Taxes?

[OE800_85]

Publius, while I agree that minds are not often changed in these debates, I think minds are stimulated. Whether it's the minds of those arguing or reading. I understand better my opposition's point of view. Their opinions are no longer alien to me. I may not agree, but at least I can see where they are coming from, and respect them for that. It's too easy for us to hide in our caves with our opinions and not share them with the world. In a perfect world, we'd all independently read/write and make an informed decision for ourselves.

[Publius]

I understand that, especially the stimulation. But when, as I mentioned, half the issues and questions are actually addressed, and the others ignored or just passed over, you really never do understand fully where the other person is coming. It'd be of a greater benefit if people really wanted to learn the other side, to do our best to answer. It's a two way street. If someone is going to ask questions and raise issues, but not expect to answer their opponent's, what does that say? Sure there may even still be stimulation, but it certainly won't be positive.
I certainly don't advocate hiding in caves, etc. but there are better situations and places to do that learning and stimulation. Online, written communication is often the hardest and least personal venues to have such discussions. From just not talking face to face, to the easy and likely misinterpretation, to having the ability to simply ignore, etc.

[merolpn]

This has been a great debate but I feel we're at a bit of an impasse, perhaps we'll just keep going back and forth on this topic, so I won't address every issue you mentioned.

Yes it has.

I'm just curious...
Do you agree/disagree that america has the worst public health among western developed nations? (You didn't address that directly)

I have to say no. How is that determined? (I really don't know where to get the best data. If you have something send me the link.) If we look at the HDI (which I know a little about) of countries which takes healthcare into account, the U.S. is tied in 3rd place with the Netherlands behind Norway and Austrailia. There are 8 countries such as Canada and New Zealand that are below the U.S. but still have an HDI above .900. The U.K. is #28 and this is all based on some wiki (but the data looks familiar to me) so I would really have to research it more. Based on what I can find my answer is no, the U.S. does not have the worst public health among developed nations.

Do you feel the wealth disparity has gone too far? That, despite all wages going up, with inflation considered the lower and most of the middle class have lower relative buying power?

However much I don't like the increasing disparity between income levels. The only way to change it is to take something from somebody else to "even" it out. Sure, we can pick a dollar amount and say anyone who makes over $250,000 needs to pay more in taxes. But what does that solve? We will just create a society of people that make $249,000 or move. Basically, I think if the government just got out of the way, lowered taxes and fees on employers and reduced regulation our economy would improve. If the economy improves, everyone will make more, competition is increased, prices decline and you buying power improves.

When did we agree to go on this tirade to pay for pharmaceutical companies' R&D? I don't think the people voted for that.

We don't specifically pay for the R&D as a line item. If other governments did not get involved and control prices, chances are that those of us in the U.S. would not shoulder as much of that burden. Again, remove barriers for companies to gain entry into the market and prices go down.

Who decides the salaries in companies, if not the top executives?

The board of directors. The top person in the company can't just say "I'm paying myself 1Million more this year," unless he owns it. His or her pay is a reduction in earnings and the stockholders lose out. When I get my proxy cards for votes, I always vote "NO" to salary increases for executives. Simply because I want more money to be passed to me. See, most of the time you hear about executive compensation it has to do with the value of their stock in the company. This is a good thing most of the time because the executive has a vested interest in how efficiently he runs the company. This also prevents one guy from hiring his best friend and running it into the ground by giving each other exorbitant salaries. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but when compensation is tied to stock earnings the chances are that the possibility is reduced.

[merolpn]

Do expect him to now answer all of your questions? Just curious.


This is actually one of the reasons I try to stay out these types of debates in these types of settings. Reason 1... you never get very far. Reason 2... half the questions or issues you bring up are ignored by the person/party. In the end, a decent amount of time was consumed, and minds are ever so rarely changed, if ever.

I don't do it to change minds. The only mind that may change is mine. When someone challenges me to respond to their belief it forces me to evaluate my own. I have changed some of my views on issues because someone challenged me and I decided to research why I felt the way I did. You learn more about yourself. Plus in a setting like this, you have time to research. So, if it comes up in a live conversation with someone else, I will A) already know their point of view, research they will cite and buzzwords they will use. AND B) I will have my rebuttals already formed in a logical sequence that will be harder for them to rebut.

Maybe someday I will run for office and this may be useful?

[OE800_85]

FYI, the HDI you referenced, if you look at inequality adjusted (which is exactly the kind of thing I'm talking about) America ranks lower than most any developed nation.

[Publius]

I don't do it to change minds. The only mind that may change is mine. When someone challenges me to respond to their belief it forces me to evaluate my own. I have changed some of my views on issues because someone challenged me and I decided to research why I felt the way I did. You learn more about yourself. Plus in a setting like this, you have time to research. So, if it comes up in a live conversation with someone else, I will A) already know their point of view, research they will cite and buzzwords they will use. AND B) I will have my rebuttals already formed in a logical sequence that will be harder for them to rebut.

Maybe someday I will run for office and this may be useful?

Also some great reasons. There's pro's and con's each way I suppose.

[merolpn]

FYI, the HDI you referenced, if you look at inequality adjusted (which is exactly the kind of thing I'm talking about) America ranks lower than most any developed nation.

Ok, I did look at that and I guess you could draw some conclusions from it.

The U.S. ranks 4th in the HDI but 53rd in on the inequalities HDI (IHDI) Total population 315 Million.
Norway which is 1st in HDI is 3rd in IHDI Total population 5 Million
Australia is 2nd in HDI and 19th in IHDI 22Million
Canada is 6th in HDI and 22nd in IHDI 34 million = almost to California
The UK is 28th in HDI and 21st in IHDI 63 Million

Now the U.S. ranks 53rd IHDI (in comparison to other countries that rank much lower in HDI) such as the only two countries with higher populations China and India.

So lets look at these two countries and the 2 with the next closest population to the U.S. China is 101 in HDI and 70 in IHDI (1.3 Billion) India is 134 in HDI and 90 in IHDI (1.2 Billion population)
Indonesia with a population of 237 Million is 124th in HDI and 60th in IHDI, Brazil with its population of 193 million ranks 84th and 89th.

The next 2 countries in population, Brazil and Indonesia are much worse than the U.S. on both scales with less people. China and India are also much worse with more people. Canada, China and the U.S. are all approximately the same geographical size. The US is better than than Canada on the HDI but 21 places lower on the equality of that. It looks like China can't take care of their population even though its roughly on the same amount of land as the U.S.

Connecticut is a very small state and has less people than Norway (which ranks first in the world for HDI) but CT has a better HDI score than Norway probably because it is smaller and has less people. In fact 15 U.S. states rank better than Norway(couldn't find IHDI for states). I also would have to conclude that based off of their population and the HDI score, California does a better job than Canada and Norway.

It seems to me that if you want a better HDI rank than the U.S. with more equality, you need to live in a much smaller country with a lot less people (or live in a different region of the U.S) There is simply no way that the U.S. will rank #4 in HDI and make 315 Million people equal. No other country has done it either.

[OE800_85]

I think you've accidentally proven my point, merolpn.

while I agree with your point, about having a large population leading to problems of inequality (namely poverty, hunger, and so forth), that's still not an excuse. My question was whether america, as a whole, has the worst public health of any developed nation. I wouldn't consider China, India, or Indonesia developed nations. In fact, america is (by a large margin) the largest developed country in the world. I admit, a HUGE part of america's problems is their size.