Michael Moore Movies
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http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=6a7_1184027106 | |
ID: 601617 ·  | |
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Michael Moore- The Awful Truth | |
| ID: 601979 · | |
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Farenheit 911 | |
| ID: 602497 · | |
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SICKO: Michael Moore on Capitol Hill | |
| ID: 603040 · | |
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Michael Moore Vs. Mormons in "THIS DIVIDED STATE" | |
| ID: 603043 · | |
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Bigotry in America | |
| ID: 603049 · | |
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Maher and Moore beg Nader not to run in '04 | |
| ID: 603067 · | |
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The Yes Men | |
| ID: 612263 · | |
SICKO: Michael Moore on Capitol Hill Moore is pushing HR676 in that clip. HR 676... URRGH! Who is gonna pay for it?
(1) Like THAT is gonna happen! The Medicare program today accounts for a disproportionately large share of the health-care paperwork. Paperwork will only get worse. This will be a cost INCREASE under HR 676. (2) This is almost what we have now. This might save some money, but not as much as they think. (3) Considering the amount that the federal government spent on Medicare a few years ago, subtracting it from that years total health-care spending still leaves about 1.5 Trillion US$ to be added to the Federal Budget. The figure is somewhat higher now. This figure will close to double the size of the Federal Budget, hence will close to double the size of the required tax revenue. Who is going to pay for all of this? The bulk of the cost of private health care insurance in the USA today is paid by Business. If they no longer need to pay this amount, do you honestly think that they will pass that savings along to either the employee (in the form of a raise) or the consumer (in the form of lower prices)? Neither. It will just be applied towards profits for the business. What about the amount of health care premiums that people currently pay? Well, they might get to keep this money, for a while. Likely though, it will just end up going to the government in higher taxes (along with even more money than they just saved). Medicare does not pay all of a person's medical bills. There are still, in many circumstances, copayments, and 20% of a huge pile of money is still a huge pile of money. How are we to afford this? Perhaps they envision that we ALL will take out 'Medicare Supplemental Insurance' like so many recipients of Medicare do today. But then, what is the point? We will still need to have 'private insurance', and those that don't are just gonna get screwed, the same way they are screwed today. A poor person is gonna choke on paying $20000.00 for medical treatment just as much as they would choke on paying $100000.00. That just leaves (4), (5), and (6) to pay the costs, and oh what costs those will be. The top 5% of income earners pay currently 57% of the federal income tax. As I saw quoted in another thread, a person with a taxable income of $140000 a year (very near the bottom of the top 5%) pays about $36000.00 a year in income tax. The current Medicare tax is about 3% (2.9%) for the employee AND the employer. This tax, unlike its 'brother' the SocSec tax, does not have a cap. The employee AND the employer BOTH pay about 3% of that employee's paycheck in Medicare Tax, regardless of how much or how little the employee makes. Expanding this logically from 500 billion dollars of Medicare spending to about 2 trillion dollars of Medicare spending, this would raise the Medicare payroll tax to around 12% for both the employee AND the employer. This would be a tax hike on EVERYONE that earns a paycheck of an ADDITIONAL 9%, plus a tax hike on an employer for an ADDITIONAL 9%. Employers will have to either cut employee's pay, or raise prices to their customers, or both. However, this tax does not pay for ALL of Medicare currently, only a part of it. The rest needs to come out of other revenue. The 'small' tax on stock and bond transactions? Where the **** did this come from? Even more 'soak the rich' I suppose. You put a big enough tax on these to do much good at all, and you run the risk of damaging our economy in serious ways as you put a huge crimp in the ability of business to raise money for expansion. So, we have a small tax on stocks and bonds... An across the board tax increase of about 9% on EVERYONE earning a paycheck... An across the board tax increase of about 9% on an employer's total employee payroll... And the rest to be made up by increasing the Income Tax on the top 5% of income earners... So: (4) Soak 'the rich' for an additional unknown percent of their income on their Income Tax. (5) Give an effective tax hike on EVERYONE of about 18% of their income. (6) Run the risk of severe damage to the US Economy by taxing the ways business uses to raise capital for expansion. (5) will pay for a good chunk of the HR676 program. (4) and (6) will make up the difference. HR676 will do precious little to reduce costs, and in fact will only drive them up faster. (5) will put the top 5% people's FEDERAL tax burden at somewhere between 70% and 75% of their income. Add to that their state and local taxes, and you got TROUBLE. Plus there is (4) to consider. How much more is the government gonna tack on? HR 676 will only make things worse, and doesn't have a prayer of helping. Am I the only one that sees this? | |
| ID: 612287 · | |
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Lots of money out there going into the system, | |
| ID: 612292 · | |
Lots of money out there going into the system, But it is a staggering huge amount of money. In that one year (I think it was either 2004 or 2005, don't remember which), non-medicare/medicaid health care expenditures were about US$ 1.5 trillion. The size of the federal budget that year was US$2.2 trillion. If you shuffle the entirety of the health care expenditures into the federal budget without a tax increase, that leaves about 700 billion 'left'. Then exempt the money that MUST be paid: interest on the national debt and the current Federal Spending on Medicare/Medicaid, that would leave the Federal Government with NEGATIVE revenue (a deficit) of about 200 billion US$. That is, cutting out EVERY other expenditure the US Government has would still require about a 200 billion US$ tax increase just to 'break even' at zero. You cannot just cut a program here and there, streamline those programs and projects, eliminate a little corruption here and there, and trim the bureaucratic fat over there. We are talking about very nearly DOUBLING taxes at the federal level to pay for HR 676 (or ANY other bill like it).
Uhh... 'The Government' doesn't have ANY money. The People do. The Government reaches into OUR wallets to pay for what it does. Its called taxes. Its NOT that The Government says that it doesn't have the money... It is The People that don't. HR 676 will essentially DOUBLE everyone's Federal Tax burden. The average taxpayer in this country has a Federal Tax burden of about 1/3 of their income, with a State and Local tax burden that pushes this up to around 50%. Doubling the Federal portion of the Tax burden would push the total Tax Burden up to around 83%. Do you REALLY want to tell somebody that makes $50000 a year that currently has $25000 a year left over after taxes (to feed/clothe/house/etc. their family) that all of a sudden they have to do it all on LESS than $10000 a year? HR676 would not only bankrupt this nation's Government, it would bankrupt this nation's People. Bad Idea! Sorry, but my wallet tends to stay empty most of the time between paying my CURRENT taxes, my CURRENT bills, and putting some small part aside for retirement and/or a rainy day. To those that advocate a Socialized health care system in the USA, I say "What little that DOES show up in my wallet is NOT YOURS!" | |
| ID: 612305 · | |
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Anyone have a copy of last years budget? | |
| ID: 612325 · | |
Cut NASA. Why?? What they get is less than 1/10th of 1 percent of the total budget in the first place. ____________ Air Cold, the blade stops; from silent stone, Death is preordained  Calm Chaos Forums : Everyone Welcome | |
| ID: 612370 · | |
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Ok, | |
| ID: 612372 · | |
The prices are outrageous for everything. They have us by the ***** and know it. Costs are high because drugs and equipment are sold to us for thousands of times their manufacture price. I concur. When I had a training-on-the-job in a pharmaceutical factory, they produced in one shift 6.5 metric tons of a medicine to lower blood pressure which ought to be portioned by 80mg of the active agent per day and patient. That's more than 800,000,00 portions! During only 8 hours! At the same time the neighbor installation (?), run by the same workers, also produced 6 metric tons of another medicine, another 6 or 7 hundred Million portions ... Even with the high German wages for skilled chemical workers and our electricity prices added into the general production costs, the production costs for ONE single portion (one pill for example) are ridiculously low. But: do you know the actual prices for blood pressure medicine? They have us by the ***** and know it.That's just too true. :-( In my opinion the prices for medicine, the prices for everything important to the daily life should be much closer to their production costs. ____________ Account frozen... | |
| ID: 612395 · | |
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The big cost factor lies in research, though - and only a few make it through all the tests, many fail and just cause costs. But I won't whine too much because IMHO multinational companies have it rather easy. It's the medium and small companies which have a harder time because they can't transfer their profits to a dependance with low taxe rate. They also have a hard time getting any help - and big companies receive a lot of subventions. | |
| ID: 612415 · | |
The prices are outrageous for everything. They have us by the ***** and know it. Costs are high because drugs and equipment are sold to us for thousands of times their manufacture price. Ok, lets look at one company in 'Big Pharma': Pfizer. According to their 2006 Annual Report, in a table on page 13, they list their annual revenues and net incomes for 2004 through 2006. I don't see anything that is grossly out of whack here. Yes, they are doing rather well, but it is hardly 'profits beyond the pale'. The only reason that in 2006 their net income was 40% of their revenue was due to the way they 'charged off' gains from discontinued operations, in other words "accounting trickery". Subtract the approximately US$ 8 billion 'extra' for 2006, and you put the figure on about the same level as 2004. How is having a net income (profit) of less than 25% of revenues 'obscene'? It isn't. WalMart got about 16% in 2005, which is VERY comparable to Pfizer's 17% for 2005. Nope, "Big Pharma's" profits are not 'out of line' at ALL. You state that final prices of goods should be much closer to their production costs. So you, then, would deny people the right to make a REASONABLE profit on their investments? | |
| ID: 612613 · | |
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Forging results is common place now a days so I'd consider the source on that corporate report. | |
| ID: 612662 · | |
Anyone have a copy of last years budget? http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy06/browse.html Have fun, but you can't get something when the money for it isn't there. As for the deficit, make the corporations pay it off. They got us into this mess, let them pay for it and get us out. Make the families of the participants of the 1913 Christmas initiative, who sold our country to the world bank/Federal Reserve, give 95% of their worth to paying off the bank. Hang the Federal Reserve owners from a tree. Get our gold back. Why should we pay for their shadiness? Who owns corporations? Individuals do. If you tax 'business' you are only taxing that business's owners, who will then pass that additional cost on to that business's customers, and sooner or later that 'tax' will come out of the pockets of the 'common man'. If you tax business, you are really taxing The People. Get rid of the 'stick it to business' fiction right now. You may as well be honest and just tax individuals directly to begin with, since they are the ones that end up paying. And how does the Federal Reserve Bank enter into this? Implement a new law saying if the government doesn't disclose where OUR money is going then THEY don't get the money!They do already. It is called the Budget (see my link earlier in this response). Now, for reasons of national security, some expenditures must remain undisclosed... But by and large, most expenditures are at least outlined by Department in the Budget. Implement a law saying that no politician can have any connections with secret societies. Skull and Bones, etc... CUT! Uhh... There is a little thing in the 1st Amendment to the US Constitution known as 'right of peaceable assembly'. From this, the US Supreme Court has construed the 'right of freedom of association'. A person in this nation (including politicians) has the right to belong to any organization they wish. , as long as said organization accepts their membership. In fact, a current member of the US Senate used to belong to the KKK. Senator Robert Byrd (D-West Virginia) joined the KKK in 1942 and held various titles in the KKK such as 'Kleagle' and 'Exalted Cyclops'. The late Speaker of the House Tip O'Neal used to refer to Senator Byrd using the nickname 'Sheets'. While Senator Byrd claims to have left the KKK a few years after he joined, racial prejudice was evident in his voting record from the start (he helped filibuster the Civil Rights act of 1964 and opposed the Voting Rights act of 1965, for instance), and as late as 2001 he still used the 'N-Word' in public on the record. My point is that the people in West Virginia supported him and kept electing him, despite his membership in a 'secret society'. Cut NASA. Perhaps you misunderstood me. If HR 676 is enacted, and the entire health care expenditures of the US are transfered into Medicare, and the US Government TOTALLY STOPPED ALL OTHER EXPENDITURES except for interest on the National Debt (which they MUST pay to avoid total economic disaster -- if they didn't pay it, US Treasury Notes and Bonds would become worthless and the US Dollar would fall to microscopic levels in relation to other nation's currency -- in other words, a Depression so deep it would make the Great Depression of the 1930's look like a picnic, in at least the USA and most likely the rest of the world), they would STILL need at least a US$200,000,000,000.00 per year tax increase to pay for it. Don't pay politicians. You gotta pay politicians, at least a per diem. I agree that political office should not be a full time job for people, but when (for instance) the US Congress is in session the Congressmen are not doing their 'real day-job' so you kinda gotta compensate them for their services. Not doing so would invite even further corruption. As to 'take ANY money', if by that you mean 'from lobbyists, PACs, etc.' then yes, I agree. Doing that leads directly to corruption. Prosecute Bush and Cheney and have them pay. Prosecute for what? Pay for what? Be more specific. The amount is staggering because it is false. The prices are outrageous for everything. They have us by the ***** and know it. Costs are high because drugs and equipment are sold to us for thousands of times their manufacture price. Doctors are greedy because they have to pay off the bank for their loans. How can Canada and France have free college AND medical? Because they invest in their people and reap the benefits. Here in America, money moves in a straight line from us to them and then into a big circle. Prescription drugs and medical supplies and equipment are NOT sold to us at 'thousands of times' their cost to manufacture. As I stated in another post in this thread, Pfizer (one of the 'Big Pharma' companies) only has a net income of less than 25% of its total revenue (17% in 2005, for instance). Its not like anybody can, using various pots and pans and household equipment in their kitchen, just synthesize Viagra. Buying the equipment to do so is expensive. Maintaining that equipment is expensive. Paying people to run that equipment is expensive. Quality Control is expensive. Paying R&D costs is expensive. Paying costs associated with Government Regulation is expensive. Even paying taxes on profits is expensive (around US$ 4,000,000,000.00 for Pfizer in 2005). If it isn't expensive, why don't you pull some new drug out of thin air and make and sell it? You could make a boatload of cash! Synthesizing drugs isn't easy. I remember back in an Organic Synthesis class I once had. One of the lab exercises was to synthesize Aspirin. I did it, but it wasn't easy. Aspirin is relatively simple in structure. It was a relatively well equipped lab. I still had a rather poor yield (though it was enough for an A in that class). The costs of the chemicals I used greatly exceeded the market value of the Aspirin I made. Most all of the drugs that Big Pharma makes are vastly more complex in structure, and much harder to make than aspirin. They deserve their profits. We pay for research projects and they sell the findings and technologies to the highest bidder. We're not share holders. We are sheeple. Slaves. Plus we may never get the opportunity to ever benefit from the technology itself. Who do we pay for research projects? The Government? How can you say that we 'never get the opportunity to ever benefit' from that technology? Look at the equipment you are using to read this post. Electronics. Came out of the space program. Look at the communications medium it uses. The Internet. Came out of DARPA. Hell, look in your kitchen. See the non-stick cookware? Apollo program again. Your life is FULL of benefits from technology the Government funded. Open your eyes, man! Of course this will never happen because Americans are either semi happy living day to day or are afraid to participate in a peaceful protest en mass. Others, (The rich), have no inclination to do anything of the sort because they couldn't possibly be happier! I know that people in the USA tend to ignore problems as long as they can. So does everyone else, for that matter. Its just human nature. I don't support Globalism, but I don't see a way around it now. Its somewhat too late to stop, and it has been for close to 100 years. What does the so-called War on Terror have to do with this? You mention that we don't solve many problems. That is true. We do however TRY to solve a lot of problems. The problem is that oftentimes the Solution we implement turns out to be worse than the initial Problem. I could give you a LONG list where this is the case (and many of the subjects we discuss here in the politics forum are on that list). We need to sit and think for a LONG time before we act on Health Care. We cannot afford to go off 'half-cocked' on this and implement a Solution that will just make things worse than the Current Problem. When we implemented a partially Socialized Health Care system in the US (Medicare/Medicaid), health care costs skyrocketed. If we 'finish the job' with something like HR 676, it will only make the problem worse. The Problem is that Health Care is EXPENSIVE nowadays. It doesn't really matter HOW it is paid for, it is still a HUGE amount of money. How can we make it less expensive? Well, we could go after Big Pharma and force them to lower their prices on medications. But what effect would this have? If we lowered the medication price enough to do any measurable good, Big Pharma would have few choices to consider. One of which would be to lower the quality of the product (they can't do this because of Government regulations). The only other choice would be to just go out of business because it would no longer be profitable. Then who will produce medicine? Who will research new medicines? The Government? The Private sector can do things much cheaper than the Government. Having the Government do it would only drive costs UP at a faster rate. Similar arguments can be made up and down the 'health care' food chain. Again, the Problem is that Health Care is too expensive. Getting Government involved in it further will only make it even more expensive. You ask how Canada and France can do it? Rationing. Its just the same as in the USA today. They ration health care based on decisions of Government Bureaucrats. We ration health case based on the patients ability to pay. Remember, health care is not a right, it is a service that either you buy for yourself, someone else buys it for you, or you go without. Heh, not even Food is a right. Either you buy food, someone else buys it for you, or you go without. You don't have the right to take something from someone else without their permission. That is stealing. Economics is all about allocation of scarce resources. The private sector has time and again proven itself to be much more efficient at resource allocation than Government. Government efforts in the past to enforce lower prices in various industries have, without exception, met with failure. Perhaps its time that Government needs to look at how it can help encourage lower health care costs. That is, how it can make things more favorable to competition in health care so market forces can drive prices lower, rather than 'take over' health care and screw it up further trying to 'do things itself'. Remember, ever higher health care costs financed out of ever higher Government tax revenues is NOT a desirable outcome. But, affordable health care costs that are low enough to be affordable to everyone out of their own pockets (or a modest loan if its something SERIOUS) IS a desirable outcome. | |
| ID: 612702 · | |
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I'm sorry, MajorKong, | |
| ID: 612746 · | |
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