Forum: Author Hangout

1) Your question implies the problem is political in nature.

Personally, I don't think the problem is political. I think the roots of the problem lie in the lack of education.

2) Your question implies the problem is limited to blacks.

Personally, I think poorly educated people of all races who live in the big cities have the same problem.

3) Your question implies that the problem only occurs in big cities that have been controlled by Democrats.

If you were to check big cities controlled by Republicans, you would find the same problems.

A second point on this item - historically, the Republican Party has a reputation for supporting the well-to-do voter. If we are focusing on the income level of the people living in these cities being lower than average, then one would expect the voters to support the Democratic Party if the majority of the voters in the city are low income.

ETA: I forgot to mention that large employers are typically located in the bigger cities. Many of the jobs offered by the large employers are low income positions, which do not require a high level of education, and the availability of employment draws people who are qualified for the positions and want the jobs to the big cities.

Rep,

The question was asked in response to a post on the political issues claiming the Republican party were bigots - quote 'It's the Republicans who are the "Book Banners and Burners". They are the party of the Evangelists and the Party that is full of those who are bigots and racists.' end quote. I sought clarification on the aspects being pushed by the other person, thus it was clearly about a political problem. Now, as to the point you mention.

1. Administration and management of education in the USA is through the people in charge of the local government bodies controlling the funds and setting the policies. If the education being delivered is sub-standard it's due to those authorities making it that way through a number of possible areas like bad policies, insufficient funding, wasting the funds available, or poor standards of those employed to do the work.

So, yes, it is political in nature even if it's education related.

2. I never said it was related just to blacks, but since the original posts were making claims of bigotry that clearly meant they were looking at how it related to blacks - thus my point about there being focused where they focused it.

Poor education affects all within the education service being provided, I agree with that, and never said otherwise.

3. The big cities with the biggest problems were doing extremely well with regards to work and employment, but the Democrat policies of the last few decades or more have destroyed the cities by driving the industry and employers away.

3.a. If the Republicans are so in favor of helping the well-to-do voters why is it the tax cuts they recently passed have some aspects which affect the well-to-do voter more than they do the less-well-to-do voter by putting limitations on the amount of state tax deductions they can have via the SALT deductions. That aspects alone will hurt the rich voters by restricting how much of the state taxes they can use as deduction off their federal taxes.

3.b. I was actually looking at the income of people in cities where the industries and businesses have been chased out of the cities due to regressive city management and tax policies forcing them out of the city or out of business. When that happens the low level workers are left behind without and jobs or income - ask the people in Detroit and Chicago about those problems.

If the Republicans are so in favor of helping the well-to-do voters ...

In general, I agree with what you said. Since politicians are the ones who control the purse strings for government spending, you could say everything is political. A lack of money for education is political if the state/federal bucket of money is not apportioned properly.

As to the above, you need to remember the major aspects of the Republican Tax Bill dealt with big businesses, and it affected all of the tax payers. If I recall the limits placed on tax deductions only affected a certain small group of the well-to-do voters. You also need to breakdown what is meant by well-to-do voters. Don't forget that a large chunk of the tax savings given to big business ends up in the pockets of the ultrahigh income taxpayers (1%ers) who are part of that well-to-do voter group. So their return on investment goes up say $200,000 and the loss of tax deductions increase their taxes by $50,000. They aren't being hurt financially. But the rest of the high and medium-income tax payers don't get their money from big business investments, and we do get hurt financially.

It's easy to pick out one item you don't like (limiting deductions for SALT) while ignoring the fact that all those rich people got a reduction in their tax rates that by far overcome anything they lose for smaller deductions.

When you cut the tax percentages those who earn more money get a bigger dollar figure back due to them having a higher figure to do the figures on - that's how percentages work. Now to the SALT issue.

None of the US tax changes apply to me at all, so I don't really care about them. But your claim that being unable to deduct all your SALT isn't going to cause rich people to pay more taxes than if they could claim all their SALT just shows you don't understand simple mathematics.

At the time I read the details of the tax changes I looked up the figures but I don't remember the exact figures now, and I can't be bothered to look it up. However, the SALT deduction limit was so high you had to be on a very high income for it to be of a concern to you. So for this example lets set the SALT limit at $10,000.

Person A calculates their federal income tax as being $10,000 then deducts the $8,000 state taxes before they send the feds $2,000 they now owe. No change as total is still $10,000.

Person B calculates their federal income tax as $60,000 then looks at their state taxes of $16,000, but can only deduct the limit of $10,000. Thus they pay the feds $50,000 instead of the $44,000 they would have paid before the tax changes, so the rich person now pays an extra $6,000 in taxes.

Many people don't mind high state taxes of the type that add up in SALT because paying the money to the feds or the state didn't make a difference to the amount paid. Well, now the cap on the SALT means the rich people won't like having to pay state taxes that push them beyond the limitation. This may make them less likely to support high state taxes in the future.

Learn a little arithmetic before you post about numbers.

Uther, I do know how to work numbers. I was looking at the specifics of the SALT limitation and not the general tax rates in both my posts on the subject. I even said that a percentage change will give more back to the higher income earners. When the SALT has a limitation that does not affect low or middle income earners, but only affects high income earners it means those who pass the SALT limit end up paying more money. Is that so hard for you to understand?

Person A calculates their federal income tax as being $10,000 then deducts the $8,000 state taxes

You are calculating it wrong.

State taxes and real estate interest are part of the itemized deductions. Itemized deductions are subtracted from gross income along with other things to calculate adjusted income, which is what is used to calculate the tax owed.

If you were to check big cities controlled by Republicans, you would find the same problems.

Not exactly.

What you find in big cities controlled by Republicans is that they want to make things better for their constituents, because in the end, that's how THEY get re-elected and remain in power. So if they can make things better for the well-to-do voter, and do so, guess what? That also ends up making things better for everyone in the city, even if that's not what they intended to do in the first place.

Whereas in the Democrat controlled cities, all they care about is getting re-elected by promising things to the low income / low information voters and kicking the can down the road such that you're now seeing the results of 30 - 50 years of Democrat control in those cities that are failing.

What you find in big cities controlled by Republicans is ...

Wakeup Carl. Republicans and Democrats both lie to their people. They both say they have the best interest of the voter in mind. They both spout idealistic rhetoric. They both have the same motivations and they both put themselves before the voters.

The trick is to elect an honest politician.

Political parties don't sponsor 'honest politicians'. They want someone who will say what needs to be said to win and then does what their party tells them to do. The party's platform only lasts until the election is over and then it is back to business as usual; which is putting themselves first.

Those from rich places get more. Those from poor places get less.

The quote you cited was Ernest's.

The amount of school funding from property taxes has to be distributed on a per capita basis to reach a valid conclusion.

Rich areas like Silicon Valley here in California get more school tax dollars, than say a farming community in the San Joaquin valley. But they also have to educate a much larger number of kids. It is possible for the farming community's per capita funding to be higher than Silicon Valley's per capita funding.

There is a LOT of "contribution" money and "political power" in keeping people poor and, at the same time, telling them that only "YOU" can change it. THAT said, the same thing is true in US regions with the highest level of poverty for whites are Republican controlled and have been for decades... = in other words, it is the 1%-er Corpocracy that actually is in control and they don't give a shit about the poor, blacks, middle class whites, etc.

To a certain extent, I agree with you. And I'm certainly no liberal. At the same time, let's be realistic here. In a capitalist society, the wealthy folks who are willing to take risks with their monies are the ones who create bulk jobs - where you have one business that creates 5,000 jobs. Those are balanced out by people who are willing to take a chance, the small business owners, where it may take 1,000 of them to create the same 5,000 jobs.

Either way, it's not the poor people who are creating jobs. And the thing is, if you're willing to work, you don't HAVE to stay poor. Or at least you can have a job - the last two months in a row, there were more job openings in the U.S. than there were people looking for jobs. And we're talking about 6.6 MILLION job openings, with only 6 million people looking.

Republicans want people to have jobs so they can pay taxes and they'll have that tax money to spend on their own projects, and incidentally they'll be able to afford more stuff which is good for the businesses that back Republicans. Democrats want people to NOT have jobs, so they can be a drain on the taxes on those people who still have jobs, and they can remain in power because they're Santa Claus.

Its not hard to find out what different policies cover and at what percentage's. The insurance companies post it on their websites along with the cost. Just look at summaries'

It's very different in the UK. Health insurance policies are often 40 pages of very small print, including masses of vaguely worded exclusions that the insurance company can interpret pretty much how it likes.

But with the majority of the population relying on the lottery of the NHS, there isn't the critical mass for an investigation into the health insurance market.

AJ

You as the consumer have to decide what you want.

Consumers need information to make a good choice. In the US, the American Medical Association has rules to protect its members. Those rules place limits on what one member can say about another member. The result is medical personnel don't talk to patients about other medical personnel, so you can't tell if you doctor/surgeon is a drunk and works with a hangover, incompetent, or if they are in the early stages of Alzheimer's.

As a consumer I also want my coverage at a reasonable price. How the insurance company deals with the providers is critical to the price. That type of information is generally not made public. I forget the specifics, but I read in the media about inappropriate hospital practices that the insurance company ignored. A man had surgery and received a statement from the hospital and the insurance company paid the claim without questioning the bill's details. Something seemed off to the patient. He found out the hospital purchased a sterilized and ready-to-use kit from a supplier. The hospital then broke the kit down into its component parts, sterilized the components, used the component parts to perform the surgery, and charge the insurance company a much higher cumulative price for the individual components. To me that is the type of thing that drives insurance costs so high.

2007 persons below poverty level, % of race
white 25,120,000 10.5%
Black 9,237,000 24.5%

1980 persons below poverty level, % of race
white 19,699,000 10.2%
Black 8,579,000 32.5%

Thus, in either year, while a higher %age of Blacks than of Whites were in poverty, a much greater number of Whites than of Blacks were in poverty.

And you would expect there to be more from a sheer volume number.

In 1980 the total white population would have been 193 million, total black population would have been 26.4 million. In 2007 the white population was 239 million, the black was 37.7 million.

When one statistical sample size is more than 6 times larger than a second, you would expect a smaller change to make a bigger difference with the smaller sample.

Well, city governments aren't to blame for the delusions, and they aren't to blame for the actual state of affairs.

It is now basically more criminal in the city of San Francisco to use a plastic straw than it is to have sex with someone without telling them you're HIV positive or simply shit in the streets. And in San Francisco, many companies have as a perk for their employees a free lunch, so they're planning on banning that as well.

How in the hell is that NOT the fault of the city government?

Note that I did not say poverty is a basically black problem. From the sheer numbers involved, it's primarily a rural white problem, with more rural whites in poverty than urban blacks.

By the same token, the actual definition of poverty itself has been changing over time, too. Many people living in what today is considered poverty are actually better off than middle class families from 40 years ago. It's not real popular to point out that more than 80% of all people in poverty today have air conditioning,

Here are some figures from the 2011 Census (emphasis added):
Clothes washer: 68.7%
Clothes dryer: 65.3%
Dish washer: 44.9%
Refrigerator: 97.8%
Food freezer: 26.2%
Stove: 96.6%
Microwave: 93.2%
Air conditioner: 83.4%
Television: 96.1%
Video recorder/DVD: 83.2%
Computer: 58.2%
Telephone (landline): 54.9%
Cell phone: 80.9%

The high tax states tend to support Democratic candidates.

In the past the SALT allowed for you to deduct the full state tax from the federal tax, now it has a limit, and to reach that limit your incomes needs to be up near $500,000 a year, according to what I read on it. Thus I can see it is not going to affect a huge part of the population, and it will only affect the amount of tax they pay above the limit, so it will only be the state tax they pay over the half million a year that they pay as extra.

Thus I can see it is not going to affect a huge part of the population

You can't see it because you aren't looking at the medium income tax payer. I'm part of that population Ernest. My income is well under $100,000 and my tax preparer tells me I can expect a tax increase of about $800 next year due to the Tax Bill. So I and many other people are going to get hit with higher federal taxes because of the Tax Bill.

My income is well under $100,000 and my tax preparer tells me I can expect a tax increase of about $800 next year due to the Tax Bill.

So you live in a state where the State and Local Tax deduction are now capped on the federal tax return at $10,000, right?

That now gives you an incentive to elect people who will lower your state and local taxes, which is something you haven't had before. I was quite amused at the Hail Mary proposal by states that the Federal Government does NOT have the authority to set Federal Income Tax rates and deductions. Seriously, snowball, meet hell.

In all seriousness, though, if your income is less than $100K and you were paying much more than $10K in state and local taxes, then there's something seriously wrong with state and local government. My wife and I have combined income well north of $100K (but south of $200K), and even with property taxes, we're still below the deduction limit.

Almost overnight, the deeply segregated black switched from strong Democratic states to strong Republican states, and the Republican party welcomed them with open arms, while the Democrats washed their hands of them, saying 'Good Riddance', and likewise never looked back.

I saw a historian talking about that claim, and when he looked into it he could only find one person who actually changed parties. So, why don't you name every one who changed parties for us all to know. It's often made, but no one names names.

I saw a historian talking about that claim, and when he looked into it he could only find one person who actually changed parties. So, why don't you name every one who changed parties for us all to know. It's often made, but no one names names.

You're misreading what CW wrote. It's not the blacks themselves that switched parties. It's the States as an entity that switched parties. Blacks were, and remain, a minority population in this country, with anywhere from 10 - 15% of the total population of each state.

The American South, in 1964, when the Civil Rights Act was passed, was strongly Democratic - as in, 21 of the 22 U.S. Senators in the 11 states were Democrat. Now only 6 of them are, with the other 16 being Republicans. And that's pretty much what's been happening in the entire south - most states down here have, at best, had one election since 1960 that they've voted Democrat and that's it.

Take Texas for example. From 1872 until 1976, they had 4 elections they voted Republican and the other 24 they voted Democrat. Since 1980, they've voted solid Republican. Mississippi had 2 elections from 1876 until 1976 they voted Republican, the rest were Democrat. Since 1980, solid Republican. Alabama had 3 from 1872 until 1976, and since then has been solid Republican. Georgia had 4 Republican wins from 1868 until 1992, and since then has been solid Republican. South Carolina had 5 up until 1976, and has been solid Republican since.

So it's not the blacks themselves that have changed their votes. It's the states themselves that have.

You're misreading what CW wrote.

That's possible, but I was reading it as being a repeat of the claim about the elected bigots in power within the Democratic Party switching to join the Republican Party which many claim happened, but I've only ever seen one person being named as doing such. If that isn't what he was pushing, I apologize.

Wait Civil Rights Act is passed in 1964, the racists bail and join the Republicans... But the congressional seats don't start changing until 12 years later in one example and 28 years later in another? How exactly does that correlate?

Because it takes a while for these things to change. It's not like a light switch, where you simply flip it to the only other choice of a binary solution set. It's more like a dimmer switch, where you have at each end either fully off or fully on, but in between you have infinitely variables. It took time for people to change their mind.

My brother (who was considerably older than I) moved to a small town in the deep south for a job. (I mentioned that in a story I wrote and posted on here.) What I didn't get into in the story, since it wasn't relevant, was that we would go down there and visit them and I got to experience first hand what was going on as the people and their attitudes evolved.

In many instances, you had the exact same person on the county council or school board that had been there in 1964 still in place in 1980. It's just that they had changed that letter behind their name from D to R at some point. You'd still have the older black folks in town calling the white people 'Mister Charlie' or 'Missus Williams', even if the person they were addressing was 30 years younger. The difference was that the younger whites were extending that same respect BACK to the older black folks - and by extension to the YOUNGER black people as well.

I remember it was a big deal in that small town when there they lived when a black police officer in town was killed. The local Klan even came out and helped, because even though the officer was black, he was still one of theirs (a citizen of the community). Technically they never found out who did it, but ... rural justice is a bitch, and we'll just not say anything else. There's a lot of gators and swamps in that part of the south to deal with things.

This is an obviously impossible demand, but here's four to start you off:

Strom Thurmond. Jesse Helms. Jim Jeffords. Lincoln Chaffee.

That's just U.S. Senators that I can name off the top of my head.

The way I'm reading what Ernest wrote about what CW wrote is that the historian is saying the black population didn't switch parties, which was for the most part true. The WHITE population and majority of those states did and has switched parties, which is also true. I think we had a slight misunderstanding here is all.

I saw a historian talking about that claim, and when he looked into it he could only find one person who actually changed parties. So, why don't you name every one who changed parties for us all to know. It's often made, but no one names names.

You don't spot widespread historical trends by asking individuals whether they did something or not. The Southern Democrats long held sway in the south, after Johnson's New Deal, the south switched from supporting "Blue Dog" democrats to supporting Republicans. But I was wrong on one account, it didn't happen 'overnight', but over many campaign cycles, since the Blue-Dog Democrats kept supporting the South's opposition to LBJ's policies. As each was eventually voted out, they were replaced by Republicans, and the South has been a Republican stronghold ever since.

Believe me, I'm aware of this particular aspect of history, since I lived through it, living in N.C. during the period (as well as watching the U.S. Marshals marching black kids in newly segregated schools in Virginia, so don't start telling me what some unnamed website claims about what 'never really happened'.

so don't start telling me what some unnamed website claims about what 'never really happened'.

What you initially wrote -

the deeply segregated black switched from strong Democratic states to strong Republican states

was misread. Or at least that's how I took it. The blacks themselves didn't switch parties - the states they LIVED in switched parties, as the white majorities told the Democrat Party to fuck off and switched to Republicans.

And yet California has the worlds 5th largest economy, clean air and water and yet completely Democratically controlled. It also has a balanced budget and believes and participates in the Paris Accord.

If it's so well balanced why do they have so many unfunded government retirement plans. As for the Paris accord, it's all about those who've already done all the damage they can setting levels to maintain their current status why demanding no one else expand their operations without paying the original ones for the privilege of doing so.

A few points for you to think about:

1. Soros has publicly stated he wants a world wide single socialist government.

2. He was a member of the Nazis during WW2.

3. The Nazis were members of the Nationalist Socialist Party of Germany who took most of their doctrine (but not all) from the Russian Socialists, as did the Facists who were a similar type of socialist party.

4. Soros supports the US Democratic Party as well as a bunch of other socialist parties around the world and he also supports individual members of the US Democratic party in campaigns for state and local elections.

Today the Democrats get most of their support money from people who support International Socialism, people like George Sorros

George Soros is an ardent Europhile, not surprising considering how the federalists are trying to build a socialist superstate. Meanwhile Soros is using his ill-gotten gains to try to undermine the democratic decision in favour of Brexit.

AJ

George Soros is an ardent Europhile,

Because he feels once he can establish a bureaucracy controlled single Europe the rest of the world will be easy to push into line as an extended part of it.

Yet people are saying "Heil Trump!"

Because they follow the orders of their commissar.

still Hate Her.

The Mexican word of the day is Nacho.

I'll use it in a sentence.

Hillary is still Nacho President!

ran for the last election

Has her parties nomination given to her on a golden platter, with it proven that the party cheated Bernie.

As vile a person as DJT is from a personality perspective, Gorsuch and Kavanaugh are reason enough to thank God she wasn't elected. That unemployment is at historic and never before seen lows is simply a bonus.

The Mexican word of the day is Nacho.

But his shirt reads 'Monreal' when he plays for Arsenal, he's only 'Nacho' on his Spain shirts.

AJ

As vile a person as DJT is from a personality perspective

Speaking of the devil, he used China's flagrant disregard for intellectual property rights as one of the excuses for a trade war. Does anyone here think the trade war might result in any benefit in that area?

AJ

Does anyone here think the trade war might result in any benefit in that area?

Probably not. But the THREAT of a trade war can.

And since China has a tendency to steal damned near everything made in the West, then try to sell their reverse engineered knock-offs back to the West, how exactly is that a bad thing? Or don't you think that the people who came up with the idea and made the product in the first place deserve to profit from their idea? If someone can make a legal and fairly made replacement cheaper, that's one thing. Simply stealing the idea completely without paying for it and then making a cheap replacement is another.

Actually, China is a significant worry in my field.

We can copyright our computer code and patent our algorithms, but as soon anything reaches China, it's fair game as you say.

I'm just not sure how a trade war might convince China to behave.

AJ

I'm just not sure how a trade war might convince China to behave.

While it wasn't exactly a trade war at the time. A few years back there was a major ban on lots of Chinese made products here in Australia and several container ship loads of goods were refused delivery. It was a huge financial loss to the Chinese companies involved, all of which had serious government ownership, and it had a negative impact for them on the balance of trade. Some of the products involved are still banned due to the dangerous materials used in their production.

Simply stealing the idea completely without paying for it and then making a cheap replacement is another.

Especially when the cheap product is more dangerous due to using cheap lead based paints and similar issue with the materials some of the Chinese knock offs are made from.

@seanski1969

Just curious. If being the Democratic standardbearer for president in 2016 is not enough to earn the moniker of "Democrat" without sarcastic modifiers, what criteria does it take?

Donald Trump was the Republican presidential nominee in 2016, and recent polls show that 85 percent of people who identify themselves as Republican support how he's governing. Is that enough to make him a Republican or is there some other secret definition that he has failed to meet?

It's funny how people will support their party's nominee, regardless of how that nominee's policies stray from traditional party planks. It can be argued that HRC's trade policies were far more conservative than Trump's protectionist policies that seem like a throwback to policies of more than a century ago. Back then, America had the manufacturing cache to live with large tariffs. That is no longer true. Now, America imports cheap goods, that will no longer be cheap and it will be American consumers and importers who will suffer. American exporters will suffer as other countries continue to launch retaliatory tariifs. Sound like a traditional Republican approach to trade?

Reagan and Eisenhower are rolling around in their graves.

Some things "SHOULD NOT" be motivated by profit; taxpayer funded schools, healthcare, prisons but all have been "privatized" by Republicans.

Originally all schools were privately owned. Then they got nationalized by the various state and federal governments. The really big difference between schools funded by the government and those with no government funding is the government schools have regulations which keep all students back to the same speed and level of learning of the slow learners while emphasizing keeping people together. The totally privately funded schools emphasize and focus on teaching the students the most they can.

Having lived in a totally private health care system and a totally government health care system, I can tell you the original private health care system worked a damn sight better than the totally government one. The big difference is the huge amount of money siphoned out of the system to pay for multiple levels of bureaucrats living in big fancy offices making rules that have no regards for the realities of life. Health care in rural Outer Whoop Whoop is different to that in Inner Ghetto City areas, but the government insist it be the same all over then under fund areas.

Seanski,

I deliberately left the prisons out of it. As to the Charter Schools, I don't know enough about how they're funded and operated to talk on them. However, I've had experience with private schools and government schools as well as private health care and government controlled health care. In both cases the private operations have been better manged and provided better services than the government ones. In both the biggest difference is the ability to choose who you go to in the private systems while the government systems tell you where you can and can't go.

In the government systems the faceless bureaucrats decide what you can and can't do based on their own ideas and not on your educational or health needs. People have died because the bureaucrats in charge of government health systems haven't approved the funding for some procedure or equipment. In private systems the people would have had the option to go to where they could get the help.

Also, private organizations are much more responsive to the needs of the users than the government ones are. And the government ones have a much larger administrative component and costs.

BTW, not all private operations are for profit because many were charitable operations until the government took them over.

Sad I thought all were supposed to be equal.

Where did you come up with that silly idea?

Or did you just mean it's sad that you had this thought for some reason, when it's blatantly not true.

Sad that one human has a greater value because of money. Just shows how far the human race has to grow to be something truly great.

Keep in mind that your vision of being 'great' fails to consider natural law. Survival of the fittest and natural selection aren't artificially made up ideas, they're how reality actually works.

While all humans are created equal - one sperm and one egg - what they do with the opportunity they've been given is NOT equal. And the initial opportunity itself is not equal, either, which is also just part of reality.

Then they got nationalized by the various state and federal governments.

Where did you get that from.

My understanding is the government started free public schools. Most private schools couldn't compete with free and went out of business. Some may have evolved into universities or colleges.

Where did you get that from.

All of the local schools in both Australia and the USA were originally set up as private operations by locals. In some cases people set up the school and taught people who paid to attend, in others the local community set up the school from donations by the locals. Many years decades the state and federal governments enacted laws to establish government schools everywhere and set out rules about how they operated. Over the years the rules focused on things other than teaching.

That is basically what I understand. However, that is very different from the private schools being nationalized.

However, that is very different from the private schools being nationalized.

All of the small local schools were taken over and nationalized by the state or federal governments when they set up the government school system. Then they passed laws to put in controls over the private tertiary education facilities that were around then.

But won't even try to educate students who are not already in the top tier. It's easy to do better if you limit yourself to only the best students.

That may be true of some schools, but where I went to school in Sydney had 5 private schools in the same area (it covered several suburbs and drew from a few more) and none of them restricted attendance beyond meeting the entry requirements of paying the fees except for the couple of church owned ones that required students to be recommended by their local parish priest / pastor.

Medicare, a government-administered privately run system has administrative costs of about 2 percent over the cost of providing the medical care.

I can't speak of the US system, but I can speak of what happened in Australia when we went from a private health system to a government health system.

Pre-Medicare most of the local hospitals were owned, run and funded by the local communities (especially true in rural areas) and had one or two clerks with a manager responsible to a board of local volunteers chosen by the community, and doctors had a receptionist / clerk nurse with one person able to handle up to 4 or 5 doctors since making bookings was 95% of their work. There was a small state Health Department with only a few staff who administered the awarding of some grant for equipment and paid bills for the services provided to those entitled to have medical services paid for by the state - mostly medical checks required for employees etc. The Commonwealth Health Department was small and administered equipment grants as well as payment for medical services provided those entitled to Commonwealth Health services - mostly pensioners and Commonwealth employees.

After nationalization with the introduction of Medicare the state and Commonwealth health departments quadrupled in size and are now over ten times bigger, regional health services administrations were established, the number of clerks needed to do the extra paperwork at local hospitals immediately doubled then kept growing - all of whom required office space and equipment. Because the clerical staff were now government employees they came under a different award with higher wages and better benefits as government employees, but the wages for the medical services staff stayed the same. Local doctors needed extra clerical staff to handle the extra paperwork required of the new system if they wanted to be paid. To help pay for all this the Commonwealth government added a new tax they called the Medicare Levy.

The end result was where the old system had a total admin cost of under 1% of the total budget of all the medical services it blossomed to about 40% of the newer much higher budget and the decisions on health services are no longer made at the local level, but at the state capital or national capital by bureaucrats and not the local doctors or local managers. The new system has also introduces racially based health services and gender based health services. The level and quality of service has dropped, and waiting times for operations in hospital have grown longer. The worst aspect is the health insurance companies had to increase fees to pay for all of the extra administration imposed on them by the new government system, then they had to increase them again when the government increased fees for medical services to cover all of the extra clerical staff and costs in the hospitals.

Medicare, a government-administered privately run system

That was true at one time, but the government is now doing far more than just administering the system.

To me in this instance, government-administered mean setting general policies and allowing the people running the system to implement the policies in an appropriate fashion.

Currently, it appears that the people who are running the system are doing precisely what the government tells them to do with no latitude for deviating from the orders they receive.

Currently, it appears that the people who are running the system are doing precisely what the government tells them to do with no latitude for deviating from the orders they receive.

Standard requirement of bureaucratic rules.

So, Seanski, no one in the hospital ever made a decision about what medical equipment to buy or what medical treatment to give a person when they needed something above the usual, that all such decisions were made by the insurance company or the government clerks?

Here, under the pre-Medicare system, the equipment and services provided at the local level were made by the local board of management with advice from the local medical staff - that no longer happens. Under the old system medical treatment was decided by the treating doctors not the administrators or the managers - that's no longer the case. The only time the insurance people had a say was for the cost of things like cosmetic surgery that wasn't reconstructive surgery. Under the government system the bureaucrats get a say in life saving treatments.

Under the old system you could organise any treatment you wanted to pay for, but not now. Go against what the government clerks say and you better have the money to travel overseas to pay for it.

You lack of knowledge of American Healthcare

Was made clear in the opening words of my earlier post on health systems which stated;

I can't speak of the US system, but I can speak of what happened in Australia when we went from a private health system to a government health system.

but it appears you failed to read the post in its entirety.

As to the cost, yes, I know costs have been rising, but when you had thousands of clerks to a system with offices and all they involve you have a huge increase in costs without any improvement in the service. When the government then restricts the budget to stay the same the end result is that all of those increased costs come at the expense of the service delivery area. Then the thousands of extra clerical staff have to come up with ways to justify their existence, further adding to the costs.

However, the biggest issue is when the government clerks say people must die because they will not approve a treatment regardless of if the people can pay for it or not, then the system is seriously at fault, as has been proven several times with the UK system.

Uh, help me here. How does this relate to the point of my post, i.e. the difference in socialism and capitalism in the handling of healthcare?

This is also for seanski1969

Socialist health system like that in the UK where the bureaucrats refuse to allow health services to be provided to someone they think isn't worth keeping alive. Here's a couple of cases from the UK socialist health system:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfie_Evans_case

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Gard_case

then there's news like this;

www.bbc.com/news/health-38554077

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/elder/11637179/Elderly-face-NHS-discrimination-under-new-UN-death-targets.html

www.theguardian.com/society/2018/mar/05/hundreds-of-mental-health-patients-dying-after-nhs-care-failures

But many of us were uninsured and uninsurable.

Please don't take this the wrong way, but ... is any of that my fault? If not, then why should I be forced to pay for your insurance? Which is what Obamacare shoved down all of our throats.

Note that due to my OWN health history, I've been uninsurable in the past. I had to get a job with group coverage to get health insurance, and I had to let 10 years pass before I could get life insurance on my own.

There's nothing 'lucky' about getting employer provided health insurance. More than half of all Americans - 60% - are covered by employer health plans. The whole Obamacare Ponzi scheme was for less than 6% of the entire population, and only reduced the number of uninsured by 0.3% - yet drastically increased the insurance rates for all the rest of us, drove many physicians out of business, and didn't accomplish a damned thing it said it was going to.

Oh, and I'm paying off my medical bills from last year - just over $300,000 before insurance, so I hit my $7,500 out of pocket stop loss pretty quick. Now, I'm a bit of oddball in our society - I actually HAD that much money (actually, quite a bit more) saved up. So I DON'T live paycheck to paycheck. I'm also not dependent upon the government looking out for me, since I KNOW they don't have my own best interests at heart.

The government controlled over 40% of the healthcare market prior to the Unaffordable Care Act. Think Medicare, Medicaid and Veterans Administration. That was the primary reason it (the industry) was so screwed up. Another being onerous government regulations that prevented effective competition, i.e. capitalism, in that market. And those roadblocks to true competition are still in place.

While this is correct - it was the other 60% that was NOT under government control that kept us going. What happened to keeping your doctor? What happened to the savings on our premiums those of us in the 60% were supposed to see? Even WITH still being in private insurance, my premiums have more than doubled in the last four years, and my deductibles have nearly tripled.

Five years ago if I'd had the health issues I had last year, my deductible would have been 2,000 and my stop loss was 5,000. Last year individual deductible was 5,000 and my stop loss was 7,500. Family deductible was 4,000, now it's 10,000. And my premiums went from $125 per check to $300 per check.

I don't know where you got all of those promises. What I would like to know is the date and context in which they were made. Mainly was it before or after, Congress gutted the plan he submitted.

Or if you're not worth saving according to our algorithms, e.g. too old. Hello Death Panels.

The UK has something like that. GPs are required to submit lists of patients they think are going to die soon. Hospitals have access to those lists so they can assign the lesser resources of palliative care rather than spend money trying to cure them.

AJ

There is no conspiracy by Soros to create a global socialist empire. How can people present such a ludicrous conspiracy as a fact?

From past and recent public statements he's made about wanting world wide socialism and the amount of funding he's given to socialist organizations, plus the foundation to spread socialism he funded with billions of dollars. Not much there, is there? Right!

There is no conspiracy by Soros to create a global socialist empire. How can people present such a ludicrous conspiracy as a fact?

Because we've researched and read what he himself has said? I know that's a hard concept to grasp.

Can you provide a source for these statements, please?

Yes, I can. But in the interests of teaching you, I'm going to tell you to do your OWN research and find them for yourself. You will, if you're willing to look past the first page of Google results.

Yeah, it's the Dems that ban everything that isn't on their extremely short list of approved things to think about. That's why the California Dems have banned a lot of religious books, among other things.

@mcguy101

Yeah, it's the Dems that ban everything that isn't on their extremely short list of approved things to think about. That's why the California Dems have banned a lot of religious books, among other things.

There are no "religious books" being banned in California by Dems. There are books that deal with a very narrow interpretation of the bible concerning "sexual conversion" (that are being labeled as a fraudulent practice) that are not being permitted in schools. That is a far cry from banning the Holy Bible the Talmud, the Koran or the teaching of Confucius for that matter.

I disagree with banning books, but certainly feel that school libraries should contain materials that are age appropriate for kids and not contain materials that contain potentially fraudulent, unsubstantiated scientific theories that could hurt kids.

There is a big difference between spending limited school library resources and banning books.

There are no "religious books" being banned in California by Dems.

I haven't kept up with if it was passed or not, but the Calif Legislation was looking to pass a piece of legislation that made it unlawful to advertise or sell or distribute any document which spoke against homosexuality. While the guy who put it up said it wouldn't affect books like the Bible the the exact wording made the Bible unlawful to distribute is it was passed as put up. Mind you, the people pushing the proposed law didn't realise they'd have a backlash from the Muslims as it would also make the Qur'ran unlawful and also the Torah unlawful to upset the Jews too.

The proposed law did not limit it to school libraries.

I haven't kept up with if it was passed or not, but the Calif Legislation was looking to pass a piece of legislation that made it unlawful to advertise or sell or distribute any document which spoke against homosexuality. While the guy who put it up said it wouldn't affect books like the Bible the the exact wording made the Bible unlawful to distribute is it was passed as put up. Mind you, the people pushing the proposed law didn't realise they'd have a backlash from the Muslims as it would also make the Qur'ran unlawful and also the Torah unlawful to upset the Jews too.

The proposed law did not limit it to school libraries.

We are talking about two different things. I was talking about the whole books about "sexual conversion" issue. As far as I know, that is not about "religious book banning", but about what is being labeled as books that contain a what is described as a "fraudulent practice". That is a far cry from designating anti-gay rhetoric as "hate speech".

To my knowledge, no legislation in California has been passed that prevents the Holy Bible from being in libraries. If it had, it would have been reported by respectable sites.

This is the problem. People refer to the mainstream media as "fake news", but at least most of these outlets fact check. Most of the sites that comment on issues of the day, who purport to be "real news" don't. They have their own agenda and many of them are more concerned about that than they are about the truth.

While it is true that much of the "mainstream media" has a leftward bent, at least most of them don't make crap up out of whole cloth and sell it to the unaware.

You say this after they've been caught red-handed doing exactly that. While I don't have the stories at the tips of my fingers, very shallow digging on the internet will turn up several, even numerous, examples.

While you may have the right to your own opinion, you don't have the right to your own facts.

Yeah, journalists get their facts wrong sometimes, but blatantly wrong pieces seldom ever see the light of day with these outlets. More often, lying crap gets published from these fake news sites that purport that the mainstream media is "fake news". For those who believe them, I'll be happy to sell them a 100 acres of swamp land in Florida that I don't own and will cheer as these fools dance to the tune that Putin is playing, lol.

Afterall POTUS believes Putin more than his entire intelligence apparatus. Nobody is that gullible so what do you think is really going on here?

so what do you think is really going on here?

Trump is scared that Mueller is zeroing in on him.

An innocent man will deny accusations and welcome an investigation that will prove him innocent. A guilty man will deny accusations and try to shutdown an investigation that is likely to prove him guilty. Trump's actions indicate he was involved in things that he knows he shouldn't have been doing. Those things may not be directly related to Russian interference in our election, but Muller's investigation is turning up criminal actions that are not directly related to the purpose of the investigation.

Creating sensationalism or conflict in unrelated areas is a way of shifting the public's attention away from Mueller. As POTUS, Trump has a lot of power and he is using it to focus public attention on things other than Mueller's investigation. While we focus on something else, Trump manipulates things to end Mueller's investigation. So far, many of his manipulations have been made public knowledge which makes him look even more guilty.

@mcguy101

so what do you think is really going on here?

Trump is scared that Mueller is zeroing in on him.

An innocent man will deny accusations and welcome an investigation that will prove him innocent. A guilty man will deny accusations and try to shutdown an investigation that is likely to prove him guilty. Trump's actions indicate he was involved in things that he knows he shouldn't have been doing. Those things may not be directly related to Russian interference in our election, but Muller's investigation is turning up criminal actions that are not directly related to the purpose of the investigation.

Creating sensationalism or conflict in unrelated areas is a way of shifting the public's attention away from Mueller. As POTUS, Trump has a lot of power and he is using it to focus public attention on things other than Mueller's investigation. While we focus on something else, Trump manipulates things to end Mueller's investigation. So far, many of his manipulations have been made public knowledge which makes him look even more guilty.

Umm... my question was rhetorical, lol. Still, your answer sums up a lot of what seems to be going on.

Zeroing in on him for what? What crime is Mueller suppose to be investigating?

I suppose you were telling Ken Starr not to pursue anything after he couldn't pin Whitewater on Clinton.

In this case, Mueller has a ton more on Trump than Starr had on Clinton.

Thats exactly what it looks like as Mueller has yet to show any crime committed by the Trump campaign. Not even a sniff. The last impeachment was brought about based on a felony being committed. What is the crime here?

How about Paul Manafort and his perjury concerning meetings with Russians. He's was only Trump's Campaign Manager. While there is a lot of supposition, it's clear that something went on here and like Watergate and Whitewater, the Special Counsel will keep digging until he finds what he needs and Trunp is impeached or he resigns.

As I stated, I don't know what crime Trump is guilty of committing, assuming he committed a crime. What I did say is Trump is acting like a criminal trying to cover up the crime he committed.

Statements like pardoning himself for crimes is a good example. An innocent man wouldn't need a pardon.

Talking about firing Mueller if he doesn't back off is another example to include firing him if he starts looking at Trump's financial affairs. Many of us believe a close look at his financial affairs will reveal criminal conduct.

it should be for something he did personally, not someone working on his behalf.

Maybe Trump gave his people orders to collude with the Russians. Getting others to do the work and staying clear of the activities sounds like Trump (e.g., Trump's financial group owned Trump University. It is highly probable that Trump instructed the people who managed Trump University to do something and then said he wasn't involved in managing the University and what the management did.)

An innocent man will deny accusations and welcome an investigation that will prove him innocent. A guilty man will deny accusations and try to shutdown an investigation that is likely to prove him guilty.

While a man being the subject of a witch hunt seeking to manufacture evidence will do what he can to get the biased investigator ousted and an unbiased one appointed.

Yes, that is true. However, investigating people who appear to be involved in Russia's activities and following the trail of inappropriate actions you discover is not a witch hunt.

Yes, that is true. However, investigating people who appear to be involved in Russia's activities and following the trail of inappropriate actions you discover is not a witch hunt.

It is when you start at the tail end and trip over something that started before the person you started investigating was even involved in the event. It's more so when the investigators make clear statements about being out to get the person the way the two lead investigators did.

Investigators commenting on their personal opinions of a persons involvement is not appropriate. But that doesn't mean their investigation did not reveal improper conduct on the part of the person investigated.

In that type of investigation, you pick a starting point that looks like it will yield good results.

It really doesn't matter if the starting point picked is in the middle of what happened or at the start as long as you work backwards and forwards from where you started.

The key players in the Russian interference know who was involved and how the scenario played out. The people Mueller has determined as guilty of inappropriate actions has Trump rattled. The question is why is he rattled? If we assume he wasn't involved in the Russia interference, then he may have been involved in something else and fears Mueller will learn of that something else.

Personally, I believe Trump instructed his campaign people to work with the Russians and they did so without him being in the meetings. In the US, private citizens conspiring with a foreign government's agents is a crime.

It's interesting that the material used to justify the investigation of Trump and his people has been proven to be falsified by senior Democrats and what has been proven to have been done by the Russians was against both sides and started before Trump even expressed an interest in running for President, yet the investigation focused almost solely on Trump and his people until forced to look further. It's also interesting that those same investigators found nothing of concern about Russian collusion with selling Uranium to Russian government controlled businesses by the previous administration. Need we get into those same investigators finding nothing of real interest in the Clinton Mail Server investigation. Mueller and his biased team have been on a witch hunt against Trump and trying to cover up anything to do with Clinton. That alone makes the whole Mueller investigation tainted and in a major need to be totally reviewed by unbiased others.

It might be proven to your satisfaction, but the pronouncements by Trump and his supporters that it is so doesn't make it so.

Proven to the satisfaction of the law courts, jurists, Justice Dept, and Congress. I suspect that's sufficient for anyone who isn't part of the 'Hillary is a God' movement.

Proven to the satisfaction of the law courts, jurists, Justice Dept, and Congress. I suspect that's sufficient for anyone who isn't part of the 'Hillary is a God' movement.

Okay... No thinking person would anoint HRC to godhood, but if anything, the Justice Department felt that there was enough evidence to warrant an Independent Counsel to investigate the charges against Trump. It is incredible that Mueller, who was originally a GW Bush era appointee is being tarred as a liberal loving, biased individual. That's is absurd. The man is trying to investigate a serious breach of the public trust and national security, that has ties close to the president (if not to the president himself).

If you choose to believe the tweets of a guy who tweets more than a 13 year old girl, fine, but that doesn't make it so.

I still get a kick out of the fact that the Republicans did not run a true conservative candidate. Instead, they run an unqulaified, anti-trade, anti-business businessman with a dubious track record and no experience in government. Seems like the ideal candidate to me.

The sad thing is that many Americans voted for him simply because they didn't like her (now that's the mature thing to do). Now the country is stuck with a stain that will take generations to clean.

the Justice Department felt that there was enough evidence to warrant an Independent Counsel to investigate the charges against Trump.

Wasn't that before the truth about the faked info used for the FISA warrant was found out? Mueller was in place when that news became public.

You've just described every Presidential election (or any election that I've voted in, for that matter) since I first started voting in the late 60s. Whether it's the "mature" thing to do, it's the reality of the situation. Generally, before I go into the voting both, I declare "a pox on both their houses".

Every candidate I've voted for high office has at least been qualified to hold that office. Every American who voted for one of the two major party candidates can make that claim up until 2016. This is the first election that I can remember that a major political party ran out a clearly unqualified candidate for POTUS. So, this is the one case that people should have acted responsibly and didn't.

Voodoo?

The below paragraph is directly from something said by Barack Obama.

"Well, how exactly are you going to do that? What exactly are you going to do? There's no answer to it," Obama said.

"He just says, 'Well, I'm going to negotiate a better deal.' Well, what, how exactly are you going to negotiate that? What magic wand do you have? And usually the answer is, he doesn't have an answer."

Well, obviously he's used the magic wand ...

If he is so clearly unqualified, how is he getting so much that is good done? Voodoo?

He's done a heck of a lot more bad than good. If you think increasing our national debt, starting a trade war that will ultimately hurt American consumers and unnecessarily separating families is a good thing, I'd love to hear what you think is a bad thing. The guy hypes a "summit" with Putin that turns out to be a total waste of time. It's a big fat zero.

He puts political appointees (who are also unqualified) in office who waste taxpayer money on things like a "soundproof" booth.

Yeah, he's doing a bang up job if you ask me.

Try here for starters. The estimated cost to the US economy is this article is on the low side. And, as the article documents, the US is already doing more than it's share in reducing CO2 emmissions. So what other conclusion can you draw other than the PCA is a green light to emit to third world countries while the US pays the bill, even though we're already doing more than anyone else?

Who designed this model the current EPA uses? Was it used in the previous administration or something Pruit instituted? If different, what changes would the previous model show? These are the types of questions that any serious journalist without an agenda would ask.

I've just seen where you get your news and it isn't any better than any of the other sources you cite with contempt. I always use a jaded eye when it comes to either conservative or liberal based blogs. Even if it agrees with your politics, you should (as the translation states) Trust, but verify. It's the only thing Russian I'd trust right now.

Keet, many of the things Jim S contributes to Trump are half truths and misrepresentations.

For example:

the 300,000 new manufacturing jobs - The Obama administration created the environment for new jobs toward the end of his term. Trump was President when people were hired so he took credit for Obama's work.

destroying ISIS - from what I have heard, ISIS is still around.

calming down Little Rocket Man - Trump is the one who riled him up to more than his usual saber rattling.

moving to secure the borders - using methods that are unconstitutional, ineffective, and costly to the taxpayer.

strengthening NATO - How? All I heard about is Trump alienating our NATO allies.

They're starting to pay again per agreed to levels.

Paying is not strengthening the organization. Working together is strengthening.

What is unconstitutional here?

Try Trump's executive order that was challenged and found unconstitutional.

not us.

Try Trump's comment about having a big red button on his desk and the other inflammatory remarks and comments he made to include calling him Rocket Man.

Now, it has essentially been eliminated.

Essentially eliminated. Ha. Organizations like that one in the Middle East, disperse and then reform. What you call essentially eliminated is them dispersing.

Thats been turned around.

Yeah, by Obama's efforts not Trumps. That type of turnaround takes months if not years of effort. If you recall, Trump made the claim within the first month or so of his term.

I would I refer you to the Fact Checker articles and list of lies he told since taking office that quote his claims/comments and present the actual facts. But as a Trump supporter you would say the content is 'False News'.

Methinks you take too much of your knowledge from the NYT/Wapo nexus.

Actually, I read many media articles, left and right. Then I apply common sense. Like I said, laying claim to the results that requires a long time to achieve a month after taking office is an obviously a false claim.

Which one?

Does it really matter.

I wouldn't waste time typing or even trying to convince a Trump supporter

Yes I have the same basic opinions that you stated in the post.

I think that what irritates me the most is all media outlets take the facts and twist them to meet their editorial agenda, which is set by the owners. You can't trust any of them to tell the truth. Thus I assume the truth is somewhere between the two extremes and read all article about an issue that interests me. Then I try to determine the what is true. After doing that I have both liberals and conservatives telling me I shouldn't read and believe xyz media outlets because I disagree with them. These liberal and conservative people seem to pick their preferred media outlets and accept the BS that is being shoveled down their throats.

When I think of stories in the media, I am reminded of an article I read back in the 70s. It talked about a paper receiving a one line report on an incident from Reuters, about 15 words. The reporter took that one liner and turned it into an article that was about 20 column inches long. An extreme example of padding a story, but typical of the media.

I think that what irritates me the most is all media outlets take the facts and twist them to meet their editorial agenda, which is set by the owners. You can't trust any of them to tell the truth.

I think that people have lost the ability to tell the difference between opinion and fact-based news. Most of the fact-based news reported by CBS, NBC, FOX, CNN, and ABC is fairly accurate. But often gets skewed and spun in ways it never had in the past by opinion-based "news" programs and liberal fringe and alt-right websites that often make up crap.

News reporting has always been skewed in the direction of the owners opinion. It has just gotten more intense and noticeable lately.

Obama of the ".....those jobs are never coming back." And "...what he is going to do? Wave a magic wand" (might be paraphrasing here). Trump delivered.

That's enough for now.

I quoted Obama quite a ways up in this thread, you're close enough.

The sheer ... okay, I'll be the bigger man here and not call these people denigrating what President Trump has accomplished in spite of, and not due to, the attempt at politics as usual by the politicians in Washington as complete idiots, morons, and jackasses who don't recognize that's WHY he was elected.

He's doing what he was elected to do - Make America Great Again. And that's what the internationalists don't get. His sole agenda is ... does what he is doing help America? If so, then do it.

He's not started a trade war - he's simply applying tariffs on products to make things equal because of the tariffs that OTHER countries are applying to OUR products already. If that's starting a trade war, and not just bending over and taking what the rest of the world does, then we need more of that. What's been the result so far? Oh, look, suddenly there's more talks AND reductions in tariffs.

Oh, wait, we're having that with NATO, too. We're not footing the majority of the bill for that anymore.

He's also done something to piss off everyone - he moved our embassy to Jerusalem. The last four Presidents said they'd do it as a campaign promise ... then backed out. He did it.

What Obama did, and allowed to happen in Iraq, borders on treason because it put our boys in uniform at risk. He put such strict ROE on them that they couldn't defend themselves. That meant we took unnecessary casualties. What's the first rule of war? Kill the OTHER bastard first. Is he hiding in a mosque? Sorry, scratch one mosque.

I did NOT vote for him in the primary - I voted for Ted Cruz. My wife voted for Marco Rubio. But when it came time for the general election, it was pretty simple. The SCOTUS is the branch that interprets the law - and with the Hildebeast in charge, that would have ended the Constitution of this country. That made our vote an easy one, and one we'll be glad to repeat in 2 1/2 years.

(Yeah, the whole tearing families apart thing is pure bogus, too. All he's doing is actually enforcing EXISTING law. Congress doesn't like it? They can change the law. It's NOT up to the President to do that. That's where libtards can't handle it - they're used to their way of selectively enforcing the laws they like and ignoring the ones they don't. Welcome to reality. Phrasing it another way, they see no cause for alarm with literal piles of human shit building in their cities, with HIV positive people able to have sex without warning others that they could catch the disease from them, but having a plastic straw is a felony. And the 'science' behind that was MADE UP BY A 9 YEAR OLD!)

he's simply applying tariffs on products to make things equal because of the tariffs that OTHER countries are applying to OUR products already.

There have been tariffs in place for a long time. Trump was the one to start increasing/adding more tariffs not the other countries. Trump's tariff war is bankrupting Amaerican businesses. Is that what you call MAGA?

Yeah, the whole tearing families apart thing is pure bogus, too.

I don't like illegals in the country either, but those laws could have been enforced without taking kids away from their parents.

He's doing what he was elected to do - Make America Great Again. And that's what the internationalists don't get. His sole agenda is ... does what he is doing help America? If so, then do it.

Trump's International policy is the same policy that led to WW2. He is steering this nation toward isolationism while acting like Neville Chamberlin with Putin, while ticking off our allies.

Whether you care to admit it or not we live in a global economy. Millions of Americans have money invested (either individually or through company pension and 401K retirement plans) in International businesses and commodities. Foreign companies hold billions of dollars in American markets and hold billions in American debt. Like it or not, we are all internationalists when it comes to money.

He's not started a trade war - he's simply applying tariffs on products to make things equal because of the tariffs that OTHER countries are applying to OUR products already. If that's starting a trade war, and not just bending over and taking what the rest of the world does, then we need more of that. What's been the result so far? Oh, look, suddenly there's more talks AND reductions in tariffs.

What unreasonable tariffs has Canada engaged in since NAFTA?

Does China have protective tariffs? Hmmm. Is the Pope Catholic? Do we? Don't think so but I haven't checked lately. Are these tariffs important? Think of how the threat of tariffs against European cars brought them to the negotiating table and elicited concessions on soybeans and LNG

I understand China, but not our allies. What is the justification for unfair tarrifs on Canadian goods? The auto industry is a complex issue and has a lot to do with the reliability of US autos versus Japanese and German cars. Standards on American cars have improved over recent years, but it will take a while for that to take root in consumer consciousness.

As far as vehicle parts being made in other countries (i.e.China), labor is cheaper due to the lack of organized labor in China. Yeah, Tariffs can be a short-term solution, but increasing tariffs on Chinese goods will hurt American consumers who want to buy quality, but inexpensive clothes (i.e Trump's own political base).

Which is fine if you're willing to accept the trade off between quality and price. Me? I prefer quality first. I'll take low prices also when I can get them.

A fair amount of clothes coming out of China are of a decent quality and are reasonably priced. Many of Trump's supporters wear these clothes as they are purchased at their local discount department stores, as opposed to spending a lot more at high-end department stores for brand and designer names. They will be hit hard by the US jacking its tariffs on Chinese goods.

In the end, its consumers that are hurt by these tariffs and mostly the people who can least afford it. Talk about biting the hand that feeds you.

A number of years ago, I went on a 'made in the USA' kick. I needed some new shirts for work, but couldn't find any that had been made in the US. :(

Regarding vehicles, lower labor costs is part of the lower cost. So is the fact they don't have an EPA. At least not one as vigorous as ours, as well as differing environmental standards. And that addresses only part of the picture. Yea, it's complicated.

Well, not for much longer if Trumpwit has his way. If it survives at all, the EPA will be a paper tiger and just a shadow of it's former self. We can look forward to levels of smog and pollution like we had in the early 1970s: Acid rain, rivers aflame, news services reporting the number of smog-related deaths. Flint Michigan water quality will be the new national standard.

That meme about Republicans has been going around ever since the EPA was founded under Richard Nixon. A Republican.

Trump is not your daddy's Republican. He's more like your Grandpa's National Socialist if you were German, lol.

Seriously, over the last fifty years, Americans of all parties have seen the need for an effective EPA until this administration. Pruitt was a joke and Wheeler, who is a former coal lobbyist may set back environmental standards to the 1960s.

With apologies to coal miners, coal is a virtually dying industry and energy source. With the constant improvements in fuel cell technology and solar power, we should be moving toward the energy of the future than propping up a dying industry that is almost as dangerous to the environment as it is to those who mine it.

How something that's plant food can be a pollutant still hasn't been adequately explained. And I'm not trying to start a discussion on AGW.

I'm not a botanist, but from what I recall, CO2 isn't "plant food" per se. It is part of the photosynthesis (plant respiration) process, but plants survive on water and nutrients found in soil. In simple (and not completely accurate, lol) terms, plants breathe CO2 and make oxygen.

In itself, normal levels CO2 in the atmosphere isn't a problem, but with the continual destruction of the rainforest in South America (which accounts for largest concentration of plant life in the world) our air quality as a planet begins to suffer as CO2 levels increase by burning fossil fuels in larger quantities while chopping down the trees that help generate oxygen that we need in the air to breathe.

That's why renewable resources should be invested in instead of fossil fuel whenever possible.

Very few plants could survive without CO2, and some crops are grown in greenhouses with artificially high levels of CO2 to increase yields. So I guess you could argue CO2 is a form of nutrition.

AJ

Very few plants could survive without CO2, and some crops are grown in greenhouses with artificially high levels of CO2 to increase yields. So I guess you could argue CO2 is a form of nutrition.

That would be like arguing that humans eat breathable oxygen as nutrition, lol.

It's really more like plants breathe CO2 and exhale oxygen, like we breathe in oxygen and exhale CO2, so it is more like we breathe in their bad breath and they breathe in ours, lol.

So the problem I have with EPA is regulatory overreach, a prime example being WOTUS (Waters Of The United States). Environmental activists spurred on by Obama found a power to regulate standing water in ditches under that one.

Actually, it was even worse than what you suggest. They found a power to regulate the rainwater that comes off your roof.

Some of us with backyard gardens like to collect the rainwater in barrels so that we can then use that later for watering. If you did that, you were disturbing the natural flow of water and subject to regulation - according to them.

And don't forget what a great job the EPA under Obama did in managing to contain the Animas River spill in 2015, that was their own fault.

The problem with most laws is they are passed to regulate a specific something and then someone comes along and finds a way to apply the laws to things the laws were never intended to regulate.

Some of us with backyard gardens like to collect the rainwater in barrels so that we can then use that later for watering. If you did that, you were disturbing the natural flow of water and subject to regulation - according to them.

The prevailing UK sentiment is the opposite - I've been the beneficiary of subsidised council water butts for my rainwater storage. But then the UK is (normally) a temperate rainforest, apart from having culled 90% of the forest.

AJ

Foreign tariffs erecting a wall to American goods without countervailing tariffs lead to domestic companies to stop producing. Jobs go overseas.

Yes that is true. The US has been involved in a number of trade wars in the past. Those trade wars were settled by the US and foreign countries establishing countervailing tariffs. Later one side would increase/add tariffs and another trade war would start.

Tariffs are established to protect the home industries. That supposedly is to allow the home industry the time to become more competitive. Unfortunately, we have this thing called a standard of living. Many people go to college so they can get higher paying jobs. People who don't go to college also want higher paying jobs. We end up with people screwing nuts onto bolts and being paid more than what their productivity warrants. That drives prices up and makes the home industry less competitive. Add in that the home industries want high profits for their investors and upper management and the industries attain that goal by not reinvesting those profits in their companies. The net result is companies moving their operations overseas.

Corporate America and workers want it all and that damages the companies' ability to compete with foreign companies. There is no easy answer. My opinion is creating new tariffs is probably the worst thing that could be done to try to fix this problem for a tariff war may help a small segment of our economy, but it hurts a much larger group of businesses. Trump's tariff on steel helped the steel producers. Steel producers didn't produce all of the steel needed for US production. So the companies that used steel in their products had to pay higher prices for the imported steel. I read about one company that produces gardening equipment for Home Depot that is on the verge of bankruptcy due to Trump's tariff on steel. There are also many additional American companies being harmed by the tariffs. You can expect an increase in unemployment in the not too distant future.

Doesn't address my point that all the inflammatory rhetoric and conditions started with LRM.

Arguing with you is a waste of time. You have your opinions and I have mine.

I have no idea what LRM means. In case you aren't aware of it the inflammatory rhetoric and conditions began back in the 50's.

The 1850's maybe.

I was thinking of the rhetoric and sabre rattling that has been spouted by Kim, his father, and grandfather following the Korean Police Action. If it started earlier, I'm not aware of it.

He takes credit for all the people hired "since I won the election." That includes those hired in the last 2.5 months of the Obama administration.

Yep and usually economic policies take time to take effect as the positive environment was created during the Obama administration.

Many people blame GHW Bush for the failures of the Reagan Administration's second term. Obama's early first term was mired by GW Bush's economic quagmire as well.

I'm doing this from vague memory but didn't Trump also want an end to chain migration and elimination of the visa lottery and that was a deal breaker for the Dems?

That's how it was being spoken about by some of the Dems in the interviews I saw. At the time I gathered, from what CNN interviews of Dems, that Trump agreed to allow the currently registered DACA people to stay and apply for migration provided they passed the basic security checks, but he refused to give them immediate citizenship (as many asked for) and he refused to add new people to the lists as well as Trump wanting to end chain migration - it was the chain migration and not instant approvals that upset the vocal Dems at the time.

The Democrats offered Trump a deal: Full funding of his request for a border wall in exchange for allowing DACA (that's the kids of illegal immigrants) to stay in this country, having illegal immigrants go to the back of the line, but eventually a path to citizenship for those who wanted it. Trump turned down the deal. It's hard to figure out exactly what he wants. First he said he'd sign legislation that got bi-partisan support, then when it looked like the Senate was going to reach such a deal, he said he'd veto it. It's hard to know what Trump wants since he first says one thing, then the other. The one thing you can be sure he wants: He wants to be able to declare himself the best in the history of the universe. I suspect he may actually believe it.

He still thinks the Mexicans are going to fund it, lol. He's either delusional or it is just another of the hundreds of lies he's told over the last couple of years. Either way, I'm not impressed (or entertained).

increasing our national debt

For most of us it takes income to pay our bills.

The Republicans pushed their tax cut bill through Congress. That meant less income and the bills still needed to be paid. Trump and the Republicans just borrowed about $800 billion to supplement government income - the highest amount borrowed in 1 year since 2008.

Contrary to your assertion that the law courts, jurists, Justice Dept., and Congress have all chimed in in support of Trump's positions, the truth is that not one of the four you named have done anything - to date.

My comment about the jurists etc. was not about supporting Trump, but about the fraudulent status of the file created and used for the initiation of the investigations against Trump.

Unlike some people who don't like him, Trump appears to believe in the rule of law and is letting the system do things the way it's supposed to do them. However, he still has to deal with the crap started before he was President.

Except that the Senate Foreign Relations Committee universally stated that the FISA warrant and Special Counsel was legal and warranted.

Was that before or after the information of it being fake came out - I've seen many reports about how the warrant would not have been issued without the fake report. Even one of the FBI agents said the first two times the warrant wasn't issued, but after they added the report it was.

It's interesting that the material used to justify the investigation of Trump and his people has been proven to be falsified by senior Democrats and what has been proven to have been done by the Russians was against both sides and started before Trump even expressed an interest in running for President, yet the investigation focused almost solely on Trump and his people until forced to look further. It's also interesting that those same investigators found nothing of concern about Russian collusion with selling Uranium to Russian government controlled businesses by the previous administration. Need we get into those same investigators finding nothing of real interest in the Clinton Mail Server investigation. Mueller and his biased team have been on a witch hunt against Trump and trying to cover up anything to do with Clinton. That alone makes the whole Mueller investigation tainted and in a major need to be totally reviewed by unbiased others.

Let the chips fall where they may. Clinton was slapped on the wrist for maintaining a private server (as both Collin Powell and Condoleeza Rice did something similar with private commercial email). She was investigated by the FBI and censured for her action.

What Trump or his employees/administration is accused of is far more serious. Russia may not be an "enemy" in the tradtion sense, but they truly have become a rogue state and have acted using spycraft to illegally influence democratic processes in a number of countries. When Trump made an open request to the Russians in a campaign speech, in addition to having surrogates engage in covert communications with Russians, he opened the door to what's currently happening. He has nobody to blame but himself for what's happening to him now. Regardless of if he is directly implicated, he is ultimately responsible for the crimes of his surrogates (especially if knows of any crime they may have committed). If Bill Clinton can be impeached for lying about an affair, Trump should be impeached (and tried and convicted by the US Senate) if this is the case.

He can cry "witch hunt" all he wants, but this would never have happened if he hadn't turned Jim Comey into a newt. lol.

What Trump or his employees/administration is accused of is far more serious.

"This is my last election … After my election I have more flexibility," ... Barack Obama, to Dmitri Medvedev, for relay to Vladimir Putin.

Just how serious was that? Oh, wait, it was done by Obama, so all is forgiven. And liberals wonder why, after 8 years of putting up with things like this, why Trump supporters simply don't CARE what anyone says about him.

It'd be one thing if they had a double standard, but it's quite apparent they only have one standard. Everything done by a Democrat is perfectly fine, even Bill Clinton meeting with the head of the DOJ on the runway to 'talk about the grandchildren' while her office was investigating his wife. Yeah, pull the other one.

The report that was the basis as the 'proof' for the FISA warrant was CREATED by Hillary. That's already been proven. With no factual basis for the warrant, EVERYTHING that has come from it is Fruit of the Poisonous Tree.

"This is my last election … After my election I have more flexibility," ... Barack Obama, to Dmitri Medvedev, for relay to Vladimir Putin.

Context? Flexibility to do what? What are you accusing him of doing? Big difference between that comment and what Trump is accused of doing.

The report that was the basis as the 'proof' for the FISA warrant was CREATED by Hillary. That's already been proven. With no factual basis for the warrant, EVERYTHING that has come from it is Fruit of the Poisonous Tree.

And you know this how? Some alt-right website? Citations?

I don't particularly care about HRC. If she's guilty of falsifying documentation she should be punished. Still, if that is the case then why hasn't Trump locked up "crooked Hilary"?

Trump lovers tend to go back to Clinton when pushed about Russian meddling and Trump's possible involvement (whether directly or by surrogate).

I've got a good idea. Let's find out the truth about both of them and let the chips fall where they may.

the material used to justify the investigation of Trump and his people has been proven to be falsified by senior Democrats

Proven? I know that a lot of the information used to substantiate the need for an investigation was weak, but weak and falsified are totally different things. I know Trump is a liar and he has made numerous claims and accusations in this matter without proof. I also know most of his claims/accusations have been proven to be lies and misrepresentations. I know the Republican Party supports Trump and takes the same stance that he does when Trump's position supports party politics.

what has been proven to have been done by the Russians was against both sides

It is a well-known fact that Putin hates Clinton due to the stances she took against Russia as Secretary of State. I agree that what Russia hacking DNC server discredited Clinton and the Democratic Party. However those actions didn't harm the Republican Party and it did help sway voters away from Clinton.

started before Trump even expressed an interest in running for President, yet the investigation focused almost solely on Trump and his people until forced to look further.

Ernest, the investigators weren't equipped with crystal balls. Initially, they didn't know when the Russian effort started. They found a solid point to begin the investigation – namely the FBI/CIA reports of US citizens being involved with Russian agents and citizens. That is what led the investigation to Trump. If his campaign staff had not been negotiating with Russian agents to gain information to use against Clinton, Trump wouldn't be at the center of the controversy.

It's also interesting that those same investigators found nothing of concern about Russian collusion with selling Uranium to Russian government controlled businesses by the previous administration.

If you recall, that particular sale was approved by the US government. There was nothing to investigate other than US officials doing their jobs. You should also note that the following states that US Government approval was not required for the sale to proceed. There has been a lot of disinformation put out about this issue and you seem to have accepted a lot of it as fact.
https://www.factcheck.org/2017/10/facts-uranium-one/

Need we get into those same investigators finding nothing of real interest in the Clinton Mail Server investigation.

What those investigators found was Clinton set up an email server that was outside of the approved government channels – that violated the procedures and policies put in place by the government to protect the information being transferred. They also found that some of the people who worked with and supported Clinton failed to handle classified material properly. Those 2 items alone are far more than nothing of real interest. Their investigation resulted in the email server being shut down and many of the people receiving reprimands and possibly fired.

Mueller and his biased team have been on a witch hunt against Trump and trying to cover up anything to do with Clinton. That alone makes the whole Mueller investigation tainted and in a major need to be totally reviewed by unbiased others.

Get real Ernest and stop listening to Fox propaganda and Trump's lies and misrepresentations. Mueller's team is investigating Russian meddling in US elections – not Clinton's email server or any of the other unsupported accusations Trump is making about Clinton. I would be upset if Mueller's team followed up on links to the email server issue that had no bearing on what Mueller is investigating.

As I also said, Trump is running scared and doing everything he can to discredit and shut down the investigation. Let's sit back and wait to see what evidence Mueller's team has come up with to support the current charges against the crooks Trump has chosen as his comrades and coworkers.

Perhaps you should ask yourself why Trump continues to try to link Clinton to what Russia did while at the same time Trump is destroying the US's relations with its customary allies and trying to pressure the US Government into accepting Russia as an ally. Russia is not an ally of the US Government, it is an enemy. In my eyes, that makes Trump a traitor.

Like signing off on the Uranium One deal?

Did you forget that Clinton was 1 of 9 people who voted on whether the deal should be approved. She didn't sign off on the deal.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission also had to give permission.

Personally, I think it was a inappropriate thing to do. However Clinton was only one of many cogs in the process and even if she had rejected the deal it would have gone through.

Neither is China, but you still have to deal with them

You are absolutely correct. Trump is supposed to deal with them, not climb into bed with them.

Did you forget that Clinton was 1 of 9 people who voted on whether the deal should be approved. She didn't sign off on the deal.

One of nine people who followed her lead in just about everything apart from what hand to hold the toilet paper in.

So many uniformed/misinformed Republican/Foxnews Assholes never get anything completely correct. Its just vitriol made up by right wing talk radio nutjobs who need ratings.

The political appointees leading various government departments are always going to do something the de facto leader of the party they belong to and appointed them tells them to do, even if that person has no direct official control of the matter.

If you believe that the other 8 people didn't express their views via their vote, I have a bridge you might want to buy.

If you believe that the other 8 people didn't express their views via their vote, I have a bridge you might want to buy.

And if you don't believe political appointees won't do exactly what their political master tells them to do I've got some good waterfront land in Florida I can sell you cheap.

I believe it and you are assuming she told them how to vote.

The Committee on Foreign Investments is chaired by the United States Secretary of the Treasury, CFIUS includes representatives from 16 U.S. departments and agencies, including the Defense, State and Commerce departments, as well as (most recently) the Department of Homeland Security.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_on_Foreign_Investment_in_the_United_States

She wasn't their master. Most of them worked for others.

She wasn't their master. Most of them worked for others.

Since you seem to believe Democrat political appointees won't do what the de facto leader of the Democrat Party tells them to do I've got a good friend in the USA who has some great waterfront land for sale in Central Florida real cheap, it even includes lots of local wild life.

You obviously believe that every decision made by a government employee in a senior position is controlled by a political party. I disagree. If what you say was true, Sessions, Mueller, Comey, and others would be marching to the beat of Trump's drum.

You obviously believe that every decision made by a government employee in a senior position is controlled by a political party.

The committee is made up of political appointees not regular government employees. From the web page you mentioned earlier:

The Foreign Investment and National Security Act of 2007 (FINSA) established the Committee by statutory authority, reduced membership to 6 cabinet members and the Attorney General, added the Secretary of Labor and the Director of National Intelligence, and removed 7 White House appointees. In 2008, President Bush added the United States Trade Representative and the Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy by Executive Order 13456 implementing the law. FINSA requires the President to conduct a national security investigation of certain proposed investment transactions, provides a broader oversight role for Congress, and keeps the President as the only officer with the authority to suspend or prohibit mergers, acquisitions, and takeovers.

Since you seem to believe Democrat political appointees won't do what the de facto leader of the Democrat Party tells them to do I've got a good friend in the USA who has some great waterfront land for sale in Central Florida real cheap, it even includes lots of local wild life.

Wasn't Obama the de facto leader of the party at that time? He was POTUS. Hilary was SoS.

Not true.

I was referring to her involvement on the Committee on Foreign Investments.

We are talking about two different things.

If that's so, it's because you wandered off the track. You spoke about the Moral Majority wanting to ban erotica in a way to imply it's part of the Republican agenda. I counted with the Democratic agenda to ban certain material which would result in banning many religious texts. I was referring to California Bill AB2943.

I won't go into it's opening line claiming transgender is a scientifically proven natural part of the human spectrum. All I've ever seen on that issue is opinion, not clear scientific evidence that can be reproduced by anyone anywhere. It does talk about a psychological peer-review task force findings on journal literature. It then goes on to talk about theories, not facts.

Now for some quotes from the act:

from the summary:

This bill would include, as an unlawful practice prohibited under the Consumer Legal Remedies Act, advertising, offering for sale, or selling services constituting sexual orientation change efforts, as defined, to an individual. The bill would also declare the intent of the Legislature in this regard.

from Section 1:

(q) California has a compelling interest in protecting the physical and psychological well-being of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender individuals.

(r) California has a compelling interest in protecting consumers from false and deceptive practices that claim to change sexual orientation and in protecting consumers against exposure to serious harm caused by sexual orientation change efforts.

and where it wants to change section 1761 to say:

(a) "Goods" means tangible chattels bought or leased for use primarily for personal, family, or household purposes, including certificates or coupons exchangeable for these goods, and including goods that, at the time of the sale or subsequently, are to be so affixed to real property as to become a part of real property, whether or not they are severable from the real property.

(b) "Services" means work, labor, and services for other than a commercial or business use, including services furnished in connection with the sale or repair of goods. ....

(i) (1) "Sexual orientation change efforts" means any practices that seek to change an individual's sexual orientation. This includes efforts to change behaviors or gender expressions, or to eliminate or reduce sexual or romantic attractions or feelings toward individuals of the same sex.

changing section 1770 to say:

(a) The following unfair methods of competition and unfair or deceptive acts or practices undertaken by any person in a transaction intended to result or that results in the sale or lease of goods or services to any consumer are unlawful: ...

(28) Advertising, offering for sale, or selling services constituting sexual orientation change efforts to an individual.

............

The original wording of the summary and last section last section were:

This bill would include, as an unlawful practice prohibited under the Consumer Legal Remedies Act, advertising, offering to engage in, or engaging in sexual orientation change efforts with an individual. The bill would also declare the intent of the Legislature in this regard.

(28) Advertising, offering to engage in, or engaging in sexual orientation change efforts with an individual.

.............

A number of people experienced in the Calif legal system made it clear that the wording of the original summary and section 28 could be used to ban various religious texts. I'm not sure if the recent changes stop that or not.

...............

The interesting thing is the whole issue rests on the opinions of a bunch of psychologists. Don't forget it was the opinions of psychologists that gave us all of those wonderous electro-shock treatments and lobotomy fixes for mental health issues during the 20th century. It's only recently they stopped them because they changed their opinions.

Just to be clear, this bill is not about "banning books". It is about protecting young people against what is perceived by many as a fraudulent service. It may be poorly worded (and that is a separate issue), but to state that goal of the bill is to ban religious books like the Holy Bible is off point.

This is the typical scare tactics that the alt-right uses to create liberal evil, where legislative ineptitude is the real culprit.

It may be poorly worded (and that is a separate issue), but to state that goal of the bill is to ban religious books like the Holy Bible is off point.

It's hard to say what their goal was, but when that's the effect you have to be thinking it's what they were after.

I think you are talking about bill 2943, which makes gay conversion therapy illegal.

I did make a long post with quotes from the bill. The original text of AB2943 had wording that said:

The original wording of the summary and last section were:

This bill would include, as an unlawful practice prohibited under the Consumer Legal Remedies Act, advertising, offering to engage in, or engaging in sexual orientation change efforts with an individual. The bill would also declare the intent of the Legislature in this regard.

(28) Advertising, offering to engage in, or engaging in sexual orientation change efforts with an individual.

The full bill made the above unlawful but gave exceptions for those providing such services to the LBGT community. In short it made it unlawful to advertise or provide anti-gay conversion therapy or material, but allowed pro-gay conversion therapy and material. That was the opinion of a number of California jurists and lawyers.

In the bill's current form it's not as restrictive as the original form, but it still has a lot of room for abuse against any text that are anti-gay, be they religious texts or not.

The fun thing is it's all based on the opinions of some psych yet uses language claiming to be based on scientific evidence, the same type of scientific evidence that proved a lobotomy of electric shock was good treatment for anyone with a mental health issue.

So, how does one nut job making a proposal you don't like somehow justify your generalization, "it's the Dems that ban everything."

A democrat nut job puts up a bill and gets lauded by the other Democrats for it - hmm, I think you can work out the math there.

I agree. Most of us thing politicians are all criminals. The criminal who had experience in national and international politics would probably have been a better choice.

only real comparisons are ones that go back over a few thousand years

Climatic cycles are normal. This link provides a bit of information on the cycles and the current cycle.
http://ossfoundation.us/projects/environment/global-warming/natural-cycle

The article states that the current cycle is not normal (i.e., CO2 levels normally follow temperature change, but lead temp change in this cycle. It also states that we hit the peak temperature of the current cycle and started the cool-down period about 3,000 years ago. However over the past thousand years, the temperature started to rise and our current temperature is far higher than the peak temperature.

What no one seems to agree on is, what this warming trend means for the planet and us. From what I understand the PCA is trying to reduce CO2 levels to bring us back to a normal cycle, which sounds like a good thing.

From what I understand the PCA is trying to reduce CO2 levels to bring us back to a normal cycle, which sounds like a good thing.

If that was true they wouldn't have such focus on financial penalties and they would be focusing on measurements that will allow the comparison of all countries to each other. The PCA is mostly about penalizing industrialized countries that aren't fully developed while allowing the fully developed European countries to skate by maintaining their current status.

Analogously, our chemical plants are safe. Tell that to the almost 3,800 dead because of the gas release at the Bhopal plant in India. Far worse than even Chernobyl.

The effects of Chernobyl will be felt for decades (if not centuries, though technically the lesser effects will be for centuries). Three Mile Island was thought to be completely safe too.

Fission is dangerous $h!t, no matter how you contain it. The waste is dangerous $h!t, no matter how you contain and transport it. As large-scale rechargeable batteries and Fuel Cell technology improves, renewable resources like solar and wind can be added to hydroelectric as viable options (as energy can be more effectively stored). other than a breakthrough in fusion technology, we should be very circumspect about opening any new nuclear power plants. Hopefully we can get to a point where we no longer need fission or fossil fuels within our lifetime.

Three Mile Island is horribly misunderstood. It happened in an area that is absolutely lousy with Radon Gas, which happens to be radioactive, and will give associate exposure symptoms.

Also, TMI only release an amount of radiation into the atmosphere that doesn't even match the radiation dosage you received at your last dental x-ray.

For that matter, you get exposed to more radiation by spending a few minutes in Grand Central Station than was released. (The rock that Grand Central was built with is radioactive)

But Three Mile Island is this horrible disaster of epicly horrifying proportions.

Yeah, don't even think about how much radiation you're exposed to if you happened to be downwind of a coal fired power plant. People for some reason don't realize that we're exposed to radiation every single day of our lives.

Speaking of radon gas - true story on how they found out about it being a residential home issue. Guy was working at a nuclear power plant and they started up their monitors to have everyone checked out before they left work, so people would get used to it before they actually brought the nuclear fuel into the plant. And he set the monitors off when leaving work.

Okay, that's odd. They cleaned him up, sent him home, and the next day when he was leaving work he tripped the monitors again. They cleaned him up again, then spent several days checking out the areas where he worked, trying to figure out how he got exposed, because he KEPT tripping the monitors every day when he'd leave. Finally someone got the bright idea to check him when he CAME to work. Oops. Then they went to his house and checked it. Turns out his basement was so radioactive from the natural uranium in the soil that he couldn't live there. And that's when they started figuring out about radon actually concentrating in houses, and not just those with basements. A lot of houses in the Midwest states (Pennsylvania west to Iowa) that are on slabs have pea gravel under them that came from gravel pits that were dug in areas formed by the glaciers ... and have a lot a radioactive materials naturally mixed in.