nobody starves due to laziness by 1kiki

Tell that to the dead on Miranda.

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Saturday, June 18, 2016 9:59 PM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

I take it the THIRDSTOOGE is confused about what a REAL world event is. Figures.

Let me just point out that the author left out vital relevant facts in the opinion piece. Doing that is known as cherry-picking. And whether you do that in the news, in discussion, in debate or in opinion, when you distort the facts, you've changed the nature of your communication into propaganda. But WE don't have any of THAT in the US, do we?!

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Sunday, June 19, 2016 8:30 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
I take it the THIRDSTOOGE is confused about what a REAL world event is. Figures.

Ok just so you know. I love the three stooges comrade troll.

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Sunday, June 19, 2016 11:29 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:

The hundreds of millions of hungry people are hungry because their access to the resources they need to live is being blocked by other people.

So my next question is: what are the SPECIFIC mechanisms used to deprive people of resources?

You’re thinking too big. In a 2,200 word news story about dialysis in Houston, there is not enough room to answer your kind of question: what are the SPECIFIC mechanisms used to deprive some people, not all, of resources for dialysis? But the story does hint at the mechanisms: tax money, charity money, political will, national borders, citizenship, goodwill toward strangers, etc. These are also the mechanisms behind food distribution and starvation.

Undocumented immigrants in Houston desperately needing kidney dialysis overwhelm public hospitals
By Markian Hawryluk June 18, 2016 Updated: June 18, 2016 10:03pm
www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Undocument
ed-immigrants-in-Houston-desperately-8311380.php

Ricardo Delgadillo arrives at Ben Taub Hospital well before sunrise as part of a weekly ritual, close enough to death to maximize his chances for emergency kidney dialysis.

As an undocumented immigrant, he must wait until his renal failure becomes sufficiently dire for federal law to kick in and require doctors to hook him up to a machine that will cleanse his blood, then he'll come back in a few days and do it all over again.

Harris County's public health system is overwhelmed treating 200 to 300 undocumented patients like Delgadillo who need dialysis at least several times a month to stay alive. Taxpayers foot the entire patient cost of about $285,000 a year for the emergency treatment and complications that often arise, the most expensive way to provide the care.

In 2008, Harris County opened a farsighted dialysis clinic for undocumented patients as a means of cutting the cost of emergency services. The clinic provides 50 percent more dialysis treatment per patient at a cost of about $77,000 a year, but it is full, and Harris Health, facing a $70 million deficit, now finds it hard to invest in expanding such alternatives.

Even better care and greater savings could be realized, Harris Health physicians say, by performing kidney transplants on undocumented individuals in the Houston area whose relatives could serve as donors. But putting the undocumented on transplant lists, which could radically improve their life expectancies, is considered a political nonstarter in Texas.

Harris County's current system for providing dialysis on an emergency basis has proven to be the least efficient and humane way to provide ongoing care. "Some of them spend most of their life in the emergency department waiting to qualify for dialysis," said Dr. David Sheikh-Hamad, chief of renal services at Ben Taub, Harris County's largest public hospital. "These are essentially our community residents, and we can't really close our eyes to them and ignore them as if they didn't exist. … We're operating under a crisis situation from day to day."

Worst cases first

Delgadillo must drive 30 to 40 minutes to Ben Taub, sometimes alone, sometimes with his wife, Ebette. She owns a clothing store where Delgadillo works when he can muster the strength. They have two children, a 14-year-old daughter and a 13-year-old son. His brother-in-law takes the kids to school on days when he and his wife are at the hospital.

The dialysis room at Ben Taub doesn't open until 7 a.m., but Delgadillo has learned that he has to arrive early to maximize his chances of getting in. "Sometimes we get through on the first round, sometimes we're going to be second one or the third," he said. "Depends how you are looking after the blood testing."

One recent Wednesday morning, before dawn, Delgadillo went through the agonizingly slow drill: a technician drained two vials of blood from his arm, first step toward confirming that his sodium and potassium levels were high enough to require immediate treatment. Some patients admit to eating entire bunches of bananas or drinking the fluid from canned tomatoes to boost potassium levels and increase their odds of treatment.

Then it was almost an hour before he was called back for the EKG. He lifted the bottom of his hooded sweatshirt, revealing a catheter wrapped in gauze hanging from his chest.

In some ways, this catheter, known as a permacath, identifies Delgadillo better than the hospital bracelet on his wrist, a tell-tale sign of his health problems and his immigration status.

He grew up about an hour outside of Mexico City. When he was 19, economic stagnation drove him north to seek work in the United States, and "a better life for my family."

He had been diagnosed with high blood pressure, and doctors told him he would have problems with his kidneys. Two years ago, when he lost his appetite for food or drink, doctors performed an ultrasound and a CT scan, and immediately admitted him to the hospital with kidney failure. Over the next four days, he underwent dialysis twice, and ever since, he's had to come back for treatment every four to five days.

Dialysis replaces only some of the work of the kidneys, removing waste products, salt and excess water from the blood stream. Without it, urea builds up in the brain, causing headaches and nausea. Fluid seeps into the lungs and potassium levels can climb so high they disrupt normal heart rhythms.

With only a dozen dialysis chairs at the hospital, doctors take the worst cases first. Others are told to wait or to try again tomorrow.

One week, Delgadillo was deferred four days in a row.

Harris Health System sees about 20 to 30 patients each day seeking emergency dialysis, 500 patient visits per month at Ben Taub, another 350 at Lyndon B. Johnson Hospital across town.

"They don't all get dialysis, but they all get an EKG and blood work," Hamad said. "A lot of resources are being put into these patients."

The ideal frequency of dialysis depends on how badly the kidneys are damaged and how much residual function remains. Dialysis three times a week is considered the standard, but even then, it's a losing proposition. The kidneys work 24 hours a day to cleanse the blood, so a three-hour dialysis session can only do so much. As a result, life expectancy for dialysis patients runs from three to 10 years, although some survive for decades.

"There's a spectrum, those patients who come once or twice a month for dialysis, and then we have patients who come every day," said Dr. John Foringer, a nephrologist with UTHealth and Harris Health.

Emergency patients only get dialyzed on average once per week. That increases the risk of complications, which often leads to hospital and intensive care stays and drives up costs. One study found that skipping at least one dialysis session per month is associated with a 25 to 30 percent higher risk of death.

More rational approach

When Hamad became chief of renal services at Ben Taub in 2000, the situation was much worse. Patients were getting temporary catheters each time they showed up for emergency dialysis, damaging their veins and leading to infections. Hamad instituted the use of permacaths, a soft plastic tube inserted into a large vein in the base of the neck. About 6 inches of the tube extend outside of the body, splitting into two ends that can be connected to the dialysis machine. Patients with permacaths can get into dialysis faster and with fewer complications at a lower cost.

Hamad also was bothered by the way the hospital was treating patients who had long been a contributing part of the community. Some were in the country legally, but had not yet paid enough into the Social Security program to qualify for Medicare benefits. Moral and ethical considerations aside, he thought he could make an economic argument for a more rational approach.

In 2007, Hamad published a study that compared the health care costs incurred by those receiving emergency dialysis with those getting regularly scheduled dialysis in outpatient clinics.

Armed with the potential for cost savings, he convinced county and hospital officials to open the Riverside Dialysis Center in 2008, where undocumented patients could get dialysis three times a week. While most dialysis clinics have a mortality rate of 5 to 10 percent per year, at Riverside, it's less than 5 percent. Moreover, the clinic provides dialysis at an average cost of $33,000 per year per patient.

"We can provide better care at lower cost," Hamad said.

The original proposal was to serve one Medicare patient for every two uninsured patients, to offset the costs.

"Within a year of this place being open, it was already saturated with unfunded patients, sending all the funded patients to other places," said Dr. Michael Gardner, the administrator of ambulatory care services at Harris Health.

Medicare pays about $75,000 to $80,000 per year for dialysis, more than double what it costs the clinic. The rate is so lucrative it's driven huge growth in for-profit dialysis clinics. If Harris Health turns away Medicare patients, those private clinics are happy to take them. The uninsured and undocumented have nowhere else to go.

"Obviously, from a business point of view, that's a poor choice," he said.

The Riverside clinic started with three shifts per day using all 21 chairs, for a total of 126 patients per week. Demand was so great they added a fourth shift, bringing the total to 168, and keeping the clinic open a staggering 20 hours per day.

Last August, Mario Flores, a 56-year-old roofer who came to the U.S. from Mexico in 1986, was fortunate to gain a patient slot in the clinic after years of treatment in the emergency room at Ben Taub. His health has rebounded.

"It's three times a week, and it's perfect," Flores said through an interpreter of his current regimen.

Costly care

A few years ago, Harris Health paid to have 45 patients get dialysis through private clinics around town. That may have lowered the deferral rate in the emergency room, but it didn't save any money as new patients quickly took their places. Now the cash-strapped public health system couldn't come up with the money to outsource patients if it wanted to.

"Harris Health is projecting another deficit next year, so where does that money come from?" Gardner said.

Gardner recently spent time at Grady Hospital in Atlanta, where administrators shut down their outpatient dialysis centers because they couldn't absorb the costs of treating undocumented immigrants.

"They don't have the undocumented population that we have in Houston," he said. "Dallas doesn't do this. El Paso doesn't do this. Fort Worth doesn't do this."

The exception among safety-net hospitals in Texas is in San Antonio, where the dialysis center is big enough to handle both Medicare-funded and unfunded patients.

The dialysis room at Ben Taub was intended for patients who had been admitted to the hospital for other reasons. It is so small, that if it opened today, it would no longer meet code for the necessary space between patients.

Some patients are so unstable when they arrive, they must be dialyzed in the intensive care unit or one of the shock trauma rooms. It's not uncommon for one or two of Ben Taub's five trauma bays to be tied up for hours with dialysis patients.

"Both Ben Taub and LBJ struggle almost on a daily basis to try to transfer out," Gardner said. "It's getting difficult to find hospitals that will even accept the patients. These are sick people, and their health care is costly."

Harris Health officials are in the process of implementing a peritoneal dialysis program that could shift a significant number of patients to home dialysis. Peritoneal dialysis involves filling the abdominal cavity with dialysis fluid through a catheter. The liquid pulls waste products out of the blood over a couple of hours and is then drained from the body. After the two- to three-week initial training, the patient can do the dialysis at home, coming in to a clinic only once a month.

"It's my hope that by summer 2017, if you present to Harris Health with end-stage renal disease, that peritoneal dialysis will be our first-line therapy," Gardner said. "We don't think it will be a panacea. But we think it will be a step in the right direction."

The better solution, Hamad said, is a kidney transplant. Not only are the quality of life and outcomes better, over the long haul, it saves money. The average cost of a transplant is recouped in dialysis savings in less than three years. Undocumented immigrants might be even better transplant candidates because they are generally younger than the average American with kidney failure.

But there is political resistance to putting undocumented immigrants on transplant waiting lists. Even if they show up with a family member willing to donate a kidney, without insurance, they're unlikely to be able to afford the cost of the transplant or the immunosuppression drugs to prevent rejection.

Nationwide problem

"There's this urban myth that by offering these (dialysis) services, we're attracting the undocumented to come," Gardner said. "That just isn't the case."

California has implemented statewide outpatient dialysis coverage for undocumented immigrants and has not seen its caseload increase.

Public hospitals throughout the country are struggling with how to deal with the emergency dialysis problem. Texas and several other states have determined that the need for dialysis is not automatically an emergency that qualifies an individual for Medicaid. Harris Health officials are trying to make the case for outpatient dialysis by calculating how much money Medicaid loses by waiting until patients are near death.

Meanwhile, by 7:11 am, after more than three hours of waiting at Ben Taub, Delgadillo was one of the lucky ones. A nurse led him and another patient to the elevator, up to the sixth floor and down a long hallway to the dialysis room. Delgadillo was right on the nurse's heels, but the other man could barely shuffle along in his flip-flops. Ebette would wait outside for three hours as her husband's blood was cleansed and then they would drive home, completing their eight-hour ordeal.

Every four or five days, they'll repeat the same grueling process.

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Sunday, June 19, 2016 7:31 PM

Sometimes you own the libs. Sometimes, the libs own you.

Quote:
So my next question is

This was your first and only question.

Quote:
what are the SPECIFIC mechanisms used to deprive people of resources?

The concept of ownership.

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Sunday, June 19, 2016 7:31 PM

Sometimes you own the libs. Sometimes, the libs own you.

double

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Sunday, June 19, 2016 7:49 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by kpo:
double

Since the question is not being answered, I think a picture is needed to fill the space:
http://xkcd.com/202

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Monday, June 20, 2016 1:27 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
So my next question is - KIKI
This was your first and only question.- THIRDSTOOGE
what are the SPECIFIC mechanisms used to deprive people of resources?- KIKI
The concept of ownership.- THIRDSTOOGE

In other words ...

"Property is theft."

It's taken you a long time to figure that out, but you finally got there.

--------------
I'll tell you what I DON'T like about Trump: I think that he has never confronted either the international banking cartel, nor the CIA-State Dept multi-headed hydra, nor the military-industrial complex. The last person to confront them was JFK (BTW, ALL immigration was illegal under JFK) and look what happened to him.

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Monday, June 20, 2016 8:17 AM

www.houstonchronicle.com/news/article/Houston-area-getting-four-high-l
evel-trauma-8312102.php

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
So my next question is - KIKI
This was your first and only question.- THIRDSTOOGE
what are the SPECIFIC mechanisms used to deprive people of resources?- KIKI
The concept of ownership.- THIRDSTOOGE

In other words ...

"Property is theft."

It's taken you a long time to figure that out, but you finally got there.

If “property is theft” and if Level 1 trauma centers are property (I believe that is true), then did Boston, with five Level 1 centers, steal from Alaska, with none? Or is “property is theft” not a useful concept, except for people wanting to feel outraged about not getting their fair share? There is an organization called Fairshare, which has actually useful ideas, I believe. http://fairshareonline.org/

Quote:
But one national expert warned that it's too early for Houston-area trauma-care advocates to declare victory anytime soon.

"The challenge for the new Level 2 centers will be to come up to speed very quickly, suddenly treating seriously injured patients they used to send to the Medical Center," said Dr. Robert John Winchell, director of the trauma center at New York Presbyterian Medical Center and chairman of the College of Surgeons' trauma systems evaluation and planning committee.

"Centers new to treating complex head injuries and doing a smaller volume than Level 1 centers, that's when morbidity and mortality rates increase."

Winchell said such realities drive the debate, often political, about what model best serves a region. He noted that a single Level 1 trauma center in Seattle serves Washington, Alaska, Montana and Idaho whereas Boston has five Level 1 centers in an area significantly smaller than Greater Houston. Some experts argued it was too costly and inefficient to have so many until the surplus proved lifesaving after the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing.

Winchell, who served as trauma chief at Memorial Hermann in the Medical Center from mid-2014 to mid-2015, said the College of Surgeons' position is that trauma care should be planned by a coordinating body rather than emerging spontaneously under a business model. He said having Level 2 centers at geographic coordinates sounds good but may not match a region's injury demographics and disaster preparedness needs.

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Monday, June 20, 2016 9:15 AM

DEVERSE

Hey, Ive been in a firefight before! Well, I was in a fire. Actually, I was fired from a fry-cook opportunity.

Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
So my next question is: what are the SPECIFIC mechanisms used to deprive people of resources?

G. R. E. E. D.

That and no one really cares about anyone other than them self.

Oh let the sun beat down upon my face;
With stars to fill my dream;
I am a traveler of both time and space;
To be where I have been

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Monday, June 20, 2016 9:39 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
In 2014 10.9% of the global population (or about 750 million) suffered from malnutrition. http://www.worldhunger.org/2015-world-hunger-and-poverty-facts-and-sta
tistics/ About 7.7 million die every year from hunger. http://www.poverty.com/

And while the tendency is to write those deaths off as being due to laziness, ignorance, promiscuity, or backwardness - in fact, adults capable of work, with access to resources needed for survival, and access to modern contraception, aren't going to voluntarily sit around and voluntarily let themselves and their children starve ... just because.

The hundreds of millions of hungry people are hungry because their access to the resources they need to live is being blocked by other people.

So my next question is: what are the SPECIFIC mechanisms used to deprive people of resources?

Which system would you say then contributes to or creates more poverty? Capitalism, communism, or socialism?

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Tuesday, June 21, 2016 4:18 AM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

second

You look at a small slice of a situation and fail to address the unimaginably vast troves of wealth outside of your view that are unused.

I appreciate the very specific article, but, like a lot of liberal hand-wringing and faux-concern, it wants to pretend that those disparities don't exist, and that the problems can be solved by making minor adjustments to our current structure (and then is faux-dismayed that the numbers don't work out).

http://johnlocker.com/history/inside-claridges-hotel-13/

Inside Claridge's

Here, things are done a little differently. (Man in black pants and black polo shirt climbs tall ladder with bucket) The million pound chandelier has 800 unique pieces that have to be individually hand cleaned, overnight. ... In an age of austerity, some guests are prepared to pay the price of a small family car. to spend one night favoring its enduring luxury. "It's 6,900 ponds per night."

The hotel is used to dealing with people who demand a whole lot more. In 3 days time they're expecting the arrival of foreign royalty, who want to occupy the entire third floor.

"The arrival time is still on for about six o'clock, so I presume security will be on, probably ... say close to noon?"
"... It's just a bit ... ehm (inaudible) we make sure we take all the alcoholic products ... out?"

The whole floor will be taken over by 27 female guests with their women-only security guard. No men will be allowed to set foot on the floor.

"We have to, uhm, blind all these glass doors so people can't see in."
"We making very very soft bed for the princess. She wants very, very soft bed. So we putting extra duvets for her." "How many duvets?" "Four. ... Yes, she want very very soft. (laugh)"

There are 40 rooms on the third floor. 10 have to be cleared of all furniture to create space for private dressing rooms and dining rooms. The other bedrooms will be turned into kitchens. Two entire suites will be used just for storing shopping bags.
Presentation must be perfect. All scuffs are touched up, dripping taps fixed ... and one bath is re-enameled.
However, the guests have yet to confirm their booking.
It's taken two days to transform the third floor into a temporary palace, but still the booking has not been confirmed.

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Tuesday, June 21, 2016 4:23 AM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

G. R. E. E. D.

That and no one really cares about anyone other than them self.

deverse

I think your answer begs the question - if a vast number of people are disproportionately less well off than the small number of those at the top - why do we put up with it?

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Tuesday, June 21, 2016 5:40 AM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

Which system would you say then contributes to or creates more poverty? Capitalism, communism, or socialism?

We've discussed this before. And you don't give a shit. Remember?

THUGGR - Your (sic) a fucking moron: who gives a shit?

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Tuesday, June 21, 2016 6:30 AM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

Hillary's old refuge, the State Department, wants to get into a shooting war with Russia over Assad.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/16/politics/state-department-syria/

Who would you rather vote for - the kleptomaniac or the pyromaniac?

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Tuesday, June 21, 2016 7:35 AM

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/12/31/soaking-the-rich-slightly/

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
second

You look at a small slice of a situation and fail to address the unimaginably vast troves of wealth outside of your view that are unused.

I appreciate the very specific article, but, like a lot of liberal hand-wringing and faux-concern, it wants to pretend that those disparities don't exist, and that the problems can be solved by making minor adjustments to our current structure (and then is faux-dismayed that the numbers don't work out).

I choose articles on dialysis and level 1 trauma centers because the articles were detailed and close at hand, which means I can walk into the buildings where these life-and-death daily drama happen.

And all those small dramas can have happy endings, rather than sad, with a little money. As for world starvation, that large problem can be solved with a large amount of money. But it is not happening. It is not just the wealthiest who don’t want to pay. I perfectly understand them, because they will be paying the majority of the money. It is also those who aren’t wealthy, the middle class, the vast majority, who also don’t want to pay.

That was the best thing about Bernie. His soak the rich plan would make a big difference. But the majority of middle class won’t support him. I suppose there are equivalents to Bernie in most countries with middle classes and those Bernies can’t get elected, either. The world needs a better middle class. There is where the world needs a revolution. The world's middle class needs a "major restructuring" of its goals, which would probably take an invasion from outer space bringing a revised set of values to that class.

www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2016/03/tax-plan-showdown-now-we-have-b
ernie-sanders-too

www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2016/05/binc-watch-its-sunday-morning-s
o-today-its-meet-press

http://dqydj.net/net-worth-in-the-united-states-zooming-in-on-the-top-
centiles/

www.census.gov/people/wealth/ www.census.gov/people/wealth/files/Wealth%20distribution%202000%20to%2
02011.pdf

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Tuesday, June 21, 2016 7:37 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
Which system would you say then contributes to or creates more poverty? Capitalism, communism, or socialism?

We've discussed this before. And you don't give a shit. Remember?

THUGGR - Your (sic) a fucking moron: who gives a shit?

So you are saying because Russia and China have adopted many aspects of Capitalism because Communism and Socialism wasn't working, look how poorly it works for Cuba and Venezuela, that capitalism helps lift more people out of poverty.

Have I got that right?

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Tuesday, June 21, 2016 8:50 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by THGRRI:

So you are saying because Russia and China have adopted many aspects of Capitalism because Communism and Socialism wasn't working, look how poorly it works for Cuba and Venezuela, that capitalism helps lift more people out of poverty.

Have I got that right?

No, you have not got that right. Everyone in the USA, for example, could be lifted out of poverty, but only the ones with the very best connections are:

Why I Was Wrong About Welfare Reform by Nicholas Kristof June 18, 2016

Every year I hold a “win a trip” contest to choose a university student to accompany me on a reporting trip to cover global poverty in places like Congo or Myanmar. This year we decided to journey as well to Tulsa, in the heartland of America, because the embarrassing truth is that welfare reform has resulted in a layer of destitution that echoes poverty in countries like Bangladesh.

Recent research finds that because of welfare reform, roughly three million American children live in households with incomes of less than $2 per person per day, a global metric of extreme poverty. That’s one American child in 25. They would be counted as extremely poor if they lived in Africa, and they are our neighbors in the most powerful nation in the world.

So my win-a-trip winner, Cassidy McDonald, an aspiring journalist from the University of Notre Dame, and I interviewed families in Tulsa. Extreme poverty is not the same in the U.S. as in Africa, for America has better safety nets from the government and from churches and charities. But it’s still staggering, and instead of mitigating the problem, “welfare reform” has exacerbated it.
www.nytimes.com/2016/06/19/opinion/sunday/why-i-was-wrong-about-welfar
e-reform.html

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Tuesday, June 21, 2016 9:15 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by THGRRI:

So you are saying because Russia and China have adopted many aspects of Capitalism because Communism and Socialism wasn't working, look how poorly it works for Cuba and Venezuela, that capitalism helps lift more people out of poverty.

Have I got that right?
No, you have not got that right. Everyone in the USA, for example, could be lifted out of poverty, but only the ones with the very best connections are:

Why I Was Wrong About Welfare Reform by Nicholas Kristof June 18, 2016

Every year I hold a “win a trip” contest to choose a university student to accompany me on a reporting trip to cover global poverty in places like Congo or Myanmar. This year we decided to journey as well to Tulsa, in the heartland of America, because the embarrassing truth is that welfare reform has resulted in a layer of destitution that echoes poverty in countries like Bangladesh.

Recent research finds that because of welfare reform, roughly three million American children live in households with incomes of less than $2 per person per day, a global metric of extreme poverty. That’s one American child in 25. They would be counted as extremely poor if they lived in Africa, and they are our neighbors in the most powerful nation in the world.

So my win-a-trip winner, Cassidy McDonald, an aspiring journalist from the University of Notre Dame, and I interviewed families in Tulsa. Extreme poverty is not the same in the U.S. as in Africa, for America has better safety nets from the government and from churches and charities. But it’s still staggering, and instead of mitigating the problem, “welfare reform” has exacerbated it.
www.nytimes.com/2016/06/19/opinion/sunday/why-i-was-wrong-about-welfar
e-reform.html

Sorry Second but you are talking about income distribution. I am talking about the best System to generate income. You see 1kiki likes to complain and start threads bemoaning poverty while at the same time on other threads, promote political systems that create poverty. I am addressing that with her. An example of poor income distribution would be; "Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991-1992, and the end of the centrally controlled "command economy," a new class of wealthy private capitalists with close government connections has emerged in Russia. The new ruling clique that has replaced the Soviet-era "nomenklatura" is widely referred to by the American-origin term "istablishment."

At the same time, life for most Russians has not improved. The great majority still struggles to survive, sometimes below the subsistence level. Industrial and agricultural production have fallen 50 percent in recent years, and millions are not paid their paltry salaries on time. Because most people lack hard currency to buy anything but essentials, consumer goods are generally accessible only to successful speculators, the mafia, and higher government officials. For the average Russian, and especially the elderly, life is not just impoverished, it is becoming desperate. [See: "Nationalist Sentiment Widespread, Growing in Former Soviet Union."

Now lawlessness prevails in Russia, with business life functioning at a level similar to that of Al Capone's Chicago. There is no effective system of laws to ensure the fair and orderly operation of business, banking, finance, insurance, stock trading, and so forth, and existing laws are neither consistently nor impartially enforced. Lawlessness and excess are more often rewarded than punished, and people have little protection against fraud by the new criminal class."

Corruption is a terrible thing and has a negative effect on populations if there is an unfair distribution of resources.

http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v16/v16n3p21_Michaels.html

http://t.co/JsXPJqV9Nv

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Tuesday, June 21, 2016 10:16 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by THGRRI:

Sorry Second but you are talking about income distribution. I am talking about the best System to generate income. You see 1kiki likes to complain and start threads bemoaning poverty while at the same time on other threads, promote political systems that create poverty. I am addressing that with her. An example of poor income distribution would be; "Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991-1992, and the end of the centrally controlled "command economy," a new class of wealthy private capitalists with close government connections has emerged in Russia. The new ruling clique that has replaced the Soviet-era "nomenklatura" is widely referred to by the American-origin term "istablishment."

At the same time, life for most Russians has not improved. The great majority still struggles to survive, sometimes below the subsistence level. Industrial and agricultural production have fallen 50 percent in recent years, and millions are not paid their paltry salaries on time. Because most people lack hard currency to buy anything but essentials, consumer goods are generally accessible only to successful speculators, the mafia, and higher government officials. For the average Russian, and especially the elderly, life is not just impoverished, it is becoming desperate. [See: "Nationalist Sentiment Widespread, Growing in Former Soviet Union."

Now lawlessness prevails in Russia, with business life functioning at a level similar to that of Al Capone's Chicago. There is no effective system of laws to ensure the fair and orderly operation of business, banking, finance, insurance, stock trading, and so forth, and existing laws are neither consistently nor impartially enforced. Lawlessness and excess are more often rewarded than punished, and people have little protection against fraud by the new criminal class."

Corruption is a terrible thing and has a negative effect on populations if there is an unfair distribution of resources.

I google gnp Russia and I get these graphs that do not totally support your point of view.

Russian GNP did go down, as you are saying, but then it came back up. My point would be that any stupid-ass system, even one that can be better described as Kleptocracy than Capitalism, can be made to function. If Putin would remove more of the stupid from his stupid-ass system, it would function better and smoother with less effort for all Russians.
www.google.com/search?q=gnp+Russia

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Tuesday, June 21, 2016 3:39 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by THGRRI:

Sorry Second but you are talking about income distribution. I am talking about the best System to generate income. You see 1kiki likes to complain and start threads bemoaning poverty while at the same time on other threads, promote political systems that create poverty. I am addressing that with her. An example of poor income distribution would be; "Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991-1992, and the end of the centrally controlled "command economy," a new class of wealthy private capitalists with close government connections has emerged in Russia. The new ruling clique that has replaced the Soviet-era "nomenklatura" is widely referred to by the American-origin term "istablishment."

At the same time, life for most Russians has not improved. The great majority still struggles to survive, sometimes below the subsistence level. Industrial and agricultural production have fallen 50 percent in recent years, and millions are not paid their paltry salaries on time. Because most people lack hard currency to buy anything but essentials, consumer goods are generally accessible only to successful speculators, the mafia, and higher government officials. For the average Russian, and especially the elderly, life is not just impoverished, it is becoming desperate. [See: "Nationalist Sentiment Widespread, Growing in Former Soviet Union."

Now lawlessness prevails in Russia, with business life functioning at a level similar to that of Al Capone's Chicago. There is no effective system of laws to ensure the fair and orderly operation of business, banking, finance, insurance, stock trading, and so forth, and existing laws are neither consistently nor impartially enforced. Lawlessness and excess are more often rewarded than punished, and people have little protection against fraud by the new criminal class."

Corruption is a terrible thing and has a negative effect on populations if there is an unfair distribution of resources.
I google gnp Russia and I get these graphs that do not totally support your point of view.

Russian GNP did go down, as you are saying, but then it came back up. My point would be that any stupid-ass system, even one that can be better described as Kleptocracy than Capitalism, can be made to function. If Putin would remove more of the stupid from his stupid-ass system, it would function better and smoother with less effort for all Russians.

Quickly, if you have three rich people in a town it brings up the whole towns perceived incomes. They average them together. Therefore it skews the truth. Gross National Income shows the ups and downs of the countries GDP. 83 people in the world have more resources than the poorest 3.8 billion. Some of the 83 live in Russia. Actually now I believe it's 63.

You have to be very careful when interpreting charts and graphs. You can use them to show a countries GDP is rising or falling. Capitalism is much better than socialism at generating wealth. Please don't show me charts showing Russia's GDP is falling. That would have everything to do with oil prices, acerbated by the fact that Russia is a one trick pony.

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Tuesday, June 21, 2016 4:58 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by THGRRI:

Quickly, if you have three rich people in a town it brings up the whole town's perceived incomes.

And if the stupidest, but most self-important and loudest of the three makes all decisions, the decisions will be stupid. I give you Venezuela as an example. It is not socialism ruining Venezuela, it's the stupidity. If it was socialism causing problems, then Denmark, socialism's highest expression, would be as ruined as Venezuela.

Venezuelans are starving.

The situation is desperate. Price controls combined with the scarcity of goods have resulted in skyrocketing inflation. At current prices, it would take more than 20 times the minimum wage to buy basic foodstuffs for a family of five, according to the research arm of a teacher’s union. Nearly 90% of the population can’t afford to buy enough food, according to a living-standards assessment by Simón Bolivar University. Even those with money can’t find basic products amid empty supermarket shelves.
http://qz.com/712177/almost-the-entire-nation-of-venezuela-is-too-brok
e-to-eat/

Critics have slammed President Nicolas Maduro for embracing socialist blueprint instead of free-market policies. And do you know why Maduro can’t change directions? No reason other than his over-sized ego and unwillingness to learn from his arithmetic errors.

The oil-exporting South American country is caught in a perfect storm of droughts, food and power shortages, and devastating inflation and recession caused by plummeting crude prices.

Venezuela, an OPEC nation, relies heavily on oil for export earnings, and plummeting world prices have helped push its state-led economy into a deep recession.

"Since Venezuela is about 96 per cent dependent on oil, we're only receiving about a third of the hard currency we were receiving as recently as a couple of years ago," Phil Gunson, senior analyst with International Crisis Group, told The Current.

The country also has the highest inflation in the world.

Maduro announced earlier this year the strongest of the country's official exchange rates, used for essential goods like food and medicine, would be changing from 6.30 bolivars to the U.S. dollar to 10 bolivars to the dollar. But on the black market, a U.S. dollar is worth about 1,000 bolivars.
www.cbc.ca/news/world/venezuela-crsis-food-electricity-oil-shortage-in
flation-1.3643216

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Tuesday, June 21, 2016 5:09 PM

Yes it's very bad. It has been heading in that direction for a long time. I feel very bad for the people. We need to be sending aid.

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Tuesday, June 21, 2016 7:24 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by THGRRI:
Yes it's very bad. It has been heading in that direction for a long time. I feel very bad for the people. We need to be sending aid.

Send the President of Venezuela advice, not food or money. "If Stupidity got us into this mess, then why can't it get us out?" -- Will Rogers. President Nicolas Maduro will get a brain and everything will work out well.

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Tuesday, June 21, 2016 7:30 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by THGRRI:
Yes it's very bad. It has been heading in that direction for a long time. I feel very bad for the people. We need to be sending aid.
Send the President of Venezuela advice, not food or money. "If Stupidity got us into this mess, then why can't it get us out?" -- Will Rogers. President Nicolas Maduro will get a brain and everything will work out well.

Yes but in the meantime let's help the victims of this stupidity.

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Wednesday, June 22, 2016 7:34 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by THGRRI:

Yes but in the meantime let's help the victims of this stupidity.

The state has tried to ration basic foodstuffs and set their prices, but the consequence is they have simply disappeared from the shops into the black market. The opposition says the direct distribution of food has been politicised by being channeled through local committees run by Maduro’s United Socialist Party of Venezuela.

According to Transparency International, Venezuela is the ninth most corrupt country in the world. Member’s of Maduro’s family and immediate entourage have been implicated in drug smuggling and hundreds of billions of dollars are believed to have been syphoned out of the economy.
www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jun/22/venezuela-economic-crisis-guardi
an-briefing

Navarro and Jorge Giordani, a former finance minister who was Chavez's closest economic adviser during his 14-year rule, have made calculations showing the government cannot account for how it spent nearly a third of the $1 trillion that entered its coffers in the past decade.

"A gang was created that was only interested in getting their hands on financial resources, on (the country's) oil revenue," Navarro, who helped found the ruling Socialist Party but was expelled in 2014, said in an interview with Reuters.
www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-politics-idUSKCN0VB26F

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Wednesday, June 22, 2016 12:59 PM

REAVERFAN

He ain't no Chavez, is he?

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Wednesday, June 22, 2016 1:48 PM

Yeah SECOND I don't know what else to say. It's terrible and I don't see it getting better anytime soon. I really think we need to help. Is our elected officials even talking about this? I don't hear Clinton speaking of it either.

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Wednesday, June 22, 2016 5:04 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by THGRRI:
Yeah SECOND I don't know what else to say. It's terrible and I don't see it getting better anytime soon. I really think we need to help. Is our elected officials even talking about this? I don't hear Clinton speaking of it either.

The crisis may be forcing a thaw in relations with the US, long presented as a bogeyman by Chávez and then Maduro. The US under secretary of state, Thomas Shannon, flew to Caracas this week, following a meeting at the OAS between John Kerry and his counterpart, the Venezuelan foreign minister, Delcy Rodríguez.
www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jun/22/venezuela-economic-crisis-guardi
an-briefing

But if the USA sent a million tonnes of absolutely free food, President Maduro would scheme to personally earn two billion dollars by selling it for $2 per kilogram. And thus the cycle of stupidity in governing Venezuela would continue.

Maduro gave a less than conciliatory televised address in which he accused U.S. President Barack Obama of trying to interfere in Venezuela’s internal affairs.

“I gave Shannon a message to take back to President Obama. We hope that Obama can rectify the posture he’s taken during eight years of opposing Venezuela’s revolution. Hopefully in these last seven months of his presidency, we can start down the path toward dialogue, with respect for a positive agenda between the two countries. I really hope we can,” Maduro said.
www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/top-us-diplomat-to-meet-with
-venezuela-officials-amid-crisis/2016/06/21/0aef7f9a-3812-11e6-af02-1df55f0c77ff_story.html
www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-usa-idUSKCN0Z82A4

Photos today of President Maduro show him in a blazer rather than his usual baggy tracksuit or baggy shirt. I don't expect he will, but Maduro should cut back on his eating to show his solidarity with the starving people he misrules.

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Wednesday, June 22, 2016 6:38 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by THGRRI:
Yeah SECOND I don't know what else to say. It's terrible and I don't see it getting better anytime soon. I really think we need to help. Is our elected officials even talking about this? I don't hear Clinton speaking of it either.
The crisis may be forcing a thaw in relations with the US, long presented as a bogeyman by Chávez and then Maduro. The US under secretary of state, Thomas Shannon, flew to Caracas this week, following a meeting at the OAS between John Kerry and his counterpart, the Venezuelan foreign minister, Delcy Rodríguez.
www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jun/22/venezuela-economic-crisis-guardi
an-briefing

But if the USA sent a million tonnes of absolutely free food, President Maduro would scheme to personally earn two billion dollars by selling it for $2 per kilogram. And thus the cycle of stupidity in governing Venezuela would continue.

Maduro gave a less than conciliatory televised address in which he accused U.S. President Barack Obama of trying to interfere in Venezuela’s internal affairs.

“I gave Shannon a message to take back to President Obama. We hope that Obama can rectify the posture he’s taken during eight years of opposing Venezuela’s revolution. Hopefully in these last seven months of his presidency, we can start down the path toward dialogue, with respect for a positive agenda between the two countries. I really hope we can,” Maduro said.
www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/top-us-diplomat-to-meet-with
-venezuela-officials-amid-crisis/2016/06/21/0aef7f9a-3812-11e6-af02-1df55f0c77ff_story.html
www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-usa-idUSKCN0Z82A4

Photos today of President Maduro show him in a blazer rather than his usual baggy tracksuit or baggy shirt. I don't expect he will, but Maduro should cut back on his eating to show his solidarity with the starving people he misrules.

Well then, that's the answer. Shoot Maduro

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Wednesday, June 22, 2016 7:05 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by THGRRI:

Well then, that's the answer. Shoot Maduro

No! You're thinking like an assassin or the Operative from Serenity. The answer must be a President who will truly solve problems. That kind of person is a rarity in this world. Killing Maduro, or even recalling him as is being attempted right now, will mean even greater chaos unless . . . well, you figure it out. Usually nations don't get the second step correct after the first step of forcefully removing a bad government.

What Venezuela needs is for Maduro to stop being ignorant about how an economy works. Or he politely and peacefully resigns. I don't expect Maduro will do either.

Maybe Maduro could go to Denmark for a crash course on running a socialist government? Not gonna happen because he is Mister Know-It-All. Or maybe Venezuela could become an autonomous region of Denmark, like Greenland and the Faroe Islands? Queen Margrethe II doesn't need the headache of dealing with Maduro, who would never tolerate being supervised by a woman. It's not macho.

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Thursday, June 23, 2016 12:04 AM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?bid=18&tid=58208&p=5
kiki - And meanwhile, to understand the role of capitalism in improving life FOR THE MASSES you'll note here that the greatest gains in life expectancy in China - for women from 45 to 63, and for men from 44 to 64 - came between the years 1950 and 1972.
THUGGR - Your (sic) a fucking moron: who gives a shit?

Quote:
Originally posted by THGRRI:
Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
Which system would you say then contributes to or creates more poverty? Capitalism, communism, or socialism?

We've discussed this before. And you don't give a shit. Remember?

THUGGR - Your (sic) a fucking moron: who gives a shit?

So you are saying because Russia and China have adopted many aspects of Capitalism because Communism and Socialism wasn't working, look how poorly it works for Cuba and Venezuela, that capitalism helps lift more people out of poverty.

Have I got that right?

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Thursday, June 23, 2016 12:16 AM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

So, the collapse of the old Soviet controlled economy was a BAD THING.

Since all those words very obviously confused you, here is your cite, stripped of details, to give the essential message. Let's call your misdirected rant SINCE THE COLLAPSE OF THE SOVIET UNION, since those are its opening words.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991-1992, and the end of the centrally controlled "command economy," ... life for most Russians has not improved. The great majority still struggles to survive ... Industrial and agricultural production have fallen 50 percent in recent years, and millions are not paid ... lawlessness prevails in Russia ... There is no effective system of laws ... Lawlessness and excess are more often rewarded than punished ... /Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991-1992/

Quote:
Originally posted by THGRRI:
Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by THGRRI:

So you are saying because Russia and China have adopted many aspects of Capitalism because Communism and Socialism wasn't working, look how poorly it works for Cuba and Venezuela, that capitalism helps lift more people out of poverty.

Have I got that right?
No, you have not got that right. Everyone in the USA, for example, could be lifted out of poverty, but only the ones with the very best connections are:

Why I Was Wrong About Welfare Reform by Nicholas Kristof June 18, 2016

Every year I hold a “win a trip” contest to choose a university student to accompany me on a reporting trip to cover global poverty in places like Congo or Myanmar. This year we decided to journey as well to Tulsa, in the heartland of America, because the embarrassing truth is that welfare reform has resulted in a layer of destitution that echoes poverty in countries like Bangladesh.

Recent research finds that because of welfare reform, roughly three million American children live in households with incomes of less than $2 per person per day, a global metric of extreme poverty. That’s one American child in 25. They would be counted as extremely poor if they lived in Africa, and they are our neighbors in the most powerful nation in the world.

So my win-a-trip winner, Cassidy McDonald, an aspiring journalist from the University of Notre Dame, and I interviewed families in Tulsa. Extreme poverty is not the same in the U.S. as in Africa, for America has better safety nets from the government and from churches and charities. But it’s still staggering, and instead of mitigating the problem, “welfare reform” has exacerbated it.
www.nytimes.com/2016/06/19/opinion/sunday/why-i-was-wrong-about-welfar
e-reform.html

Sorry Second but you are talking about income distribution. I am talking about the best System to generate income. You see 1kiki likes to complain and start threads bemoaning poverty while at the same time on other threads, promote political systems that create poverty. I am addressing that with her. An example of poor income distribution would be; "Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991-1992, and the end of the centrally controlled "command economy," a new class of wealthy private capitalists with close government connections has emerged in Russia. The new ruling clique that has replaced the Soviet-era "nomenklatura" is widely referred to by the American-origin term "istablishment."

At the same time, life for most Russians has not improved. The great majority still struggles to survive, sometimes below the subsistence level. Industrial and agricultural production have fallen 50 percent in recent years, and millions are not paid their paltry salaries on time. Because most people lack hard currency to buy anything but essentials, consumer goods are generally accessible only to successful speculators, the mafia, and higher government officials. For the average Russian, and especially the elderly, life is not just impoverished, it is becoming desperate. [See: "Nationalist Sentiment Widespread, Growing in Former Soviet Union."

Now lawlessness prevails in Russia, with business life functioning at a level similar to that of Al Capone's Chicago. There is no effective system of laws to ensure the fair and orderly operation of business, banking, finance, insurance, stock trading, and so forth, and existing laws are neither consistently nor impartially enforced. Lawlessness and excess are more often rewarded than punished, and people have little protection against fraud by the new criminal class."

Corruption is a terrible thing and has a negative effect on populations if there is an unfair distribution of resources.

http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v16/v16n3p21_Michaels.html

http://t.co/JsXPJqV9Nv

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Thursday, June 23, 2016 12:32 AM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

"The oil-exporting South American country is caught in a perfect storm of droughts, food and power shortages, and devastating inflation and recession caused by plummeting crude prices."

And exactly none of those can be attributed to socialism.

"the government cannot account for how it spent nearly a third of the $1 trillion that entered its coffers in the past decade"

And that can't be attributed to socialism, only corruption.

Meanwhile, the countries around the globe with the very highest quality of life, are socialist when it comes to TAXES, education, transportation, and health care, plus a generally substantial safety net. http://www.numbeo.com/quality-of-life/rankings_by_country.jsp

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Thursday, June 23, 2016 12:50 AM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

So, given that the collapse of the old Soviet economy was a BAD THING for both the people and production output, that countries with the highest quality of life are largely socialist regarding the support and care of their people, and that economic problems in socialist countries aren't due to socialism per se - it looks like the systemic problems facing most people today are due to the OTHER extant system, capitalism.

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Thursday, June 23, 2016 7:28 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
So, given that the collapse of the old Soviet economy was a BAD THING for both the people and production output, that countries with the highest quality of life are largely socialist regarding the support and care of their people, and that economic problems in socialist countries aren't due to socialism per se - it looks like the systemic problems facing most people today are due to the OTHER extant system, capitalism.

Why do you always blame capitalism? I think blame should be placed where it belongs: on a President or Prime Minister failing to solve problems. I’m naively optimistic that there is always several paths to handle problems and the monarch or the President or the PM needs to find at least one. But shifting all blame for national failures to “Capitalism” and away from Presidents and PMs is just the wrong path. To me, banning capitalism doesn’t seem to be the first step in solving problems. You’d get better results by banning incompetent Presidents, PMs and Monarchs who refuse to try any solution other than the first poorly though out idea that pops into their heads.

I realize that the only idea that occurs to most PMs and Presidents is to do nothing, give speeches, and hope the problems cure themselves. The worst Presidents add a twist -- steal the national treasury just in case the problems don't go away naturally and the President has to flee the country. That would explain why hundreds of billions of dollars disappeared in Venezuela.

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Thursday, June 23, 2016 10:29 AM

Sometimes you own the libs. Sometimes, the libs own you.

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
It's taken you a long time to figure that out, but you finally got there.

Actually it took me one post.

Quote:
In other words ...

"Property is theft."

Oxymoronic communist slogans? Boring.

Mass starvation of millions under communism:

Soviet famine 1932-33 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_famine_of_1932%E2%80%9333

Great Chinese Famine 1959-61 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chinese_Famine

And in case anyone thought this was just an historical thing...

Venezuela 2016 - http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/20/world/americas/venezuelans-ransack-s
tores-as-hunger-stalks-crumbling-nation.html?_r=0

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Thursday, June 23, 2016 11:30 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Ach. Third-world infrastructure.

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Thursday, June 23, 2016 11:30 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Sorry Second but you are talking about income distribution. I am talking about the best System to generate income.

So wrong on so many levels.

First of all, people don't survive on "income", they survive on "resources" ... at its most basic: food, water, shelter, clothing, medical care, safety.

It's possible to generate vast amounts of "income" without increasing resources whatsoever- real estate owners, stock owners, fine art collectors, hedge fund managers who are playing with fictitious money - i.e. money created out of thin air by banks (including the Fed) via severely undercapitalized loans. Speculation (which is what this is) is a way of increasing "income" using ALREADY MADE objects without increasing the production of resources at all.

Secondly, who cares how much income OR resources are generated if they don't make it to the people who will use it? Having a vast surplus concentrated with a small group of people ... it begs the question, WHAT are these resources, or this income, being generated for? What is the purpose? If it's generated for some sort of abstract point about generating "more" without linking that "more" to consumption, then who cares, really about this vast but unobtainable treasure trove? It doesn't do anybody any good, except maybe the 0.0000001% who control it.

RESOURCE DISTRIBUTION... or, in your thinking, INCOME DISTRIBUTION ... is important.

--------------
I'll tell you what I DON'T like about Trump: I think that he has never confronted either the international banking cartel, nor the CIA-State Dept multi-headed hydra, nor the military-industrial complex. The last person to confront them was JFK (BTW, ALL immigration was illegal under JFK) and look what happened to him.

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Thursday, June 23, 2016 11:40 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
And all those small dramas can have happy endings, rather than sad, with a little money. As for world starvation, that large problem can be solved with a large amount of money. But it is not happening. It is not just the wealthiest who don’t want to pay. I perfectly understand them, because they will be paying the majority of the money. It is also those who aren’t wealthy, the middle class, the vast majority, who also don’t want to pay.

I think you vastly understimate how much wealth the wealthy have. The richest 100 people in the world own more than the bottom 50%. If you were able to take that wealth and distribute it to the bottom 50% - those who live in $2 a day or less - you would literally double their income.

Bill Gates, on his own, has enough money to hire 100,000 American teachers for 10 years, at $50,000 a year.

--------------
I'll tell you what I DON'T like about Trump: I think that he has never confronted either the international banking cartel, nor the CIA-State Dept multi-headed hydra, nor the military-industrial complex. The last person to confront them was JFK (BTW, ALL immigration was illegal under JFK) and look what happened to him.

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Thursday, June 23, 2016 12:00 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Without having the time to read thru the arguments about socialism versus capitalism, or Venezuela versus Tusla ...

"Socialism" doesn't exist anywhere. Originally, socialism meant that the workers owned the means of production - and except for some small cooperatives, I don't see that happening. What is formally defined as "socialism", people currently think of as "communism". So, what we have isn't socialism per se, but some combination of welfare-statism (redistribution of wealth) and government-managed economy (where the government becomes involved in production, or production decisions) and government-managed finances (Where the government manages fiscal and monetary policy.)

"Capitalism" as imagined by Adam Smith and (some) libertarians - small to medium-sized business competing for your purchase and your skills, developing into some sort of efficient meritocracy- doesn't exist either. What we have is international monopolism which bends the policies if the various nations to its benefit- quasi-fascism, if you will.

Arguing about socialism and communism and capitalism is a little like arguing about unicorns and dragons and angels: none of them exist. Instead of trying to discuss the economy in ideological terms, maybe we should bring down the verbiage to a realistic level.

Venezuela is a combination of leftover monopolism (wealthy people still have a large hold on certain aspects of the economy, only oil was nationalized) and government redistribution plans.

The problem with Venezuela isn't "socialism" it's mismanagement. I could go into great detail about exactly how it was mismanaged, but ... just like the USA... Venezuela did not become self-sufficient in the necessities. It didn't grow its own food, or raise its own cows for milk. There was no increase in industrial production of things like cement and steel. They entirely depended on exporting oil. Once the price of oil collapsed, Venezuela was sunk.

China's internal management is a little unscrutable. They need to handle the transition from "Export to the west" dependency a little better.

And in the USA, we have allowed ourselves to become de-industrialzed, and the only thing WE export in quantity is "dollars". If "dollars" no longer become an accepted currency, the USA will be sunk. So mismanagement can occur anywhere.

At the same time, Russia is handling the combination of oil-price-war, financial war (speculation on the ruble), shooting war, and sanctions rather well. With the reduced price of oil and blockage of goods, Russia has been forced to improve its own internal production and is now making Russian-version products.

I guess the real question is whether it's better to manage an economy or to let it develop on its own terms. There are upsides and downsides to a managed (or partially-managed) economy, the largest downside is that it can be utterly mismanaged. On the other hand, even economies which start out as small-scale producers wind up developing into monopolies which can dictate its terms- either through sheer wealth, or through purchased government policies. That seems to be an inevitable trend.

-----------------
I'll tell you what I DON'T like about Trump: I think that he has never confronted either the international banking cartel, nor the CIA-State Dept multi-headed hydra, nor the military-industrial complex. The last person to confront them was JFK (BTW, ALL immigration was illegal under JFK) and look what happened to him.

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Thursday, June 23, 2016 12:19 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
Sorry Second but you are talking about income distribution. I am talking about the best System to generate income.

So wrong on so many levels.

First of all, people don't survive on "income", they survive on "resources" ... at its most basic: food, water, shelter, clothing, medical care, safety.

It's possible to generate vast amounts of "income" without increasing resources whatsoever- real estate owners, stock owners, fine art collectors, hedge fund managers who are playing with fictitious money - i.e. money created out of thin air by banks (including the Fed) via severely undercapitalized loans. Speculation (which is what this is) is a way of increasing "income" using ALREADY MADE objects without increasing the production of resources at all.

Secondly, who cares how much income OR resources are generated if they don't make it to the people who will use it? Having a vast surplus concentrated with a small group of people ... it begs the question, WHAT are these resources, or this income, being generated for? What is the purpose? If it's generated for some sort of abstract point about generating "more" without linking that "more" to consumption, then who cares, really about this vast but unobtainable treasure trove? It doesn't do anybody any good, except maybe the 0.0000001% who control it.

RESOURCE DISTRIBUTION... or, in your thinking, INCOME DISTRIBUTION ... is important.

SIGNYM quoting Me

Sorry Second but you are talking about income distribution. I am talking about the best System to generate income.

SIG

So wrong on so many levels. First of all, people don't survive on "income", they survive on "resources" ... at its most basic: food, water, shelter, clothing, medical care, safety.

Me

This is the stupidest post I have ever read. Income = resources

SIG

It's possible to generate vast amounts of "income" without increasing resources whatsoever- real estate owners, stock owners, fine art collectors, hedge fund managers who are playing with fictitious money - i.e. money created out of thin air by banks (including the Fed) via severely undercapitalized loans. Speculation (which is what this is) is a way of increasing "income" using ALREADY MADE objects without increasing the production of resources at all.

Me

Lol, You get these resources depending on income. What did you use to obtain your resources? Is this what you tell your hired help? Income allows you the choice. Insufficient income = insufficient resources = no choice.

SIG

Secondly, who cares how much income OR resources are generated if they don't make it to the people who will use it? Having a vast surplus concentrated with a small group of people ... it begs the question, WHAT are these resources, or this income, being generated for? What is the purpose? If it's generated for some sort of abstract point about generating "more" without linking that "more" to consumption, then who cares, really about this vast but unobtainable treasure trove? It doesn't do anybody any good, except maybe the 0.0000001% who control it.

Me

You start this post by quoting something I said to SECOND about determining the best system for generating resources and the worst. Responding to Second I explained she was speaking to problems with distribution. A different subject. In this last bit posted by you, you in a subjective rant confirm what I said to SECOND. You are talking about a distribution problem and that is different from a resources generating system.

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Thursday, June 23, 2016 12:35 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
And all those small dramas can have happy endings, rather than sad, with a little money. As for world starvation, that large problem can be solved with a large amount of money. But it is not happening. It is not just the wealthiest who don’t want to pay. I perfectly understand them, because they will be paying the majority of the money. It is also those who aren’t wealthy, the middle class, the vast majority, who also don’t want to pay.
I think you vastly understimate how much wealth the wealthy have. The richest 100 people in the world own more than the bottom 50%. If you were able to take that wealth and distribute it to the bottom 50% - those who live in $2 a day or less - you would literally double their income.

lol unbelievable. If you took the wealth of the top 100 people in the world and distribute it to the poorest 50%, it would double their incomes. Lol from 2 dollars a day to 4 dollars a day. That asshole is not a fix it's stupid.

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Thursday, June 23, 2016 1:43 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by THGRRI:

lol unbelievable. If you took the wealth of the top 100 people in the world and distribute it to the poorest 50%, it would double their incomes. Lol from 2 dollars a day to 4 dollars a day. That asshole is not a fix it's stupid.

By assuming that the rich do not have enough money to make a difference in the lives of the poor, you're not getting into the proper spirit of this argument about the rich against the poor.

In democracies the top 1% could not stop the bottom 99% from taking all the wealth. But it is not happening.

At the start of 2015, Oxfam had warned that 1% of the world’s population would own more wealth than the other 99% by next year.
www.theguardian.com/money/2015/oct/13/half-world-wealth-in-hands-popul
ation-inequality-report

Another statistic is that 85 people own more than the bottom 50% of the world’s population.
www.forbes.com/sites/laurashin/2014/01/23/the-85-richest-people-in-the
-world-have-as-much-wealth-as-the-3-5-billion-poorest/#4faba861324b

I think at least 50% of the population in democracies is on the same side as the top 1%. I think 100% will do nothing about the top 1%, maybe from lack of imagination or ambition.

I think that with the world’s murder rate as high as it is, even in the most peaceful countries of the world, that 85 bullets could be found somewhere to be fired into the brains of the 85 richest people in the world. But it is not happening. You should think about why nothing is happening all over the world. I've already written what I think.

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Thursday, June 23, 2016 2:44 PM

Sometimes you own the libs. Sometimes, the libs own you.

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Ach. Third-world infrastructure.

Nope.

The Soviet famine of 1932–33:

"The famine was the result of the actions of the Soviet state in the implementation of forced collectivization, in economic planning, and political repression in the countryside."

The Great Chinese Famine

"Until the early 1980s, the Chinese government's stance, reflected by the name "Three Years of Natural Disasters", was that the famine was largely a result of a series of natural disasters compounded by several planning errors. Researchers outside China argued that massive institutional and policy changes that accompanied the Great Leap Forward were the key factors in the famine, or at least worsened nature-induced disasters."

Your complete denial of past communist disasters explains your enduring devotion to the ideology. And vice versa.

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Thursday, June 23, 2016 2:56 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by THGRRI:

lol unbelievable. If you took the wealth of the top 100 people in the world and distribute it to the poorest 50%, it would double their incomes. Lol from 2 dollars a day to 4 dollars a day. That asshole is not a fix it's stupid.
By assuming that the rich do not have enough money to make a difference in the lives of the poor, you're not getting into the proper spirit of this argument about the rich against the poor.

In democracies the top 1% could not stop the bottom 99% from taking all the wealth. But it is not happening.

At the start of 2015, Oxfam had warned that 1% of the world’s population would own more wealth than the other 99% by next year.
www.theguardian.com/money/2015/oct/13/half-world-wealth-in-hands-popul
ation-inequality-report

Another statistic is that 85 people own more than the bottom 50% of the world’s population.
www.forbes.com/sites/laurashin/2014/01/23/the-85-richest-people-in-the
-world-have-as-much-wealth-as-the-3-5-billion-poorest/#4faba861324b

I think at least 50% of the population in democracies is on the same side as the top 1%. I think 100% will do nothing about the top 1%, maybe from lack of imagination or ambition.

I think that with the world’s murder rate as high as it is, even in the most peaceful countries of the world, that 85 bullets could be found somewhere to be fired into the brains of the 85 richest people in the world. But it is not happening. You should think about why nothing is happening all over the world. I've already written what I think.

Wow SECOND that's a jump. I never said anything of the kind. I simply pointed out that SIG'S assertion was nuts, stupid, laughable.

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Thursday, June 23, 2016 5:26 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by THGRRI:

Wow SECOND that's a jump. I never said anything of the kind. I simply pointed out that SIG'S assertion was nuts, stupid, laughable.

You are no fun in this argument about the rich versus the poor. I chose assassinating the rich as the ultimate wealth redistribution policy. It won't work that smoothly because the rich have wills, trusts, corporations and their wealth won't go to the poorest, but will go where their wills say.

In a well functioning Democracy, maybe Denmark for example, the wealth disparity doesn't grow without bounds because the poorest 90% can outvote the top 10%. Someone should check the statistics to see if Denmark has a lower % of people going hungry than the USA.

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Thursday, June 23, 2016 6:55 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by THGRRI:

Wow SECOND that's a jump. I never said anything of the kind. I simply pointed out that SIG'S assertion was nuts, stupid, laughable.
You are no fun in this argument about the rich versus the poor. I chose assassinating the rich as the ultimate wealth redistribution policy. It won't work that smoothly because the rich have wills, trusts, corporations and their wealth won't go to the poorest, but will go where their wills say.

In a well functioning Democracy, maybe Denmark for example, the wealth disparity doesn't grow without bounds because the poorest 90% can outvote the top 10%. Someone should check the statistics to see if Denmark has a lower % of people going hungry than the USA.

Sorry, I'll try harder lol. Bernie Sanders said during his campaign when asked why he did not do better. " Because 80% of poor people who can vote don't." So in a way their predicament is there own fault. That last part was me.

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Thursday, June 23, 2016 8:27 PM