If we can nationalize(socialize) the financial structure of the United States...

Facts (IMHO) some of which you might agree upon.

1. WE will get socialized medicine, whoever wins.

2. It will be a disaster, as Medicare has become.

3. We will never be able to quit doing it.

4. Getting into medical school will be no problem--there will be empty seats.

5. It will permanently impoverish the middle class. My good friend Gerhart, who lives in Germany has "free medical care." He gets home with 48% of his paycheck, and then pays a 14% federal sales tax on everything he buys

6. Comparing our (once every eight to ten years reorganization of Wall Street--S and Ls, Junk bonds, tech bubble) to the multitrillion dollar size of the healthcare industry in the US is like comparing Hurrican Ike with 1,000 nuclear weaopns.

 

The official figures on this are meaningless. I lived in Germany for 3 years, and I never met a middle-class German who did not have a business on the side or a second job, often off the books. Gerhart did carpentry off the books, he and his wife each had good jobs. They also had their own music combo which played, again, off the books. They lived modestly and drove high-mileage non-luxury vehicles. They could not afford to have children (one reason that the native, i.e., non-Muslim German fertility rate hovers around 1.3, far less than replacement level.)

 

Sadly, I'm afraid you're underestimating the impact of bailing out investment firms that made risky decisions and lost. Bush had already increaded the national debt from about $5T when he took office to almost $10T. The FM/FM bailout will add another $5T if they are put on the budget as is recommended. That pushes the debt to $15T. Then you add in the federal graciously buying failed investments related to the housing crash due to subprime loans. I don't have an estimate for that yet but the initial bailout is estimated at $1T. I'm sure it will go much, much higher.

One thing that a lost of people don't realize is that subprime loans were simply the first to fail. Next comes Alt-A loans and prime loans. These are already failing but the numbers will get much higher within the next few months.

Finally, I just read this morning that the government want to include bailing out companies losing money due to defaulted CREDIT CARD debt. I don't have a number on that yet either but I would guess that's another large number.

So, this isn't just another Wall Street reorganization. It a huge disaster the magnitude of which hasn't been understood or recognized by the average American.

 

Yeah, right, and if we had set off 1,000 nukes in Texas, would anyone in the world survive? Heat release does not take into consideration radiation, blast effect, or the fact that the entire blast of an A Bomb takes place in microseconds. I have some up close and personal experience with nukes from my previous career.

But back the case. Our medical industry is huge, far larger than the current bailout. I am not sure we can accurately count it--do you have any figures on the overall medical industry's size, including rest homes, etc.?

 

maybe--I am no fan of the whole thing.

 

Looks like you're lobbying to get on the entitlement bandwagon.

I doubt you have definitive answers to your own rhetorical questions.

But regardless of how many hours he works or how much time he spends with the family, it cost him over 60% of his income do do it. If you want a piece of that action, you're an idiot.

 

The reason the German situation is bad is that they are so overtaxed that they cannot afford to have children. They are not even normally overtaxed--they are taxed nearly at the level of confiscation. They are SO over taxed that they cannot survive without under-the-table income.

Conservatives believe in lower taxes AND lower spending.

 

How About a Trade???

the dems need to barter right now. Tell the repubs to finance national medicine, and they will fund the bailout of wall street. How does that sound, Ken?

 

Who is "we," Kemosabe?

Doesn't matter who gets elected or who gets bailed out. Nothing will stop the transfer of assets from the working class to our owners. Nothing will stop the ending of the large middle class in the western nations. The plan is to return to the historical norm of 80% working poor.

Better get used to it. Tell your kids to get good govt jobs.

 

The Rise and Fall of the Middle Class

When I was in college, 1973, my Social Work Prof predicted that by the turn of the century, there would be NO more middle class. He said the world would be one big working class serving under the rich. He has since passed, but he hit that one out-of-the-park:thumbs: !

Pastor Paul:type:

 

The bailout has nothing to do with socialism, just the opposite. The purpose is to transfer all power to the banking hegemony.