"Austerity" now a dirty word in Europe

As a socialist I say the degrading the poor who seek medical care is unacceptable. I believe access to reasonably affordable reasonable quality healthcare is a right, the providing of which is an obligation of the collective which can not rightfully be refused.

I get your plea that imposing hardship can and should motivate the poor to do better so that they can get better, but healthcare is the one area where this should not be employed. Even the worst good for nothing should be able to go someplace and get treatment for medical issues.....and get that treatment with compassion and caring.

hawk, You're on the right track; keeping everybody healthy keeps the majority healthy. If there's a run of transferable disease, everybody's health depends on everybody else. Even when it come down to food poisoning, which should be our government's responsibility, everybody needs to be protected - even the poorest amongst us.

Not just that, but I am a big believer in redemption. I want to keep people healthy so that they are physically able to reform and then contribute to the collective. I am a hard ass who rarely holds his tounge when I find people screwing arouund and sucking up societies resources, but I can almost never bring myself to write people off as a total loss.

That goes almost without saying, but I understand where you are coming from.
A society is as strong as the weakest within it. That's the reason why the American Dream is being sacrificed by those folks who believes the rich will create jobs; they'll wait until hell freezes over!

They can't see the simple fact that many of the middle class of decades ago are now becoming food stamp recipients, and the homeless.

They are blind to their own demands; until it hits home. Even then, they'll be too downtrodden to admit their mistake.

BINGO!

It is willful blindness, a determination to live in FantasyLand, which has been created by bad parenting in cahoots with a broken education system (which in great measure was broken by these very same misguided parents).

Even our educational system is on life-support system; many school districts in Northern California are passing bond propositions to raise money for our schools. Many are not safe for our children, and classes are being cut in all levels of grade school and colleges - as tuition increases at double-digit rates. This results on more middle class families unable to afford to sent their children to college, because scholarships are also being cut.

Most colleges and universities in California now recruit foreign students and out of staters, because they have to pay more in tuition. As our schools educate these foreign students, our government continues to reduce green cards so they can't stay and work in the US even if that's their wish - and our need. How dumb is that? As our demographics age, our well educated are being sent back home, and the demand from baby-boomers retiring creates a greater demand on our social security and Medicare funding, and more tech jobs are being created off shore.

When the US voter is too dumb to understand Economics 101, we have very little hope for our future.

My aunt worked for the Fed...for over 20 years study after study shows that the majority of Americans do not comprehend even middle school level economics.


It is a big problem, just one of many which has been roundly ignored for a very long time.

That's not surprising; about an equal amount also do not know how to manage money. How many people do you know who has saved enough to retire at the same level of comfort as when they were working?

The average net worth for those 65+ is shown on this chart (from CNNMoney).
The average is $236,000. Do you think that's enough to retire on? How much of that is actual cash savings vs. property value?


From Bargaineering.

The EBRI’s report has a ton of detailed information on almost everything you might want to know about retirement savings and participation, from defined contribution plans to IRAs. For the purposes of our comparisons, I’ll just look at the age breakdown (2007 figures adjusted to 2009):

< 35: $6,306
35 – 44: $22,460
45 – 54: $43,797
55 – 64: $69,127
65 – 75: $56,212
75+: (sample size insufficient)

That's the reason why people age 65 and over are still working if they have jobs, because they know their savings is not sufficient to support them in their retirement.

They are also being told by the "experts" that retirement is bad for their well being, that working till they kick is good for them. I dont fully disagree, as I have known too many people who retired only to promptly drink themselves to death, but still how very convenient!