Understanding the Issues: Education

There are often reasons for those people that make poor life decisions... chances are they grew up in an environment with little to no guidance and no solid role models in place to help form their decision making process in to one of a responsible person.

I'm all for personal responsibility, but I think it's important to consider that some people didn't have the same guidance and solid support system in place during their formative years.

That sounds an awful lot like saying:

Because kids grew up in a broken home, they should continue to be treated as children once they are 18 years old, because they never learned to be a responsible adult.

I don't buy it. By the time you hit 18, your free pass expires. You're expected to be responsible and make wise choices.

no shit sherlock. those are the enemies he rather talk to while bombing pakistan, and then later reneged on.


Perhaps you should re-read your post Mrs Popping? I'm not the one that posted the following and I will have you know I really did try to understand WTF you're trying to say.

talking to our enemies while bombing our allies (iran/pakistan) then later pulling back on talking to iran that's not a gross over generalization at all. musharaf is giving up his power, it's actually not a dictatorship, but i guess that meshes better with your simple me right you wrong view of the world.

He's going to do it any day now, you just wait and see and we'll do everything it's power to bring democracy to Pakistan. Fair and free elections in Pakistan is just around the corner and Benazir Bhutto's son will lead Pakistan to the promise land.

are you even paying any attention at all to politics? stuff like that really has me wondering. emissions cap and trade and health insurance are both shared issues with obama and a break from bush. nuclear, anti-pork, anti-farm subsidies, finance reform - all different than bush. admission that global warming exists - different than bush. better luck next time.

Bush is anti-farm bill (http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0508/10569.html) (only because we don't have the money to pay for it), for nuclear energy (http://www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/energy/) and McCain talks tough about the environment but policy wise it's without substance. His rhetoric certainly doesn't match his voting record or lack thereof (http://capwiz.com/lcv_stage/bio/keyvotes/?id=192&congress=1102&lvl=C). He did a pretty good job with respect to finance reform and he is different from Bush in that respect but lets not forget that this is the same guy that uses his wife's corporate jet (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/27/us/politics/27plane.html?pagewanted=print) to his advantage and exploits a legal loophole in the reform bill he co-sponsored.


you couldn't find anything to support my claim, and then you post an article re-stating the same thing i just said. amazing. and yeah, i said as far as socialized health care, japan's is the best, i'm glad you agreed while trying so hard to disagree.

jeez.

Jeez indeed...WTF are you talking about? Didn't you state the following? How exactly is your out-of-thin-air claim supported but the facts? As they say, you're entitled to your opinion but not to your own facts.

the japanese have a sorta decent idea (you pay 100% upfront, the gov pays you 80% back - so if you try to defraud them, you can get yourself royally screwed and it limits exposure to the million dollar a day cases)

wha?? you mean the life time benefits after TWENTY+ YEARS of making craptacular pay? or are you forgetting the overhead paid to hal etc on top of that 120k salary (admin costs, his employer insurance and benefits, his food and housing over there, and 20% on top of that as the profit portion of the cost + contracts).

it's not cheaper, and it's not even close.
In no way do I have any problems with our servicemans benefits and agree they are way under paid. I was responding to what you where saying about cost and the use of contractors. About a year ago I read a report about the use of contractors and cost v/s having a larger service and its cost. The numbers I read showed in most cases it was cheaper to use contractors because after the contract is up the cost stops. Then it showed the cost to train, house , benefits, (which we agree are not that great) and other cost such as moving them from place to place etc... add up to allot of money. It was not nor am I sugesting doing away with any of our forces and agree we should keep a strong military I was just responding to the cost part.

Perhaps you should re-read your post Mrs Popping? I'm not the one that posted the following and I will have you know I really did try to understand WTF you're trying to say.

then you should learn to read, iran was the former, pakistan was the latter, it's really not that hard.


He's going to do it any day now, you just wait and see and we'll do everything it's power to bring democracy to Pakistan. Fair and free elections in Pakistan is just around the corner and Benazir Bhutto's son will lead Pakistan to the promise land. you can be as childish as you like, but your speculation isn't any better than mine, and in light of that it'd probably be better to stick with the facts, but you seem opposed to that.


Bush is anti-farm bill (http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0508/10569.html) (only because we don't have the money to pay for it), for nuclear energy (http://www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/energy/) and McCain talks tough about the environment but policy wise it's without substance. His rhetoric certainly doesn't match his voting record or lack thereof (http://capwiz.com/lcv_stage/bio/keyvotes/?id=192&congress=1102&lvl=C). He did a pretty good job with respect to finance reform and he is different from Bush in that respect but lets not forget that this is the same guy that uses his wife's corporate jet (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/27/us/politics/27plane.html?pagewanted=print) to his advantage and exploits a legal loophole in the reform bill he co-sponsored.
again, any proof against your opinions is written off. bush may be for nuclear, but is he going to get 30 reactors under construction before leaving office? mccain admits to global warming is far more than bush as done, and there are plenty of other instances (his voting record is only 85% with the GOP, obama votes on party lines 97% of the time, so much for change right?) but it's worthless wasting my time since you seem content on the "i'm right and your stupid routine," or else you might do a little research before making such blanket statements like you don't see how he's different without even bothering to look. emissions caps are different, health insurance credits are different (And again, obama is happy with both of those), yet you decide not to mention them at all.



Jeez indeed...WTF are you talking about? Didn't you state the following? How exactly is your out-of-thin-air claim supported but the facts? As they say, you're entitled to your opinion but not to your own facts.you posted a f'ing article saying only 20% is consumer cost after i just said if you want socialized medicine japan is probably the closest and they pay 80% back, CAUSE I HAVE FRIENDS IN JAPAN, and they told me how it works there. i mean, do actually read the posts you're responding to?

if you can't be reasonable... i mean, you can ask for clarification without being an a-hole, and you can try using facts instead of opinions. i don't know why i'm even bothering to respond honestly, cause its obvious you're looking for excuses to say mccain is evil and can't seem to follow what's actually been said anyways.

In no way do I have any problems with our servicemans benefits and agree they are way under paid. I was responding to what you where saying about cost and the use of contractors. About a year ago I read a report about the use of contractors and cost v/s having a larger service and its cost. The numbers I read showed in most cases it was cheaper to use contractors because after the contract is up the cost stops. Then it showed the cost to train, house , benefits, (which we agree are not that great) and other cost such as moving them from place to place etc... add up to allot of money. It was not nor am I sugesting doing away with any of our forces and agree we should keep a strong military I was just responding to the cost part.

but how long was the cost analysis, cause 1 year with contractors vs 10 years of a bigger service is different than the 6+ years of deployed contractors with huge overheads.

when i looked at the numbers, with the amount of time in and the length of time a full contracting force will be over there on our dollar, the numbers for contracting over that span really didn't look very good.


and you've also got a lot of air force members doing army jobs (in lieu of) like sentry, towers, gates, convoys, bomb squad, patrols (cop cars), etc, and the army's not taking them back any time soon, since the army doesn't have enough manpower of its own right now.

i've gone back and tried to make this easier for you.

talking to our enemies while bombing our allies (iran/pakistan)

that's colored coded, in a former/latter configuration that's actually pretty common in English. so you can put that one to bed.


the japanese have a sorta decent idea (you pay 100% upfront, the gov pays you 80% back

Those covered under Employee Health Insurance pay 20% of their medical costs when hospitalized



what's 100% - 80%?

again, you call it out-of-thin-air, i call it "cause my friends in japan are covered by the system so they probably know how it actually works", but to each his own... way to assume though.

lemme know if there's anything else you're having trouble with...

then you should learn to read, iran was the former, pakistan was the latter, it's really not that hard.

you can be as childish as you like, but your speculation isn't any better than mine, and in light of that it'd probably be better to stick with the facts, but you seem opposed to that.

again, any proof against your opinions is written off. bush may be for nuclear, but is he going to get 30 reactors under construction before leaving office? mccain admits to global warming is far more than bush as done, and there are plenty of other instances (his voting record is only 85% with the GOP, obama votes on party lines 97% of the time, so much for change right?) but it's worthless wasting my time since you seem content on the "i'm right and your stupid routine," or else you might do a little research before making such blanket statements like you don't see how he's different without even bothering to look. emissions caps are different, health insurance credits are different (And again, obama is happy with both of those), yet you decide not to mention them at all.


you posted a f'ing article saying only 20% is consumer cost after i just said if you want socialized medicine japan is probably the closest and they pay 80% back, CAUSE I HAVE FRIENDS IN JAPAN, and they told me how it works there. i mean, do actually read the posts you're responding to?

if you can't be reasonable... i mean, you can ask for clarification without being an a-hole, and you can try using facts instead of opinions. i don't know why i'm even bothering to respond honestly, cause its obvious you're looking for excuses to say mccain is evil and can't seem to follow what's actually been said anyways.

I don't really care what you think of me but clearly you can't respond without getting angry and personal. I hope felt good getting it out of your system.

again, you call it out-of-thin-air, i call it "cause my friends in japan are covered by the system so they probably know how it actually works", but to each his own... way to assume though.

lemme know if there's anything else you're having trouble with...


Your statement implied that everyone pays that 20% which is not true with respect to the elderly and very poor. You neglect the fact that there's is a monthly ceiling for co-payments which means you never pay more than the ceiling in any given month (the cost is capped monthly but if you can't afford the 20% the government will assist you). In 1999 this ceiling was roughly $600 ($330 for those with low income and $1140 for those with significant income). The effective co-payment for the elderly was 7.3%.

Also, contribution to the program is a percentage based on your income (~4%) sorta like social security with everyone getting the same deal. There's government control across the board (drugs prices, profit margins on drugs, procedures prices, private insurance prices, level of interaction between doctors and private insurers, etc, etc). It's a highly complex system to say the least.

This my friend is a full blown socialized health care system. Let's just say I like it and I'm glad you like it too.

I don't really care what you think of me but clearly you can't respond without getting angry and personal. I hope felt good getting it out of your system.

i assure you that i'm not the least bit angry, but you should probably follow your own advice.

Your statement implied that everyone pays that 20% which is not true with respect to the elderly and very poor. You neglect the fact that there's is a monthly ceiling for co-payments which means you never pay more than the ceiling in any given month (the cost is capped monthly but if you can't afford the 20% the government will assist you). In 1999 this ceiling was roughly $600 ($330 for those with low income and $1140 for those with significant income). The effective co-payment for the elderly was 7.3%.

Also, contribution to the program is a percentage based on your income (~4%) sorta like social security with everyone getting the same deal. There's government control across the board (drugs prices, profit margins on drugs, procedures prices, private insurance prices, level of interaction between doctors and private insurers, etc, etc). It's a highly complex system to say the least.

This my friend is a full blown socialized health care system. Let's just say I like it and I'm glad you like it too.

that's probably because the point was obama wants full socialized health care eventually and how he'd pay for it without tax increases. the japanese system was a footnote example, not an essay, cause again, that really was tangential to the discussion at hand, so i didn't think it was necessary.

i mean, i could levy the same statement back at you about every rash generalization you've made in this thread, so it seems like a silly thing to say. I'm glad you learned something though, and hopefully some of the baseless mccain crap can be shown the door.

neither one is perfect and neither one is really what i want, but i'll always choose smaller government and less senseless taxing (libertarian).

i'm all for social programs, but only if they can prevent abuse and show a clear economic/social benefit and a sane payment system, which most don't.

i mean, if someone went ahead and said social security is going to be killed off completely, they'd have my vote (since i save and invest and would get an amazingly better return on that money than some crap annuity when i'm 70), but it'll never happen. even if they just gave people the option to opt out and lose whatever they've contributed thusfar, i'd be jumping at it.

tax and legalize prostitution, drill where you can safely drill without massive eco-damage, i mean, there's a lot of small issues that make sense and would be very easy to implement (and added together, you'd get a better economy, less wasteful spending, more tax revenue, cheaper energy, less dependence etc), but there's so much that's verbotten it's stupid.

there was an actual argument over building a 120mill$ bridge to nowhere for a tiny (<100 i think) village... relocation across the water body or private cessna's for every person would have been cheaper, and they actually had to waste time entertaining that kind of crap. honestly the amount of pork in our spending is almost nothing compared to the budget or other nations, but hearing about it just rankles at how wasteful some people can be.