Is America becoming a third world nation?

[Craig234]

In another thread I said I wanted to see an authentic US ghetto since I don't live in the US. Someone replied that it looks a lot like Haiti


http://ghettoamerica.blogspot.com/

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

That second part is wrong, the first is debatable - and a 'not very good' bill that's still an improvement and the best they can get passed, is still good.

You say they had the option of 'rewriting the bill' and passing a better one. Seems to me, that was not an option. It was this bill that had some real improvements, or nothing.

Republicans were hardly going to vote for some 'better' bill like single-payer, and the industry was ready to put major opposition that has killed every other bill if they tried.

There is always the option of coming up with something better. As I've said many times this wasn't about health care it was about insurance. If the Democrats really wanted to improvements they would first have gone about finding learning just what was needed. Instead they assumed they had everything lined up. It was politics against politics.

That makes no difference to my point with sensamp, who said that it was a popular mandate from the public, then said it they knew instead it would be a liability.

If only someone would come up with an initiative to facilitate the patient provider relationship and allow for better treatment outcomes then much would take care of itself. That's not how this was approached. It was entirely top down.

 

[Craig234]

The US is not going to become Ethiopia, but the world is going to stop being pulled up by the US, as the world's upward mobility shifts the other direction back to oligarchy.

The US will probably shift downward, the poor poorer, the middle poorer, the lower upper class poorer, even the top probably poorer than they would be, but owning more.

That's the 'smaller pie' problem that comes with the excessive concentration of wealth.

It's why 'crap' countries where a few families own everything don't create much wealth.

 

[sandorski]

It is trending that way. So the answer is: Yes. Still far to go though. Still time to avoid a Soviet Union meltdown in fact, which didn't become Third World, but certainly flirted with it. The US certainly won't be a "Super Power" in 30 years, unless the term is redefined downwards.

 

[Craig234]

There is always the option of coming up with something better.

No, there isn't.

That makes no difference to my point with sensamp, who said that it was a popular mandate from the public, then said it they knew instead it would be a liability.

I understand that point.

If only someone would come up with an initiative to facilitate the patient provider relationship and allow for better treatment outcomes then much would take care of itself. That's not how this was approached. It was entirely top down.

You're being naive. Who says what would provide better outcomes, and who is going to be believed between you saying what would against a billion dollars of ads disagreeing?

We could watch Harry and Sally mock your plan - and the public not believe it.

IMO, we should have had single-payer; I'm not sure where you stand on that, as I recall a majority of the people supported it, but obviously not the insurance industry.

If the Obama people too easily gave up on it in order to get some good things passed, after every other effort since Truman was defeated, I have some sympathy.

The 'get something to try to build momentum for more' might be right.

Even my Congressman, Pete Stark, a very liberal person whose #1 issue is healthcare - every term he introduces a constitutional amendment to make universal healthcare a right for all citizens - took this position and backed the bill despite his supporting for decades a stronger bill.

I'm all for trying to do better, but not for saying not to pass the best that can be.

 

[senseamp]

That is not what you said then. You said that the majority of people wanted this. That would have been a feather in there cap in that circumstance.

Anyone who opposed "reform" for any reason was dismissed as obstructionists in their arrogance. Assumed a liability? That was the furthest thing from them and their supporters.

Revisionism will not excuse them.

Speaking of morality, we come back to health care.

Let's see how morality fares here.

Is it moral to create regulations which prevent a person from accessing information which allows them to use the health care they have?

Is it moral to circumvent a bad regulation to gain the above if it will save a persons life?

Is it moral to punish the person who saves another because they violated a paperwork technicality?

Is it a moral act to create rules and regulations which have the above effect, yet insist they be adhered to?

What is the right choice, to obey an order from the state and let a person die because although it was a mere side effect of poorly written legislation? Or is it instead right to disregard the rules and save someone?

Let's see.

What is your rant about?

 

[Jhhnn]

It is trending that way. So the answer is: Yes. Still far to go though. Still time to avoid a Soviet Union meltdown in fact, which didn't become Third World, but certainly flirted with it. The US certainly won't be a "Super Power" in 30 years, unless the term is redefined downwards.

I'm forced to agree. The biggest reason that Reaganomics hasn't stuffed us down the shitter entirely is that we were quite wealthy in a broad based sort of way before the looting commenced...

Dunno that we'll ever arrive at true third world status, but repubs are working on creating a third world income distribution curve...

Project the trend of the last 30 years into the future, tell me what you see...

http://www.taxfoundation.org/news/show/250.html

 

[Bateluer]

The sheriff's department adapted. "We have no patrol units. There is no one on the streets. We respond to only crimes in progress. We don't respond to property crimes," deputy sheriff Ron Fenton told Maclean's. The county once had a "very proactive" detective division in narcotics. Now, there is no detective division. "We are down to one evidence officer and he just runs the evidence room in case someone wants to claim property," said Fenton. "People are getting property stolen, their houses broken into, and there is no one investigating. We are basically just writing up a report for the insurance company.".

Does this mean people living there can purchase fire arms and defend their own property without police intervention?

Citizen - Officer, an individual broke front window on my house and entered. I caught him carrying my home theater equipment out the broken window. So I retrieved my Smith and Wesson . . .

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

I think you're wrong. As I have said, the Dems have been partly corrupted and have a split between the corporatist wing and the progressive wing, but you are just wrong here.

To say that is like saying that the pro-environment movement is just as pro-pollution as any polluting company. It's just wrongheaded.

We can easily list a hundred policies the opposite of what you say that progressive Democrats have pushed - not so much for the Republicans, if there are any in decades.

You can list the changes brought about when homes were seized because bulldozing them down could net the government more taxes, or you could show me how the outrage against the Iraq war and what was done to get us there has been pursued into this administration.

The problem is you can't.

I'm sorry, but if one has a score of 56 and one 35 they've both failed.

 

[MotF Bane]

If GOP gets its way, yes we will be a banana republic, where government only acts to protect a small wealthy minority while middle class is decimated and remainder of population lives in abject poverty to provide cheap labor.

lmao, you're still as delusional as ever.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

What is your rant about?

Reality of government controlled health care. Government representatives wouldn't allow anyone access to the information needed to provide health insurance who someone already had because of their snafu. It was made known that anyone who circumvented that was a felon. I wonder how your morality reconciled the governments actions.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

In another thread I said I wanted to see an authentic US ghetto since I don't live in the US. Someone replied that it looks a lot like Haiti


http://ghettoamerica.blogspot.com/

Here's my old street.

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?p=30570951#post30570951

 

[woolfe9999]

No, but Americans ARE becoming a bunch of whiney brats who scream that we're on the edge of collapse because our economy is ONLY better than the typical third world economy by a multiple of 20 instead of 22 like it once was.

It reminds me of what people used to say about 49ers fans back in the Joe Montana era. They were so used to winning every game, they lost one, or only won it by 3 points instead of 30 and they're crying like babies.

Yup, that's America. Economic apocalypse? Not so much. Cultural apocalypse? Hmm, maybe so.

- wolf

 

[Gonad the Barbarian]

What is your rant about?

He's ranting about state regulations passed specifically in NY and projecting them onto national healthcare reform. Two totally different things, but both passed by liberals, so rawr.

 

[senseamp]

Reality of government controlled health care.

What does that have to do with this thread?

 

[werepossum]

No, but Americans ARE becoming a bunch of whiney brats who scream that we're on the edge of collapse because our economy is ONLY better than the typical third world economy by a multiple of 20 instead of 22 like it once was.

It reminds me of what people used to say about 49ers fans back in the Joe Montana era. They were so used to winning every game, they lost one, or only won it by 3 points instead of 30 and they're crying like babies.

Yup, that's America. Economic apocalypse? Not so much. Cultural apocalypse? Hmm, maybe so.

- wolf

Amen. As P.J. O'Rourke famously said (more or less), it's hard to get teary-eyed over poverty in hundred dollar tennis shoes. The average American in poverty has more square footage of living space than the average European and is more likely to own an automobile. Our squealing about becoming a Third World country mostly concerns whether we can afford the new iPod or eat out at Olive Garden rather than McDonald's. Many countries have substantial parts of their populations struggling to get enough to eat; we have a substantial part of our population struggling not to eat too much.

And not to put too fine a point on things, but America by definition can't be a Third World country. The New World was the Americas, the Old World was Europe, and the Third World was everything else the Europeans didn't care about.

 

[OCGuy]

Amen. As P.J. O'Rourke famously said (more or less), it's hard to get teary-eyed over poverty in hundred dollar tennis shoes. The average American in poverty has more square footage of living space than the average European and is more likely to own an automobile. Our squealing about becoming a Third World country mostly concerns whether we can afford the new iPod or eat out at Olive Garden rather than McDonald's. Many countries have substantial parts of their populations struggling to get enough to eat; we have a substantial part of our population struggling not to eat too much.

And not to put too fine a point on things, but America by definition can't be a Third World country. The New World was the Americas, the Old World was Europe, and the Third World was everything else the Europeans didn't care about.

"Third world" has to do with the Cold War.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:First_second_third_worlds_map.svg

Basically the author and the OP fail.

 

[Slew Foot]

No, but Americans ARE becoming a bunch of whiney brats who scream that we're on the edge of collapse because our economy is ONLY better than the typical third world economy by a multiple of 20 instead of 22 like it once was.

It reminds me of what people used to say about 49ers fans back in the Joe Montana era. They were so used to winning every game, they lost one, or only won it by 3 points instead of 30 and they're crying like babies.

Yup, that's America. Economic apocalypse? Not so much. Cultural apocalypse? Hmm, maybe so.

- wolf

Seriously, poor people in America spend all their money and drugs and beer and then complain that their iPhone only gets 5000 text messages a month. OMG third wurld AmeriKKKA!

f'n morons.

 

[Jhhnn]

Seriously, poor people in America spend all their money and drugs and beer and then complain that their iPhone only gets 5000 text messages a month. OMG third wurld AmeriKKKA!

f'n morons.

And moronic Righties rave on about being crushed by taxes when they're paying the lowest federal income ax rates of the post-WW2 era.

And while your point is false attribution, mine isn't, at all. This forum is filled with anti-tax stupidity from people who apparently think that govt should be free, even the parts they want. And the closer anybody gets to the truth, the deeper they enter denial, lashing out in nonsensical hyperbole such as your own.

 

[werepossum]

"Third world" has to do with the Cold War.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:First_second_third_worlds_map.svg

Basically the author and the OP fail.

I disagree. Old World, New World, and Third World go back much, much farther than the Cold War, back to the sixteenth century and immigration to the New World. The Third World was merely that part of the world which was neither identifiably Old World (Europe and its civilizations) nor New World (the newly discovered territories and their colonies) and which, being neither Christian nor European in culture, were not important except for their utilization as European colonies - literally the Third World of European colonization. The attribution of Third World as those countries not affiliated in the Cold War is by contrast much more recent, probably in the sixties. Note also that almost all those nations known as Third World were at one time or another affiliated in the Cold War - for instance, pro-Soviet India and pro-American Pakistan were undeniably Third World and yet were undeniably closely affiliated with Cold War powers. Some examples:
http://www.asiatour.com/colonialism.htm
http://availablelightonline.com/blog/2004/10/30/new-world-man-or-church-growth-pastor/
http://www.freelists.org/post/pure-silver/TESTING-no-posts,15
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/the-third-world

This is admittedly an example of language evolution, but I've read the term "Third World in texts written far before World War II.

 

[Slew Foot]

And moronic Righties rave on about being crushed by taxes when they're paying the lowest federal income ax rates of the post-WW2 era.

And while your point is false attribution, mine isn't, at all. This forum is filled with anti-tax stupidity from people who apparently think that govt should be free, even the parts they want. And the closer anybody gets to the truth, the deeper they enter denial, lashing out in nonsensical hyperbole such as your own.

When the closest youve been to a third world country is watching one on the National Geographic channel, yeah you might think America is becoming one. America is so nowhere near close to third world its un f'n believable. Yeah, a country with the highest GDP in the world is going third world. Morons.

 

[RocksteadyDotNet]

When the closest youve been to a third world country is watching one on the National Geographic channel, yeah you might think America is becoming one. America is so nowhere near close to third world its un f'n believable. Yeah, a country with the highest GDP in the world is going third world. Morons.

Total GDP means fuck all. GDP Per capita is what matters.

Which is currently good.

One day China will have a larger GDP than you, on that day it will still be a shithole.

Just saying.

 

[Infohawk]

The third world moved here. What did we really expect to happen?

 

[werepossum]

Total GDP means fuck all. GDP Per capita is what matters.

Which is currently good.

One day China will have a larger GDP than you, on that day it will still be a shithole.

Just saying.

I think I would go even farther than that. It's possible to have a huge GDP and literally produce nothing but debt. Suppose Walmart imports an iToo (Chinese iPod knockoff) from China, paying $5, and sells it direct to the public for $10. Now suppose instead that ChinaWorld LTD imports the same iToo from China, paying $5, and sells it to a wholesaler for $10 who sells it to a warehouse chain for $20 who sells it to a mom and pop store for $40 who sells it to the public for $80. Our GDP has now gone up from $10 to $150, with zero added wealth and no change in our accumulated debt. Multiply this by a bazillion iToos and we have a GDP of ten bazillion or 150 bazillion while still producing nothing but debt. Clearly we can't count only wealth production, as services consumed also increase a nation's standard of living, but just as clearly we can't count just GDP either.

 

[Craig234]

The third world moved here. What did we really expect to happen?

That's the least of our problems. Poor immigrants are a boon to the economy overall.