Not only a smaller population, but a more unified one. After WWII there was a notable "collective consensus" in the country, that never appeared in the USA, and thus we set up so much infrastructure differently in the USA, it'll be hard to have a transformation

We can start by discontinuing building of tanks, F15's and other useless shit we just sell off too countries in Africa and South America at a net loss.

@brainbomb

what? when? SOURCE???

Were negotiating a massive Arms deal with Saudi Arabia worth 1.5 billion. The Chilean Air force is all old US fighter jets we sold to them in the 1980's.

If you're talking about Uganda trying to buy military jets:

1. if we ARE selling them then there's huge profit here
2. American government isn't selling them as far as i can see
3. SOURCE!!!

i'm not disbelieving you, i just have no idea wtf you're talking about

Russia does it too. But it doesnt mean that just because you sell obsolete shit to people that you arent still eating a net loss in revenue.

@brainbomb

hahahaha 1980s we did a LOT worse than helping Chile... PS look up the Chile Miracle

and holy shit i looked it up you're right DAMNIT GOVERNMENT STOP GIVING THEM WEAPONS

and the Saudi stuff isn't obsolete!!!

Capitalism failed miserably in Chile

Um... it was great until the center left raised the minimum wage by 17%, and made a 210% increase in social spending.

up until then unemployment had dropped from 20% to around 8%. after that the whole system fell apart.

Chile is in desperate need of educatiom reform. We pretty much just told them what to do and killed their leader.

@brainbomb

we didn't kill their leader, he was voted out in a Plebiscite. Then they turned to democratization, they swung the pendulum too far with socialist policies, crippled their economy, democracy began to sell out, and now they're here.

i'm not sure what you're arguing about

@JamesYanik

I concede to you that I gave a streamlined assessment which did not account for several factors. And I acknowledge that the entirety of the US health care costs covers dramatically more than what the NHS covers. That being said, the United States spends dramatically more per person on health care than any other industrialized country. There are numerous reasons for this. And one of the big ones is that health insurance companies need to look out for the interests of their shareholders. I am not as familiar with NHS as some but I believe its mandate is to ensure the health of the British people more than it is to increase revenue.

In addition I believe that your original math was misleading as it quoted 320 million Americans that would need to be covered. Many millions of Americans are already covered by medicare and medicaid, which is already partially subsidized medicine. You should subtract some of that money before comparing costs to the military budget.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/southamerica/chile/8553069/Death-of-Chiles-President-Salvador-Allende-may-not-have-been-suicide.html

Yanik, its awfully naive to assume that the US didnt have any involvement in replacing Allende. Considering our assassinations of Guevara and other pro-communist key players in South and Central America from the 1960s - Present. Some even speculate we contributed to Hugo Chavez's cancer. The US has been playing sandbox with the whole world for decades instead of giving back to its taxpayers.

Im simply arguing that when you tally up 40 years of overblown military industrial complex surely we should have gained 'SOMETHING' globally by now for all this warfare. Instead were just disliked, we have no NHS, no free tuition, a growing wealth gap, and zero revenue from any of the wars since WWII (where we actually sold war bonds to help fund it)

I realize this may be a bad example since its a video game. but when you invade someone in say Civilization, you typically at least make a profit off of your conquest. You tend to not make much money, or do very well in the game without wealth extraction or full on occupation. Seeing as how these types of warfare are typically condemned in the modern era, (Unless you are Russia then you can just reclaim whatever former soviet lands you want apparently.) can anyone tell me what the point is of building more tanks and fighter jets every year? Who are we planning to invade next?

Anyone who thinks we need more jets and tanks and battleships to defend the homeland is crazy, have you SEEN how many guns this population has? there is zero chance in hell a foreign country would ever have the manpower or patience to try to invade us.

@brainbomb

we''re talking about two different guys, i meant Pinochet, sorry for the confusion

@jengamaster

the problem with saying that healthcare companies are just trying to get money for shareholders: IS THAT THEY'RE PUBLIC STOCKS!

so when these companies press for profits: buy stocks.

Then you make dividends, and you can use that money to pay for healthcare. It's not like these companies are forcing you NOT to invest in their stocks.

Also, the only situations where healthcare costs are going up in the USA, are areas where competition is LOW due to Government policies preventing competition. Competition between companies forces them to move down closer to equilibrium price.


And NHS exists among MANY regional authorities in Britain, that report to the central administration. Thus if we were to have an NHS in the US: we'd need one for each county, to keep up the same level of efficiency.

THAT i'm all for

right, we installed Pinochet essentially. he was a veritable US puppet to prevent communism spreading. At the time Chile was becoming very pro-social democracy. I found a great documentary on this one time, I almost moved to Chile in 2011 to teach English in Santiago.

I cant find the original but, look at what Milton Friedman style economic theory has done for this country in just 20 years.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=st1e7em-wjE

@JamesYanik

I am aware of how the stock market works. However I am unsure if your argument to buy stocks and use the dividends of said stocks to pay for their healthcare is sarcasm or not.

If it is not sarcasm I was curious, how much do you think an investor would have to have invested in said stocks before he or she was able to rely on the dividends of these stocks in order to pay for their healthcare? For what percentage of the population is this a feasible suggestion?

http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster/2016-general-election-trump-vs-clinton

The debates have widened Hillary's lead in the General to 7 points. Additionally Hillary shows favorable gains in Florida, Nevada, Colorado, and New Mexico since Sept. Her lead in Pennsylvania is pushing it to no longer even being a swing state.

With only 1 debate remaining, and Trump having basically thrown every punch he has into last night, calling for her to be jailed (it would be pretty hard to be more on the attack than that); how exactly can Trump convince people not already on his bandwagon to join him?

He would need to hope there is some scandal on Hillary at this point, or something significant. perhaps he releases his tax returns and we find out he's been a honest businessman working hard all along. I guess I just wonder if the third debate can even save this for him at this point.

@jengamaster

sorry i do suck at sarcasm, i was actually trying to quote something Krellin said in a different thread, that was by no means a real argument.

My main objection to high healthcare prices is how ridiculously hard it is for competition to arise, which hurts small businesses in the industry, and leads to price manipulation.


@brainbomb

1. Yeah Hillary's really pulling away now, if she doesn't screw up: disaster averted.

2. I just now saw your civilization argument, and that is laughable. America is based off of the ideals of wealth creation, rather than outdated Mercantilism. Civilization (the game Lol) is a horrible example to how real life works.

3. And as of right now, I think more of military spending needs to be channeled into intelligence sectors, rather than creating more 'wartime capital' if ya know what i mean. However, I see it as very possible that within the next 50 years or so we may need to revamp our military.

@brainbomb

also the wealth inequality in Chile, is a very complicated issue. Immediately after 73, there was a large economic crisis, and nearly everyone was poor. The rich in that country either lost big, or fled to neighboring country.

thus there was very little income inequality.

Then the Chicago Boys came in, they used large amounts of labor and a free market to immediately revamp the economy. The inflation the had been occurring died down, wages and income went up for ALL class strata, and yes the top benefited. Then at the turn of the decade, they started to democratize.

Everything was going amazingly.

But the politicians they got in, were not the best. Many had been former communists, many had been corrupt under old regimes. They increased social spending over 200%, and they did so by printing TONS of money. Inflation occurred, while wages couldn't keep up in Real value, so the poor suffered. The people who had become rich were able to hold onto their wealth, and eventually they sold out and now corruption reigns supreme.

It wasn't the initial economic policy of Friedman that led to income inequality, it was government that started it.

Good points yanik. I must confess I do not believe Friedman economics to actually work. I am skeptical of free market ideals as we have zero successful examples.

@brainbomb

Friedman is the most idealistic conservative, he believed that interest rates should be set at Zero for maximum economic output. While this works very well on paper, there are other factors that negate this.

Even Friedman admitted these outside factors made his theory less practical in real life, but he still believed that it was a good basic model to compare our current economy/government relations to.

I still cannot shake this strange feeling that this whole botched Trump run for Presidency was a stunt to demolish the Republican party and help Hillary win.

Even in the debate it felt like he was acting delibarately like this was a joke. Parroting Hillary for Prison, calling her satan, and wandering the stage.

@TrPrado has the same conspiracy

it was very odd both candidates had so little positive to say on the final question wasnt trump at chelseas wedding? Didnt trump donate to Hillarys senate runs?