Argentina - another right-wing government teeters on economic crisis

87% of Americans were happy with their health insurance coverage pre-Obama.

Deal with it.

 

What astounds me is that at the time Obamacare was passed, we already had a number social programs we couldn’t pay for. Now, with Obamacare going insolvent, the slackers and misinformed want another, even more expensive and intrusive program, called Universal Healthcare, to replace it. WTF!

If you wonder what happens to a country whose social programs bankrupt it, Venezuela is happening right now. Take a look. Is this your dream of welfare for all, but life for none? Because that’s the inevitable result.

 

Okay googled it and you are mostly correct with the caveat that these polls were pretty dependent on the way the questions were framed. Still, you have a point:

"One poll, taken five months before Obama was inaugurated, did come up with 95 percent satisfaction. But alone among these eight polls, that survey asked participants about the "quality of health care I receive through my (health insurance) plan." While we decided that the wording was close enough to merit inclusion on our list, the modest difference in satisfaction levels may stem from the way the question was phrased. Many people feel more warmly toward their doctors than they do toward their insurers.

So, while one poll with unique wording pegged satisfaction at 95 percent, the average of all relevant polls over a two-year period was eight points lower than what Will cited. However, Will is correct that the levels of satisfaction with one's own health insurance are consistently high. Indeed, they're extraordinarily high, when one considers how rarely surveys find such high levels of agreement among Americans. Since Will portrayed the larger point accurately, even while modestly overstating the number, we rate his comment Mostly True."

https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-...ays-95-percent-people-health-insurance-are-s/

Maybe Americans don't understand all the other options out there:



Or that Americans pay twice as much for healthcare than anyone else in the OECD:

"The U.S. has higher prices for most health care services and prescription drugs, according to available internationally comparable data. Meanwhile, utilization of several services, including physician consultations and hospital stays, is lower than in many comparable countries. Use of some services, such as C-sections and knee replacements, is higher in the U.S. than in similar countries.

Despite having fewer office visits and shorter average hospital stays, the U.S. overall spends twice as much per person on healthcare than do comparable countries.

These charts accompany an analysis showing how prices for health services in the U.S. have grown over time."

https://www.healthsystemtracker.org...he-u-s-compare-to-other-countries/#item-start

Perhaps this is why today, in 2019, 70% of Americans say universal, user-pay healthcare is a top priority in the upcoming election.

Even though Obamacare has huge problems built in, it was largely the only system he could push through congress with all the resistance he faced from the right. Blaming everything on Obama does not change the fact that Republicans have been unable to come up with a workable solution and are only really out to abolish with nothing in place to improve ACA.

 

Free markets, the abandoned ideal. Takes care of the deserving, protects against the fakers and slackers. Sounds perfect.

 

Did you say something about free market?
That ain't it. Kinda blows the premise of your thread out of the water

 

Can you provide any evidence that private, for profit health care can anywhere deliver results more efficiently than all the examples of publicly funded systems around the world.

Takes care of the deserving? You mean the rich, right?

 

I didn't say anything about free markets. That was Starjet. How does his rather inane, Rand-addled flights of fancy render the premise of the thread which is the deteriorating economic situation in Argentina, after all, out of the water?

Can you clarify that in a coherent response? There are no such things as free markets as there are distortions and internal conditions on every supposed market and Argentina bent over to allow foreign investment into the country. Now it is teetering on default.

This is a right-wing government we are talking about that was hailed as "free market reformer."

 

From your opening paragraph

Right-wing President Mauricio Macri, hailed as a free-market reformer

 

Why would this centrally distorted market be right wing?

 

Because he ran on a policy of supposed free market reforms that were supposed to create economic growth and encourage investment. GRI analysis from 2016:

"As the ‘pink tide’ continues to recede in Latin America, few leaders have emerged to such an international welcome quite like Argentina’s Macri has. In a region reeling from economic and political turmoil, his recent election is indicative of a broader wave of political change in the region-away from the left. Meanwhile, his economic policies are demonstrative of the tough and often unpopular steps that Latin American countries need to take in order to return to prosperity on the global stage."

https://globalriskinsights.com/2016/06/mauricio-macri-reform-argentina/

This is the model for compliant right-wing puppet regimes that the IMF likes because they leave the country's assets open to exploitation by international corporations.

It was actually Forbes that called him a "free market reformer" which is by definition, right-wing.

 

The author is using a well-known smear tactic, pick a phony representative of an ideal to muddy morality. As in, if capitalism is so great, what the hell is happening in Argentina. I can assure you, it isn't capitalism.

So again, my question is simple: if he's a capitalist, who is printing the money causing the inflation? I guarantee you, it isn't any free market banking system. Even Trump thinks he's a capitalist, and free marketeer, as he raises tariffs, threatens the Federal Reserve, wants to block immigration, seeks to silence the press, and threatens Amazon and Facebook with government oversight--he's about as capitalistic as the Pope is atheistic.

Obviously, President Mauricio Macri isn't the free market champion and capitalist he presented himself to be. Just another collectivist wrapped in altruism. So what's new? Boo Hoo.

FYI: I am neither left nor right--I'm a radical, an independent, and a free thinker.

Ayn Rand on inflation: "The law of supply and demand is not to be conned. As the supply of money (of claims) increases relative to the supply of tangible assets in the economy, prices must eventually rise. Thus the earnings saved by the productive members of the society lose value in terms of goods. When the economy’s books are finally balanced, one finds that this loss in value represents the goods purchased by the government for welfare or other purposes with the money proceeds of the government bonds financed by bank credit expansion.

In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation. There is no safe store of value. If there were, the government would have to make its holding illegal, as was done in the case of gold."--http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/inflation.html

Simply put: Capitalists don't print money; they create value and expect it in return.

 

If the poor are so frigging poor with nothing to offer but tears and outstretched hands, just what is it that the rich are stealing from them?

 

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Public funds... funds for education, health, public transport, new roads, bridges... infrastructure. Money taken from state is money taken from the people... honestly this is basic basic information... just the fact I have to spell it out for you speaks volumes

 

And just where do those public funds come from? Thin air? Doesn't it have to be created by someone who knows how to make money? And yet, you want to take it from the money makers and give it to the bottomless pit of the ignorant, the incompetent, and the imbecile? And then you squawk when the nation's economy sucks? Hell, it was you socialistic altruists that sucked the life out it, and then pointed the finger and the blame at your victims, the wealth creators. Now, I submit, that is an unmitigated monstrous, evil, rotten, immoral, act of destruction.

And now I ask, how does taking money from the wealth creators and giving it to the wealth devourers going to fuel the good to create a future that is a universe of marvels and wonders? It doesn't happen by magic, it is created by reason, man's mind, and the human mind cannot be forced.

Ayn Rand: "“A rational mind does not work under compulsion; it does not subordinate its grasp of reality to anyone’s orders, directives, or controls; it does not sacrifice its knowledge, its view of the truth, to anyone’s opinions, threats, wishes, plans, or ‘welfare.’ Such a mind may be hampered by others, it may be silenced, proscribed, imprisoned, or destroyed; it cannot be forced; a gun is not an argument. (An example and symbol of this attitude is Galileo.)"https://ari.aynrand.org/blog/2017/1...m-as-the-fundamental-requirement-of-mans-mind

 

The funds were already there $2billion.. .paid to the hedge fund... go back to my post you quoted

 

If this man was a capitalist, he wouldn't be printing money to shut up the whining of the poor.

 

Where did the money for the hedge fund come from? Governments don't make money, individuals do.

 

This guy is a hero. He compelled the government to honor its word. When did that become a sin?

 

jeesus will you use at least one braincell

the money is taxes fees collected from the Argentinian people, paid to the hedge fund who represent rich investors because they need yachts... **** Argentinians who need schools and roads and health services... a yacht is damn expensive they seriously needed that money (to assist your single braincell this is called sarcasm)

 

you are empty.... and vast

 

He's a saint, and you see him as a villain. Why? Because he made the government honor their word? That's what honorable men do.

 

He's an ******* a selfish prick **** of a man who only thinks and lives for himself...may he burn in hell. Have a nice day

 

Well, at least one of my brain cells is functioning, because it makes me pause and wonder: if the Argentinian people are so frigging poor, just where are the taxes coming from? If they are poor, they didn't create enough for the government to loot, so it had to be the wealth creators.

It reminds of the depression: nobody had any food but the government soup kitchens. Where they'd get their food? Bought it? With money from taxpayers? Well, maybe if the state would have kept its hands off of the wealth of private citizens, then, perhaps, the private citizens wouldn't have to run with their hands outstretched to beg the government for food.

 

Yes. He's a selfish prick. That's why he's a saint. Time everyone learns reality is real, and a man's word is only as good as his actions. Voters put in office a politician who tried to defraud investors, and the investors took him to lunch. That's justice. That's morality. That's the good triumphing over evil. That's the citizens reaping what they sowed. Odd you can't see that. Is your reasoning ability malfunctioning?

 

I assure you he won't burn hell, he can afford the price of heaven, he made money. And you are right, he is a selfish prick who defeated the looters and retrieved the wealth that was morally due him. He's a Ragnar Danneskjöld in my book.