This week in stupid

[chill98]

Trump's win is complex with lots of things to consider. 

1. Baggage is baggage.  Trump was running against a weak candidate. She was not seen as trustworthy.

2. The Democratic strategy of identity politics is outmoded I think.  These goals are honorable, but they don't speak to or benefit everyone.   The everyday rank and file who are no longer in the middle class, feel left out.   Identity politics attempts to pull up a few, some into glorious positions, but it doesn't speak to the problems average Americans face.

3. And avoid including health care in the list.

4. We watched the Republican voters ignore the entrenched insiders, the glowing headliners the party had groomed and offered, and the rank and file went for the new guy, not turned off by his pussy grabbing, bankruptcy declaring, and insane wall building promise to be done by Americans and paid for by Mexicans. 

Nice post.  Chose some snippets for reflection.

1.  I don't trust her.  Anderson Cooper, first debate.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/cooper-to-hillary-will-you-say-anything-to-get-elected/article/1045235

So yes, she was a very weak candidate.  No reasonable person could believe her campaign promises.  You can go back and look into the Obama vs Clinton campaign and see him saying the same things about her. 

2.  The everyday rank and file are a large number of people.  The blow-back is enormous for the very people IdP was intended to help.  It is a reasonable business decision to avoid potential cost by not employing the very people who these laws were intended to aid. Less than 15 employees and you are exempt from Fed discrimination laws.  That is 2 of the last 3 employers I worked for.  The third was only 23 people. 

3.  So far, NO ONE has been able to explain to me how the ACA reduced cost.  Making more people pay is not health care cost reduction.  I have no confidence in Trumps or republicans in general ideas about health care.  But via ACA , I am better off changing jobs frequently, or having two part time jobs.  And that gives me GREAT healthcare via ACA.  However, I have several co-workers, people with kids who are quitting (or considering quitting) because under ACA they are forced to take an employer offered insurance that cripples their income flexibility.

4.  Exactly.  Republican voters rejected the "its his turn" insider.  DNC thwarted the Sanders campaign to inflict their "chosen successor" on the voters and in turn cost themselves the election because they failed to recognize the reality of point #1. 

[SGOS]

 
3.  So far, NO ONE has been able to explain to me how the ACA reduced cost.  Making more people pay is not health care cost reduction.  I have no confidence in Trumps or republicans in general ideas about health care.  But via ACA , I am better off changing jobs frequently, or having two part time jobs.  And that gives me GREAT healthcare via ACA.  However, I have several co-workers, people with kids who are quitting (or considering quitting) because under ACA they are forced to take an employer offered insurance that cripples their income flexibility.

In theory, the ACA was supposed to lower medical costs, a separate issue from medical insurance, by giving the poor the means to stop stiffing the emergency rooms.  Thereby reducing the overall costs of those who were paying the tab with higher medical bills.  I was skeptical about that, and I haven't been aware that medical practitioners and hospitals have been lining up to pass this extra cash flow on to consumers.  But the theory itself became a big selling point early on.  We no longer hear much about it, probably because it didn't have any perceptible affect.  I think it was mostly an advertising gimmick.  I think the theory could work to a small degree if one factors out human and corporate nature.  It's hard to determine if this actually happened to any extent given the very high inflation rate of medical delivery.  Someone could probably do the math, but with the variables involved, it's beyond my ability.

No government designed insurance, including single payer, will address the costs of medical care itself.  That could be tackled, but if there was any interest in it, it's been shelved long ago.

[Baruch]

Until American ill health and hypochondria and entitlement are overcome, health care cost will escalate by 15% a year until that is the whole GDP (of course what actually occurs is societal collapse).  Rearranging the crooked health care insurance (it is all crooked, not just ACA) ... doesn't eliminate the cause, it just massages the symptoms.

Yes, the ACA has saved money ... for the insurance companies.  Before ACA they were going bankrupt quickly, with ACA they are going bankrupt more slowly.  The cost of insurance for a family of four hasn't gone down ... it went up even more than usual in advance of ACA, and then continued its inexorable increase after ACA.  There is a reality and a theory.  Pay attention to the reality, ignore the theory.  Fact is, since 2000 the US is going bankrupt culturally, politically and economically.  The American Century is over.  The only question is how we can become a poor country without civil war, and what kind of poverty it will be.  The government once declared war on poverty, but poverty has won.

[fencerider]

most of ACA was written by insurance lobbyists. The only reason for the insurance to not be making out like bandits is because they believed the lie that people without insurance go to the doctor. In most cases it doesnt matter that much if insurance is making money because insurance companies and hospitals are owned by the same people. There isnt anything in the ACA that puts new rules on hospitals. If the hospitals could charge an arm and a leg before they still can after.

Since I read that monster I can tell you the short version of "The patient protection and affordable care act of 2010" is all about medical insurance reform. We gotta have insurance reform to make health care affordable but anybody who thinks that insurance reform by itself is gonna make health care affordable is smokin some good stuff. Hey!!! pass it around.

[Baruch]

Medicine and undertaking are rackets, that they know you can't avoid.  So of course it attracts criminals and politicians.

[chill98]

But the theory itself became a big selling point early on.  We no longer hear much about it, probably because it didn't have any perceptible affect.  I think it was mostly an advertising gimmick. 

No government designed insurance, including single payer, will address the costs of medical care itself.  That could be tackled, but if there was any interest in it, it's been shelved long ago.

Yes, your answer is similar to the answers I get from people who support the ACA (broad generalization).

But I don't want to drift far from the topic, which is why did the dems lose to Trump.  The ACA hurt working people greatly and Clinton offered nothing to fix it. 

EDIT:  Trump says he likes parts, parts I think are good also.  I wait to see if he sticks to it, refusing to repeal without a replacement in hand.

[Shiranu]

I don't think the ACA as a bill (and not as a propaganda piece for Republicans) is what won Trump the election (and I say that as someone who has suffered because of it), and I don't think it's because Trump supporters are generally bad people. I think what won Trump the election is a changing demographics and global economy that is increasingly putting more and more strain on certain classes of workers, and the Republicans are better liars about how they will help them out.

I don't think the Democrats or the Republicans have a solid answer for these people who live in what is falling back into, or becoming a new, Rust Belt... nor do I think this is an American issue but rather a global one. The reasons people voted for Trump are the same reasons people voted for bigots in England like Farage or Greece. It's not that they are bad people, it's that bad people have consistently and incessantly lied to their faces and convinced them that their hateful ideologies are the solution to their problems. In truth, their problems mostly stem from economies no longer working the way they did 20, 30 years ago and the in-demand labour moving elsewhere... something neither party has control over.


That being said, there is a large number of Trump supporters and Republicans who vote for the party simply because they share the same hateful ideology, and that is what I think distinctly signifies the difference between the two parties.

[Jannabear]

https://canipunchnazis.com/
just incase you were confused

[Shiranu]

https://canipunchnazis.com/
just incase you were confused

This may come across as an absolute shock, but I have two friends that I am in a pretty heated argument with at the moment over this because I do not find this type of behaviour acceptable. I know, I know, I am the resident SJW, but this is just pouring fire on the flame that violence is an acceptable answer to people we disagree with.

Good intention as it may be, and however much the guy might deserve it, it is if not just morally the low route but also the politically foolish one to take.

[fencerider]

ah Baruch I thought a politician was a category of criminal. Are you saying they are two different things?

well we cant forget that the American Medical Association is just another cartel after everybody's money. They dont really give a rats ass if you live or die; as long as they get your money before you go.

Lot of people in the middle of the U.S. lost their jobs in the name of increasing Wall st profits by going to Mexico or China. I don't see how you can get the jobs back by putting another Wall st class person in charge.

There's a saying : "He who lies loudest, wins". Who has a bigger mouth? a Democrat, a Republican, or a priest

[fencerider]

ah Baruch I thought a politician was a category of criminal. Are you saying they are two different things?

well we cant forget that the American Medical Association is just another cartel after everybody's money. They dont really give a rats ass if you live or die; as long as they get your money before you go.

Lot of people in the middle of the U.S. lost their jobs in the name of increasing Wall st profits by going to Mexico or China. I don't see how you can get the jobs back by putting another Wall st class person in charge.

There's a saying : "He who lies loudest, wins". Who has a bigger mouth? a Democrat, a Republican, or a priest

[Baruch]

I left it ambiguous as to whether a politician and a criminal are the same set of people ... but you missed the other implication ;-)

That politicians are often undertakers, because they start wars ;-(

And of course the nostrums of the politicians are mere patent medicines ;-(

[chill98]

most of ACA was written by insurance lobbyists.  There isnt anything in the ACA that puts new rules on hospitals. If the hospitals could charge an arm and a leg before they still can after.

Since I read that monster I can tell you the short version of "The patient protection and affordable care act of 2010" is all about medical insurance reform.

This is a valid part of the issue. 

With the health care industry closing in on 20% of the GDP, there is motive to keep those numbers high.  To reduce that impact makes the country look poorer. 

[chill98]

Lot of people in the middle of the U.S. lost their jobs in the name of increasing Wall st profits by going to Mexico or China. I don't see how you can get the jobs back by putting another Wall st class person in charge.

Which of the two candidates are you referring to here?  in my not so humble opinion, Clinton was far more indebted to wall street than Trump.

The NAFTA and China trade agreements were very one sided.  It was not just wall street profits, it was business itself that did not want to invest in the new power plants to support their needs, the very regulations the Baby Bush waylaid when he took office- as old power plants reached their end-of-life they were supposed to be upgraded to the best of the current pollution reduction methods available, as one example. 

We would have been able to afford these things IF americans were still building american product, earning a decent wage and paying taxes on that wage. 

I remember pointing out to someone around 20 years ago, as GM moved its production to Mexico, that the vehicles they offered for sale were the same/comparable price to (at the time) dodge vehicles that were still manufactured here.  We the people never saw a cost savings in the market place. 

I cannot remember if it was Gephart or Daschle or someone else who lobbied hard to get the treaties to include things like Free Elections, environmental protections, some labor rights, etc.  due to the unfairness of the existing regulations in the usa that changed the smogged in cities, the flaming rivers, etc.

Free trade agreements cost more than jobs.  They have made the world a more dangerous place.  China has invested heavily in its military.  The Saudis buy a lot of weapons.  And we knew this would happen, as it happened in both India and Pakistan via shipping our jobs there.  Piss and shit still run down the streets, large parts have rolling blackouts and it takes no time at all to see their electrical grids are in disarray... but they both have nuke weapons and well armed military.

And we will get blamed for the smog problem in China also.  If we are not at war with them over the very trade agreements that allowed them to arm themselves so handily.

And we made no conditions, or ignored these conditions, and kept shipping our jobs and money into their coffers.

Right out of Hunt for Red October... you arrogant ass, you've killed us...

[PickelledEggs]

https://canipunchnazis.com/
just incase you were confused

It's not called punching. It's called alternate face greetings.