Combat Ranting (formerly known as Famicom Mini)

[Weltall]

Conservatives just do not care about people. Sick and dying old people not getting the care they need? Oh well, they should have saved more money. Poor people starving because working three jobs can't feed their family? Oh well, they should have had three jobs and gone to college too because anyone who can't move up the ladder (ie 99.99% of poor people) is a lazy bum and deserves what they get. Medicare? Evil program wasting government money to help people who are sick...

Yet, liberals are against private investment. It's true that people can't save enough money for their own needs, because SSI and Medicare deductions kill that. They have to pay for everyone benefiting now. It's a terrible way to operate and it's no wonder the system is failing. Yet, liberals want to extend and preserve it no matter what, even though it obviously cannot work anymore. They do everything they can to scare people from making private futures investments, when that is truly the answer. They will not even budge to allow governmental assistance on the matter. They want full control over the tax income, and are dooming future generations for it.

And, with the poor, it is again the liberals who, in the name of compassion, think that providing a living for someone poor is the answer to destitution, when the reality is that not only will such a program only ensure beyond any doubt that the poor stay poor, but that we can't afford to do it. But as with investment, they don't budge. They do whatever they can to make sure the poor cannot move up in the tax bracket. It's like you people want to prevent them from earning a living for themselves.

And then you fail to mention that many federal student loan programs offer enough money to get an education and to make living slightly easier to those with the desire to better themselves and with the prudence not to screw up their lives by having four kids by the time they're 22. I understand that some people truly do have no way up because their youthful indiscretion stymies them, but there's no reason the rest of us should pay for a quick and very impermanent fix to their mistakes.

As for Medicare? It's a necessary evil now because it is so deeply entrenched. But we definitely do need to find a better alternative and slowly phase medicare out. It can't last.

Oh yeah, and cheap goods are best, no matter where they come from. Now that position is also held by many moderate Democrats, like centrist Clinton... he supported NAFTA and free trade, big time... but that is just not the right way to do it. Oh, we should have free trade, but we must link it to wage, freedoms, and rights minimums. It is cruel to say that we don't care that Indonesian workers are in sweatshops just so we can have shoes and t-shirts a few bucks cheaper. And I know that Americans love how we get all our cheap stuff from China but because people cannot be expected to know which Chinese stuff is normal and which is slave or prison or sweatshop labor, the government needs to do it... confronting China is by far the biggest problem. We have such a massive trade deficit with them that we can't, even though they're one of the world's worst on worker's rights, accident rates, prison labor, labor laws, safety, etc, etc... but I don't know what we can do. Do we even have any leverage? At this point we can't credibly say we'll raise tarriffs on their goods, because we're so reliant on them...

I know that part of Wal-Mart's price advantage is the company's massive size... but I also know that part of it in some areas is deliberate underpricing, below their costs, just to destroy the competition so that when the little guys close they can then raise them... that's very common practice for chain stores.

I agree. It's getting to the point where businesses can, with some upfront cost, create manufacturing plants that do the same jobs, at probably the same rough cost. But old habits are hard to break, I suppose.

Our trade relationship with China can be seen much simpler though. While we do have a huge deficit in trade with them, their entire economy is completely dependent on our demand for their goods, to a greater extent than our economy is dependent on their supply. If there were a total stop it would hurt us badly and totally cripple China, but we still have the upper hand and I can't imagine that there isn't some leverage in our favor as a result. It's just a matter of how it could be utilized to help the overall condition and that's something I don't have an answer for.