Stubborn America, can they not learn?

Recently I have noticed that when reading articles and such online that the USA just seems to be so backwards. The politics seems strange and there seems to be so many circumstances where they fall behind the rest of the world and are opposed to changing their ways.

So many examples, but things like gun control. Why does America have such lax gun laws? There are no other first world countries that have laws like these (a right to guns??) and crime rates seem to be lower. Even in places like New Zealand, the cops have limited access to firearms.


Health system: Apparently a good portion of Americans don’t seem to think a government health system would work. According to what I’ve read, America spends at least double what every other country spends on healthcare, but has a LOWER life expectancy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_compared#Cross-country_comparisons

Death penalty: Very few countries in the developed world use capital punishment, and America still has a high crime rate?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use_of_capital_punishment_by_nation

Gay marriage/ rights: Almost every country allows gays to serve in the military without issue. The majority have either marriage or civil unions. (Not Australia though)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Same-sex_marriage_legislation_around_the_world

Why do you think that America tries to do things its own ways and refuses to learn from other countries that are just as successful?

 

Well, if you haven't realized yet politics is a game. These questions can't be answered by any politician, in order to play the game correctly. By answering any of these questions you've already lost a percentage of votes. The objective of the game is not to better the country, but how to get more votes. Which is why politics is stupid and can't be argued rationally.

 

I'm Australian, and I don't think you should be criticising the Americans. They are the ones that are protecting us from the Koreans/Russians.
I see you are from New Zealand and with such a small population, you would be wiped out almost instantly if they were non-existent.

I support the Death Penalty because they believe that people who commit such vicious crimes should also be a victim to death.

Thanks..

 

You'd think a politician who said "this is what works, it works there, there and there. Let's do it" would persuade people do vote a certain way?

Wait, what? I didn't really critisise the way the great America protects everyone from those dirty filthy Russians and sneaky Koreans (especially the troublesome northern variety)...

But seriously, this has nothing to do with my post.

 

Simple answer? Highly religious Christians. Gun control in the U.S. is a terrible idea, to be honest. The country is massive and guns are very necessary in multiple parts of it and hunting is always something that people are going to want to do. Life expectancy is lowered greatly by obesity and people being morons and listening to lying politicians. Death penalty is not used throughout the country anymore. The ban on gays serving in the army is going to be or has been removed. It was on the news recently. I don't know what came of it though.

 

Absolutely not, lets take gun control laws for example, by stating you want stricter gun control laws. You've already lost most of your support from people that are in such groups as the NRA. A blow that no politician wants to take.

No question can be answered directly in politics for that such reason.

 

Listen, it isn't the government's fault. America has a great crime system. It's the criminals fault. Gov't can't control the actions of the people, we aren't communist

 

America's not perfect, but calling it backwards is just foolish. The United States has one of the strongest economies in the world with a very high GDP per capital. On the other hand, I agree with you on that guns need to be more regulated; i believe that this is the main causation of all the high crime rates.

The rest of the issues are played by politics. Gay marriage rights and the death penalty are extremely controversial and politicians that take a bias stance could suffer losing an election.

The health system also needs to be cleverly devised. A blind step towards reforming a multi billion dollar policy could potentially threaten the well being of the country.

Nothing is perfect, but I'm pretty sure the flaws will even out sooner or later.

 

America is going backwards. America is now ran as a corporation, not a country. The U.S economy is worse then ever before and America is literally in trillions of debt: http://www.usdebtclock.org/ saying america isn't going backwards is foolish.

 

According to macroeconomists, government budget deficits are not necessarily a bad thing. Fiscal and Monetary policies could easily be used to alleviate the deficit, but America chooses not to, since it could plunge the whole economy into a deeper recession or into a permanent depression (if anyone was foolish enough to let hyperinflation take place by placing unnecessary inflation taxes). The increase in deficit actually means that there is an increase in government spending which raises the GDP and helps the economy. Don't let the numbers fool you, many other countries are high in deficits as well; as long as the government budget balances out in the long run, no big risks are visualized. Also, since the United States has such a high GDP, American can afford having more debt, since the debt-GDP ratio is actually what assesses the ability of the government to pay their deficits off.

 

sources?

How would current fiscal policies be eased on? the u.s government is acting on an expansionary stance, spending more than tax revenue. in the fiscal year 2008, deficits increased to $455 billion and are projected to increase because of the remains of the recession and an expansionary government stance. with recently passed bills (healthcare), business bail-outs and impending tax breaks i don't see deficits decreasing in the near future...

As for monetary policies, interest rates still continue to climb. Unemployment rates in november increased on the previous month from 9.6% to 9.8%. Seems like its on a contractionary policy, which doesnt work well when fiscal policies are expansionary.

we are in a pretty deep depression right now according to the statistics, so why can't these policy stances be altered to "easily be used to alleviate the deficit" now?

The GDP to U.S debt ratio is worsening though...
it's not going to balance out in the long run with things being managed they way they are.. ireland was in a deficit look at whats happening to them

The US debt to GDP ratio is worse than it was during the great depression. (http://www.dailymarkets.com/economy...io-is-now-worse-than-in-the-great-depression/) How does this mean america can afford to have more debt?


Also, did you see the citigroup memo leak? Some interesting stuff.

 

I will argue that the system in the USA is highly broken. Money determines outcomes of every political debate on every side. For example, the lobbies for gun rights and against government health care are among the largest in America, and thats why gun rights issues are never touched and single payer and public option health care lost although the public wanted these in over whelming majorities. The politicians gain a large percent of campaign contributions from lobbyists and are inclined to vote in favor of legislation which they like in order to get more contributions to get reelected, rather than to do what is the right thing. The politicians work for their donors, not for the American people. The majority of the government officials act in their own self interest, only a small amount are principled.

For more evidence on the self-interest effect, look at the BP oil spill in the gulf. It seemed completely logical for Obama to stop all oil to be drilled in the gulf for a specific time period in order to fix the problems and to put in safety measures. (Almost all the companies which drilled were from Europe and Asia and shipped the oil there anyway) The motion by the president was ruled unconstitutional by a federal judge on the bases of "saying the government never justified the ban and appeared to mislead the public in the wake of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill."

You can argue for or against the ban, but if you look deeply into the judge, you will see that he was heavily invested in stocks, bonds and securities of all of the oil companies and would have lost hundreds of thousands, if not more if the ban was in place. Obama didn't even try to appeal it since he too has had many contributions from big oil.

You can also look at congress and how they acted in punishing BP. They tried to make it an easy process and attempted to use federal funds to help in any way possible. These congressmen have received large amounts of money from BP and other oil companies.

I don't think Americans are backwards, just the political system is. The people in charge will do things in favor for the people who pay them, which might be something that is regressive or hurtful to America.

 

No sources. Everything is from my head.

But regarding to aspects of fiscal and monetary policies, "alleviating the deficit" isn't necessary; however, I do agree that these policies should be used to expand the economy as of right now, which is what I believe the United States is trying to achieve. Once we hit the trough of the recession, the economic boom would allow the economy to naturally require less government spending.

As of now, the unemployment rate is hovering at around 10% (with no signs of escalating increases). Small fluctuations are a natural process, so the minute .2% increase does not indicate any heavy signs of risk.

Total debt accounts for ALL debt, including the debt of the people (mortgages of houses, credit card bills, bank loans.. etc), which the government is not responsible for. Instead, we should be looking at national debt; as of now it is at $13 trillion, but nearly 50% of that hefty sum is due to public debt ( this includes social security and health care programs such as medicaid and medicare). However, I do agree that the health care should be further reformed until it signifies an efficient system; once public debt is taken out of account, the debt-GDP ratio wouldn't seem so catastrophic anymore.


As for the link you provided, the author of that excerpt seems to be a vigilante extremist for his crazy exaggerations. Stating that the United States is on the verge of defaulting on debt is just ridiculous; if a country defaults on debt, they are 100% sure they are unable to pay it off, such as cases where countries experience hyperinflation. As of now... human kind will continue to survive.

 

government run health care is the last thing we need
our government does very few things right and putting the health care system in their hands would without a doubt make the system worse

 

I'd like to see people suggest some solutions instead of just pointing out the problems like everyone else.

 

That is not what public health care is, research and discovery is still done by private entities. Private health care is actually ruining the standard of living in America. If you look at my post above, you can apply the self interest effect here as well.

Private health insurance uses 30% of funds for administration costs and the rest on actual health care. Government programs such as insurance for veterans, medicare and medicade have about 3% of the funds for admin costs and the other 97 for health care. Health insurance companies have one goal: profits. If you get hurt/sick, it costs the provider money to pay for the service done. If they are looking for their own self interest, they will want to cut the health care provided and to cancel the people who get sick most often.

A government system wouldn't let people get rejected and would spend more money on actual health care which would make our heath care cheaper and more effective.

 

no... where would the government get that money? oh right the taxpayer so they take our money to spend on health care so we pay less, that doesn't work because we are paying for it anyway

 

America does have some very bad gun laws. My dad and I have a combined total of 16 guns in our gun cabinet. About 6 rifles, 4 shotguns, my dad has a couple pistols from being a state trooper, and he also has an AR - 15 or something like that, its a semi-automatic rifle. But yeah it is actually pretty damn easy to go get a gun here.

 

That mat be true in single payer- but I argue that a public option would be most effective. You are not forced to pay into it and it would be a bill just like your phone, utilities ect. With a public option, private health insurance would still exist and you can have a choice, hence the "public option."

A great example of this is the post office. You have 2 choices when it comes to send a package/mail, the US postal service or a private enterprise such as UPS/FedEX. The post office is substantially cheaper to send a simple letter. They also have an all inclusion policy, where as the private firms do not. Is it cheaper to send a package with UPS to NYC, or the middle of South Dakota? Clearly there are down sides shipping to S. Dakota since it would be more expensive due to the low volume and high amounts of travel. The post office sends a package or letter anywhere in the USA for the same price no matter where a person lives.

Now how does this apply to public option of health care? Both the public and private options would have advantages and disadvantages and would be up to the consumer to choose. There would also bring more competition into the market. The public option would also be fair by not denying or limiting treatment, just like how the post office will not deny service or charge different prices.

 

I think you are missing what I view as the best form of public heath care; there are many forms such as single payer, the recent heath care bill passed and what I am arguing for, a public option. You can see my argument for a public option on the bottom of the first page, and I apologize I was not clear enough in my first post.

I think your argument (tell me if i'm wrong) is against the recent health care bill, and if you are, I agree with you completely. But all types of public health care are not bad, the media did a good job in making it a dirty word.

Medicare is a very effective form of a public option for heath care. Yes, it has its flaws, but people 65+ don't have to use this program, they can easily switch to private insurance. But why don't any seniors do this? Because Medicare is cheaper and more effective.

To go back to the entire argument, I completely agree with you that self- interest increases productivity and outcome, but what is different in health insurance agencies? They are a clear oligopoly since the barriers to enter the market are so high, they are unattainable. If you have cancer and are dropped from your service, were do you turn to? No other private insurance agency will pick you up for the same reason you are dropped, it's because you cost them too much and it is in their self interest to not give you service.
This is why things like police, firemen and the military are not run by private entities. Firemen would charge you to put out a fire, military would cut down on defense ect.