On 13 Feb 2012 at 8:54pm Southover Queen wrote:
At the risk of provoking more rants about the BBC being a leftie conspiracy, can I urge people to watch tonight's Panorama on iPlayer? It covers many of the issues about the vast gap between rich and poor in America, and the stifling effect of a failing economy on lower income families. Please watch: even if you discount half of it the programme should give you serious pause.
On 13 Feb 2012 at 11:28pm Feminist wrote:
Better things to do with my evening queenie.
On 14 Feb 2012 at 8:31am DFL wrote:
Drat, missed that
On 14 Feb 2012 at 8:57am Mr Forks wrote:
Surely being a Leftie is morally better than being a Rightie? Just ask PN who appears to have no morals when it comes to looking after others?!
On 14 Feb 2012 at 9:18am grafter wrote:
Yes, lefties think well of themselves and pat themselves on the back for being "sensitive" and "caring" with the product of other peoples labour while righties recognise people have moral agency and are capable of influencing the condition of their lives. This is known as cruel and heartless,bigoted and evil.
On 14 Feb 2012 at 9:27am Southover Queen wrote:
Grafter, the programme shows quite clearly that social mobility in the US is severely reduced (and getting worse) so "moral agency" doesn't really come into it. Watch it first, and then by all means let's discuss it.
On 14 Feb 2012 at 9:48am grafter wrote:
Ok SQ, I will get back to you later.
On 14 Feb 2012 at 9:55am feminist wrote:
Yawn Yawn.
On 14 Feb 2012 at 9:59am EastunderKing wrote:
I agree with you Feminist, what a boring thread. Get a life SQ.
On 14 Feb 2012 at 10:02am Southover Queen wrote:
Yawn right back at the pair of you.
If you don't like it don't read it. I cannot imagine why you think telling me a thread is boring is in any possible way interesting or thought provoking.
On 14 Feb 2012 at 10:46am Feminist wrote:
Get on with the housework and stop being a bore.
On 14 Feb 2012 at 1:16pm Paul Newman wrote:
The stat about mobility is Brownite propaganda. The US is not an ethnically homogenous place like the "Rich Nations" with which it is compared and contains geographical divides more like Europe as a whole, with more wilderness than Africa thrown in .If you compare like with like, we can look at the experience of the Caribbean immigrants of the 60s and 70s whose work ethic is so over developed in the States it is the stuff of mock. Dropped into our welfare wastelands it didnâ??t work out so well ..hem hem .
The US has better social mobility than we do despite our advantages and the lack of a 20% ex slave population and a highly redistributive tax system and worse tales of woe might have been found in Red Glasgow Boroughs with male life expectancy of just above 50 as compared to 65 in Beirut .
Is it shocking that the BBC should uncritically dump a bucket of partisan half truths supporting high tax and big government on us ?
If only.
On 14 Feb 2012 at 1:27pm Mr Forks wrote:
More right wing caring from our blinkered tory loving PN. It must be wonderful to think that all of societies problems are due to compasionate governance and people who can afford too paying tax to support those that can't. After all as Maggie said, their is no such thing as society, she should know, she destroyed it!
On 14 Feb 2012 at 1:49pm The Twister wrote:
I was stationed with the Yanks during the last war and let me tell you this.They certainly didn't seem that poor back then ! They were big headed mouthy blighters always trying to seduce our gals with their offers of silk stockings and bars of chocolate....
On 14 Feb 2012 at 3:29pm Wondering wrote:
Off topic but.. just wondering if SOUTHOVER QUEEN is the same person as SOUTHOVER GIRL?
On 14 Feb 2012 at 3:33pm Southover Queen wrote:
Have a look at the linked report. I'm not sure that Gordon Brown has any influence over four independent think tank/charities in the US.
On 14 Feb 2012 at 3:36pm Southover Queen wrote:
Forgot to attach the link.
And, wondering: no, really truly not the same person at all. I post under this name and none other.
Check it out here »
On 14 Feb 2012 at 8:40pm grafter wrote:
They need to get their healthcare sorted out over there . It is a disgrace. I have spent time in Tennesee as it happens as I helped an old friend build a house there in 100 acres of wilderness that he bought for less than the price of a two bed terrace in Lewes. His wife is from California and to be honest she had a bigger culture shock than we did as south london boys. It really is like going back to the last century,the schools are awful so most middle class folk home school even if they are not religious. How to put it nicely. I don't expect many Nobel prize winners come from rural Tennesee. These people are intellectually disadvantaged compared with other parts of the USA so I am not suprised they feel the pain before New York or Texas or Georgia. There is no safety net and no real hope of them finding well paid work in the future
On 14 Feb 2012 at 10:43pm bloke wrote:
The above link didn't work. Here is he correct link.
I'm not surprised to find Mr Newman ignorantly making it up as he goes along by falsely claiming that the stats have got something to do with "Brownites".
Check it out here »
On 14 Feb 2012 at 11:22pm Southover Queen wrote:
Oh, thank you bloke! (The one I posted worked for me, she says feebly)
That is indeed the report I was trying to allude to. The US and the UK are actually almost exactly equal bottom in the social mobility stakes. I think that's pretty shameful.
And yes grafter they do. I worked with a family whose daughter was born with severe medical problems. In spite of the fact that one of the parents worked for the biggest health insurer in the US they were bankrupt within about two years of her birth. The shocking stat - that 62% of all bankruptcies in the US were caused by medical bills - was also ignored or rubbished in the last discussion hee about this. Every Democrat president since the war has tried to address this, but medical provision in the US is a huge business and the "free marketeers" won't allow it. And since the agenda is driven by the likes of Fox news ain't nothin' gonna change either.
On 15 Feb 2012 at 6:16am Paul Newman wrote:
Well SQ if your little Barnaby Rudge will allow me to retort without mystifyingly claiming hysteria or "ranting~"( which appears to mean disagreeing) ... lets proceed
. If you read outside your comfort zone you would know that Brown was famous for s certain kind of lie. A use of statistics that whilst not actually untrue was highly misleading by the false use of context. The most famous example was " The Gord" giveth in which £3 billion over a government ( to the NHS) was transformed into a headline grabbing £20 billion. That was the Brownite I meant .Read , understand , speak. In that order.
On 15 Feb 2012 at 6:38am Paul Newman wrote:
These stats on mobility have been used by the left to infer that the UK should have higher taxes and more redistribution. That does not follow and I have given some of the reasons which, you do not seem to understand either( although Grafter has mentioned a real fact which is precisely the point ). I might also add that a similar decline of mobility in this country has been used largely by the right, to infer that welfare entrenches poverty and those areas in receipt of most hand outs are certainly least mobile. Tax is a very inefficient re distributor actually.
On 15 Feb 2012 at 6:43am Paul Newman wrote:
Measuring relative mobility - Lets say I take the South East ( an Economy as large as some of those used as comparators ). Lets say I do the sums and find them ok. Then lets add Wale. What you will find is that the mobility goes down markedly. This is because social mobility depends also on geographical and cultural mobility and if you have one relative measure and two different regions the apparent effect is of reduced mobility. Got it ?.The you compare Denmark and the States ..ha ha
This is why I mentioned a real life example of the same people arriving both here and in the US, which you ignore of course.
On 15 Feb 2012 at 4:51pm C#m7 wrote:
PN you wouldn't be picking and choosing your data, mayhap? Do you dispute the figures - that USA is poorest at providing social mobility? Or are you just an admirer because it provides better social mobility for those you happen to be looking at [if in fact that is true - you adduce no data].
You only have to look at the lunatics vying for the republican ticket to know what a dump the USA is, or is that a bit like looking in the mirror, Paul?
On 15 Feb 2012 at 5:33pm Annette Curtin-Twitcher wrote:
I have a friend in Ohio. Her nephew was diagnosed with something incurable and serious while his father was out of work. His treatment was covered by the free scheme for poor people. Now it's an existing condition, no medical insurance will cover the treatment and so the family can't come off welfare as they wouldn't be able to afford it themselves.
On 15 Feb 2012 at 6:21pm Southover Queen wrote:
Quite, ACT. The health "system" in the US is bonkers, and I note that Paul doesn't even try to address this. A healthy working population must be the fundamental building block of a strong economy, surely, and it's just not capable of providing it.
I've been doing some research, and googling "socioeconomic gradients in health" takes you to some very interesting academic papers, all of which agree that being born poor in the US is bad for your health. I don't think these have been infiltrated by Brownites - they include the IMF and the New York Academy of Sciences. I've attached a link to one of them, as a sort of starter for ten.
I didn't think the report I cited earlier was a result of Gordon Brown's malign influence either, and I was very struck by the fact that the UK and the US social strata are equally impervious. PN does seem to think that I'm anti-American, which I'm really not, but I do think that the US is a worrying role model for the rest of the world.
Check it out here »
On 16 Feb 2012 at 5:20pm Annette Curtin-Twitcher wrote:
Lionel Shriver has written a brilliant satirical novel about the US health care system. I never thought it would be possible to write a funny book about cancer, but she's managed it, and it's very thought provoking.
If my short-term memeroy was better I might even be able to remember what it's called.
On 16 Feb 2012 at 10:55pm Southover Queen wrote:
So Much For That. Brilliant, disturbing, touching and acerbically funny.
On 17 Feb 2012 at 6:30am Paul Newman wrote:
..and reinforcing view you already hold.The problem with Health Care in the US is basically that it is incredibly expensive .Loads of Public Money is already thrown at it ,as much as in many countries you would approve of if not as much proportionally as in our Soviet 'get what your given' post war dinosaur. Your view seems to be that were competition done away with and a State monopoly introduced, such as ours, then costs would reduce.
Ummm.... kinda doubt it , call it instinct, but kinds doubt it.What do you propose to do about the vertiginous cost of medical Malpractice Insurance which is what lies behind the vast costs associated with Health Provision. What happens when the employment schemes stop, what about all the people who are getting health care under difficult circumstances? You really like this recipe for unrestrained Lawyers individual rights gone mad and state interference? You can certainly destroy the health care there is but are you really so sure the alternative will be better
You have not shown that to be the case, in fact you have not shown any understanding of the problem in the first place ..and that ladies and gentlepeeps , in a nutshell; is your Liberal.
America is not full of buffoons whose crime is alack of provincial hand wringers to boss them about , they are well aware that Health Care is a problem, they are not convinced the NHS is a the answer for America.Who knows perhaps Americans might have a point ..about America ?
Could be , not that you would ever guess from the BBC but then we know why that is don`t we.