Where are we going?

[Mike DC]

 
You ain't the only one.




But IMHO that discussion is completely academic. 

I have absolutely zero worries about gasoline being outlawed in America.  It's become so built-in to our society that I think the idea of eliminating it is completely absurd.  If they don't wanna see it being burned in muscle cars then they'll package it "for use in lawnmowers only" or something.  And I have hard time buying even that scenario. 

We will probably still be able to buy & burn gasoline even long after it ceases to be a viable source of energy based on its raw price. 

[SFRT]

I see it as a return to normalcy. I can remember when credit and credit cards where very hard to get, you had to have actual cash to back it up. No more living high on the hog on unlimited, unearned and unpayable credit. I had the good luck to watch my father destroy himself through credit and other associated schemes so he could have way more 'stuff' than he could pay for and it bred into me a total hate of debt. I am and will always remain debt free. If I cant buy it with surplus cash, it aint gonna happen.

just about everyone I know who is 'in trouble' put themselves their through greed, laziness or 'believing the dream' that was force fed to them by scammers. The governement is a scam, the banks are a scam. no one except those with real wealth and skill can really buy that zillion dollar dream house, 57 cars and a boat and send all their kids to the best schools. but the scammers told you it was a right.

Additionally, I spent 30 years in a 'entertainment' culture where everyone thought they could have everything they wanted by just looking cool and dropping the right names. surprise surprise. The world is a harsh place and no matter what they told you in school, there are no gaurantees. In the end, if you put yourself in a position of dependency your gonna get screwed. 30 years and a gold watch is bullshit.

and at the risk of a 'political' statement, the current insane policies by our new overlord are the greatest swindle in the history of man kind.

[chargerboy69]

        
               
A couple years ago I thought Peter Schiff was one of the few people who made any sense.  Now his negative viewpoint of our future back then has been justified.  And right now he still says we're not done falling yet. 
    

Peter is great.  He was on Glenn Beck every week when Glenn was still on CNN before the switch to FOX.  Peter is a definite tell it like it is kind of guy.  Glenn and Peter have been talking about this for the past couple years now saying this is what was coming, and they were laughed at. 

I also feel we are a long ways from hitting rock bottom.  This has been building for years, and has been accelerating recently.  Blame does not solely lie at the feet of the current administration, but in my opinion they are making things much worse.  Now they are talking about a VAT Tax (National income tax) to pay for universal health care. If this happens, add ten to twenty percent to everything you purchase. The government can not run anything correctly.  What makes them think they can run two car company's, and our health care system?

[Mike DC]

I don't entirely agree about health care though.



A trillion dollars in public money, and the US federal govt. 

We're very quick to trust these two things to go together any time it involves Humvees & Blackhawks.  But as soon as the ideas turn to spending it here at home, the same voices all suddenly start declaring that it's lunacy to trust this govt with any large operation just on principle.  There's something a little bit wrong with this flip-flopping logic IMHO. 



I think we can trust the govt to use our military's power wisely - up to a point.  Just like I think we should trust it to come up with some kind of minimal heath care assistance for the public good - up to a point. 

(Although right now I have the uncomfortable feeling that BO is going almost as far off the deep end with domestic spending as GWB did with his foreign wars.)

   

[Tilar]

and at the risk of a 'political' statement, the current insane policies by our new overlord are the greatest swindle in the history of man kind.

I have to agree with that.

I was raised on a farm and we still own it. We won't go hungry. I know there are a lot of people that aren't that fortunate. I hope it doesn't get that bad but also at the risk of a political statement, America has to fall to the level of countries like Mexico and others in order for them to create their one world government.

As far as health care, Look at the other countries that have it. It just doesn't work. There is nothing universal about their universal health care, and in order to pay for it they would have to raise our income tax brackets to around 50% for everyone.

[Mike DC]

I agree that cheap nationwide health care doesn't work.  There isn't anywhere on earth you can point to, and really say, "See?  If we would just institute THIS country's plan in the US, then everything would be fine!" 





But I think we really need some kind of basic universal catastrophic coverage.  It's not that I think everyone deserves to be taken care of, it's that we're already paying a lot for these things indirectly. 

We won't pay $1 for prevention, so we pay 5x as much in the ER once it gets really bad. 

And it's not helping anything to let several kids fall into poverty because one parent got too sick to work and got behind.  Just look at the prison system - right now we're paying millions of dollars a year to feed & house a lot of those same kids a few years down the road.   

[Tilar]

Exactly. I know they have to be careful of the drugs that come into the marketplace,  but the cost to the manufacturers to trying to cover their butt in this country is what drives medicine up. You can drive across the border into mexico and buy behind the counter medicine for 1/4 of what you pay here.

And insurance companies that get hit with crazy ass lawsuits from people that won't even spend a few bucks on life insurance blows my mind. If they would change the law to read that nobody can file suit for more than what their life insurance coverage is, you'd probably see a lot of overcharging in the medical field stop, incuding malpractice.

[Mike DC]

I'm not convinced about the drug costs.  I suspect that Mexico is cheaper than the US because that's where they can & cannot get more money out of people. 




Asking a pharma business how to get their costs lower?  Of course they're gonna say "cut our regulations & liability costs."  But IMHO they're gonna say that regardless of what the situation actually is. 

It's like asking Corporate America if they'd like their taxes lowered in order to stimulate some job growth.  Regardless of whether it actually will do jack squat for the jobs, their answer to our question is never gonna be "no." 


     

[Tilar]

Same drugs made by the same companies.  And you may be right. I won't argue for something I read on one site or see on one news network and someone reads or watches on another because in most cases both are right through the writers eyes,  but for the cost to be that much different just a few miles across the border means something beyond "this guy will pay more than the other guy".

[Mike DC]

but for the cost to be different just a few miles across the border means something beyond "this guy will pay more than the other guy."

I don't see the problem with that explanation. 

They're setting their overall prices more or less country-wide.  The fact that the two prices happen to show up within a few miles of each other at the border towns would be a pretty small part of the whole picture. 



Just look at gasoline.  Gas in Missouri is consistently WAY less than the same stuff in SanFran.  They can list all kinds of excuses about different refineries or transportation costs or reformulations or anything else.  But "this guy will pay more than the other guy" still gets my vote. 

[last426]

Hank Jr summed it up pretty well...

The preacher man says it's the end of time
And the Mississippi River she's a goin' dry
The interest is up and the Stock Markets down
And you only get mugged
If you go down town

[snip]

We're from North California and south Alabam
And little towns all around this land
And we can skin a buck; we can run a trot-line
And a country boy can survive
Country folks can survive

Yeah but then they start marrin' their sisters and in a generation all is lost.  Kim