HughBeaumont
HughBeaumont's JournalWhat, realistically, are the odds of America getting Medicare for All, let alone single payer?
I'm not just saying this because the House is under the control of the TeaHad.
I'm saying this because there aren't a whole hell of a lot of progressive Democrats in the House OR the Senate who believe in either Medicare For All or Single Payer to make it happen.
It just seems to me that no one in Washington CARES what we support or what's inevitably necessary to do what's right on this issue.
It's not so much me saying "Give up", but I'm saying our elected representatives have already seemed to give this goal up for us . . . all so Humana's and Cigna's executives can have that much more cash in their coffers.
Six Reasons Why You Should Never Retire. Gee, prepping America for the inevitable?
Yeah, THIS isn't completely short-sighted or Republican or delusional or anything . . .
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/6-reasons-why-never-retire-164549581.html
Continuing to work keeps people engaged and requires learning new skills. While the perfect antidote to the hazards of aging has not yet been identified, performing meaningful work is certainly a major part of the answer. For people who have "retired" in a technical sense, there has been a boom in encore careers and other volunteer experiences. Many of these people are working as hard and effectively as they ever have, and reaping big health and wellness benefits (although clearly not earning commensurately large paychecks).
The recession and painfully slow jobs recovery that has followed have occasioned some sniping at older workers. It is time for them to move on, we're told, and to open up slots for deserving younger job candidates. Similar "job stealing" charges have been levied at illegal immigrants. This is an understandable but short-sighted reaction. Labor shortages will be making headlines in a few years, and we'll need workers of all ages and origins.
The financial argument for staying at work has, of course, been front and center in the past few years. But labor-force participation rates for older people have been rising for 20 years, and financial motivations were important even before the recession. Beyond the money, there have been other benefits as well.
Man . . . hope this corporate PR wonk is proud of himself.
People retire because work is a damned boring mud-trough for many of us. If people had their 'druthers, you REALLY think they'd pick "fabric covered box and the 'you could be next' anvil over their heads" over a stress-free life and relaxation? PLEASE.
Coachella, as seen by people who DON'T read Rolling Stone or SPIN . . .
I think I SAW the Woodland Creature T-Shirt Wearing Dipshits and Bearded Assholes From Ohio at the Grog Shop, I swear I did.
Yahoo commenters . . . they just didn't come with that "evolve" module, did they?
http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nhl-puck-daddy/she-sens-fan-her-girlfriend-leafs-fan-marriage-060257777.htmlCan you be pro-Republican Economics and still be considered a Democrat?
Just curious how that works, considering the obvious damage 31 years of never-leaving Reaganomics and top-favoring, top-down business models has done to the population. I thought Democrats in general shouldn't be about voting against your best interests and should be championing a more sustainable, long-term growth model for business, not hailing more debt-increasing tax cuts for the wealthy.
This notion that America "isn't business friendly" has got to the be biggest bunch of bunk I've ever heard. American business controls America and the world. America's tax structure heavily favors American business and the wealthy that run it. Surely we shouldn't be suggesting that American workers lower wages even further while the cost of necessities never decreases.
I edited this to add clarification to this question. By "Pro-Republican economics", I mean "Belief and Support of one or more of the following theories":
* The prime function of a business or corporation is to care for the shareholder's needs only, by which I mostly mean "major".
* Business functions best as a "top down" model; hypothetically speaking, of course.
* You CAN "feed the birds by giving the horse more oats".
* That this country's economic problems have more to do with "high taxes", "high wages" and "strangling regulations" than wealth inequality and top-heavy greed. 
* It's absolutely not possible to pay workers a better wage and still be profitable (an idea that completely ignores the very real fact that Middle/Working/Poor wages haven't risen in real dollars since 1979 while income of the wealthy has outpaced inflation, productivity, their cost of living and lotteries).
* The post-WWII boom cannot be replicated (no one's really saying it HAS to be; that doesn't mean we have no choice but to accept "Trickle-On" . . . there ARE happy mediums).
* The Republican model of Free Trade, a zero-sum proposition that surmises because the price of tchotchkes are going down, the worker is better off . . . among other things (this ignores the very real fact that it's ever-increasing-in-price necessities (i.e. education, housing, health care, transportation, food, etc) that are killing the average American's pocketbooks).
* The Republican model of Globalization, a zero-sum proposition that dictates (for all nations involved) environmental standards, worker rights, worker wages, worker morale, worker safety and business regulations must be destroyed in proportion to the enormous increase in company productivity on the BACKS of those strained workers, layoffs, profits, CEO/management salaries, perk packages, stock options, exit packages and, as we're tragically seeing, governmental influence.
* The Republican model of offshore outsourcing, another zero-sum proposition that laughably states "While we ship low-skill work over THUR, it frees up better jobs fur the higher-skill 'Murkin workers over HERRR!" (yet again ignoring the fact that high-skilled work is ALSO being shipped overseas and companies are getting tax breaks to DO so).
* Americans simply have to accept a lower standard of living adherent to their inevitably lower wages (There's never a discussion on how wages can keep up with the cost of living, productivity and inflation . . . only that we can't participate in a consumer-based economy by proxy, but the wealthy absolutely HAVE to have THEIR needs met first, foremost and often times, ONLY).
"To Each Their Own": Does it give bigots a pass?
Not just here, but a post on FB this morning . . . something about "being intolerant of intolerants", again . . . brings up a question in my head.
When can the phrase "To Each Their Own" stop being used?
I'm supposed to just "live and let live" with people who imply that there's something wrong with four of my relatives? I'm supposed to "be more tolerant" to people who want to deny 1/10th of America simple civil rights?
Verbal abusers and general bigots have real victims. Homophobia, racism and sexism are ugly inheritances that spread poisoned ideas (as we've now seen in the vile result of the AL GOP Primary). I'm not getting how this can be construed as "diversity of thought and belief"?
When does it go too far?
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Member since: Fri Aug 13, 2004, 03:12 PMNumber of posts: 24,461
