Do like in egypt

[The Buddha]

So if we were to protest and get to the "presidential palace" in this country, where would we go and what would we say.

I'll start -

Go to all the big corporations - starting with Goldman sachs, but include BP, Haliburton, trans-ocean and well arrest any one who had a hand in the last 3 years of financial or oil spill or other debacles.

The best statement I have heard is wall street geniuses who took in several 100 million a year in bonuses said to the inquiry commission "we had no idea this was going to happen" and "we spent less than 1% of our time looking at these numbers". Woweee ... 100 million a year and you spend less than 1% looking at something that causes you to need to borrow 50-100 billion from the tax payer. Seriously, that is not even remotely excusable. We could hire a monkey and pay him peanuts and this would be the exact same result.

Anyone wants to add ... I would certainly like to add doctors/insurance scam artists, real estate hacks, sports teams, colleges and many more worthless ventures who freeload off the tax payers.

Cool.
Buddha.

[nikfleisch]

Id protest on the mall about repealing obamacare, privatizing social security and medicare, cutting spending.

[The Buddha]

Here is my other pet peeve ...

They build stadiums and what not @ tax payers expense and say they will get this much revenue per year.
The thing is, the payments on the loan far outweigh the revenue, and by the time the stadium is paid off in 20-30 years the stadium needs to be rebuilt. Worse yet, the "revenue" they never say what that is. The "revenue" is the ridiculous parking and ticket fees they will charge the poor saps that come there to watch the game. On top of that they spend several 100 million on the players. Why dont they just shake down homeless people for spare change and skip this whole convoluted system of stealing from the poor citizen from both pockets.

Yea I like obama care but the big $ insurance companies will never let it stand.
Cutting spending is the whole TEA party motto. There are 3 ways to do it as it would have no effect any other way. Cut defense, cut medicare/medicaid, cut SS. Sadly all the rest put together is a drop in the bucket.
The TEA party clowns was to cut govt spending, so find the loudest of the idiots and cut off all the $ to their district first. Then start with the next and the next, etc. Lets see who's left. They all want to "go to heaven, but no one wants to die".
Cool.
Buddha.

[madjak30]

Bring the armed forces home...take that money and invest in infrastructure rebuilding...that will create jobs and help kick start the economy...an economy only works if there is enough work for everyone to go out and "live the American dream"...your health care system kinda sucks down there, so I would wipe it clean and start fresh...ours isn't perfect either, but it works better than the American system...just ask TooGoofy if she would like to not have medical bills...

I'm not saying Canada is great and America sucks...definately not...but our economy has rebounded decently already...your government is writing checks that they can't honor...your national debt is frankly, quite scary...and our economies are very intertwined, so finding a way to help out the economy is in everyones best interest...

But I'm not in economics...I'm an electrician...no answers here...just armchair judgment...

Later.

[nikfleisch]

The less government handouts the better, americans have become reliant on them way to damn much. Our founding fathers knew what they were doing establishing limited government and maximum freedom.

[yamahonkawazuki]

some of these bonus' were included in contracts so to kill the bonuses, id have forced them into bankruptcy first. negating all contracts. then id strap on the kickass boots

[The Buddha]

The less government handouts the better, americans have become reliant on them way to damn much. Our founding fathers knew what they were doing establishing limited government and maximum freedom.

Oddly I only partially agree with this idea. Yes the founding fathers may have wanted to establish limited govt and maximum freedom. However a few things they may have missed or have changed since. Human beings are more hard wired to security than to freedom through most of their life. The one period we are most inclined to freedom to the point where its nearly equal to security is in our teens and early 20's. So having a very safe society with lots of safety nets is the better way to have a happier population. That almost by nature implies government intervention. However governments waste money, they spend it all in bureaucracy and very little gets to the people who need it. I dont have a solution, but I would say they should have in the first place implemented social security differently. They should cap the payments @ the input. The first person to receive SS essentially paid in $12 and received 29,000 or some such number. It should have been capped @ what was put in with an interest rate addition.
The thing is, there is no solution to this problem without cutting ss, Medic/air/are or military. Of course there is a solution. Print $. That would inderctly cause inflation, and really kill anyone who doesn't have income. AKA people dependent on the first 2.
Cool.
Buddha.

[The Buddha]

some of these bonus' were included in contracts so to kill the bonuses, id have forced them into bankruptcy first. negating all contracts. then id strap on the kickass boots

This would have been the way to do it. Oddly the one issue the 2 feuding fools (democraps and rape-a-buickans under Bush) agreed upon was to hand over the $ first ... Worthless pricks.
Yes it would have hurt the economy a bit more, after all it woould have taken a few more days for all these firms to fail. But the end result would be that we'd owe less $ to everyone else, we'd be paying less for everything, we'd have broken china's hold on the world markets, and best of all, we'd get a great chance to pump less $ in the economy and have it work a lot better after these $ sucking wall street morons all went under. There also will be no moral hazard.
Cool.
Buddha.

[Toogoofy317]

Id protest on the mall about repealing obamacare, privatizing social security and medicare, cutting spending.

The less government handouts the better, americans have become reliant on them way to damn much. Our founding fathers knew what they were doing establishing limited government and maximum freedom.

Hope and pray you never get sick buddy! It is easy to say those things when you are young and healthy! Privatizing medical care and putting it in the hands of a few insurance corporations is what makes 85% of all Americans one major illness away from bankruptcy! Until, you walk a day in a truly sick persons shoes you would quickly recant those remarks. It took me three years while getting evaluated for a heart transplant to get one of those "handouts" you say that should be cut. Never mind that I paid into it right up until the day I was awarded the amazing amount of $1000 a month. BTW that's the large handout! Most only get $400-$600 a month to live. Tell me how far does that get you?

Mary

[yamahonkawazuki]

Id protest on the mall about repealing obamacare, privatizing social security and medicare, cutting spending.

The less government handouts the better, americans have become reliant on them way to damn much. Our founding fathers knew what they were doing establishing limited government and maximum freedom.

Hope and pray you never get sick buddy! It is easy to say those things when you are young and healthy! Privatizing medical care and putting it in the hands of a few insurance corporations is what makes 85% of all Americans one major illness away from bankruptcy! Until, you walk a day in a truly sick persons shoes you would quickly recant those remarks. It took me three years while getting evaluated for a heart transplant to get one of those "handouts" you say that should be cut. Never mind that I paid into it right up until the day I was awarded the amazing amount of $1000 a month. BTW that's the large handout! Most only get $400-$600 a month to live. Tell me how far does that get you?

Mary

mary i do agree with this. alough im not looking for socialised medicine. this govt couldnt manage a mcdonalds the way they blow money. then and now. that being said. im clsing in on a year since i applied. odds are ill be in bankruptcy again. over med issues.. when i get approved, ill be in teh 600 dollar pool you referred to. but im looking for the insurance more than anything.

[Toogoofy317]

Don't get your hopes to high on the insurance either! I have a $35 co-pay for each of my 11 doctors. So, far this week I've seen the GP twice, GI, Cardiologist,ortho, and have to go back to GP tomorrow! That's $280 this week Rent is $600. So, I got $120 left for this month! Oh wait, it's the 3rd there's still 25 more days to this month! Haven't even bought my meds yet!

Mary

[yamahonkawazuki]

Don't get your hopes to high on the insurance either! I have a $35 co-pay for each of my 11 doctors. So, far this week I've seen the GP twice, GI, Cardiologist,ortho, and have to go back to GP tomorrow! That's $280 this week Rent is $600. So, I got $120 left for this month! Oh wait, it's the 3rd there's still 25 more days to this month! Haven't even bought my meds yet!

Mary

yeah i know. but here. its medicaid aka tenncare. which governor. ( outgoing bastard) when i had it, doc copays were 15. meds 5. i was spending 180/mo in fuel alone for woundcare, which ive had to stop. all sorts of unpleasant shaZam!. BUT way i look at it, insurance may not be great, BUT would be better than what ive got now. ( cant get anythign lol)

[karatechop5000]

I like the idea of reducing the military. It's there to protect our BORDERS; not our corporation's interests. Everybody come home. We'll work together on getting off foreign oil; and the entire middle east can go back to being an empty desert.

[The Buddha]

The biggest medical improvement we will ever see is price discovery. I want to see a price list @ any doctor. That is that. That in an instant will take care of all deficits. In reality that will eventually eliminate medical insurance and eventually medicare/aid.
Seriously - it cannot be cheaper to get on a plane and run 38 hours to india and get the surgery done, and spend 3 weeks healing and get back on the plane run 38 hours ... and still be cheaper than if you had insurance and did that same thing in the US. Actually I had a root canal 5 years ago. It would have been a break even with a trip to india. Absolutely nothing is cutting edge in a root canal. Been that way for 40 years. I cannot see why 99% of the surgeries in teh US need to cost 1/100th of what they do ... worse yet, the insurance companies pay the doctors 1/10th of the price off the street. That oughta be illegal. You dont see @ mcdonalds prices for different people based on what code word they tell you. Like walk in there and say "cigna" and a big mac is 30 bucks. Say "medicare" and its 50. That I dont see as anything but racketeering.

Mary - sorry its not going to help you 1 bit but india is a great place to get most surgeries etc done. The best we can hope for is - a price list @ every doctor/hospital and they wont charge different prices to any one.

Cool.
Buddha.

[madjak30]

Marry a Canadian guy and emigrate...sorry, I'm taken... ...what happens if you need surgery to survive but can't afford it...do you just have to die?  Doesn't sound like your government cares too much...even when we had insurance premiums to pay, the poor and elderly were exempt...maybe I will think twice about moving down there...longer riding season doesn't sound worth it...besides, we can sled in the off season...

Later.

[XealotX]

...what happens if you need surgery to survive but can't afford it...do you just have to die?  Doesn't sound like your government cares too much...

[The Buddha]

The worse thing is, they would rather address your symptoms and ignore the cause, that way you have to keep paying up. Oddly medicare/aid works that same way ... 
Cool.
Buddha.

[Toogoofy317]

Yeah, that kinda pissed me off this week. I have had hypoglycemia and the Crohn's issue and so I asked my PCP if I could get a referral to see a nutritionist. She said insurance would not cover it until I was diagnosed with full blown diabetes! Ok so instead of paying the $100 for me to get my diet straightned out and prevent me from getting the diabetes they'd rather pay to treat the diabetes which once you got it it is not cheap to treat!

Mary

[jserio]

Yeah, that kinda pissed me off this week. I have had hypoglycemia and the Crohn's issue and so I asked my PCP if I could get a referral to see a nutritionist. She said insurance would not cover it until I was diagnosed with full blown diabetes! Ok so instead of paying the $100 for me to get my diet straightned out and prevent me from getting the diabetes they'd rather pay to treat the diabetes which once you got it it is not cheap to treat!

Mary

[nikfleisch]

the matter of that fact is that with social security its just government run redistrubution of the wealth, Im not saying I dont help the poor or want to by why the hell should i be madated to pay taxes when part of them go towards the poor who get all their taxes back! Most people on ss are poorer and get their taxes back, they pay in waaaay less than they get out. Their getting a free ride. Our founding fathers as I believe that americans should be granted equal oppurtunity to succeed, but not a guarantee of the same amount of success. As medicare goes I understand that our system is't fool proof but honestly, what isnt? Capitalism has advanced the medical industry time and time again, government run health care is just bullshit if you ask me, why the hell should i get taxed because I choose not to buy it?!?!?! If you ask me leave it to the private sector as to what the prices should be, look at anything not government regulated highly, prices slowly decreased due to the american strive for excellence, which the government determing prices for doctors and medical institutions they will lose the strive and determination to become the best because the only incentive they will have is knowing they did a good job, and lets face it that wont drive every common man to do better. I understand that some cannot afford the highly expensive but medicare should be an option, I should have the option if at the age of 16 when im working stocking shelves at my loal grocery store if i want to save for my future, By mandating this the government is pretty much saying I cant do it for myself, that they know better than I do, and therefore they'll force me to save, and in doing so also pay for others. Face it government run social programs will result in nothing but self destruction for america.