(07-27-2020 01:24 AM)tj_2009 Wrote:  

(07-26-2020 09:21 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(07-26-2020 08:51 PM)Statefan Wrote:  I think there is a guy in Moscow who once said "The Capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them.”

When the profit of the corporation is more important than national interest or personal interest you get our current situation. In the long run, economics is not very different from physics and eventually you run against the limits of a closed system.


The saving grace is that China has Russia on one boarder and India on the other and a destabilized population pyramid that is rapidly aging their overall population. While they can **** with us, they can't bring us down and they have their own issues.


The real shame is the 40-50 million Americans living in emptying rural areas waiting for someone to come along and bring economic development. The bit into a Faustian bargain and anchored themselves to dying areas, losing the relative wealth of their nest egg late in life, trapping them in place. So many young, suburban/urban people do not comprehend why so many of these rural people are red assed mad. On top of that those trapped don't always articulate or fully understand the trap they are in.

I have people like this on both sides of the family, living in rural areas and waiting for the government to bring a new factory. They own the land their house is on so they think they have an asset rather than understanding what they have is an anchor. They "played by the rules" and got screwed. Over time they gravitate toward stupid conspiracy theory bull **** because it's better to feel like someone targeted you instead of you being screwed because you didn't understand the system.

In the times we are in right now, those rural people are in better position to survive than you are. And China has a credible nuclear threat. Logistics are against them, but you never know what a cornered dragon will do. And Statefan, the ones who are targeted are the ones in debt up to their eyeballs just to keep up with their neighbors in burbs, but make just enough from their white collar jobs to keep their nostrils above water as they live paycheck to paycheck.

There are always two sides to every coin and most times it just depends on which side you call. Those rural folks will be eating when the city folks aren't.

I have friends in both situations. Some of them do draw down six figures but spend their last nickel just keeping up appearances and one of them confessed to me he can't afford to retire until he is 75 because he had kids late in life. The ones that live in the sticks are mostly happy. They hunt and fish and farm and log and the highlight of their week is going to Church and listening to the gossip. Their big issue is having an affair when they get bored and by doing so in a small town everybody knows including the spouses and then a world of hurt comes down on them. But if they can avoid that they live quite well, and don't really worry about what you have or don't have in your urban environment.

What they are hurting from truly is lack of decent healthcare without driving to the city. The mortality in my old home town is now too frequent from 55 to 65 and most of that is lack of primary care physicians to spot problems on routine check ups that might have led to treatments that would have prevented early death. And that development is relatively recent, like the last 20 years.

But hey if you check into big city hospital the third shift nursing crew that doesn't speak English just might give you the wrong meds.

You pays your money and you take your chances.

Health Care is a problem that this country needs to fix. It is not right for people to work their whole lives and then have to go bankrupt because they get diagnosed with diabetes or cancer. I don't know why they can't bring in health care like in
Canada or the UK or Australia or Germany. Its not rocket science we should just copy what those countries do to have a good health care system. In case anyone was wondering I am not a left wing radical but actually a fiscal conservative. The US spends more on health care than any country in the world and its not even close.
It would be much cheaper to have a single payer health care system.

Uhh ... WRONG.

The ONLY reason single payer works at all in Canada, is that Canada borders the US, where affluent Canadians can avoid the long waiting periods for routine health care, and go south to get things like MRI's done.

If you want to destroy the actual health care we get from doctors and nurses, then by all means ... push for single payer.

(07-27-2020 07:54 PM)Pervis_Griffith Wrote:  

(07-27-2020 01:24 AM)tj_2009 Wrote:  

(07-26-2020 09:21 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(07-26-2020 08:51 PM)Statefan Wrote:  I think there is a guy in Moscow who once said "The Capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them.”

When the profit of the corporation is more important than national interest or personal interest you get our current situation. In the long run, economics is not very different from physics and eventually you run against the limits of a closed system.


The saving grace is that China has Russia on one boarder and India on the other and a destabilized population pyramid that is rapidly aging their overall population. While they can **** with us, they can't bring us down and they have their own issues.


The real shame is the 40-50 million Americans living in emptying rural areas waiting for someone to come along and bring economic development. The bit into a Faustian bargain and anchored themselves to dying areas, losing the relative wealth of their nest egg late in life, trapping them in place. So many young, suburban/urban people do not comprehend why so many of these rural people are red assed mad. On top of that those trapped don't always articulate or fully understand the trap they are in.

I have people like this on both sides of the family, living in rural areas and waiting for the government to bring a new factory. They own the land their house is on so they think they have an asset rather than understanding what they have is an anchor. They "played by the rules" and got screwed. Over time they gravitate toward stupid conspiracy theory bull **** because it's better to feel like someone targeted you instead of you being screwed because you didn't understand the system.

In the times we are in right now, those rural people are in better position to survive than you are. And China has a credible nuclear threat. Logistics are against them, but you never know what a cornered dragon will do. And Statefan, the ones who are targeted are the ones in debt up to their eyeballs just to keep up with their neighbors in burbs, but make just enough from their white collar jobs to keep their nostrils above water as they live paycheck to paycheck.

There are always two sides to every coin and most times it just depends on which side you call. Those rural folks will be eating when the city folks aren't.

I have friends in both situations. Some of them do draw down six figures but spend their last nickel just keeping up appearances and one of them confessed to me he can't afford to retire until he is 75 because he had kids late in life. The ones that live in the sticks are mostly happy. They hunt and fish and farm and log and the highlight of their week is going to Church and listening to the gossip. Their big issue is having an affair when they get bored and by doing so in a small town everybody knows including the spouses and then a world of hurt comes down on them. But if they can avoid that they live quite well, and don't really worry about what you have or don't have in your urban environment.

What they are hurting from truly is lack of decent healthcare without driving to the city. The mortality in my old home town is now too frequent from 55 to 65 and most of that is lack of primary care physicians to spot problems on routine check ups that might have led to treatments that would have prevented early death. And that development is relatively recent, like the last 20 years.

But hey if you check into big city hospital the third shift nursing crew that doesn't speak English just might give you the wrong meds.

You pays your money and you take your chances.

Health Care is a problem that this country needs to fix. It is not right for people to work their whole lives and then have to go bankrupt because they get diagnosed with diabetes or cancer. I don't know why they can't bring in health care like in
Canada or the UK or Australia or Germany. Its not rocket science we should just copy what those countries do to have a good health care system. In case anyone was wondering I am not a left wing radical but actually a fiscal conservative. The US spends more on health care than any country in the world and its not even close.
It would be much cheaper to have a single payer health care system.

Uhh ... WRONG.

The ONLY reason single payer works at all in Canada, is that Canada borders the US, where affluent Canadians can avoid the long waiting periods for routine health care, and go south to get things like MRI's done.

If you want to destroy the actual health care we get from doctors and nurses, then by all means ... push for single payer.

This is very true. I have heard tales of Canadians coming down to the US because they didnt want to wait 6-8 months for their doctor visits in Canada

(07-27-2020 04:39 AM)XLance Wrote:  

(07-27-2020 01:05 AM)tj_2009 Wrote:  

(07-26-2020 12:26 PM)cuseroc Wrote:  

(07-26-2020 10:49 AM)XLance Wrote:  

(07-26-2020 10:33 AM)cuseroc Wrote:  We have no way of knowing this at all. I went to my great uncles (by marriage) funeral in Florida back in late January. His baby sister came down with covid by the time she returned home to Georgia. She was full of life. She died last week at 78 after battling covid since the beginning of February. Its difficult for me to imagine that she would have died anyway this year. My cousin in Bradenton was telling me about 3 of her friends between the ages of 41-48 who died from covid in the last 6 weeks. Its difficult for me to think that they would have died anyway this year. She was tripping over the fact that its killing people so young. She's 46

Its correct to blame politicians for how they handle the covid outbreak, if they do things like encouraging folks not to wear masks or not to social distance or to make it a political statement to wear masks or not wear a mask. Especially when evidence is overwhelming that it works.. Its not correct to blame them for covid itself.

The wishy-washy suggestions from the scientists at the beginning of the outbreak created a lot of confusion.
When the leading expert can be quoted as saying "go ahead and go on a cruise" or "you don't need to wear a mask" only to reverse course a week or month later, nobody can be certain of being told the truth if there really is one.
1-the Chinese are responsible for creating and spreading the virus
2-politics in the US have hampered efforts and if it weren't an election year, we may have seen a greater level of cooperation among politicians.

I mis-typed. It is correct to blame China for the virus. But not for the spread in the US. Politics can be blamed for whats going on in Florida, Texas Arizona etc..

I doubt China created the virus based on the information i have read, but it probably did make the jump from animals to humans there. I think China probably could have warned the world earlier and taken steps to contain it earlier. It is crazy how this whole covid-19 became politicized because the virus does not care about politics. It just goes to show you how out of hand politics are. It is wrong for politicians to politicize this.

What cool-aid have you been drinking?
The "bat" that the virus supposedly jumped from in the wet market can not be found living within 1,000 miles of Whuhan. You want us to believe some Chinese farmer was trucking bat meat over 1,000 miles just to sell for pennies? Not to mention that the Chinese government has a lab to create biological weapons just a few blocks from that meat market in Whuhan where they (the Chinese Government) claim the virus came from.
The Chinese government allowed travel from Whuhan to other parts of the world but not to Beijing. They locked people in Whuhan in their homes without food and water to kill off the virus.
You had better wake up and realize what type of enemy you are dealing with.
Grab a book and check out what Stalin did to his own people.
It's why people are running through our streets trying to eradicate history, and our University indoctrinated population is too stupid to realize what is actually happening as their "leaders" and the media want to blame everything on politics.

I read some articles from scientists with the WHO that thought it was unlikely it was a man made virus based on its genetic sequencing. There is going to be a study over the origin of the coronavirus coming up and China agreed to the study as all the countries in the world want to find out so I guess we will see. I am not a scientist so I am only believing what I read.

(07-27-2020 11:24 AM)ren.hoek Wrote:  

(07-27-2020 01:24 AM)tj_2009 Wrote:  

(07-26-2020 09:21 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(07-26-2020 08:51 PM)Statefan Wrote:  I think there is a guy in Moscow who once said "The Capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them.”

When the profit of the corporation is more important than national interest or personal interest you get our current situation. In the long run, economics is not very different from physics and eventually you run against the limits of a closed system.


The saving grace is that China has Russia on one boarder and India on the other and a destabilized population pyramid that is rapidly aging their overall population. While they can **** with us, they can't bring us down and they have their own issues.


The real shame is the 40-50 million Americans living in emptying rural areas waiting for someone to come along and bring economic development. The bit into a Faustian bargain and anchored themselves to dying areas, losing the relative wealth of their nest egg late in life, trapping them in place. So many young, suburban/urban people do not comprehend why so many of these rural people are red assed mad. On top of that those trapped don't always articulate or fully understand the trap they are in.

I have people like this on both sides of the family, living in rural areas and waiting for the government to bring a new factory. They own the land their house is on so they think they have an asset rather than understanding what they have is an anchor. They "played by the rules" and got screwed. Over time they gravitate toward stupid conspiracy theory bull **** because it's better to feel like someone targeted you instead of you being screwed because you didn't understand the system.

In the times we are in right now, those rural people are in better position to survive than you are. And China has a credible nuclear threat. Logistics are against them, but you never know what a cornered dragon will do. And Statefan, the ones who are targeted are the ones in debt up to their eyeballs just to keep up with their neighbors in burbs, but make just enough from their white collar jobs to keep their nostrils above water as they live paycheck to paycheck.

There are always two sides to every coin and most times it just depends on which side you call. Those rural folks will be eating when the city folks aren't.

I have friends in both situations. Some of them do draw down six figures but spend their last nickel just keeping up appearances and one of them confessed to me he can't afford to retire until he is 75 because he had kids late in life. The ones that live in the sticks are mostly happy. They hunt and fish and farm and log and the highlight of their week is going to Church and listening to the gossip. Their big issue is having an affair when they get bored and by doing so in a small town everybody knows including the spouses and then a world of hurt comes down on them. But if they can avoid that they live quite well, and don't really worry about what you have or don't have in your urban environment.

What they are hurting from truly is lack of decent healthcare without driving to the city. The mortality in my old home town is now too frequent from 55 to 65 and most of that is lack of primary care physicians to spot problems on routine check ups that might have led to treatments that would have prevented early death. And that development is relatively recent, like the last 20 years.

But hey if you check into big city hospital the third shift nursing crew that doesn't speak English just might give you the wrong meds.

You pays your money and you take your chances.

Health Care is a problem that this country needs to fix. It is not right for people to work their whole lives and then have to go bankrupt because they get diagnosed with diabetes or cancer. I don't know why they can't bring in health care like in
Canada or the UK or Australia or Germany. Its not rocket science we should just copy what those countries do to have a good health care system. In case anyone was wondering I am not a left wing radical but actually a fiscal conservative. The US spends more on health care than any country in the world and its not even close.
It would be much cheaper to have a single payer health care system.

If you believe single payer will be cheaper, then you believe that pink unicorns will frolic across the country to implement it. Utter nonsense. I have a special needs kid and single payer is my greatest fear.

I think if you compare the health care prices that other countries in the world are paying, the US is paying by far the most. I don't know why the government can't negotiate some lower prices for drugs and other parts of health care. If other countries can do it, why can't we do it? I am not saying it will be better for everyone, but it should help the majority of people. Perhaps they could start small and work on fixing the high cost of medications first.

(07-27-2020 07:54 PM)Pervis_Griffith Wrote:  

(07-27-2020 01:24 AM)tj_2009 Wrote:  

(07-26-2020 09:21 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(07-26-2020 08:51 PM)Statefan Wrote:  I think there is a guy in Moscow who once said "The Capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them.”

When the profit of the corporation is more important than national interest or personal interest you get our current situation. In the long run, economics is not very different from physics and eventually you run against the limits of a closed system.


The saving grace is that China has Russia on one boarder and India on the other and a destabilized population pyramid that is rapidly aging their overall population. While they can **** with us, they can't bring us down and they have their own issues.


The real shame is the 40-50 million Americans living in emptying rural areas waiting for someone to come along and bring economic development. The bit into a Faustian bargain and anchored themselves to dying areas, losing the relative wealth of their nest egg late in life, trapping them in place. So many young, suburban/urban people do not comprehend why so many of these rural people are red assed mad. On top of that those trapped don't always articulate or fully understand the trap they are in.

I have people like this on both sides of the family, living in rural areas and waiting for the government to bring a new factory. They own the land their house is on so they think they have an asset rather than understanding what they have is an anchor. They "played by the rules" and got screwed. Over time they gravitate toward stupid conspiracy theory bull **** because it's better to feel like someone targeted you instead of you being screwed because you didn't understand the system.

In the times we are in right now, those rural people are in better position to survive than you are. And China has a credible nuclear threat. Logistics are against them, but you never know what a cornered dragon will do. And Statefan, the ones who are targeted are the ones in debt up to their eyeballs just to keep up with their neighbors in burbs, but make just enough from their white collar jobs to keep their nostrils above water as they live paycheck to paycheck.

There are always two sides to every coin and most times it just depends on which side you call. Those rural folks will be eating when the city folks aren't.

I have friends in both situations. Some of them do draw down six figures but spend their last nickel just keeping up appearances and one of them confessed to me he can't afford to retire until he is 75 because he had kids late in life. The ones that live in the sticks are mostly happy. They hunt and fish and farm and log and the highlight of their week is going to Church and listening to the gossip. Their big issue is having an affair when they get bored and by doing so in a small town everybody knows including the spouses and then a world of hurt comes down on them. But if they can avoid that they live quite well, and don't really worry about what you have or don't have in your urban environment.

What they are hurting from truly is lack of decent healthcare without driving to the city. The mortality in my old home town is now too frequent from 55 to 65 and most of that is lack of primary care physicians to spot problems on routine check ups that might have led to treatments that would have prevented early death. And that development is relatively recent, like the last 20 years.

But hey if you check into big city hospital the third shift nursing crew that doesn't speak English just might give you the wrong meds.

You pays your money and you take your chances.

Health Care is a problem that this country needs to fix. It is not right for people to work their whole lives and then have to go bankrupt because they get diagnosed with diabetes or cancer. I don't know why they can't bring in health care like in
Canada or the UK or Australia or Germany. Its not rocket science we should just copy what those countries do to have a good health care system. In case anyone was wondering I am not a left wing radical but actually a fiscal conservative. The US spends more on health care than any country in the world and its not even close.
It would be much cheaper to have a single payer health care system.

Uhh ... WRONG.

The ONLY reason single payer works at all in Canada, is that Canada borders the US, where affluent Canadians can avoid the long waiting periods for routine health care, and go south to get things like MRI's done.

If you want to destroy the actual health care we get from doctors and nurses, then by all means ... push for single payer.

The affluent can always get their medical care done anywhere. I was reading that a lot of the sheiks in Saudi Arabia come to the US for health care. Perhaps they will have to study things to see whether there are enough doctors and hospitals in the country before embarking on a single payer system but in theory it should be more efficient. There will be sacrifices though by people in the middle class and the wealthy, as they will have to wait longer for health care so this is something that might not be so good (at least for me) but it depends how long some of this stuff will take. I would be willing to make some sacrifice to help my fellow Americans with health care but I guess the fear of the unknown is the biggest thing and perhaps that is the biggest hurdle because no one knows what will change. Until this can be explained and estimated, i doubt it will happen.

(07-28-2020 01:04 AM)tj_2009 Wrote:  

(07-27-2020 04:39 AM)XLance Wrote:  

(07-27-2020 01:05 AM)tj_2009 Wrote:  

(07-26-2020 12:26 PM)cuseroc Wrote:  

(07-26-2020 10:49 AM)XLance Wrote:  The wishy-washy suggestions from the scientists at the beginning of the outbreak created a lot of confusion.
When the leading expert can be quoted as saying "go ahead and go on a cruise" or "you don't need to wear a mask" only to reverse course a week or month later, nobody can be certain of being told the truth if there really is one.
1-the Chinese are responsible for creating and spreading the virus
2-politics in the US have hampered efforts and if it weren't an election year, we may have seen a greater level of cooperation among politicians.

I mis-typed. It is correct to blame China for the virus. But not for the spread in the US. Politics can be blamed for whats going on in Florida, Texas Arizona etc..

I doubt China created the virus based on the information i have read, but it probably did make the jump from animals to humans there. I think China probably could have warned the world earlier and taken steps to contain it earlier. It is crazy how this whole covid-19 became politicized because the virus does not care about politics. It just goes to show you how out of hand politics are. It is wrong for politicians to politicize this.

What cool-aid have you been drinking?
The "bat" that the virus supposedly jumped from in the wet market can not be found living within 1,000 miles of Whuhan. You want us to believe some Chinese farmer was trucking bat meat over 1,000 miles just to sell for pennies? Not to mention that the Chinese government has a lab to create biological weapons just a few blocks from that meat market in Whuhan where they (the Chinese Government) claim the virus came from.
The Chinese government allowed travel from Whuhan to other parts of the world but not to Beijing. They locked people in Whuhan in their homes without food and water to kill off the virus.
You had better wake up and realize what type of enemy you are dealing with.
Grab a book and check out what Stalin did to his own people.
It's why people are running through our streets trying to eradicate history, and our University indoctrinated population is too stupid to realize what is actually happening as their "leaders" and the media want to blame everything on politics.

I read some articles from scientists with the WHO that thought it was unlikely it was a man made virus based on its genetic sequencing. There is going to be a study over the origin of the coronavirus coming up and China agreed to the study as all the countries in the world want to find out so I guess we will see. I am not a scientist so I am only believing what I read.

The WHO has become a puppet of the Chinese Communist Party and has become a wealth of misinformation. There is a reason the US decided to withhold funding the WHO this year.

In reference to fans in the stadium.

Yesterday Carolina cancelled all of their season tickets.
Season ticket holders will now be invited to purchase tickets to individual games so that seating can be limited and spacing guaranteed. The same folks may end up buying the tickets, but where they sit in the stadium is going to be altered drastically, and the people that are low in the pecking order probably won't have an opportunity to see very many games if any at all.

(07-28-2020 01:04 AM)tj_2009 Wrote:  

(07-27-2020 04:39 AM)XLance Wrote:  

(07-27-2020 01:05 AM)tj_2009 Wrote:  

(07-26-2020 12:26 PM)cuseroc Wrote:  

(07-26-2020 10:49 AM)XLance Wrote:  The wishy-washy suggestions from the scientists at the beginning of the outbreak created a lot of confusion.
When the leading expert can be quoted as saying "go ahead and go on a cruise" or "you don't need to wear a mask" only to reverse course a week or month later, nobody can be certain of being told the truth if there really is one.
1-the Chinese are responsible for creating and spreading the virus
2-politics in the US have hampered efforts and if it weren't an election year, we may have seen a greater level of cooperation among politicians.

I mis-typed. It is correct to blame China for the virus. But not for the spread in the US. Politics can be blamed for whats going on in Florida, Texas Arizona etc..

I doubt China created the virus based on the information i have read, but it probably did make the jump from animals to humans there. I think China probably could have warned the world earlier and taken steps to contain it earlier. It is crazy how this whole covid-19 became politicized because the virus does not care about politics. It just goes to show you how out of hand politics are. It is wrong for politicians to politicize this.

What cool-aid have you been drinking?
The "bat" that the virus supposedly jumped from in the wet market can not be found living within 1,000 miles of Whuhan. You want us to believe some Chinese farmer was trucking bat meat over 1,000 miles just to sell for pennies? Not to mention that the Chinese government has a lab to create biological weapons just a few blocks from that meat market in Whuhan where they (the Chinese Government) claim the virus came from.
The Chinese government allowed travel from Whuhan to other parts of the world but not to Beijing. They locked people in Whuhan in their homes without food and water to kill off the virus.
You had better wake up and realize what type of enemy you are dealing with.
Grab a book and check out what Stalin did to his own people.
It's why people are running through our streets trying to eradicate history, and our University indoctrinated population is too stupid to realize what is actually happening as their "leaders" and the media want to blame everything on politics.

I read some articles from scientists with the WHO that thought it was unlikely it was a man made virus based on its genetic sequencing. There is going to be a study over the origin of the coronavirus coming up and China agreed to the study as all the countries in the world want to find out so I guess we will see. I am not a scientist so I am only believing what I read.

China will agree to cooperate as long as China can spin the evidence to take blame away from them.

(07-26-2020 08:24 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(07-26-2020 06:49 PM)cuseroc Wrote:  

(07-26-2020 02:24 PM)XLance Wrote:  

(07-26-2020 02:04 PM)cuseroc Wrote:  

(07-26-2020 10:54 AM)TexanMark Wrote:  Agreed

Putting our PPE supply chain under control of China was a huge culprit. Dems and Repubs both have blood on their hands. Never again but American's must be willing to pay more.

China is maturing so fast as an industrialized nation, and their economy is growing so fast that in a decade or so, it may not be economically feasible to buy much of anything there. We will have to find some other emerging nation to do business with.

Or start making everything ourselves.
College is no longer the golden ticket to success.
If trade unions would function more like guilds in preparing workers for a career, workers income could easily match that of any college educated person, and restore the middle class.
We must be prepared to consume less and pay a little more to keep our money at home instead of financing world growth only to have it turned back on us.

This I totally agree with. The wealthiest and most powerful country in the history of the world should not have to depend on any other nation to manufacture medical items, PPE, pharmaceuticals etc... or any other items that are important to the well being of its citizens.

The really stupid and inexcusable part is that we entrusted a former adversary (Korea/VietNam) with this important task and did so at a time when they were already threatening our allies in Japan and India. It is merely insane!

In an interesting and very timely development, It was announced yesterday that the federal government gave Kodak a $765 million dollar loan to start a new venture, Kodak Pharmaceuticals, making the ingredients to manufacture generic drugs here in the US. Right now 90% of our generic drugs are made in places like China and India etc... Within a couple of years they want Kodak to be making at least 25% in the US. For those who may not know, Kodak has a subsidiary called Eastman Chemicals, a very large chemical manufacturing company. So it would be a natural fit for Kodak, even though initially it doesnt sound like a good fit.

(07-28-2020 01:22 AM)tj_2009 Wrote:  

(07-27-2020 07:54 PM)Pervis_Griffith Wrote:  

(07-27-2020 01:24 AM)tj_2009 Wrote:  

(07-26-2020 09:21 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(07-26-2020 08:51 PM)Statefan Wrote:  I think there is a guy in Moscow who once said "The Capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them.”

When the profit of the corporation is more important than national interest or personal interest you get our current situation. In the long run, economics is not very different from physics and eventually you run against the limits of a closed system.


The saving grace is that China has Russia on one boarder and India on the other and a destabilized population pyramid that is rapidly aging their overall population. While they can **** with us, they can't bring us down and they have their own issues.


The real shame is the 40-50 million Americans living in emptying rural areas waiting for someone to come along and bring economic development. The bit into a Faustian bargain and anchored themselves to dying areas, losing the relative wealth of their nest egg late in life, trapping them in place. So many young, suburban/urban people do not comprehend why so many of these rural people are red assed mad. On top of that those trapped don't always articulate or fully understand the trap they are in.

I have people like this on both sides of the family, living in rural areas and waiting for the government to bring a new factory. They own the land their house is on so they think they have an asset rather than understanding what they have is an anchor. They "played by the rules" and got screwed. Over time they gravitate toward stupid conspiracy theory bull **** because it's better to feel like someone targeted you instead of you being screwed because you didn't understand the system.

In the times we are in right now, those rural people are in better position to survive than you are. And China has a credible nuclear threat. Logistics are against them, but you never know what a cornered dragon will do. And Statefan, the ones who are targeted are the ones in debt up to their eyeballs just to keep up with their neighbors in burbs, but make just enough from their white collar jobs to keep their nostrils above water as they live paycheck to paycheck.

There are always two sides to every coin and most times it just depends on which side you call. Those rural folks will be eating when the city folks aren't.

I have friends in both situations. Some of them do draw down six figures but spend their last nickel just keeping up appearances and one of them confessed to me he can't afford to retire until he is 75 because he had kids late in life. The ones that live in the sticks are mostly happy. They hunt and fish and farm and log and the highlight of their week is going to Church and listening to the gossip. Their big issue is having an affair when they get bored and by doing so in a small town everybody knows including the spouses and then a world of hurt comes down on them. But if they can avoid that they live quite well, and don't really worry about what you have or don't have in your urban environment.

What they are hurting from truly is lack of decent healthcare without driving to the city. The mortality in my old home town is now too frequent from 55 to 65 and most of that is lack of primary care physicians to spot problems on routine check ups that might have led to treatments that would have prevented early death. And that development is relatively recent, like the last 20 years.

But hey if you check into big city hospital the third shift nursing crew that doesn't speak English just might give you the wrong meds.

You pays your money and you take your chances.

Health Care is a problem that this country needs to fix. It is not right for people to work their whole lives and then have to go bankrupt because they get diagnosed with diabetes or cancer. I don't know why they can't bring in health care like in
Canada or the UK or Australia or Germany. Its not rocket science we should just copy what those countries do to have a good health care system. In case anyone was wondering I am not a left wing radical but actually a fiscal conservative. The US spends more on health care than any country in the world and its not even close.
It would be much cheaper to have a single payer health care system.

Uhh ... WRONG.

The ONLY reason single payer works at all in Canada, is that Canada borders the US, where affluent Canadians can avoid the long waiting periods for routine health care, and go south to get things like MRI's done.

If you want to destroy the actual health care we get from doctors and nurses, then by all means ... push for single payer.

The affluent can always get their medical care done anywhere. I was reading that a lot of the sheiks in Saudi Arabia come to the US for health care.

Which reminds me ...

When Mick Jagger needed life saving heart surgery, did he have that in his home country Great Britain with it's wonderful single payer health care?

Uh nope ...

He came to Florida to have his life saved.

Single Payer is a freakin' disaster.

(07-29-2020 05:45 PM)Pervis_Griffith Wrote:  

(07-28-2020 01:22 AM)tj_2009 Wrote:  

(07-27-2020 07:54 PM)Pervis_Griffith Wrote:  

(07-27-2020 01:24 AM)tj_2009 Wrote:  

(07-26-2020 09:21 PM)JRsec Wrote:  In the times we are in right now, those rural people are in better position to survive than you are. And China has a credible nuclear threat. Logistics are against them, but you never know what a cornered dragon will do. And Statefan, the ones who are targeted are the ones in debt up to their eyeballs just to keep up with their neighbors in burbs, but make just enough from their white collar jobs to keep their nostrils above water as they live paycheck to paycheck.

There are always two sides to every coin and most times it just depends on which side you call. Those rural folks will be eating when the city folks aren't.

I have friends in both situations. Some of them do draw down six figures but spend their last nickel just keeping up appearances and one of them confessed to me he can't afford to retire until he is 75 because he had kids late in life. The ones that live in the sticks are mostly happy. They hunt and fish and farm and log and the highlight of their week is going to Church and listening to the gossip. Their big issue is having an affair when they get bored and by doing so in a small town everybody knows including the spouses and then a world of hurt comes down on them. But if they can avoid that they live quite well, and don't really worry about what you have or don't have in your urban environment.

What they are hurting from truly is lack of decent healthcare without driving to the city. The mortality in my old home town is now too frequent from 55 to 65 and most of that is lack of primary care physicians to spot problems on routine check ups that might have led to treatments that would have prevented early death. And that development is relatively recent, like the last 20 years.

But hey if you check into big city hospital the third shift nursing crew that doesn't speak English just might give you the wrong meds.

You pays your money and you take your chances.

Health Care is a problem that this country needs to fix. It is not right for people to work their whole lives and then have to go bankrupt because they get diagnosed with diabetes or cancer. I don't know why they can't bring in health care like in
Canada or the UK or Australia or Germany. Its not rocket science we should just copy what those countries do to have a good health care system. In case anyone was wondering I am not a left wing radical but actually a fiscal conservative. The US spends more on health care than any country in the world and its not even close.
It would be much cheaper to have a single payer health care system.

Uhh ... WRONG.

The ONLY reason single payer works at all in Canada, is that Canada borders the US, where affluent Canadians can avoid the long waiting periods for routine health care, and go south to get things like MRI's done.

If you want to destroy the actual health care we get from doctors and nurses, then by all means ... push for single payer.

The affluent can always get their medical care done anywhere. I was reading that a lot of the sheiks in Saudi Arabia come to the US for health care.

Which reminds me ...

When Mick Jagger needed life saving heart surgery, did he have that in his home country Great Britain with it's wonderful single payer health care?

Uh nope ...

He came to Florida to have his life saved.

Single Payer is a freakin' disaster.

I don't blame him, if you have the money go for the best. There are definately flaws with single payer health care but for a lot of the mundane stuff it works well.
Single Payer health care actually helps American companies a lot because instead of the companies having to pay for health care for the employees, the health care is paid for by the government so these companies do not have to have these costs on their balance sheet. From that perspective it is really beneficial financially for any company with staff in the US. Now whether the corporations actually pay this back into society or just pocket the profits is another story but it certainly helps the companies balance sheets.

(07-29-2020 05:28 PM)cuseroc Wrote:  

(07-26-2020 08:24 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(07-26-2020 06:49 PM)cuseroc Wrote:  

(07-26-2020 02:24 PM)XLance Wrote:  

(07-26-2020 02:04 PM)cuseroc Wrote:  China is maturing so fast as an industrialized nation, and their economy is growing so fast that in a decade or so, it may not be economically feasible to buy much of anything there. We will have to find some other emerging nation to do business with.

Or start making everything ourselves.
College is no longer the golden ticket to success.
If trade unions would function more like guilds in preparing workers for a career, workers income could easily match that of any college educated person, and restore the middle class.
We must be prepared to consume less and pay a little more to keep our money at home instead of financing world growth only to have it turned back on us.

This I totally agree with. The wealthiest and most powerful country in the history of the world should not have to depend on any other nation to manufacture medical items, PPE, pharmaceuticals etc... or any other items that are important to the well being of its citizens.

The really stupid and inexcusable part is that we entrusted a former adversary (Korea/VietNam) with this important task and did so at a time when they were already threatening our allies in Japan and India. It is merely insane!

In an interesting and very timely development, It was announced yesterday that the federal government gave Kodak a $765 million dollar loan to start a new venture, Kodak Pharmaceuticals, making the ingredients to manufacture generic drugs here in the US. Right now 90% of our generic drugs are made in places like China and India etc... Within a couple of years they want Kodak to be making at least 25% in the US. For those who may not know, Kodak has a subsidiary called Eastman Chemicals, a very large chemical manufacturing company. So it would be a natural fit for Kodak, even though initially it doesnt sound like a good fit.

I agree that it was a good idea for the Federal Government to do this because during the Covid-19 shutdown, China and India stopped all exports of certain materials to make generic drugs to any country. Incidently, it was a very beneficial week for shareholders of Kodak as it went from $2 to $44 in 2 days and now it is down to $29.
Who says you need casinos to gamble.

(07-28-2020 07:37 AM)TexanMark Wrote:  

(07-28-2020 01:04 AM)tj_2009 Wrote:  

(07-27-2020 04:39 AM)XLance Wrote:  

(07-27-2020 01:05 AM)tj_2009 Wrote:  

(07-26-2020 12:26 PM)cuseroc Wrote:  I mis-typed. It is correct to blame China for the virus. But not for the spread in the US. Politics can be blamed for whats going on in Florida, Texas Arizona etc..

I doubt China created the virus based on the information i have read, but it probably did make the jump from animals to humans there. I think China probably could have warned the world earlier and taken steps to contain it earlier. It is crazy how this whole covid-19 became politicized because the virus does not care about politics. It just goes to show you how out of hand politics are. It is wrong for politicians to politicize this.

What cool-aid have you been drinking?
The "bat" that the virus supposedly jumped from in the wet market can not be found living within 1,000 miles of Whuhan. You want us to believe some Chinese farmer was trucking bat meat over 1,000 miles just to sell for pennies? Not to mention that the Chinese government has a lab to create biological weapons just a few blocks from that meat market in Whuhan where they (the Chinese Government) claim the virus came from.
The Chinese government allowed travel from Whuhan to other parts of the world but not to Beijing. They locked people in Whuhan in their homes without food and water to kill off the virus.
You had better wake up and realize what type of enemy you are dealing with.
Grab a book and check out what Stalin did to his own people.
It's why people are running through our streets trying to eradicate history, and our University indoctrinated population is too stupid to realize what is actually happening as their "leaders" and the media want to blame everything on politics.

I read some articles from scientists with the WHO that thought it was unlikely it was a man made virus based on its genetic sequencing. There is going to be a study over the origin of the coronavirus coming up and China agreed to the study as all the countries in the world want to find out so I guess we will see. I am not a scientist so I am only believing what I read.

China will agree to cooperate as long as China can spin the evidence to take blame away from them.

I don't doubt this but there are a lot of countries that will be watching this and if they feel that China is hiding something, I would not be surprised if they decide to try and punish China with some trade sanctions or start to move some of the supply chains to friendlier countries.

(07-28-2020 04:19 AM)XLance Wrote:  

(07-28-2020 01:04 AM)tj_2009 Wrote:  

(07-27-2020 04:39 AM)XLance Wrote:  

(07-27-2020 01:05 AM)tj_2009 Wrote:  

(07-26-2020 12:26 PM)cuseroc Wrote:  I mis-typed. It is correct to blame China for the virus. But not for the spread in the US. Politics can be blamed for whats going on in Florida, Texas Arizona etc..

I doubt China created the virus based on the information i have read, but it probably did make the jump from animals to humans there. I think China probably could have warned the world earlier and taken steps to contain it earlier. It is crazy how this whole covid-19 became politicized because the virus does not care about politics. It just goes to show you how out of hand politics are. It is wrong for politicians to politicize this.

What cool-aid have you been drinking?
The "bat" that the virus supposedly jumped from in the wet market can not be found living within 1,000 miles of Whuhan. You want us to believe some Chinese farmer was trucking bat meat over 1,000 miles just to sell for pennies? Not to mention that the Chinese government has a lab to create biological weapons just a few blocks from that meat market in Whuhan where they (the Chinese Government) claim the virus came from.
The Chinese government allowed travel from Whuhan to other parts of the world but not to Beijing. They locked people in Whuhan in their homes without food and water to kill off the virus.
You had better wake up and realize what type of enemy you are dealing with.
Grab a book and check out what Stalin did to his own people.
It's why people are running through our streets trying to eradicate history, and our University indoctrinated population is too stupid to realize what is actually happening as their "leaders" and the media want to blame everything on politics.

I read some articles from scientists with the WHO that thought it was unlikely it was a man made virus based on its genetic sequencing. There is going to be a study over the origin of the coronavirus coming up and China agreed to the study as all the countries in the world want to find out so I guess we will see. I am not a scientist so I am only believing what I read.

The WHO has become a puppet of the Chinese Communist Party and has become a wealth of misinformation. There is a reason the US decided to withhold funding the WHO this year.

I have not read up enough about the WHO but they are really under a lot of scrutiny now so other countries will be watching and making their own decisions about what they think. It will be interesting to see what other countries do, although politically it is not the best time to do it, during a pandemic.

(07-31-2020 12:01 AM)tj_2009 Wrote:  

(07-28-2020 07:37 AM)TexanMark Wrote:  

(07-28-2020 01:04 AM)tj_2009 Wrote:  

(07-27-2020 04:39 AM)XLance Wrote:  

(07-27-2020 01:05 AM)tj_2009 Wrote:  I doubt China created the virus based on the information i have read, but it probably did make the jump from animals to humans there. I think China probably could have warned the world earlier and taken steps to contain it earlier. It is crazy how this whole covid-19 became politicized because the virus does not care about politics. It just goes to show you how out of hand politics are. It is wrong for politicians to politicize this.

What cool-aid have you been drinking?
The "bat" that the virus supposedly jumped from in the wet market can not be found living within 1,000 miles of Whuhan. You want us to believe some Chinese farmer was trucking bat meat over 1,000 miles just to sell for pennies? Not to mention that the Chinese government has a lab to create biological weapons just a few blocks from that meat market in Whuhan where they (the Chinese Government) claim the virus came from.
The Chinese government allowed travel from Whuhan to other parts of the world but not to Beijing. They locked people in Whuhan in their homes without food and water to kill off the virus.
You had better wake up and realize what type of enemy you are dealing with.
Grab a book and check out what Stalin did to his own people.
It's why people are running through our streets trying to eradicate history, and our University indoctrinated population is too stupid to realize what is actually happening as their "leaders" and the media want to blame everything on politics.

I read some articles from scientists with the WHO that thought it was unlikely it was a man made virus based on its genetic sequencing. There is going to be a study over the origin of the coronavirus coming up and China agreed to the study as all the countries in the world want to find out so I guess we will see. I am not a scientist so I am only believing what I read.

China will agree to cooperate as long as China can spin the evidence to take blame away from them.

I don't doubt this but there are a lot of countries that will be watching this and if they feel that China is hiding something, I would not be surprised if they decide to try and punish China with some trade sanctions or start to move some of the supply chains to friendlier countries.

Thankfully we have already put trade sanctions on China.
I imagine the US and many other countries will start to cancel debt with China to reclaim some of the Trillions lost because of the Chinese Communist Party.

(07-31-2020 05:03 AM)XLance Wrote:  

(07-31-2020 12:01 AM)tj_2009 Wrote:  

(07-28-2020 07:37 AM)TexanMark Wrote:  

(07-28-2020 01:04 AM)tj_2009 Wrote:  

(07-27-2020 04:39 AM)XLance Wrote:  What cool-aid have you been drinking?
The "bat" that the virus supposedly jumped from in the wet market can not be found living within 1,000 miles of Whuhan. You want us to believe some Chinese farmer was trucking bat meat over 1,000 miles just to sell for pennies? Not to mention that the Chinese government has a lab to create biological weapons just a few blocks from that meat market in Whuhan where they (the Chinese Government) claim the virus came from.
The Chinese government allowed travel from Whuhan to other parts of the world but not to Beijing. They locked people in Whuhan in their homes without food and water to kill off the virus.
You had better wake up and realize what type of enemy you are dealing with.
Grab a book and check out what Stalin did to his own people.
It's why people are running through our streets trying to eradicate history, and our University indoctrinated population is too stupid to realize what is actually happening as their "leaders" and the media want to blame everything on politics.

I read some articles from scientists with the WHO that thought it was unlikely it was a man made virus based on its genetic sequencing. There is going to be a study over the origin of the coronavirus coming up and China agreed to the study as all the countries in the world want to find out so I guess we will see. I am not a scientist so I am only believing what I read.

China will agree to cooperate as long as China can spin the evidence to take blame away from them.

I don't doubt this but there are a lot of countries that will be watching this and if they feel that China is hiding something, I would not be surprised if they decide to try and punish China with some trade sanctions or start to move some of the supply chains to friendlier countries.

Thankfully we have already put trade sanctions on China.
I imagine the US and many other countries will start to cancel debt with China to reclaim some of the Trillions lost because of the Chinese Communist Party.

I think more countries will doing more to secure their own supply chains after the Pandemic has shown that there is too much reliance on China.