you? I've sidetracked DOZENS of threads into discussions on my dyslexia, yet some pople are so insensitive as to bring it up!

 

[Jebus]

Oh, so you've got a special kind of dyslexia, which makes you write grammatical errors, yet rarely spelling errors?

Queer...

 

[Roshambo]

No it isn't, but you still have 8 million uninsured people running around. Doesn't that even bother you one bit? And don't go telling me all those people get basic dental or medical treatment, you know that's bull.

Alot of people get important free medical care. If a guy comes in shit, he'll get care anywhere outside of Lakeforest.

It does bother me, actually, but then again, the Canadian system is alot worse.

This is amusingly bullshit.

Free medical care in the US (not including dental) is pretty much given only to single "welfare moms" who pop out a child every so often because it's almost impossible to recover from the security it offers. If you're a male or a non-pregnant woman without a child, good luck. See, the state cares to pay for more kids, because it's for the child, but what usually happens is the mother spends the money on crack, meth, or booze, and not on making the child's life any better. Guess what happens to most of the girls who come from welfare mothers? There's an example, with many others also stroking their plastic Jesus, in Sun Valley. In other words, the girls move into a neaby trailer and start the same cycle again, many at 12-14. They get welfare, medical, WIC, and many other things that others would not, simply because they are popping out another piece of trailer trash.

Where's the fellow who worked for a good number of years and has suddenly fallen upon hard times? He gets his social benefits of SS at 65, IF he manages to live that long without anywhere to really call home and on food offerings from the local Red Cross and other aid programs (and I would think it likely you've never been in one of those). Maybe you should spend a bit more time outside of books and more in the real world. It might give you some perspective of how things really are, rather than through someone else's edited version of events.

I don't need much of the aid that many of my fellow vets require, but I am lucky that I did come from money and have a family in which to have support. Many of those people did not, and those that were not medically put out to pasture by the military and are now unable to find a job, they now are several shades of screwed. Yes, that happens quite a lot, despite the college programs of the military. It's something that recruiters will not tell you, but most at the VA or a home with Nam vets well. This still happens for those who leave military service today.

As MrMarcus has said, free clinics only work based off of your income. A lot of people are screwed by this by the other things taken into account. So if you get your rent free or free rent is part of your work benefits, you're screwed as you don't make enough to pay for medical. Oh...that just about covers every damn farmhand in the country and many others as well. Food stamps, same thing. Other social help, ditto.

At least in the Canadian system, it would take longer if it's even approved. In the US, many don't even have an option to begin with.

I'm serious. The vast majority of Welsh people I know have known are nutcases . This one guy, Aniren, once hijacked a teacher's little rascal, and drove it out of the school screaming lines from Mad Max.

Good joke. Oh...you weren't trying to be funny?

 

[John Uskglass]

Good joke. Oh...you weren't trying to be funny?

Actually, he did it and was promptly expelled. Funniest thing I've ever seen.

Oh, so you've got a special kind of dyslexia, which makes you write grammatical errors, yet rarely spelling errors?

Then and Than are spelling errors. And I don't take well people questioning my disability.

 

[Montez]

Then and Than are spelling errors.

Indeed they are, and easily ignored since the word intended is easily deduced from the context it is used in. No more discussion or baiting of CCR on this topic is allowed.

 

[John Uskglass]

Then and Than are spelling errors.

Indeed they are, and easily ignored since the word intended is easily deduced from the context it is used in. No more discussion or baiting of CCR on this topic is allowed.

Thank you.

On a related note, I'd like to wish Boris Johnson a happy birthday.

http://www.wibbler.com/boriswatch/
My favourite comment of his is probably "The Tory Party - the funkiest, most jiving Party on Earth!"

God Bless You Boris

 

[Brother None]

Oh, come on. Do you want a graph or something? You know it just as well as I do that Britan's economy was not only in the shit, it was diving into it head first ala Trainspotting.

Yes and no, but it would be better of this day without Thatcher than with. What the country needed was a moderate social democratic ruler or a left-tending neo-liberal ruler. Not this nutjob.

I'm serious. The vast majority of Welsh people I know have known are nutcases . This one guy, Aniren, once hijacked a teacher's little rascal, and drove it out of the school screaming lines from Mad Max.

Yeah, you mean except for the part where the Welsh aren't a strange race of people born nutcases and communists.

Maybe they would be healthier if they didn't live in shithole, UK.

Still, it was entirely nessicary with Thatcher to prevent the collapse of the British economy. I don't care if there was a total lack of social securtity for all of Thatcher's reign (which there was'nt), but it was entirly nessicary to ensure the wellbeing of the British state.

No, not really

This is probably hard for you to imagine, since America never has had much of a wellfare state. But imagine someone goes amongst all the school of the US, fires half the teachers there. Then passing onto hospitals, cutting their budgets in have. Public transportation? Privatised or closed. And health care is suddenly three times as expensive.

Y'see an American government probably never could do such a thing, because it doesn't have so high a stake in your social system.

But it can here, and it could in the UK. You have no idea how much that damages a nation. I do, I have conciously lived through most of the wreckage Paars I and II and now Balkenende I and II have done to our once glorious wellfare state. It's not a pretty sight, and it doesn't please anyone. England is a ghost of its former self now when it comes to simple quality of life and their schooling system going to shit doesn't go for much either.

No matter how much she did for the economy, it can not justify the mass lay-offs, the wrecking of the social system. England verily radiates a wrecked former glory. Run-down old buildings, cheap because once, it was easy to build such things, but now they're rotting, falling apart, because nobody can really afford to clean 'em.

Ugh.

No, it is'nt, but it very often goes hand in hand and is'nt total crap.

Yes it is. I thought my example was clear enough.

German Unemployment is at 10.5%. That's endemic. It's totally impossible to invest in Germany due to taxes. http://edition.cnn.com/2004/BUSINESS/06/08/germany.jobless.reut/
Let's compare that to America with amazing job growth and highest level of home ownership in American history.

*shrugs* You don't listen well, do you? I already explained how European nations don't drag out off an economic crisis as fast as you do, and we always lag behind a bit.

They will live. If necessary they'll elect someone slightly more neo-liberal, but they'll live.

Your article doesn't show any impending doom, either.

Oh, also, you're acting as if 10+% unemployement = automatic collapse. Spain has more than Germany, tho', and France, Greece, Italy and Finland are all at 9.5%

What's the American unemployment rate now? Still at 6%?

Also, Germany's stagnant unemployement is bad, but I'm more worried about the countries with the big increases in unemployement, like the Netherlands. Oh, and who's been running the Netherlands for the past 10 years? Neo-liberals. Managed to increase unemployement rate from about 2% to, who knows what it's at now, somewhere between 6 and 8%.

You forgot SocDems+Greens=Emigrate ASAP

That'd be because I don't consider "Green" a political denomination. They're just social democrats with a tendancy for enviromental stuff.

Oh, also note and reply to Rosh's "uninsured people getting help = bs"-argument. Thankee.

 

[SomeGuy]

American Poor still better then European

So what!I dent give a fuck for that nation of fat people.(not every one is fat )
Do you know what is the "American dream"?They want to make device that can do everting from brushing you teeth to making you a sandwich, so that trey dent stand up from the chair.

 

[welsh]

No it isn't, but you still have 8 million uninsured people running around. Doesn't that even bother you one bit? And don't go telling me all those people get basic dental or medical treatment, you know that's bull.

Alot of people get important free medical care. If a guy comes in shit, he'll get care anywhere outside of Lakeforest.

It does bother me, actually, but then again, the Canadian system is alot worse.

Coming from a guy who is being taked cared of by his parents, this is a joke.

As a person who is living with student health insurance, with a wife who is job hunting and is uninsured, and just a quick look at the limits of free or low cost health care, well honestly CC, you're talking shit. YOu really need to take off those conservative blinders and start looking at the world a bit clearly.

A person who is without health insurance in the US is floating near life-time financial ruin each day.

But more importantly, the point you are failing to appreciate is that just because a country's GDP is strong doesn't mean that the quality of life for most of it's citizens is great.

Just because the GDP is strong doesn't mean that the country as a whole is doing well, not even measured by GDP per capita. The GDP per capita in Brunei, for instance, is $18.600- yet that number is grossly embalanced by the Sultan of Brunei, one of the richest people in the world.

 

[Roshambo]

Indeed they are, and easily ignored since the word intended is easily deduced from the context it is used in.

Sorry, man, but I have to interject a bit.

I have seen CCR use a lot of common high school writing mistakes, "ala" (an "ala" is a wing, and Ala is where CCR would feel more comfortable at), "alot" (nope, doesn't exist either), etc. The speech used is far too coherent, with plenty of correct examples, for this to be a case of dysphonetic dyslexia. There's hardly any evidence for it to be dyseidetic dyslexia, which clearly couldn't be used as an excuse in this case as it would be stretching believability. The "dyslexia" only occurs with a couple of words, and not regularly. To say that I'm psychotic because I'm mildly irritated by the clueless bastard is about the same level as CCR claiming dyslexia.

No more discussion or baiting of CCR on this topic is allowed.

Well, if he's going to use the excuse...

Uh...

I think it's time he considers dropping the excuse. It is far too similar to his other semantic word games that he'll try to blur and excuse himself again on a wholly fictional condition. A bit of my time as a Chaplain's Aide was in helping some of those on base with reading disabilities. Genuine ones, like agraphia (mnemonics for certain words can work, depending upon the person, making faces or designs in other basic words also works - once they see the face and think about it, the word comes more easily to them), dysphasia (basic geo-color memory cards often help retrain character recognition), and the forms of dyslexia (there's a number of ways to train this, and phonics courses only help a certain kind), and the ever-so-nasty problem with aphasia, then alogia (shock treatment, anyone?).

I have seen Saint make a few mistakes that could be considered dysphonic dyslexia, especially in RPGCodex headlines. It gets a ribbing, a chuckle, and maybe a joke is etched into stone about it because it was good. Does he use anything as an excuse? Not really. The case with your, you're, and the substitution in the forum mainly stems from the problem that most are just too lazy to bother but will come up with a quick excuse later on to avoid looking like a fool.

CCR has enough excuses, I think he can do with one less.

Truly, if you guys knew him from around the first time he showed up on any Fallout forums, you wouldn't give an inch, either. It wasn't dyslexia then, it was a good example of "garble" inbred a few times with "idiot".

 

[John Uskglass]

Yes and no, but it would be better of this day without Thatcher than with. What the country needed was a moderate social democratic ruler or a left-tending neo-liberal ruler. Not this nutjob.

Maybe. But Thatcher provided the economic boost Britan needed, and it certainly would not have come from the Labour party of the time. Heck, she was as responsible for the rebirth of privitization as anybody.

Yeah, you mean except for the part where the Welsh aren't a strange race of people born nutcases and communists.

Maybe they would be healthier if they didn't live in shithole, UK

.
No, they are'nt. Just the Welshies I know.

And stop dissing the UK. The fuck do you know about it? Hell, I lived there.

This is probably hard for you to imagine, since America never has had much of a wellfare state. But imagine someone goes amongst all the school of the US, fires half the teachers there. Then passing onto hospitals, cutting their budgets in have. Public transportation? Privatised or closed. And health care is suddenly three times as expensive.

Y'see an American government probably never could do such a thing, because it doesn't have so high a stake in your social system.

Again, this is opposed to the days of a choaked beaurocracy, a messy health care system and totally lackluster economy.

Okay, so maybe the education reforms where over the top? It was in my mind still an entirely nessicary reform. Britan's economy was close to implosion, thus Thatcher was needed.

But it can here, and it could in the UK. You have no idea how much that damages a nation. I do, I have conciously lived through most of the wreckage Paars I and II and now Balkenende I and II have done to our once glorious wellfare state. It's not a pretty sight, and it doesn't please anyone. England is a ghost of its former self now when it comes to simple quality of life and their schooling system going to shit doesn't go for much either.

Okay, so in you're mind, no reform of the welfare state was nessicary, and despite the fact that you guy's don't even have any kind of next generation of workers sufficent to keep it up, despite the fact that taxation makes investment in the Netherlands for anything is way to expensive?

You truly know nothing of Britan if you think Britan's current state is all Thatcher's fault. The fall of the British Empire and Britan as a world power ended under what party......if you guessed Old Labour, you're right! Britan was deterioraiting by the 60's, it's economy had crumbuled in the 70's and bounced up again with Thatcher.

*shrugs* You don't listen well, do you? I already explained how European nations don't drag out off an economic crisis as fast as you do, and we always lag behind a bit.

They will live. If necessary they'll elect someone slightly more neo-liberal, but they'll live.

Your article doesn't show any impending doom, either.

Oh, also, you're acting as if 10+% unemployement = automatic collapse. Spain has more than Germany, tho', and France, Greece, Italy and Finland are all at 9.5%

What's the American unemployment rate now? Still at 6%?

Also, Germany's stagnant unemployement is bad, but I'm more worried about the countries with the big increases in unemployement, like the Netherlands. Oh, and who's been running the Netherlands for the past 10 years? Neo-liberals. Managed to increase unemployement rate from about 2% to, who knows what it's at now, somewhere between 6 and 8%.

Apparently I'm not alone in not reading well.

All the problems I listed where long term. An againg population with the only growth coming from Turkish immigration that tends to not be as educated or nationalistic or wealthy, taxes high enough to make investment impossible, continuing intergration problems, the expansion of the EU with Central Europe....

Compare this to America, who's problems include a budget deficit and a national deficet; yet we have a booming economy that does'nt appear to go down even in the mixed situation.

That'd be because I don't consider "Green" a political denomination. They're just social democrats with a tendancy for enviromental stuff.

No, they are'nt. The founders of Social Democracy could'nt care less about the enviorment. The Green party traditionally was quite diffirent, but it's essentially become a party of Watermelons, like you said.

As a person who is living with student health insurance, with a wife who is job hunting and is uninsured, and just a quick look at the limits of free or low cost health care, well honestly CC, you're talking shit. YOu really need to take off those conservative blinders and start looking at the world a bit clearly.

A person who is without health insurance in the US is floating near life-time financial ruin each day.

Kind of depends- there's medicade for the poor, medicare for the old, but the middle class that does'nt have enough money is baisically in the shitter. It's a problem. Still, we do have the best health care in the world thanks to privitization.

 

[Roshambo]

Kind of depends- there's medicade for the poor,

You haven't been reading too well, have you? We've already pointed out how your bullshit "medical for the poor" fallacy has no merit.

medicare for the old,

Assuming they live that long, of course. Then, of course, they run into problems that might have been prevented with medical treatment a few decades previous.

but the middle class that does'nt have enough money is baisically in the shitter.

They're still a fair bit over those who don't make anywhere near them. Your sorry ass is still working off the assumption that if you're poor, you get welfare, medicaid, and whatnot. You're wrong, boy. You are so dead wrong.

Still, we do have the best health care in the world thanks to privitization.

HOLY SHIT! Now I know you are a moron. (Well, I've always known, but that sounded apropos.) Sorry, child, but the Japanese have the US beat by leagues. You know the wrestlers you and your suburbanite trash buddies enjoy watching? Many of them would be in wheelchairs if they had to rely on the FDA's slow, bribed ass. If they imported the Japanese methods, many quacks in the US would be out of a job. Therefore, the wrestlers currently have to go to Japan and have surgeons there work on them, because the US is too bent over in politics to do much advancements that wouldn't spread around money.

And, if you have a job in Japan, you usually would have health insurance for yourself and your family, often covered by your employer or provided by a company that would bill the company on a per-item basis for physical injuries and have insurance for other diseases. Therefore, it pays for the employer to have safer work conditions, and they know they will be the ones to cover the bills for the burns on one soft-boiled employee who lowered his crotch into boiling hot water in order to win air time for his company's commercials.

Well...there are drawbacks. Like Pokémon driving a few thousand kids into seizures over the cartoon...and then the TV stations replaying the same clip later on.

 

[Brother None]

Maybe. But Thatcher provided the economic boost Britan needed, and it certainly would not have come from the Labour party of the time. Heck, she was as responsible for the rebirth of privitization as anybody.

holy shit? Now you're going to pretend privitization works in Europe?! Are you INSANE?!

Give me a number consistent cases of privitization gaining positive results in Europe. Privitization wrecked the Dutch public transportation system and did nothing good for the energy market, as prices refuse to drop and quality is slowly lowering. Privitization wrecked the English...well...everything

And stop dissing the UK. The fuck do you know about it? Hell, I lived there.

CC, you know "I lived there" is a fucking weak argument.

Okay, so maybe the education reforms where over the top? It was in my mind still an entirely nessicary reform. Britan's economy was close to implosion, thus Thatcher was needed.

You don't seem to get something, CC. My viewpoints that Thatcher damaged the UK in a way that can't be imagined can be proven by showing how many of the UK's current problems are Thatcher's doings. You have a viewpoint which you haven't proven, and as far as I know can't really prove, that Britain's economy was close to implosion unless someone who did exactly the extreme things Thatchet did showed up. Yes, the state of Britain was bad, but Thatcher made it worse, not better, by switching common good for a strong economy.

Okay, so in you're mind, no reform of the welfare state was nessicary, and despite the fact that you guy's don't even have any kind of next generation of workers sufficent to keep it up, despite the fact that taxation makes investment in the Netherlands for anything is way to expensive?

Heh. So the EU states should change their wellfare state? Ok then. Let's ignore the current economic crisis which has its own quirks for a second and dig back to Europe's recent history.

Explain to me, please, because I'm dumfounded, why what can be considered to be European's strongest nations, the North-Western Germany and Scandinavian nations, have the strongest history of social democracy, while Europe's weakest Southern nations, Portugal, Spain, Greece and Italy, all have a history of neo-liberal policies?

You truly know nothing of Britan if you think Britan's current state is all Thatcher's fault.

And for somone whio "has lived in Britain" your opinions sure do not coincide with the general British opinions, hmmm?

The fall of the British Empire and Britan as a world power ended under what party......if you guessed Old Labour, you're right! Britan was deterioraiting by the 60's, it's economy had crumbuled in the 70's and bounced up again with Thatcher.

How is the collapse of the British Empire Old Labour's fault? The collapse of the British Empire, just like the collapse of the French Empire, the Dutch Empire and all other European Empires, was inevitable. It was a historic event that had nothing to do with the ruling party. The French Empire collapsed under conservative governments. The Dutch Empire collapsed under Christian-democratic governments. I find it quite a stretch of the imagination that you can blame this on Old Labour, as you so cutely labelled it.

However, Labour was responsible for the bad state of the economy, and it needed fixing. Switching bad economy for bad wellfare state is no solution, tho'

An againg population with the only growth coming from Turkish immigration that tends to not be as educated or nationalistic or wealthy

You think somehow that the Greying is Schröder's fault? Hey, wake-up call, the Greying is because of the post-war baby-boom, and it's happening all over Europe, including France and the UK. It can't be helped, all we can do is bite onto our systems for taking care of the elders, improve them and move on.

taxes high enough to make investment impossible

Yet these taxes haven't changed much in post-WW 2 history. Not to mention the fact that Holland, lowering its taxes, has had worse economic development than Germany. Explain that, then?

continuing intergration problems

Yes, I know, a shame, the EU countries all need to work on that.

the expansion of the EU with Central Europe

You mean the expanding of the EU with economically weak, but growing countries? 'k.

Compare this to America, who's problems include a budget deficit and a national deficet; yet we have a booming economy that does'nt appear to go down even in the mixed situation.

Really, this puzzles me...how is a monstreous budget deficit NOT a long-term problem? You're going to feel the effects of this enormous debt. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but you will.

Also, this booming economy bit puzzles me. The USA is a recovering nation right now, isn't it? I have seen no booming economy.

No, they are'nt. The founders of Social Democracy could'nt care less about the enviorment. The Green party traditionally was quite diffirent, but it's essentially become a party of Watermelons, like you said.

So basically they didn't use to be social democrats, but now they are? Ok cool.

Kind of depends- there's medicade for the poor, medicare for the old, but the middle class that does'nt have enough money is baisically in the shitter. It's a problem. Still, we do have the best health care in the world thanks to privitization.

What?! Where did you pull that one from, your ass?

You're confusing two completely different thing. The US has some of the best hospitals, doctors and generally good stuff in their health care. This doesn't count for shit when it's not publically accessible.

Look at it this way. If you're stinking rich, you're better of in the US (or Japan, heh), but if you take in the general state of the people, from the highest to the lowest, people in, say, the Scandinavian countries are better of.

As a person who is living with student health insurance, with a wife who is job hunting and is uninsured, and just a quick look at the limits of free or low cost health care, well honestly CC, you're talking shit.

Just for comparison: it's unimaginable that you're uninsured in Holland. If you go without insurance for more than two weeks, your next insurance company will seriously want to know what you were doing without insurance for "such a long time". The only uninsured people are permanently uninsured, for the rest, everyone's simply insured, from high to low, jobless or not.

 

[RAKTHEUNDEAD]

Basically, I think that Europe needs to be MORE democratic-socialist. Especially Ireland, which actually has a close-to-fascist government. If you dispute this, come over to Ireland yourself.

 

[Big T]

And stop dissing the UK. The fuck do you know about it? Hell, I lived there.

CC, you know "I lived there" is a fucking weak argument.

It's an extremely weak argument. He's not just "dissing" it for the sake of it, he's pointing out some of the things that are wrong with it. The only dissing I've seen from Kharn is when he called it a shithole, which in many ways it is.
How old were you when you lived here CCR? You're, what, 15 or 16 now? I find it doubtful that your stay in England at such a young age gave you much insight into our political problems.

You truly know nothing of Britan if you think Britan's current state is all Thatcher's fault.

And for somone whio "has lived in Britain" your opinions sure do not coincide with the general British opinions, hmmm?

Much of Britains current state is derived from the damage Thatcher brought. There's no way that, after so short a time since the end of her regime, everything would have recovered/changed enough for her not to have been an influence.

Thatcher provided the economic boost Britan needed, and it certainly would not have come from the Labour party of the time. Heck, she was as responsible for the rebirth of privitization as anybody.

I knew there was a reason why everyone hated her.
Privitisation under Thatcher fucked up everything it touched.

 

[Roshambo]

Hence her old nickname, PM Hatchet. PMS Hatchet on bad days.

 

[DarkCorp]

That's entirely the point of our welfare state. Everybody pays along for social security, and though everybody pays a lot, everybody is also sure they'll get their medical, dental or hospitalisation aid whenever they need it.
And actually, considering our families medical history, it might very well be possible he's gotten more money back from the state than he has payed them...

The point's a bit more than that, as well. It's about forcing everyone to be aware of their fellow human-being, or at least to force everyone to help them out.
And also, it's about the principle of levelling everyone's incomes. The socialist ideal.

Both of these statements ring true about Europe. But what about those who do not need the states help to live? What about those who already can take care of themselves through initiative and hard work?

It seems with sky high taxes comes a guaranteed security benefit for all to resort to if they fall on hard times. However, a crippling tax affects everything from home ownership to private businesses. One reason why the U.S. has some of the finest doctors, surgeons, etc, is because one is rewarded for being the best.

Now comes the question of why penalize someone for being far thinking? Why penalize someone for having ambition? Why should one be penalized because they chose to be a CEO, lawyer, doctor, etc, instead of being a burger flipping sod? These people don't need the government to take care of their healthcare because they themselves have taken care of it. I mean doctors, lawyers, CEOs, etc, don't get to where they are by being complacent or comprimising. They take initiative instead of depending on someone else to do it for them. They say "Hey, I need to make sure I earn plenty of money in case some really bad shit happens" or "Hey, I'm not making enough money to pay for insurance so I need to get a better job". A person could work thirty years at a job and deserve better pay if he has been loyal and hardworking. However, this does not mean that he is entitled to expect others to be responsible for their well being.

Most americans (including myself), fear the type of socialist welfare state that was elaborated on by Ayn Rands books. Yes there are still some problems with capitalism but it is nowhere near as bad as the days of "wild west capitalism". Many immigrants that come here succeed if they are willing to work hard. The benefit is that it encourages industrious and enterprising behavior . It's not the states job to be an equalizer, its the individuals job. If you don't work then you don't eat.