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Reps might dislike’n all, but...

Ok here we go. Who’d you vote for if she ran?

  • Michelle Obama

    Votes: 11 45.8%
  • Gail Miller

    Votes: 13 54.2%

  • Total voters
    24
From what I know Michelle Obama is a great person, and so is Gail. Can we just replace Trump/Pence with them?

very conservative Utah Republicans were able to get Mike Lee in as Utah senator by "primarying" out the privately-managed Republican elite selection. Gail Miller and Zion's Bank Pres. Anderson financed the ballot initiative to disable the "primary" route to public office for Republicans, meaning that we got "Utah" Senator Mitt Romney instead of Dr. Kennedy.

One thing about the locals here in Utah.... Republican or Democrat. . . . . it's elitism all the way, whichever party you choose. Pretty much "Mormon" elitism. The kind of people who pal around with the local committee on foreign relations, organized and promoted by someone I have a family connection with. And, yes.... I've worked for them, been neighbors with them, am related to them.

Damn..... I guess that means I could run for US Senate. Pres. Babe sounds great.

only thing is, I'd have to do all those paybacks to the folks who backed me.
 
It's not about billionaires being against the rest of us, it's about them being out of touch with what normal people have to deal with. Does a $5000 deductible even register as a blip to someone with that much money? They spend more on shoes in a month. They cannot understand what a burden our healthcare system is for regular people.
 
It's not about billionaires being against the rest of us, it's about them being out of touch with what normal people have to deal with. Does a $5000 deductible even register as a blip to someone with that much money? They spend more on shoes in a month. They cannot understand what a burden our healthcare system is for regular people.

Bill Gates recently said something about income tax changes being a rounding error to billionaires.
 
Bill Gates recently said something about income tax changes being a rounding error to billionaires.
Bill Gates wants a tax on wealth much like Thomas Piketty has recommended, rather than just an increase in income tax rates.

"In terms of revenue collection, you wouldn’t want to just focus on the ordinary income rate, because people who are wealthy have a rounding error of ordinary income. . . We can be more progressive, the estate tax and the tax on capital, the way the FICA and Social Security taxes work. We can be more progressive without really threatening income generation.”

Full interview here:

https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/12/...te-70-percent-marginal-modern-monetary-theory
 
Bill Gates wants a tax on wealth much like Thomas Piketty has recommended, rather than just an increase in income tax rates.

"In terms of revenue collection, you wouldn’t want to just focus on the ordinary income rate, because people who are wealthy have a rounding error of ordinary income. . . We can be more progressive, the estate tax and the tax on capital, the way the FICA and Social Security taxes work. We can be more progressive without really threatening income generation.”

Full interview here:

https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/12/...te-70-percent-marginal-modern-monetary-theory

Bill Gates you makes sense, and that's whats I appreciates about you.
 
Any worse than what players have to sit in on NBA benches?
I’ve never understood that. The chairs sit on the concrete underneath the floor, so it’s like they’re sitting on little kid chairs, on top of usually being 6’6”+. Never understood why they couldn’t do reasonable seating for them. Looks painful.
 
It's not about billionaires being against the rest of us, it's about them being out of touch with what normal people have to deal with. Does a $5000 deductible even register as a blip to someone with that much money? They spend more on shoes in a month. They cannot understand what a burden our healthcare system is for regular people.

Agreed 100%; however, the answer isn't to make everyone pay for those high costs, but to turn the free market onto creating better solutions.
 
Agreed 100%; however, the answer isn't to make everyone pay for those high costs, but to turn the free market onto creating better solutions.
I'm losing my belief that the free market can do this effectively in health care. Here's why. Health care is not a "normal" good or service. It is a very price inelastic product. No matter how much you raise the price, the change in demand will be very minimal, meaning that automatically if you artificially raise prices (see every pharma company in existence with skyrocketing profit margins amid high price controversies) you automatically generate higher profits. Add to that very high barriers to entry in the market and you have a recipe, without firm regulation, for the free market to drive prices higher and higher with no repercussions other than higher profits! That is why utilities are regulated and not allowed to run on a for-profit model alone, because it was recognized early on that everyone needs full access to water and sewer and gas and electricity so they had to put rules in place to control the price inelasticity of electricity to avoid issues of income dictating who had lights. But we have been very hesitant in treating medicine like a utility, largely because the stakes are so much higher, and money talks, and nothing sways a politician more than money. We are far behind every other developed nation in treating health care the same way we treat electricity. It is no less important, but the affects are less immediately seen, and the money is a lot bigger. It's a travesty really. In just the last 20 years we have fallen so far behind the developed world in this regard. And it is unconscionable we treat people's lives as commodities to be traded on. This isn't a capitalist vs socialist argument, or an academic analysis of free market theory, this is people who cannot get the care they need because we refuse to see that health care is as important to a functioning society as clean water and waste control.
 
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