In article ,
"Robert Green" wrote:

Oh Golly, Pollyanna, is it true that the same American businessmen who made
their fortunes during the horrific uncertainty of the Cold War and the
ever-present threat of Nuclear Winter no longer live and breathe? I hear
this "uncertainty myth" and I ask you to name what "certainties" modern
businesses enjoy today. They have almost no guaranties of any kind. To
make the "uncertainty of health care costs" into the horrible, fearsome
incalcuable uncertainty monster holding the entire US business sector at bay
borders on the ludicrous. I'm just saying . . . (-:
If you can't refute the stats, ridicule them. Works every time.
There is a big difference from the amorphous maybe of a missile strike
and the actual lack of knowledge of what will happen with what is most
people's second biggest expense. Especially in the great unwashed of
those who don't currently have to will past reform.

My employers/companies always paid for health benefits. Since the recent,
mostly manufactured debate on the debt limit centers on "the children" it
seems that taking away their health care at more and more businesses every
day doesn't factor into "robbing their future." Our children should have
better lives than we've led because of the addition of our life's labor to
society. I had employer/company provided healthcare during my life. Why
should the next generation get ripped off? That's how companies can afford
$20M+ salary packages for CEOs - by reducing costs to the bone for everyone
*else* in the company.
Actually the employer paid HC is a large part of the reason we are
in the fix we are. It managed to divorce the user (you and me) from the
costs of healthcare. CMS figures have shown every year that the average
person in America pays less then 20% (topping out at 18%) of all
healthcare expenses out of pocket, and that includes the o-o-p part of
the premium. When things are subsidized to such a great extent, then all
sorts of weird things happen to demand and supply. That and for awhile
(in one of the great ironies of the latter 20th century) it was actually
cheaper to give better health insurance than to actually pay a similar
wage. THis exacerbated the above problems by moving (for awhile anyway)
toward hiding even more of the expenses through low co-pays. We haven't
had health insurance (with insurance defined as taking a rare but
expensive risk and dividing that risk among many people) since the
demise of the old Major Medical policies.



Obviously I am astounded at the idea that businessmen who've created entire
new sectors of the economy out of scratch cower at taking on the risk of
once again having to at least co-pay worker's health care. Where was this
alleged incredible risk aversion when businesses were buying the complex
financial securities that sank the economy? It wasn't there then, it isn't
there now.

Well is you are astounded, everyone must be astounded.


There's no demand for products or the new employees to make more of them
because the economy hasn't restarted. That's why the numbers are flat. If
it's up to some in Congress, it will never restart.

Job formation is THE major driver of demand for products, especially
in the early stages of a recovery (which we are in). I also noted you
haven't done anything to actually call into question the validity of the
stats.



A 2008 study of 24 leading economies by the Organisation of Economic
Cooperation and Development (OECD) concludes that, "Taxation is most
progressively distributed in the United States, probably reflecting the
greater role played there by refundable tax credits, such as the Earned
Income Tax Credit and the Child Tax Credit. . . . Taxes tend to be least
progressive in the Nordic countries (notably, Sweden), France and
Switzerland."

Yabbut. Compare the cradle-to-grave care some of these countries offer
compared to ours and the numbers come out a little differently in what it
costs to actually "live a life." That's a metric that's pretty hard to come
by in way that's easily comparable and not subject to incredible
cherry-picking and criticism.

WHich has nothing to do with the progessivity of the tax system.








Except for now, when for a lot of people there's NO capital gain when they
have to sell a house for less than they paid for it.

Which is completely beside the point since under current law, you
don't PAY cap gains taxes on housing unless you have a monster cap gain
(IIRC it somewhere over $500,000 of cap gains that are excluded. That is
cap gains, not the price of the house.) and then only if you don't
recycle the gain into another abode within two years.



something both sides conveniently forget to mention for differing
reasons.

Hard to imagine that when the Constitution was written there was no income
tax. No capital gains tax. No sales tax.

Yep.

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People thought cybersex was a safe alternative,
until patients started presenting with sexually
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