Tell me about passenger vs freight rail. Or perhaps how many people have access to "free" VA healthcare and still pay out of pocket for healthcare. Perhaps package delivery by the USPS vs fedex, UPS, DHL, etc. How about banking services; do most people use the USPS, or private banks?
The VA is variable depending on your income. I have to pay $15 max of co-pays. Most people would kill for that kind of health insurance co-pay.
In the early 2000s the right put onerous amounts of extra regulation on the USPS at the behest of their masters UPS and FedEx. They literally can't do anything now without congress something they never used to have to do and were given a free hand to run as they saw fit, and are required to keep 70 years of retirement pension money on hand, something literally no other company has to do so they are now always in the red. Once again sabotage.
USPS hasn't have a bank in decades, but poor people got a lot out of USPS banking when it existed. I go through a credit union over a bank and have all my life because banks are flat out evil, but many credit unions have limitations based on income.
Sounds like freight's doing better. Particularly when you look at private rails, and also at costs per mile for freight versus passenger, and especially when you take subsidies into account.
Lots of folks who have VA access don't use it because of low quality.
The USPS has a lot of legal protections no one else does; it's literally illegal for anyone else to carry mail.
USPS absolutely has had a bank. Still does. Well, TECHNICALLY, a credit union. www.uspsfcu.org
@AlexanderKingsbury
Yes its doing better because it has literally zero oversight, criminally under staffs its trains so safety inspections can't possibly be done, makes them too long at the exhausing expense of amtrak and allows bomb trains to drive through major areas.
I've always used VA and never had an issue, and modern hospitals are also pretty low quality. Mind you in the early 2000s the VA had a 97% approval rating from all who used it. Literally no one gets that kind of approval numbers business or agency, that's how good they were(Walter Reed mold issue made the news because it was so rare)/ However the right began cutting funding, right as the troops were coming back home. So there became this massive backlog to even get into the system. hundreds of thousands of applicants took years to process, and became a massive headache for the Obama administration trying to play catchup and fund the crap out of and restructure the aging computer systems.It finally got caught up around the end of his term. Once again sabotage.
Yes its illegal for anyone else to carry mail. But why would you want anyone else to? In rural areas, a letter would cost 10 times as much to deliver because the post office is a public service and is not required to make a profit. It feels like you didn't read anything I actually wrote. Its like how private schools when given government funding at the expense of the public school s just makes public schools constantly worse and worse making more people pull their kids out so only the wealthy can pay for good for-profit schools and the public schools still have to run the same bus routes and take care of the kids with disabilities because for-profit schools have the right to reject them to pad their numbers. Back before desegregation (which is what started this whole thing, laws allowing racist families pulling their kids out of integrated schools) people from all walks of life would push for the schools to be better, even people with influence in the communities. Now if you have money you keep your kids out and you don't care if the local schools got to shit and are just shocked at the crime and poverty rates. What could have caused this?
www.uspsfcu.org is like police and fire federal credit union or navy federal credit union. Its mostly just for the employees. Its not a government run bank.
I've read everything you're written here. You have all kinds of examples of the government screwing up this or that...yet you want them involved in all essentials. You claims competition prevents the best from succeeding...yet defend the USPS's monopoly on carrying letters. You claim that "there is no basic need that exists that a well run government can't provide better". Can you point to an example of a "well-run government"?
@AlexanderKingsbury Yes from basically the 50s to the 70s SS, medicare, USPS and passenger rail were both great and innovative. In most other nations, internet costs 1/10th of what it does in the US thanks to their non-compete cartels. The government used to actually pretty good at pretty much everything, though of course everything needs tweaking. Had Reagan come in a promised to make the government more efficent with specific inefficiencies that would be one thing, istead he promised to pretty much demolish government institutions and the GOP has been on a hacking spree ever since including food safety, infrastructure spending, stealing from SS funds.
"Government" really comes down to how we vote and if you vote for candidates who who promise to destroy government, you get what you vote for.
Americans pay pretty much double for the same service for everything thanks to our middle man system of skimming,.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrjEMK5YInw
Each deficit in basic needs feeds on each other and economies of scale, no need for advertising and lowering cost down thanks to government funded competition would drive down the prices on everyone and if they can't compete without price gouging they don't deserve to be a business and aren't actually innovative.
So, just to be clear, you're saying that from the 50s to the 70s, the USA had a "well-run government"? When you say they "used to actually pretty good at pretty much everything", does that mean I can't find several massive failures, huge programs of civil rights violations, that sort of thing from that era?
Yes, the government is held to a different standard. It should be. I have no meaningful choice to not give them my money or to not interact with them. Whereas I can, and often DO, choose not to interact with companies. You can call "voting with my wallet" a joke or a lie, but you're simply wrong; amazon, for example, gets zero of my money unless I choose otherwise. Let me know how it works out when you want to vote to make the government change, and refuse to pay them until they do.
Government and Companies are in it together not so as sepearate / not getting you money as seemingly said?... (in theory close to zero but not really / just covered up as susidiary of itself?)...
@AlexanderKingsbury @anubis2814 Not to dig this up, just looking through posts... so a small point that governments do give away public money (your taxes) in incredible amounts, often (they don't ask you for that or make it even that public).
For Tech, for pretty much any industry self-serving extension, to "progress" or pump things up as "incentive to progress"... Amazon-type "industry-leading" companies do get your money in fairly direct ways to do that or be lead / fed into doing what Government wants (even by making things cheaper). Kinda sponsored to do this and that bidding, giving 'grants', 'tax breaks' etc... so while I'll not have one bit of evidence to hand over apart from the dictionary term 'subsidiary', 'subsidy', 'grants' and bank-like 'bale-outs'... etc I think it's regularly more of the same than not it is important to see government is a head company (if you grant me that) and actually everyone under is what it tries to help kick-start with our money(!) *as long as* they help government get more back in terms of taxable income for itself in long run (profiting from us)... and Gov keep almost whatever they wants as profit, barely keeping the rest of people alive.
So without inflaming here, I do see practically and 'from what scandals I've heard that 10 must have been right from 500' or like 1 from 5 like Post Office / #postoffice scandal (being latest and apologised for) that indeed Amazon etc is getting your money (our money) and so zero can't be true (and forgiven for being close to that... or feel-good factor like using something else from a main pipe, Firefox instead of Chrome etc... because it doesn't serve me to put another bullet in a dead body lol but yeah under 1 and the same, so circulation of it all directly and indirectly, through cunning ways or re-labelling, shadowing things, otherwise, is basically us paying for it all- half we don't know about probably other than they are definitely scheming a lot!
Agree it does work somewhat to vote with money even in increasingly monopolised sources... All cinema from 4-6 companies, all supermarkets from x number of sources etc
and perhaps "they get less" from you rather than "zero"... forgive me but I know it's not the fault of people they us / abuse things increasingly well and without asking once paid pretty much blindly! (I was thinking of asking for a receipt for where all my money has gone as it's way to generalised and able to be covered up... like how much % exactly today it went to military or which companies)... food for thought in itself to try track or get ownership of what we are or are not paying for. Thanks for reading.
Government and Companies are in it together not so as sepearate / not getting you money as seemingly said?... (in theory close to zero but not really / just covered up as susidiary of itself?)...
I object to those corporate subsidies. And I am not compelled by "such and such saves everyone money". That is a look only at one cost; it ignores all other costs and all benefits.
Government and Companies are in it together not so as sepearate / not getting you money as seemingly said?... (in theory close to zero but not really / just covered up as susidiary of itself?)...
Government and Companies are in it together not so as sepearate / not getting you money as seemingly said?... (in theory close to zero but not really / just covered up as susidiary of itself?)...
The obvious difference is that, at least in most instances and certainly in all justified instances, insurance is VOLUNTARY. You don't HAVE to get insurance, nor should you have to.
Government and Companies are in it together not so as sepearate / not getting you money as seemingly said?... (in theory close to zero but not really / just covered up as susidiary of itself?)...
Government and Companies are in it together not so as sepearate / not getting you money as seemingly said?... (in theory close to zero but not really / just covered up as susidiary of itself?)...
So you HAVE to have insurance...except when you don't, which is a situation MANY people are in. Is that about the size of it?
Government and Companies are in it together not so as sepearate / not getting you money as seemingly said?... (in theory close to zero but not really / just covered up as susidiary of itself?)...
@AlexanderKingsbury @anubis2814 I didn't mind the listing of things even in repeated sentences of;
car insurance. health insurance, home insurance etc
To pay for everything and pay government on top I guess
except when TOO BROKE / CAN'T PAY / NOT WORTH CHASING FOR / TOO POOR TO PAY and even then it's a battle not to do some things made 'legal' (which is mostly just a business of state piggy-backing the 'good' (that other people see) for more piggy-backing by others (for more profit and power))... otherwise what's the point of life?! :P
Government and Companies are in it together not so as sepearate / not getting you money as seemingly said?... (in theory close to zero but not really / just covered up as susidiary of itself?)...
Government and Companies are in it together not so as sepearate / not getting you money as seemingly said?... (in theory close to zero but not really / just covered up as susidiary of itself?)...
No, there are other options; just ask the Amish.
Yes, people who own no home often (not always) do pay renter's insurance.
Not owning a car absolutely does not mean homelessness absent public transportation.
Government and Companies are in it together not so as sepearate / not getting you money as seemingly said?... (in theory close to zero but not really / just covered up as susidiary of itself?)...
@AlexanderKingsbury @freeschool
What economy do you live in? Who can afford a house without a car if there is no public transit?
Ask the Amish? How so?
Government and Companies are in it together not so as sepearate / not getting you money as seemingly said?... (in theory close to zero but not really / just covered up as susidiary of itself?)...
I live in the US economy. I can afford a house, and I use my vehicle for leisure. I lived for several years without any car or truck at all; I got around mostly on foot and by bike, with the occasional uber.
Government and Companies are in it together not so as sepearate / not getting you money as seemingly said?... (in theory close to zero but not really / just covered up as susidiary of itself?)...
You must be incredibly luck to live close enough to walk or bike. Most people do not. Most can't afford to live near their work place. Sounds like you have a the right housing factors to be lucky enough to have that option, most people I know do not.Add 2 members of the household and that would be nearly impossible. Get fired and have to find work elsewhere because of layoffs to make the shareholders more profits and that wont be an option in the future. I guess the new work from home folks dont require a car.
Government and Companies are in it together not so as sepearate / not getting you money as seemingly said?... (in theory close to zero but not really / just covered up as susidiary of itself?)...
Yes; like most people in the developed word, I am incredibly lucky. In a variety of ways. For what it's worth, there are two members in my household.
Are we unusual? Yes. But that doesn't mean we don't exist.We do, and we're clear counterexamples to some absolute statements.
Government and Companies are in it together not so as sepearate / not getting you money as seemingly said?... (in theory close to zero but not really / just covered up as susidiary of itself?)...
@anubis2814 @freeschool
The Amish don't have health insurance. Yet, somehow, they manage. I believe the word for their approach to major medical expenses is "charity".
Government and Companies are in it together not so as sepearate / not getting you money as seemingly said?... (in theory close to zero but not really / just covered up as susidiary of itself?)...
Government and Companies are in it together not so as sepearate / not getting you money as seemingly said?... (in theory close to zero but not really / just covered up as susidiary of itself?)...
Okay. Again, these people may be unusual, but they exist, and are clear counterexamples to absolute claims that have been made.
Government and Companies are in it together not so as sepearate / not getting you money as seemingly said?... (in theory close to zero but not really / just covered up as susidiary of itself?)...
That's your entire argument system, a small divination from the norm that does exist but isn't the norm at all negates everything I said.
That's why its impossible to talk to you. Those minor negative deviations in the government are way, overall higher when done by corporations but there is no mechanism to stop them. For you, the deviations stand out way higher than they should than the norm does. Great YOU don
't have to buy from amazon or walmart, but you also have the time to walk and bike to work, many are working 2 jobs and barely getting by, amazon is the only thing that takes what little time they have and frees up time. YOU have some form of rather bless life, a large chunk do not have. Not saying you have it perfect or easy but you appear to have some very rare factors in your life so many don't. But because of that you feel everyone should live as you do. You are an outlier, but seem disconnected from the majority of folks material conditions. that doesn't make you bad at all, but you are coming from a place of distorted reality where the deviations are the norm. Why we look at data, not our own experience if we want a picture of the reality. Most people are getting poorer, as government got gutted under Reagan most people fear for their job loss, most people have had their wages stagnated. There is next to no social safety net that made America great in the first place. there were problems and exceptions to everything, but they were gutted instead of improved.
I could be reading this all wrong, and you are just arguing for the sake of arguing but I try to use the principle of charity to my detriment and let trolls get the best of me.
That's hardly my entire argument, nor is it even an accurate representation of my position. I don't think everyone can live as I do, nor would I say they should if they could. You can claim I have a distorted perception or am disconnected, but I at least don't feel the need to assume what other people think, accuse them of certain viewpoints, to guess what they have or have not read or watched.
I absolutely don't refuse to use the principle of charity with you; you are the one accusing me of things and making assumptions about me. It's hardly "derailing" the conversation when I show you counterexamples to absolute claims you make. I never claimed you're "full of contradictions" or anything of the sort. You can make all the personal attacks you want, and lob cheap insults, but at least you could try to stick to the truth.
Government and Companies are in it together not so as sepearate / not getting you money as seemingly said?... (in theory close to zero but not really / just covered up as susidiary of itself?)...
@AlexanderKingsbury @anubis2814 Without ping-ponging too much about it, I think there's a difference between not having / not owning and things just not being mandatory / existing money paid out (the opposite or insurance almost where Gov bends back to give back what they arguably have spending it on other less-needed things).
But yes not yes is all mandatory in that way that if you don't have.
Government and Companies are in it together not so as sepearate / not getting you money as seemingly said?... (in theory close to zero but not really / just covered up as susidiary of itself?)...
@freeschool @anubis2814
Car insurance isn't a necessity; plenty of people have no car. Health insurance SHOULDN'T be mandatory. Home insurance, again; plenty of folks own no home, and thus have no home insurance.