City student passes 3 classes in four years, ranks near top half of class with 0.13 GPA

[David Dennison 19440]

Just now, workswithseed said:

So no one pays? 

The state pays.

[workswithseed 2201]

5 minutes ago, Judge Roybeanbag said:

Does your stubborn “ain’t gonna pay for nobody” ass wanna pay $100 bucks for Jorge to go get a checkup and get meds for his sinus infection, or end up paying $15,000 for hospitalization when he gets pneumonia?  Because you’re paying for the latter already.

I mean what's the cheapest tax rate of all government run healthcare? I mean also I've had this discussion before, but what health care has the shortest wait time?

[workswithseed 2201]

1 minute ago, David Dennison said:

The state pays.

Who pays the state?

[David Dennison 19440]

Just now, workswithseed said:

Who pays the state?

Whoever owes it money.

[washparkhorn 9967]

8 minutes ago, workswithseed said:

Who pays the state?

[Judge Roybeanbag 11856]

15 minutes ago, workswithseed said:

So no one pays? 

Sure. 

[Judge Roybeanbag 11856]

14 minutes ago, workswithseed said:

I mean what's the cheapest tax rate of all government run healthcare? I mean also I've had this discussion before, but what health care has the shortest wait time?

What education system has the lowest outcome?

[ndawg 1242]

22 minutes ago, workswithseed said:

I mean what's the cheapest tax rate of all government run healthcare? I mean also I've had this discussion before, but what health care has the shortest wait time?

Do you have any idea what governs wait time in health care? Our private health system is like a living monument to market failure. Nobody in our health care system has any financial motive to reduce wait time.

[workswithseed 2201]

14 minutes ago, washparkhorn said:

So not free, that's all I cared about.

[Willfully Horn 8204]

Just now, workswithseed said:

So not free, that's all I cared about.

If so, you will always be a poor man, no matter your financial worth. Tragic, really.

[David Dennison 19440]

6 minutes ago, workswithseed said:

So not free, that's all I cared about.

It's not like you're paying for it. Or do you still live under the illusion that there's a pot of taxpayer money that the government uses to pay for things?

If so, that's adorable.

[Beau Vine 55816]

2 hours ago, Nivek said:

The only correct answer is Texas, because Oklahoma sucks.

Texas would only fall into the ocean if Oklahoma stopped sucking, which is a scientific impossibility.  

[Tom 2960]

36 minutes ago, workswithseed said:

I mean what's the cheapest tax rate of all government run healthcare? I mean also I've had this discussion before, but what health care has the shortest wait time?

 

The wait time thing is such a tiresome conservative scare tactic.  Our health care results rank as some of the worst in the industrialized world.  Nobody is dying waiting for care in other countries with tax payer healthcare.

If our system is better, why doesn't a single other first world country try to copy it?  

[washparkhorn 9967]

18 minutes ago, workswithseed said:

So not free, that's all I cared about.

Nothing is free. 

Repairing a leaky roof is cheap when it first appears. Neglect it, and the cost skyrockets. 

We socialize the negative externalities of farming. We also subsidize farming through farmer welfare programs. We, as a society, pay for your farmer welfare and the damage caused by your occupation. 

Likewise, we socialize the cost of inadequate health care. And we incentivize private health insurance. We all pay for the negative externalities caused by both decisions.

TLDR - Deliver the product (health care) efficiently in order to minimize costs and added costs due to neglect.  Those are rational and conservative economic decisions that benefit all of society (other than those profiting off of the inefficiencies in the health care market).

Edited March 9, 2021 by washparkhorn

[Captainant 28382]

50 minutes ago, workswithseed said:

I mean what's the cheapest tax rate of all government run healthcare? I mean also I've had this discussion before, but what health care has the shortest wait time?

It's not our fucking system. You try getting healthcare in a timely manner if it's an expensive or non boilerplate thing. Insurance will give you the runaround and nickle and dime you the whole way. We already have death panels too, they just have shareholders

[fattyflattie 4640]

8 minutes ago, washparkhorn said:

We socialize the negative externalities of farming. We also subsidize farming through farmer welfare programs. We, as a society, pay for your farmer welfare and the damage caused by your occupation. 

We subsidize farming because if you think poor people can’t afford food now, you wouldn’t want to see it at free market rates.  

[Captainant 28382]

2 minutes ago, fattyflattie said:

We subsidize farming because if you think poor people can’t afford food now, you wouldn’t want to see it at free market rates.  

LMAO the biggest US federal farm subsidy - CORN - doesn't feed people. Most of it is turned into high fructose corn syrup or turned into ethanol. Don't give me that weak ass shit, you're a fatty, you should know more about your food

[David Dennison 19440]

5 minutes ago, fattyflattie said:

We subsidize farming because if you think poor people can’t afford food now, you wouldn’t want to see it at free market rates.  

No, that's not why we subsidize farming. 

[fattyflattie 4640]

6 minutes ago, Captainant said:

LMAO the biggest US federal farm subsidy - CORN - doesn't feed people. Most of it is turned into high fructose corn syrup or turned into ethanol. Don't give me that weak ass shit, you're a fatty, you should know more about your food

Yes.  We've been subsidizing it for ALOT longer than fucking ethanol fuel has been around.  It's definitely morphed thru the years, but that is a BIG fucking part of it.  

[fattyflattie 4640]

5 minutes ago, David Dennison said:

No, that's not why we subsidize farming. 

Yes, it is a very big reason why.  

[David Dennison 19440]

1 minute ago, fattyflattie said:

Yes, it is a very big reason why.  

No, it isn't. 

[fattyflattie 4640]

5 minutes ago, David Dennison said:

No, it isn't. 

This copy paste shit is easy, you were ahead of your time.

Yes, it is a very big reason why. 

[David Dennison 19440]

Just now, fattyflattie said:

This copy paste shit is easy, you were ahead of your time.

Yes, it is a very big reason why. 

You can say it over and over again and that still won't be why we subsidize agriculture.

[Captainant 28382]

4 minutes ago, fattyflattie said:

This copy paste shit is easy, you were ahead of your time.

Yes, it is a very big reason why. 

The US subsidizes farms to prevent overproduction. It started in earnest in the wake of the dust bowl during Roosevelt's new deal. 

[David Dennison 19440]

1 minute ago, Captainant said:

The US subsidizes farms to prevent overproduction. It started in earnest in the wake of the dust bowl during Roosevelt's new deal. 

There's a reason it's called farm income stabilization.

[fattyflattie 4640]

21 minutes ago, Captainant said:

The US subsidizes farms to prevent overproduction. It started in earnest in the wake of the dust bowl during Roosevelt's new deal. 

I've dunked on myself enough tonight, and it's been way too long since I learned about all that.  I'll circle back on it and take a look.

[Beau Vine 55816]

1 hour ago, fattyflattie said:

We subsidize farming because if you think poor people can’t afford food now, you wouldn’t want to see it at free market rates.  

It's awfully damn cute that you think that the purpose of farm subsidies is to reduce food prices.

[hobbes2702 13350]

It would be way cooler if there were fewer racists on this site 

[DalTxHornFan 3130]

It would be way cooler if there were fewer ad hominem arguments and many more substantive arguments made on this site.

[Mole 4338]

7 hours ago, Onboard 2.0 said:

Again everyone is in the reduced life expectancy pool. It's economic, and I'm not sure I've seen a whites only vaccine line yet.  Everybody has been shut down, and had to mask up.

What have the parties done that hurt or help ?

I’m going to push back some on this. It’s overly simplistic to boil all of this down to economics, although that’s obviously a big part of it. Even if you set aside the question of why economic issues seem to impact the Black community more (which pretty easily traces back to a long and storied history of racism), there are access issues that probably can’t be fully explained by economics.

There are well-founded trust issues between the Black community and government agents offering medical advice. There are all of the issues that have been brought up in this thread, which are partially economic (which again, is largely a race issue once removed) but also something more. And there’s the persistent unwillingness by “us” to do much about it or even acknowledge the obvious.

I think it might be revealing to do an informal study on the history of the popular portrayal of poor people (white? black? young? old?) and how much we collectively cared. I have my suspicions that as the poor became increasingly portrayed as Black our culture became less interested in caring about or dealing productively with the problem, but it’s just a hunch right now.

 

 

[hobbes2702 13350]

36 minutes ago, DalTxHornFan said:

It would be way cooler if there were fewer ad hominem arguments and many more substantive arguments made on this site.

[workswithseed 2201]

4 minutes ago, hobbes2702 said:

[MaybeACoordinator 8350]

 

4 hours ago, workswithseed said:

So not free, that's all I cared about.

I love your seemingly interminable attempt at Socrato-Jesuitical sophistry that arrives at what you appear, earnestly and deeply, to believe is a dunk but is actually: 

 

 

1 hour ago, Mole said:

  race issue once removed) but also something more. And there’s the persistent unwillingness by “us” to do much about it or even acknowledge the obvious.

I think it might be revealing to do an informal study on the history of the popular portrayal of poor people (white? black? young? old?) and how much we collectively cared. I have my suspicions that as the poor became increasingly portrayed as Black our culture became less interested in caring about or dealing productively with the problem, but it’s just a hunch right now.

 

 

A huge fucking problem and the left are the worst offenders in portraying it that way. Instead of creating rising tide lifts all boats policies, they'd rather tilt at the windmill of "ending racism." This approach fosters resentment among poor whites and creates compassion fatigue. Like it or not, when it's drummed into your head day after day that poverty problems are not shared across the color line, a great many otherwise sympathetic moderates will think of these problems as "you problems" and not problems they share. 

On that note....

“If we broke up the big banks tomorrow,” Hillary Clinton memorably asked in 2016, “would that end racism?”

 No, Hillary, but it might at least punish the bankers behind the 2008 subprime fiasco, which, as we all know, "disproportionately affected people of color." 

Spoiler

Across the nation, black homeowners were disproportionately affected by the foreclosure crisis, with more than 240,000 blacks losing homes they had owned. Black homeowners in the D.C. region were 20 percent more likely to lose their homes compared to whites with similar incomes and lifestyles. (See the December 2012 issue of The American Prospect, "The Collapse of Black Wealth," by Monica Potts.) The foreclosure crisis also affected blacks of all income brackets; high-earning blacks were 80 percent more likely to lose their homes than their white counterparts, making the homeowners of Prince George's County prime targets.

 Even the most stable of P.G. County homeowners wound up with subprime mortgages, presumably made to believe that subprime was their only option. Not even a good credit score would have spared blacks from these discriminatory lending practices. The Center for Responsible Lending found that during the housing boom, 6.2 percent of whites with a credit score of 660 and higher received high-interest mortgages but 21.4 percent of blacks with a score of 660 or higher received these same loans.

It turned out that several of the major banks had been purposely giving people of color subprime mortgages, including borrowers who would have qualified for a prime loan. The City of Baltimore took Wells Fargo to court, bringing some of the banking giant's abhorrent lending practices to light. One former employee testified that in 2001, Wells Fargo created a unit that would be responsible for pushing expensive refinance loans on black customers, especially those living in Baltimore, southeast Washington, D.C., and Prince George's County-all locations with large black populations.

Bait and switch flimflam of the highest order, right there, Hillary. There are a lot of issues out there that won't "end racism." Forcing Valero and Motiva to clean up their act in Port Arthur won't end racism, but it damn sure would alleviate the suffering of all the people of color who live in the shadow of those satanic black factories. It really is that simple. You can't change the minds of tens or hundreds of millions of people overnight just by nagging them to get with the program, but you damn sure can enact policies for the betterment of the least among us of all colors. 

 

Edited March 9, 2021 by MaybeACoordinator

[Onboard 2.0 9083]

4 hours ago, Mole said:

I’m going to push back some on this. It’s overly simplistic to boil all of this down to economics, although that’s obviously a big part of it. Even if you set aside the question of why economic issues seem to impact the Black community more (which pretty easily traces back to a long and storied history of racism), there are access issues that probably can’t be fully explained by economics.

There are well-founded trust issues between the Black community and government agents offering medical advice. There are all of the issues that have been brought up in this thread, which are partially economic (which again, is largely a race issue once removed) but also something more. And there’s the persistent unwillingness by “us” to do much about it or even acknowledge the obvious.

I think it might be revealing to do an informal study on the history of the popular portrayal of poor people (white? black? young? old?) and how much we collectively cared. I have my suspicions that as the poor became increasingly portrayed as Black our culture became less interested in caring about or dealing productively with the problem, but it’s just a hunch right now.

 

 

All valid points, especially the distrust of the black community to gov't funded medical studies.  Yes, my comment was a broad brush stroke post. Economics plays a role, but the system that's put blacks (and all minorities) in that situation is based on racist practices in the past.

Unfortunately minorities (historically at least ) have always been cared about less, whether it's in America, Korea, or Mongolia. Unfortunately that's just how it's pretty much always been.  

To your last point, I will say, IMO, white, middle to upper income America cares about Appalachia no more than Southside Chicago.  That's what I mean by economic to some degree. The poor are simply not valued (for a myriad of reasons) so there's not much interest in them.

[Beau Vine 55816]

8 hours ago, DalTxHornFan said:

It would be way cooler if there were fewer ad hominem arguments and many more substantive arguments made on this site.

So you're cool with the number of racists on this site, huh?

[TwiceHorn 31984]

15 hours ago, Willfully Horn said:

Death ain’t racist, agreed. Dying earlier varies based on one’s race, though.

This is political due to differing responses to the pandemic between the two political parties.

You don't really even have to delve into partisan politics to make the point.

One race, being historically advantaged, has better access to healthcare than the race that's historically disadvantaged.  That means the disadvantaged race has more of the "critical comorbidities" (and less awareness of them) and fewer options for treatment if the virus hits.  

One race is more likely to work a job that can't be done from home and tends to require social contact, the other doesn't.

A point that a lot of whiteys seem to miss is that no one has to be being actively racist currently for the system to have been and continue to be stacked against that race in small but aggregately very meaningful ways.

Edited March 9, 2021 by TwiceHorn

[DonkeyCigars 143]

4 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

A point that a lot of whiteys seem to miss is that no one has to be being actively racist currently for the system to have been and continue to be stacked against that race in small but aggregately very meaningful ways.

Great point. I think this is the origin of  "Just being not a racist is not enough anymore, you have to be an ANTI-racist" type rhetoric. The above is why I think that's been the next-gen message.

[TwiceHorn 31984]

8 hours ago, Mole said:

I’m going to push back some on this. It’s overly simplistic to boil all of this down to economics, although that’s obviously a big part of it. Even if you set aside the question of why economic issues seem to impact the Black community more (which pretty easily traces back to a long and storied history of racism), there are access issues that probably can’t be fully explained by economics.

There are well-founded trust issues between the Black community and government agents offering medical advice. There are all of the issues that have been brought up in this thread, which are partially economic (which again, is largely a race issue once removed) but also something more. And there’s the persistent unwillingness by “us” to do much about it or even acknowledge the obvious.

I think it might be revealing to do an informal study on the history of the popular portrayal of poor people (white? black? young? old?) and how much we collectively cared. I have my suspicions that as the poor became increasingly portrayed as Black our culture became less interested in caring about or dealing productively with the problem, but it’s just a hunch right now.

 

 

Interesting point.  I think the notion that there is less compassion for poors than in the past is spot on.

Another factor in "decreasing compassion" for the poors, of any color, is the loss of community that has gradually overtaken.

Somewhere I speculated that it was probably easier to be rural poor in the past than it is now because rural communities had larger populations with greater wealth than they do now (that is, rural communities today are mostly poor) and more community "spirit."

Urban and suburban settings segregate and separate people, even if not by design. It tends to be easy to ignore even your neighbors, much less the different, poorer people blocks or miles away.  Poors become an abstraction.  And that abstraction can become worse if they are painted dark or drug addled or otherwise dangerous.

And, although it's overblown, there is an element of social programs + taxes = not my problem anymore.

 

[SydneyCarton 49325]

11 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

Interesting point.  I think the notion that there is less compassion for poors than in the past is spot on.

Another factor in "decreasing compassion" for the poors, of any color, is the loss of community that has gradually overtaken.

Somewhere I speculated that it was probably easier to be rural poor in the past than it is now because rural communities had larger populations with greater wealth than they do now (that is, rural communities today are mostly poor) and more community "spirit."

Urban and suburban settings segregate and separate people, even if not by design. It tends to be easy to ignore even your neighbors, much less the different, poorer people blocks or miles away.  Poors become an abstraction.  And that abstraction can become worse if they are painted dark or drug addled or otherwise dangerous.

And, although it's overblown, there is an element of social programs + taxes = not my problem anymore.

 

I'm not sure it's overblown. I think it's drastically underblown, if anything. It's not really related to this, but there was a wonderful article I read a year or two ago about the communities the Bush's grew up in in Connecticut, off the "gold coast."

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/05/11/how-greenwich-republicans-learned-to-love-trump

 

Its a tremendous read, but long. Anyway, there's an important section there that talks about the shift away from community towards the "I've got mine, fuck you" mentality that I believe permeates much of America. It's a cultural shift. We're selfish, more vain than we used to be. And it's because of a thousand different little things, be it lack of community, easier to silo oneself in social media, we can all go on and on and on. But the end result is real, and it's that people care less. And this isn't to say that good folks still don't go to church, donate time and money to charities, care for their neighbors, etc. We all do those things too, some more than others. But there's a FATIGUE about it. We don't want to hear about the next problem. "I just spent 4 hours at the food bank, I don't want to hear anyone whining that we don't do our part," etc. I honestly am struggling to cohesively describe the kind of thing I'm talking about, but the individualism that people seem to want for America is a symptom of the same way we feel about ourselves. I'm going to take care of mine, and I'm going to help out the community...but there are limits. We're all tired of hearing about what else there is to do, what more we need to do, and goddamnit why can't folks just be responsible for their own shit the way I'm responsible for mine? For a society that has now been fed Kardashians and Housewives as some kind of model for success, and looking around and seeing we all have way, way less than those people, it's hard not to feel exhausted by the idea of "What else do I need to sacrifice for others now?" 

It's a systemic, cultural problem and I don't think it exists along party lines, there are elements of it in everyone. 

[TwiceHorn 31984]

15 minutes ago, SydneyCarton said:

I'm not sure it's overblown. I think it's drastically underblown, if anything. It's not really related to this, but there was a wonderful article I read a year or two ago about the communities the Bush's grew up in in Connecticut, off the "gold coast."

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/05/11/how-greenwich-republicans-learned-to-love-trump

 

Its a tremendous read, but long. Anyway, there's an important section there that talks about the shift away from community towards the "I've got mine, fuck you" mentality that I believe permeates much of America. It's a cultural shift. We're selfish, more vain than we used to be. And it's because of a thousand different little things, be it lack of community, easier to silo oneself in social media, we can all go on and on and on. But the end result is real, and it's that people care less. And this isn't to say that good folks still don't go to church, donate time and money to charities, care for their neighbors, etc. We all do those things too, some more than others. But there's a FATIGUE about it. We don't want to hear about the next problem. "I just spent 4 hours at the food bank, I don't want to hear anyone whining that we don't do our part," etc. I honestly am struggling to cohesively describe the kind of thing I'm talking about, but the individualism that people seem to want for America is a symptom of the same way we feel about ourselves. I'm going to take care of mine, and I'm going to help out the community...but there are limits. We're all tired of hearing about what else there is to do, what more we need to do, and goddamnit why can't folks just be responsible for their own shit the way I'm responsible for mine? For a society that has now been fed Kardashians and Housewives as some kind of model for success, and looking around and seeing we all have way, way less than those people, it's hard not to feel exhausted by the idea of "What else do I need to sacrifice for others now?" 

It's a systemic, cultural problem and I don't think it exists along party lines, there are elements of it in everyone. 

What I meant was overblown is the conservative notion that taxation for social programs disincents charitable giving and contribution.  Thus, if we reduce social programs and  taxes, the rich will all of a sudden take care of the poor, naturally.

But yeah, there probably is a "compassion fatigue" too, but like Mole says, it's both a problem and a symptom of the problem.

I think the dissolution of community is probably the biggest contributor to where we are now as a nation.

 

Edited March 9, 2021 by TwiceHorn

[RomaVicta 30500]

13 hours ago, fattyflattie said:

No need to get cute, just call it what it is.  For the half the country that pays taxes, it isn’t free.  

And, here it is.

I'm not a citizen, I'm a taxpayer. Not only am I not a citizen but a taxpayer, I'm a woefully trod upon taxpayer who never benefits personally for the taxes I pay. I've never needed help. I've lived my life right with no mistakes.* Why can't others do the same?

Answer my question and I'll stuff my ears and sing loudly about the market being better at solving problems than the elected officials of the people. You see, the market puts money in charge instead of votes. That's a fine thing. 

Make America great again with children working substisence wages, Americans starving, trains running off ill-maintained tracks and killing dozens of people while scalding the locomotive crew to death! We can toast marshmallows on the flaming river of Columbus Ohio and admire the many colors of the fishless waterways!

The Market! All hail it! It provides for all, just free it.

Oh, we destroyed the government, now it's all we have! I can't wait to see what wonder for all the people the market comes up with next. There's money to be made stuffing preservatives into "food" nearly void of nutritional value to address hunger. Let the magic happen.

It's a digustingly blind, selfish, and insufferable way to walk through a crumbling world.

If you look around and see only simple solutions, the only thing simple in the picture is you. 

Parade the tired dogma of greed and absolute self-interest all you want. Your audience shrinks every day.

 

 

*Never drove drunk. Never got a break from a cop. Never took a dollar from Dad after graduating high school (oh, wait, that's supported by taxes, so surely Endicot must have paid his way through a private school!)

 

[David Dennison 19440]

I am floored by how many people think taxes are how the federal government pays for things.

[fattyflattie 4640]

10 minutes ago, David Dennison said:

I am floored by how many people think taxes are how the federal government *should* pays for things.

 

[David Dennison 19440]

Should it really?

[workswithseed 2201]

2 hours ago, Beau Vine said:

So you're cool with the number of racists on this site, huh?

You might as well leave, you're seeing something that isn't there. I mean racism is against terms of service.

 

12 hours ago, Willfully Horn said:

If so, you will always be a poor man, no matter your financial worth. Tragic, really.

Yeah, okay.

 

8 hours ago, MaybeACoordinator said:

 

I love your seemingly interminable attempt at Socrato-Jesuitical sophistry that arrives at what you appear, earnestly and deeply, to believe is a dunk but is actually: 

 

So it's not free.

 

12 hours ago, washparkhorn said:

Nothing is free. 

 

Seriously, this is all I cared for. Don't call it something it isn't. It's a lie by calling it free. Call it what it is.

[David Dennison 19440]

7 minutes ago, workswithseed said:

Seriously, this is all I cared for. Don't call it something it isn't. It's a lie by calling it free. Call it what it is.

It's called an entitlement. It's paid for (mostly) by the federal government.

[hobbes2702 13350]

At this point anyone who believes our current healthcare system Is better or more affordable is simply ignoring reality. Which isn’t a big surprise considering who’s making those arguments

[Beau Vine 55816]

21 minutes ago, workswithseed said:

Seriously, this is all I cared for. Don't call it something it isn't. It's a lie by calling it free. Call it what it is.

What a scalding hot take!  

Economists have been saying that there's no such thing as a free lunch for hundreds of years, grasshopper.

[gyroprotagonist 2597]

can we just tell certain people that their tax dollars are totally NOT going to help poor people?  Their tax dollars are super secret earmarked for patriotic stuff like walls, trillion dollar warplanes and voter ID machines; you  know the kind of pork that pulls itself up by its bootstraps.  I think this would solve a lot angst and make people feel good about their taxes similar to people who check the '100% renewable energy' box from their electrical provider.

[David Dennison 19440]

3 minutes ago, gyroprotagonist said:

can we just tell certain people that their tax dollars are totally NOT going to help poor people?  Their tax dollars are super secret earmarked for patriotic stuff like walls, trillion dollar warplanes and voter ID machines; you  know the kind of pork that pulls itself up by its bootstraps.  I think this would solve a lot angst and make people feel good about their taxes similar to people who check the '100% renewable energy' box from their electrical provider.

I'd be happy if they just understood how marginal tax rates work.