jerome scuggs' weekly "shit hits the fan" politics thread

[DankNuggets]

health care

While i don't like paying for insurance, it is a necessary evil. I injured teh fuck out of my leg in May, and since then have had bills for ER vist, X-rays, Ultrasound, and a CT scan. if i total how much i payed for it it's around 100 + 100 + 150 + 150, around 500 dollars. What did the insurance co. pay? 1000 + 500 + 750 + 2500, around $5000. If i didn't have insurance, i wouldn't have been able to afford any of those procedures. Luckily, they were all negative for what they were looking for (broken bones, blood clots). Had they shown problems, who knows how much money i would've been charged for surgery and hospital stays. I never had to wait for any of these procedures, and i could have lived with out them. So i consider myself lucky for a) not having to pay out the ass, and b) not being injured for teh long term.

With universal healthcare, I wouldn't have gotten the diagnostic services (ultrasound, CT) right away, would I? Would I have gotten them at all, since it turned out i was ok anyway? I feel that by paying for insurance, I'm paying for a higher standard of care, one that may end up saving my life or limbs. However, are these services jacked up from privatizion? Probably with the ER bill and X-rays, but I'd imagine a state-of-the-art CT machine runs the same bill for a US hospital as a UK hospital. Also, there was no "justification" needed for these procedures, a doctor ordered it. Would I have to await justification under a universal system?

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Another question: where the people that left bad workers? would they have been fired anyway? was this more of an "excuse" or the "last straw"? did it actually hurt your company to lose them? did you know of there drug use previously?

I think i can answer all those question myself, because you don't need a drug test to tell you who to fire or keep. An intial screening maybe, but routine testing has nothing to do with workmanship or work ethic, and everything to do with employee's personal lives.

First of all, I agree with you that they could be using the drugs at home and not at work. However, a few of the people that refused the testing had been, as far as I know, been doing lines as well as other crap before work and at their lunch breaks.

I smoke weed as well...not all that much anymore & it can be masked depending on the level they check for in a pee tests.

This did not hurt my company and in fact it is running better than ever with an increase in production and less rejected items from the manufacturing end.

This testing at my compnay was done on a random basis of 4 workers a month getting picked & sent to NovaCare for pee testing. If you had been nailed on something, the company allowed you, on your own, to clean-up and re-take w/o having a record of drug failure 60 days from the previous test results. So how do you lose in that situation? You do if your an addict and or just do not care.

We had known of many employee's drug uses over many a decade here. We know that the majority that did use drugs had been primarily weed and was done at home and not on the job.

Overall, we gave the workers the chance to keep their jobs, while allowing them to possibly clean up if they failed the test and this was not the point to these few employee's as they felt they could do what they wanted when they wanted w/o answering to anyone.

Due to the machinery and chemicals used in the Fiberglass Reinforced Polyester manufacturing field, with M.E.K., Acetone & various resins, we are considered a insurance risk for employee's that could be known hard users that are machine operators. If anyone does get in an accident here at work, they are required to be tested at the hospital as well, similar to what you had mentioned.

We are better off w/o these employee's that had been let go.

[DankNuggets]

From my point of view, noting the company of which I work for, we offer full BC/BS w/eye & dental. I lost 12 employee's off the bat as soon as we started drug testing. Not due to them failing the test, but they did not want to take the test.

We are in a manufacturing field and these workers are required to be tested due to the machinery they are on.

For my company to get insurance, of which I can no longer get at a reasonable premium, we are forced to do drug testing here.

So let me think for a min. The people that left, I know for a fact that one was shooting up meth, the other smack. We had one crack addict and the rest smokin pot...pot of which can be overlooked in testing in many ways.

These employee's left and forfeited health insurance because they felt that they should not be monitored for drug use and it should be ok for me to allow them to possibly be f'd up on the job and possibly harm others with the machinery they operate here, all so they can be fucked up during the day?

This is just one situation of many that are possibly similar to my companies.

What gets me the most is that many of those that left our company had families and it seems that the coke, meth and other crap held a higher (no pun) level than the welfare of their own families.

This is a big problem i have with drug legislature. If drug laws weren't so strict, I don't think that BC/BS would have made your company drug test. I have BCBS through my gov't job, and I'll only get drug tested if I get into a wreck (god forbid). However, their justification for drug testing your employees, "They are more likely to get hurt while high, and cost us money", doesn't really apply to drug tests.

Looking at drug tests, they test for metabolites that appear AFTER you take the drugs. Sure coke may be out of your system in 2 days, but take weed which takes weeks. I could legitimately come to work coked out of mind, and as long as i have a day's warning or drink an ass of water, I'll pass a drug test. OTOH, I could smoke weed only at home, never come to work high, and still fail a test a week after I quit smoking. There are better ways besides drug testing to tell if employees are coming to work high, observation for one. They could just not test for marijuana, but they do anyway. Or someone could just devise a test that looks for active, unmetabolized chemicals, but then that'd be sending the wrong message wouldn't it: It's ok to do what you want on your own time, just not at work.

This puts me in a dire pickle. I want to smoke for a couple of more years, but I'm deathly afraid of blacklisting myself in the professional community, as well as losing retirement and health care. I see myself either quitting weed altogether soon, or hoping i don't fuck up. It's so ridiculous because there's really no way for me to be responsible with it, because even if i am, i'll get penalized and be accused of coming to work stoned all the time (when in reality i never did).

BACK to your story-- If put in the situation that your workers were put in, I'd refuse to take the test too. Why? not because i want to keep using, but because the test's results will be extrapolated, and I will be accused of using drugs at work. When in fact, I never did such a thing, and went out of my way not too. Also, it's a well known fact that people stigmatize "drug users". I guess i could be accused of using hard drugs and therefore not wanting to take the test, but if that's the case, they've already made a decision about me, and there's probably nothing i could do anyway. Plus, at least i could say i never failed a drug test.

Another question: where the people that left bad workers? would they have been fired anyway? was this more of an "excuse" or the "last straw"? did it actually hurt your company to lose them? did you know of there drug use previously?

I think i can answer all those question myself, because you don't need a drug test to tell you who to fire or keep. An intial screening maybe, but routine testing has nothing to do with workmanship or work ethic, and everything to do with employee's personal lives.

[Kolar]

The difference is short term and long term, green jobs are short term, you build the solar paneling, you build the windmills, and you might have to maintain them but they really don't require any full-time jobs to produce electricity.

If they are one time relatively small purchase items and not long term, big ticket projects that will produce energy for maybe 10-15 years... Which one is more economically viable? Which will drive down the price of energy? The idea of creating jobs for the sake of creating jobs is something the green movement has been accused of, something to stimulate the economy while providing questionable results...

[Epinephrine]

On top of this, Democrats are hell bent on turning America in a third world country, do you realize what the number one selling vehicle in China is? ITS AN SUV, while you liberalist douchebags try to get everyone to ride bicycles and walk. Obama doesn't give a fuck about anyone, everything democrats do ends up failing, they are a failure, and want to turn America into a failure. It's people being pussies like you that ruin this country. You are the people that made dodgeball illegal to play in schools, in YOUR school systems you can't say mom and dad because you might upset the homosexuals, in YOUR school systems you can't beat up a kid of another race because even though its just childish bs because some terrorist orginization like CAIR wants to turn it into a fucking hate crime, California is the worst fucking state, get your own fucking oil, you neo-hippy losers, turn your own fucking state into a third world country.. if it isn't already.

Edit: The reason that America isn't going to be the most powerful country in the next five years is because you guys are a generation of pussies, our forefathers understood what it took to make America powerful and sacrificed to do so, and now it is all being undone in the name of PC guilt. Do you seriously think countries like Russia, China, or India give a fuck about the environment. These will be the three powers in the world after Obama is through ruining America. I hope your happy.

What's really funny is how big the percieved gap between democrats and republicans really is when it's not. Democrats would be considered ultra conservative in almost every other Western country.

[Epinephrine]

The economy is only one of many things I take into account. Look at our failing education, our failing war on drugs, our overcrowded prisons, our runaway debt, our oil crisis, our poverty, our homelessness, our foreign entanglements and everything it's caused: militarization, paranoia, the potential for police states worldwide, the proliferation of nuclear weapons, and then everything that's stemmed from that globally: poverty, destruction, starvation, genocide, etc... and then you can throw in the economy: our social security problem, our healthcare problems, our financial market problems, etc.

So the 'world falling apart' ACTUALLY means, 'problems in the USA'. Well I have news for you, the USA is one of the most capitalistic societies in the world. Yet the rest of the more 'socialized world' is catching up in terms of NOT having runaway debt (canada has had budget surpluses for over 10 years straight, China's doing pretty well for themselves, etc etc), the 'war on drugs' is a purely American thing (more liberal countries realize drug abuse is a healthcare problem and thus a PUBLIC problem dealt with via universal healthcare and universal education), not having overcrowded prisons (actually the general trend is that crime rates have dropped steadily all across the developed world), most of the world is become less poor and less homeless (see developing world catching up by growing very well, led by ... communist China). I also like how you mention the 'oil crisis' as if oil prices going up had nothing to do with the fact that we only have so much oil in this world, but demand is growing thanks to... economic growth and so prices rise because demand and supply are almost equal.

Really I don't see how ANY of these problems show that the world is falling apart, but only that there are problems in the USA, one of the world's 'freest' economies, and that the rest of the world (aka the socialists) are catching up.

I spent my adolescence growing up in a perpetual state of war, told that the terrorists will strike anywhere at any time because they hate the fact that I'm free, and it's only led to more and more political lunacy.

So uh... yeah, I must be crazy to suggest that the world isn't the peachy, happy place where everything is 'fine'.

You think the fear of terrorism is actually bad? The last 30 years have been some of the safest 30 years in the history of the Western world. The total amount of people who've died in conflicts in the west in 30 years and to terrorism, don't even come close to the number who died in any bad week in Vietnam.

I think you are overly scared about the state of the world, and I honestly don't think the world is anywhere near falling apart. Let's not even mention the cold war and the threat of global nuclear holocaust.

But regardless, this is an entirely straw man point. Do you honestly think a more capitalistic society would have resulted in no international terrorists from places which wouldn't subscribe to your idealogy anyway? Absolutely naive. Not to mention, that since it's private corporations which have benefited more from this 'war on terror' more than ever before, the corporate agenda in a perfect capitalist society would also make the terrorists out to be just as if not more evil in order to gain more profits to 'protect' the people.

1- Try to consider all the variables. Yeah, China's not slipped into the recession yet - because one, they're well capitalized (the same reason sweden and switzerland tend to ride out any sort of economic problems), two, they keep demand artificially high with government subsidies. three, china is historically a "lesser value" good exporter - you generally find chinese imports as cheaper, lower-quality items... which, in recessions, people tend to prefer due to financial constraints, meaning china's definitely not seen the slowdown in demand that is typical with more elastic, higher-priced goods. And of course, they have been selling weapons that are fueling the Darfur genocide.

I'm not saying those are the only reasons, but it's a start.

What's your point? You're just showing that a communist country is better able to prop up their country than a much more free and capitalist west. Okay, so they sell weapons to Darfur, what's your point? In the perfect capitalist society, corporations in America would also be selling weapons to Darfur because there'd be nothing against exporting weapons for genocide.

2- http://forums.trenchwars.org/showpos...71&postcount=1

The entire situation is much more complex than just the well known guarantee that fannie mae and freddie mac would be bailed out. It's also the fact that billions were spent on housing because of subprime mortgages and easy money because the regulations were very lax on lending. For instance, in Canada there is little problem with subprime mortgages because well... we generally have stricter rules on lending. In the US it was more like anything goes. Also not to mention the role of the hedge funds and their exotic investment vehicles, what made Bear Sterns go bankrupt, was a completely unregulated industry with virtually no oversight, where executives predictably did everything they could to make as much money as they could while screwing over people because they honestly could care less.

3- it's a problem, but really it's because I can't simplify the complexities of the variables that I have to deal with. The thing is, you're looking for a massive collapse, but it's not going to be like that - a bit here, a bit there, much like our civil liberties. But the system is starting to show its cracks, models are being abandoned, and people are demanding a rethink. If by this point you are not convinced that government regulation is a massively significant reason behind the high medical prices in the US, then you haven't been reading anything I've written, or any reports I've linked (at least 2 in this thread alone).

BTW why is it that the rest of the world (yes, every single other country in the entire world) spends less than the USA on healthcare per capita with better results, yet the USA has the most private of all systems in the entire world? Why is this 'regulation' the cause, when say Canada has just as many if not more regulations (health canada is usually 2-3 years behind the FDA in approving stuff) but we spend 1/2 as much per capita? I honestly don't see how your argument holds ANY water. The real reason prices are higher in the USA, is precisely BECAUSE it's private. Corporations can set the price higher to make more profits, because they don't care if a large segment of the population cannot afford healthcare, as long as enough rich people CAN, so they can make profits. That's how profit curves work.



I'm not looking for a massive collapse. You are the one saying the world is falling apart. That's a pretty grand statement. You don't just make grand statements with cursory evidence. Are you now backtracking and saying 'well the world isn't so much falling apart, as there are things here and there that are not doing so well in certain parts of the world, and you just wait, because eventually in another few decades we'll be falling apart!'.

[Zerzera]

The difference is short term and long term, green jobs are short term, you build the solar paneling, you build the windmills, and you might have to maintain them but they really don't require any full-time jobs to produce electricity. Whereas Nuclear and Coal require short-term and long-term jobs as in the building of the plants, the shipping of the product to and from the plants, the maintenance of the plant, and the plant workers themselves. On top of this, there are still tons of problems with energy that can't be controlled. For instance I believe I heard a story awhile back about a windstorm kicking up at a wind-farm and causing an overload in system because it was more than the generator was safely able to handle. Also, it is a fact that since such energies are so unreliable because you never know how much wind you are going to have, up to 90% of the maximum power generated by a wind farm has to be supplemented by another energy source (like coal or nuclear) to cover for it when there is no wind. So basically they are pretty useless.

You are pulling this out of your ass, it's full of incorrect information and hearsay, gossip, myths .. whatever.

But maybe you can put those useless workers in treadmills to produce this supplement energy. Why on earth would we have to keep up useless structures for the sake of useless labor and harm the planet while doing so?

[kthx]

When did electricity become an inefficient means of powering things? Industrial-grade solar panels with today's efficiency (~13%) could easily provide America with power needs comparable to coal or oil with a great deal less pollution if mass produced. I'm not talking about fuel cells, I'm talking about straight up electricity. Further, solar panels are not the only way of converting solar energy to electricity. Parabolic mirrors can focus the sun's rays on a tube of water which will in turn heat the water and run a steam turbine (thus electricity). All of this is going to take money and it's going to take SKILLED LABOR to implement (i.e. jobs). So don't give me that bullshit about how reducing our coal and oil usage is going to "hurt the economy."

The difference is short term and long term, green jobs are short term, you build the solar paneling, you build the windmills, and you might have to maintain them but they really don't require any full-time jobs to produce electricity. Whereas Nuclear and Coal require short-term and long-term jobs as in the building of the plants, the shipping of the product to and from the plants, the maintenance of the plant, and the plant workers themselves. On top of this, there are still tons of problems with energy that can't be controlled. For instance I believe I heard a story awhile back about a windstorm kicking up at a wind-farm and causing an overload in system because it was more than the generator was safely able to handle. Also, it is a fact that since such energies are so unreliable because you never know how much wind you are going to have, up to 90% of the maximum power generated by a wind farm has to be supplemented by another energy source (like coal or nuclear) to cover for it when there is no wind. So basically they are pretty useless.

And the pictures you saw of china that 404 posted are pretty bad, but guess what, if that is what is required for progress then so be it, im willing to endure smog to have a strong economy, and not have my country weakened to the point where other countries become more powerful than it. But besides that just being a picture to try to scare you into thinking this is what you will be living in if coal and nuclear plants are built and oil is drilled off your coasts and is still being used in 10 years. Well guess what, China is going through their industrial revolution, with 3 billion people instead of (don't have the exact number) 100 million Americans. Of course it is going to look worse, they are finally doing what made America the powerhouse it is. They don't care about the cost to the enviroment just like we didn't in that period, it was all about becoming a powerful nation. What im saying is all of these technologies that we have, Nuclear, Clean Coal, Drilling for Oil, are not the disgusting thing that the media has portrayed them to be, they are clean industries now, they won't destroy our forests, or our skies, people are just paranoid and freaking out about this because it is what they are shown on television.

[Zerzera]

The moment you realize you were wrong, I will have no chance to point and laugh at you, for it will mean you destroyed my world.

[Summa]

When did electricity become an inefficient means of powering things? Industrial-grade solar panels with today's efficiency (~13%) could easily provide America with power needs comparable to coal or oil with a great deal less pollution if mass produced. I'm not talking about fuel cells, I'm talking about straight up electricity. Further, solar panels are not the only way of converting solar energy to electricity. Parabolic mirrors can focus the sun's rays on a tube of water which will in turn heat the water and run a steam turbine (thus electricity). All of this is going to take money and it's going to take SKILLED LABOR to implement (i.e. jobs). So don't give me that bullshit about how reducing our coal and oil usage is going to "hurt the economy."

Don't really understand why our government doesn't put more money into the space power satellite. To me it's the most plausible form of an alternative energy source that we can get, but then again we would be cramped in geo-stationary orbit w/ other countries along with the inability to make energy capitalistic anymore, but it is the smartest way to go in my opinion. Read up on the space power satellite peepz!

[Fit of Rage]

Drill in Anwar, Drill in the OCS, approve drilling for the shale oil, build more nuclear plants, build more clean coal plants, this will produce HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF JOBS in America. All Obama and his dumbass supporters can say is "green energy is the future and the oil we have will take 10 years to get" but what you don't hear is that green energy like.. windmills and solar panels are NOT efficient means of supplying america with energy...

When did electricity become an inefficient means of powering things? Industrial-grade solar panels with today's efficiency (~13%) could easily provide America with power needs comparable to coal or oil with a great deal less pollution if mass produced. I'm not talking about fuel cells, I'm talking about straight up electricity. Further, solar panels are not the only way of converting solar energy to electricity. Parabolic mirrors can focus the sun's rays on a tube of water which will in turn heat the water and run a steam turbine (thus electricity). All of this is going to take money and it's going to take SKILLED LABOR to implement (i.e. jobs). So don't give me that bullshit about how reducing our coal and oil usage is going to "hurt the economy."

[IKM]

You really think that my sole purpose of posting my (mostly) conservative points of view are to piss everyone here off? I could perhaps understand that if I was maybe flip flopping like Obama.

Ironic much?

[kthx]

Yeah.. power oh noes.

[Summa]

The economy is only one of many things I take into account. Look at our failing education, our failing war on drugs, our overcrowded prisons, our runaway debt, our oil crisis, our poverty, our homelessness, our foreign entanglements and everything it's caused: militarization, paranoia, the potential for police states worldwide, the proliferation of nuclear weapons, and then everything that's stemmed from that globally: poverty, destruction, starvation, genocide, etc... and then you can throw in the economy: our social security problem, our healthcare problems, our financial market problems, etc.

I spent my adolescence growing up in a perpetual state of war, told that the terrorists will strike anywhere at any time because they hate the fact that I'm free, and it's only led to more and more political lunacy.

So uh... yeah, I must be crazy to suggest that the world isn't the peachy, happy place where everything is 'fine'.



1- Try to consider all the variables. Yeah, China's not slipped into the recession yet - because one, they're well capitalized (the same reason sweden and switzerland tend to ride out any sort of economic problems), two, they keep demand artificially high with government subsidies. three, china is historically a "lesser value" good exporter - you generally find chinese imports as cheaper, lower-quality items... which, in recessions, people tend to prefer due to financial constraints, meaning china's definitely not seen the slowdown in demand that is typical with more elastic, higher-priced goods. And of course, they have been selling weapons that are fueling the Darfur genocide.

I'm not saying those are the only reasons, but it's a start.

2- http://forums.trenchwars.org/showpos...71&postcount=1

3- it's a problem, but really it's because I can't simplify the complexities of the variables that I have to deal with. The thing is, you're looking for a massive collapse, but it's not going to be like that - a bit here, a bit there, much like our civil liberties. But the system is starting to show its cracks, models are being abandoned, and people are demanding a rethink. If by this point you are not convinced that government regulation is a massively significant reason behind the high medical prices in the US, then you haven't been reading anything I've written, or any reports I've linked (at least 2 in this thread alone).

In regards to China, their success comes at a price

The most affluent one-fifth of China’s population earn 50 percent of total income, with the bottom one-fifth taking home only 4.7 percent, said the report by the official Xinhua News Agency, carried in newspapers Wednesday.

“The income gap, which has exceeded reasonable limits, exhibits a further widening trend. If it continues this way for a long time, the phenomenon may give rise to various sorts of social instability,” it said.

from http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9424936/

that was in 2005 and its been growing with their "success"

not to mention their trouble in the whole human rights department

EDIT: heres another site http://www.businessweek.com/globalbi...216_056285.htm

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On top of this, Democrats are hell bent on turning America in a third world country, do you realize what the number one selling vehicle in China is? ITS AN SUV, while you liberalist douchebags try to get everyone to ride bicycles and walk.

Sunny China in its Los Angeles immitation of being a smog filled area.

They have a real extreme pollution problem and if ingnoring the problem is what someone may belive will solve this problem, then so be it.

If more people would walk or ride their bike, there may be less obese citizens for us to pay for through our ass in insurance premiums. Lets hear it for childhood diabetes epedemic in the States! woohoo!

I dont care so much about the candidates and media coverage of them as I do the current state of our only planet.

How do we ignore the only means of life we live on for the sake of a profit that will do you no good upon a direction of global destruction?