And the US does not do any of this? Strange, I must be living in another dimension.
With an average of two weeks of vacation and 5 sickdays a year, when are people doing that? My dad is on a so called "Kur" for two weeks every year after his first heart event (which actually was minor). He gets a full exercise programme as well as a whole set of checkups all in a very relaxing spa- environment.
They certainly have proven useful now that you mention it. Nice to have an access tool to get you into pretty much anywhere you need at will that no one can deny you use of.
Yes, but you wont need more new aircraft carriers than you already have. The ones you have would be perfectly sufficient for the low tech enemies that you are currently fighting with.
I am also sure that there are a number of Taiwanese and other folks who are very happy that we have them.
What war is it that you are CURRENTLY fighting there?
Shame you are having to pay for the others now that went further down the hole than you have yet. Do you think you all will be able to pull out of the crash dive? I think it is still fairly iffy. But I galso guess that it was not paying more for something than necessary that got you all into the mess the EU is in. Probably more fair to say it was paying something for nothing.
This makes no sense. How does paying less for something cause the problems the EU is in? Besides, Austria and Germany are doing just fine. France is not doing that badly either. It was not our healthcare system that caused the problems in Greece and Spain and other sovereign countries with very different social systems. So this comment here does not make any sense whatsoever.
You do not understand republicans. I am guessing you also do not understand democrats.
I cant really say I understand them on a voter level, but I do understand them at a congressional level. I have come to learn that the respective members of congress will happily vote against their own party or completely ignore any reason as long as it serves the lobbies they are getting paid by. There is simply no other logical reason why they would act so stupidly and against the interests of their own voters. As I said, I have followed the whole SLS vs commercial crew discussion very deeply and I have come to the conclusion that both republican and democrat congress delegates are equally crazy when it comes to that. The other thing that made it very clear was the passing of the NDAA, which is against the constitution and the only Americans that agree with it, are those that dont understand it.
I really think you should read up on the history of the two parties. I have a feeling it would enlighten you some.
History is irrelevant, Whatever these two parties used to stand for and whatever used to motivate them is irrelevant in light of the current lobby- driven politics in congress.
I am a conservative, and I also do not believe in big government, and most especially the "free-stuff" ideology.
I am not for big government either, but I am for fixing things that are broken. The healthcare system in the US has been clearly broken for decades now. The costs were exploding faster than they were in Europe(!) and the service was not getting any better. People were working 2 or 3 part time jobs at minimum wage and still were without even the most basic healthcare because the employers did not have to provide them with a package as part time employees and self insurance was too expensive for them to afford. All that made it clear that the system needed fixing. Maybe there would have been another solution that may or may not have worked better. But if you look at Austria, Sweden and France, you can see examples for systems that do work very well. They cost less and are better. So why the resistance to change? Why do you insist on paying more out of some ideological fancy? It is absolutely illogical and unreasonable. To think that way!
The difference is a culture of voluntary charity versus law enforced charity.
What about the law enforced charity towards defense companies? What about law enforced charity towards oil companies and companies writing standardized tests for schools?
Give it time. Someone will come knocking.
Maybe, maybe not. Currently I dont see anyone even in the far future that could or would be interested. It certainly wont be us who will be starting the war for whatever reason. Our war fighting days are definitely over. Two world wars are two to many. Thanks.
Of course the US was the only real winner of both... so...
Nope, you haven't. I have shown you where it has been going down, and is projected to go down more.
Ahem, I thought I posted that earlier:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Infla ... ending.PNG
Does this look like a downward slope to you?
And 2012 will see yet another increase... just saying.
You are stuck on your pet rock, and believe that SLS keeps peeing on it.
Not sure what you are trying to say with this (language barrier I guess), but it is simply one area of US politics that I know very well and I have been personally talking to a lot of people that are involved with this. As I said, I am – on this topic- absolutely siding with the teaparty. There are a few other republican politicians that I can relate to like Dana Rohrabacher. The administration originally wanted a small government, free market approach. Several republican senators and congress men as well as two democrats were acting against the plan for various reasons, mostly because of money from strong lobbies and special interest groups. They were even acting against the best interests of the citizens in their districts! And it cant be because they don't know any better. They have been educated on the topic several times. They are aware of the budgetary reality. If they cant understand these two things that they are not fit for their office and should get treatment in a clinic! But I am sure they do understand them. They just ignore it and keep repeating the same stupid BS over and over again like broken records even though they have been told over and over again that this is not how things are in reality. But as I said they know better, they just dont act to their knowledge because they are more interested in the lobbying money than what is best for the country or even their own districts. The same was with the NDAA (you know both republicans and democrats, all but 13 of them voted for that...).
I do not think that Germany is on good terms with a number of countries.
LOL, I think the world would end before Germany declares war on another country. There is absolutely NO political will here to start a war with anyone. I think Germany is way more popular than the US is right now.
The current risk of collapse of the EU economy is a "minor problem and discussion"?
You are blowing the issue waaaaay out of proportion my friend! The EU wont collapse, The Eurozone might get smaller. Some countries might have to or want to leave it, depending on how things go. Times are certainly not easy for the EU as a whole, but both Germany and Austria are doing well enough. You certainly dont have any idea what you are talking about.
And do you have issue with the other entitlement programs? Do you have issue with who gets it? Immigrants? Illegal Immigrants? Other EU countries that use it to support corruption?
Where do you stand on all this?
I do have an issue with these programs. That does not change my stance on the healthcare issue though. These things are completely unrelated and should be treated as such.
Also, we all have issues with corruption somewhere, dont we?
But, I have been all over the world, and not on vacation either. In my travels I have seen much.
I have traveled at least as much as you and I have a different view on things. How is that?
Maybe you should wonder also why so many people try to move to the US to live.
I think the EU has waaaay more immigrants than the US has per capita. Why is that then?
Actually, I suspect that what people are defending is the system that this country WUOLD have if it weren't for folks who think government is the solution to every one of life's little foibles.
Oh, some utopic system. Hey I mean if you ask the average socialist here, he will tell you too how wonderful the system would be if everyone was... well you know the story. Same ideologic crap!
Fact is your health care system did not work and your republicans were still defending it and fighting for it nails and toes thanks to lobbying from insurance companies. Fact is that our health care system (no I am not talking about pensions, I am not talking about social security, I am not talking about immigration laws and other socialist redistribution crap that I am VERY critical of, I am simply talking about healthcare and just that) fact is that that is working better than yours. It has been working better and it does not look like it is going to worsen any time soon. It got more expensive in the past decades, yes, but the price for yours has risen even more.
I do find it fairly interesting that many if not most of the medicines and medical devices found in Europe, indeed around the world, were developed here in the States. You all get to pay the marginal cost of building them. We get to pay the development cost.
It may behoove you to start supporting the US Free Enterprise Medicine system a bit more. After all, YOUR lives are on the line too.
Cost of pharmaceuticals is 20% of the cost of healthcare in the US. What is responsible for the other 60% difference in cost between yours and ours(and I am being generous there)?