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  • Current Events & Politics Moderators: deficiT | tryptakid | Foreigner

***US financial crisis/bail-out master thread***

aanallein said:
Yes it is to a huge degree. Even in parts of the world that suck the life expectancy is still 50+ yrs of age. Back before the industrial revolution and modern medicine/agriculture the life expectancy was low 30s or worse.

Imagine having no access to basic surgeries or medicine. Food poisoning, the flu, a broken bone, or a bad cavity could be debilitating or even fatal.

Things are steadily getting better but the problem is that the developing world is having a population explosion. If their populations level off like they have i the west we can see some more progress towards the bettering of all people. Til then its 2 steps forward, 1 step back.

I'm optimistic but I can appreciate the pessimism about the world today. Thinking that it was somehow "better" in the past though is simply delusional. Times were HARD before the 1900s. Even with as much access to information as we have, we simply cannot appreciate what it was really like to live before the modern era.
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Times are hard now. We have families lossing their children to go fight foriegn wars, soldiers coming home sick, we have people working for what ammounts to debt slavery by the millions, we have drug problems, we have social class structures that have little mobility based on merit, we have a borgoisis class that exploits and controls the proletariate through control of the financial and media insitutions. We have a economic gap in rich countries and poor countries where the poorest die of malnition, disease and environmental conditions, and the rich are richer than god. The gap between the rich countries and the poor countries is equally huge. Our species suffers from pride, jealousy, and greed, we are corrupt and evil, we kill, steal and extort, we know this, and we accept CNN, NFL, USA, NYT and CIA.

All we have done is redistribute the good and bad, it will always exist, as long as there is two men left alive.
 
^ and yet its still better than it was. i'd rather live til 50-75 in this crazy world than 25 with no shoes and no teeth freezing my ass off at the mercy of barbarians a few hundred ago.
 
aanallein said:
^ and yet its still better than it was. i'd rather live til 50-75 in this crazy world than 25 with no shoes and no teeth freezing my ass off at the mercy of barbarians a few hundred ago.
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yes we have made improvements.

thats not to say that our society is perfect and needs no improvement.

comparing today to yesterday, like centuries ago, of course has shown an improvement of quality of life. certainly in terms of comfort. but mainy problems of old continue to exist today.
 
obviously not. but you have to live well to live long (in a general statistical sense). people are living longer which means they are having better medical care, diet, etc. all factors that are critical to having a good life.
 
aanallein said:
obviously not. but you have to live well to live long (in a general statistical sense). people are living longer which means they are having better medical care, diet, etc. all factors that are critical to having a good life.
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you have to make other people die so you can live well/long
 
We live well due mainly to immunisations and health & safety regulations, the latter of which was grudgingly given by previous governments due to the "Red Scare", the threat of a proletarian revolution. A good diet and access to the latest medical care is, and will always be, a luxury commodity.
 
Take a minute to think about how regulations affect every aspect of Western life. From the food you buy to the restaurants you eat at, the streets you walk on, the hospitals you use, the schools you attend, the industries you work at, and the houses you live in. There are rich countries like the SE Asian 'tigers' that have the technology and the means to provide a higher quality of life but don't because the people don't have the power to demand it.
 
^ you are bringing random unrelated stuff up that has nothing to do with the argument. Sort of like Tally saying that people have to suffer so others can benefit. Simply not true.

All I'm saying is that as an average, things have improved with time. I'm not saying shit is perfect. Far from it. People are suffering right now world wide. But things were VERY bad before the 1900s for 99% of humanity. If you think how it must have been to try to eek out a living before modern times then you have to understand how bad it was. Sure people still enjoyed life, that's not what I'm arguing. But people died from shit like broken bones or polio, bubonic plague, etc. Things have progressed a lot.

Some of us are optimists and some are pessimists. Personally I think things are getting better each year on average and across the whole but people have different viewpoints. I can respect that.
 
aanallein said:
^ you are bringing random unrelated stuff up that has nothing to do with the argument. Sort of like Tally saying that people have to suffer so others can benefit. Simply not true.

All I'm saying is that as an average, things have improved with time. I'm not saying shit is perfect. Far from it. People are suffering right now world wide. But things were VERY bad before the 1900s for 99% of humanity. If you think how it must have been to try to eek out a living before modern times then you have to understand how bad it was. Sure people still enjoyed life, that's not what I'm arguing. But people died from shit like broken bones or polio, bubonic plague, etc. Things have progressed a lot.

Some of us are optimists and some are pessimists. Personally I think things are getting better each year on average and across the whole but people have different viewpoints. I can respect that.
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But you're taking one aspect of progress, medical, and expanding that to say that makes life better overall. By no means construe this as me wanting to forego medical advances, I hope we can reorientate our society without losing the benefits we have acquired.

Nayway, seems that all of us who were hoping for a radical change in society following this mess will be disappointed, or maybe it is yet to come?
 
Does anyone else think it's kinda funny that traditionally Democrats seem to get the autoworkers backing but in the end the man most of the Dems voted against is the one bailing out the autoworkers?
 
I wonder how all of these pension contracts are written? For instance, perhaps the companies could be sold and the proceeds used to fund all of the pensions/health care...which to me is the real issue here. Probably not though, I think they are considered unsecured creditors and the auto makers already have tremendous debt.

These companies fucked up sooooooo bad though. I don't see Toyota going under...actually they are sitting on 10s of billions in excess cash. The big three put all of their money into building SUVs and trucks, advertising them, then lobbying congress to keep emssion standards and gas prices low so that people could actually drive them. By the way, they did this instead of developing battery technology...or even re-tooling their factories to make modern engines (dual overhead cam..standard on all Toyotas). All of a sudden people can't afford their shitty boxes of junk and my currency gets inflated to "bail them out". I hope they default on our loans and we seize their companies.
 
So I was wondering why public schools don't get any bailout money but the business industries do? If less people go to school and don't get any education, how will they afford to buy automobiles in the end? I know they are cutting thousands of jobs because the industries are failing but the schools are failing too and isn't public education one of the pros of being in the US? just my 2 cents =\
 
ya, bailout money of imaginary currency that is owed to the federal reserve. backed by gold and treasury notes. =\
 
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