Kim Jong Il Dies

Great answer.  Exactly what I suspected.  Let's quickly SHOW YOUR IGNORANCE. 

Yes, I'm the idiot... but at least I'm an educated idiot.  Read a book sometime.  Mix it up a bit.

You know what? It's only so easy to attack me online from some oh-so anonymous computer monitor, but if you were to met and actually talked to me in person (and trust me, there have been a number of QZ'ers that have met me in person, incidentally The Real Wizard among them!) you'd have a harder time attacking me in person ;-)

Anyways, back to your regular topical programming folks...

So you're saying that I started attacking you? 

I'd try Prozac.

Likewise

I shoot it with Bourbon.

Nah, I heard in your case a good shot of Everclear would do just fine

Everclear? 

Well, let me get the boys and some rifles loaded up in the Chevy and head right on over.  I didn't think anybody drank that stuff besides good ol' boys.

This thread has taken wild turns from the death of Kim to a tanning tax in the USA :-)
I am interested in the view that a mandatory health insurance or universal health care is regarded as "socialist" by so many American people - not just Republicans. There has been  already a lot of socialising in the USA - for example the bailout of banks in the 2008 crisis. Profits were private but the losses stayed with the tax payer   - they were "socialised". I never understood why the idea of paying for health care incites so much more resistance in people than the idea of paying for the losses of banks or for wars somewhere else in the world. The costs for the Iraq war alone would perhaps be enough money to pay for the healthcare of all American children for some years. I understand the ultra-liberal position that everybody is only responsible for themselves but somehow I think the world cannot work this way in the 21st century. We are all in the same boat and a civilized nation cannot allow people to have no good medical care because they cannot pay for it but at the same time offer no jobs and pay trillions for debt and wars - after all the debt and wars are also paid with tax money.

I read a lot of strange ideolical ideas about "small government". For example Ron Paul - surely an extreme ultra-liberal - thinks the state cannot tell citizens if they take drugs or not and the state should not interfere in healthcare etc but at the same time he lets his own personal ethics  come into the discussion when it comes to abortion, for example. Strange ideas about what can be regulated and what cannot be regulated by the government. In a society some sort of sharing cannot be helped or else it would not be a society. You always have people who are young and able to work and provide for the food and clothing and you have children and old people who need to be supported because they are too small or too weak to provide for themselves. Therefore we have schools we pay for, we have pensions, nursing homes etc. At some point in our lives we are all at the giving and at the receiving end. We pay taxes but get unemploment money when we lose the job, our children go to state-funded schools and maybe we get a job in an industry that is subsidized by the government (tax money). Only in the stone age the old and the sick tribe members were left behind to die.

Another interesting point is in which way Clinton was responsible for the housing bubble. Surely, he promoted loans for low-income families but then people had more often jobs than they had after Clinton. Clinton was not responsible for the shadow credit market where loans were sold away as assets and he was not responsible for all the other shady money "products" in a deregulated bank system running wild.

Also, Clinton balanced the budget which was amazing and won him unrestricted respect all over the world except the USA where he was impeached over a little sex affair - just incredible. Funnily, Clinton is also a role model for neoliberals in my own country because he balanced the budget mostly at the expense of social security. I think he was even accused of racism when he came up with his ideas to cut down costs for social security. It did work, though and with the economy growing people at least had the chance to get a job and to get back on their feet. As long as unemployment is such a problem social security is a must.

Excellent post.  Again, apologies to Inu-liger if he took this personally.  There's ALWAYS two sides to every coin.... Happy New Year... to everyone, including Kim Jong Who.

[QUOTE][QUOTENAME]YourValentine wrote: [/QUOTENAME] This thread has taken wild turns from the death of Kim to a tanning tax in the USA :-) [/QUOTE]

Hence my attempt to divert it to that topic I created especially for those two over there! ;-)

Say, Microwave. You so happily throw the word "socialist" around. Have you ever read Karl Marx? Because those very, very few right-wingers who have all come to the surprising conclusion that much of Marx's economic views are exactly the same as theirs.

Micrówave wrote:

[QUOTE]When is the last time any nation went exclusively to America for anything substantial that no other nation could provide (besides weapons or materials to manufacture them)?[/QUOTE]

>>South Korea... a few days ago.<<

I said "exclusively" America.

Micrówave wrote:

And even if you support this notion of taxing stuff that is supposed to be bad for you – cigarettes, soda, tanning – the math doesn’t actually add up because the tanning salon industry says the government is overestimating how much revenue the tax will produce.

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Yup, definitely agree with that.

Once again, the solution is to cut defence spending, not to squeeze little bits out here and there.