scarabic @ scarabic @lemmy.world

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2 yr. ago

No. Just scroll up and down that page I linked and you’ll see some charts are labeled “national spending” and some are labeled “federal spending.” Federal is government. National is everything: government and private. The US government is not pouring 20% of GDP into healthcare, and then on top of that there’s all private spending.

Most of us have. There are just entrenched centers where the history goes very deep.

I see you’ve fallen into thinking that as long as we don’t talk about race, there’s no racism. And that actively trying to do something about racism draws attention to it, and is therefore racist.

The whole “I don’t see race” thing is empty. You can claim you don’t see race and so you don’t want to hear about it, while black people systematically get turned down for mortgages and have their houses appraised for less.

Maybe you don’t “see race” but society as a whole still does and you can see it in the numbers. Pointing that out and asking what we can do about it is not racism! That is not what racism ever was.

I would say that “not seeing race” is all well and good but you shouldn’t try to say that because you don’t think you see race, no one does, and therefore everyone should never mention it again. Do you see how that’s several leaps of logic thrown into one? And it makes you look like you’re desperate to bury any talk of the subject, which might be, you know… racist?

I agree the end state we would all like is one where no one sees race. But there’s no use pretending we are there when we aren’t.

I have only one correction and it’s a small one. The US spends more on healthcare but that spending isn’t all by the US government. Your main point still stands. The system sucks.

More on this:

In 2022, the United States spent an estimated $12,742 per person on healthcare — the highest healthcare costs per capita across similar countries.

Healthcare spending is driven by utilization (the number of services used) and price (the amount charged per service). An increase in either of those factors can result in higher healthcare costs. Despite spending nearly twice as much on healthcare per capita, utilization rates in the United States do not differ significantly from other wealthy OECD countries. Prices, therefore, appear to be the main driver of the cost difference between the United States and other wealthy countries.

There are many possible factors for why healthcare prices in the United States are higher than other countries, ranging from the consolidation of hospitals — leading to a lack of competition — to the inefficiencies and administrative waste that derive from the complexity of the U.S. healthcare system. In fact, the United States spends over $1,000 per person on administrative costs — almost five times more than the average of other wealthy countries and more than it spends on long-term healthcare.

Source

Yep. Interestingly, conservatives disagree on this. They’ll say that black people have absolutely nothing to complain about post Civil Rights Act of 1964. They think that once the law changed, everything else is just a matter of personal merit and fortune. They only recognize institutional racism. They seem to think either that personal and cultural racism doesn’t exist, or (more likely) that that is a personal choice which no one has any business complaining about.

It might occasionally be legit that an employer needs you to apply quickly.

But EVERY scam will say this.

You might just let this one go.

It’s a ritual sacrifice, so the important thing is that the person parted with the money. It’s not that important if the deity gets it, or who gets it.

At the public university I attended, there was a student health center where you could see a doctor for routine things. Not a complete hospital or anything but we weren’t totally on our own.

I was gonna say an all out thumb war between the peoples but I like your idea better.

Even though it was all dire news it was uplifting to just hear the actual truth and a clear moral direction articulated. I found it very refreshing. The bullshit is so THICK right now.

I hear that. I took those comments in a couple of ways:

1. he is at least to some degree describing real things that are happening
2. more so, I took it as an expression of faith that America has deep reserves of reason and dignity which are not exhausted yet
3. it was also a subtle cue to those of us who think we’re part of those reserves to get off our asses

Guy should really move on.

I swear I’ve heard at least one other story like that about him! It must be a thing he does for fun. I’m sure bartending is a hard job but when done on a lark for a good crowd it can be a blast.

If storage space were free and limitless, maybe. Honey keeps forever in principle but that doesn’t mean your barrel could never be contaminated, broken into by bugs or rodents, etc.

Personally, I enjoy buying different varieties of honey, especially as it’s a craft which has been getting more popular and really taking off in “local food” culture. I don’t want to commit to a barrel of any one thing, and I’m also fairly sure that the honey I could buy in a barrel is not going to be the one I’d most enjoy, but some over filtered, over processed stuff.

So I say nay.

You’re asking why this culture is still around when segregation ended in 1964. Culture has a way of sticking, generally. But look at this timeline.

Slavery was a thing for hundreds of years, and segregation for decades. It’s very deeply rooted. I hate it, but I’m not baffled by it.

Come talk to me when the impoverished of the world stop risking life and limb to be here. You think you’re the embattled poor but by global standards you are not, and when American empire falls, you will feel it too.

It’s that simple. Mic drop.

I’m going to ignore your profanity and ad hominems again (you are very angry and that’s not my problem) and actually move on to why I say that every American is helped by American empire.

I’m seeing a lot of uninformed fools welcome the end of the US led order, saying, not unlike you that who cares - it only helps the wealthy. This is foolish and arrogant and naive.

Every Amazon warehouse worker owns a phone assembled by impoverished Asian hands, and one of the reasons the phones flow one direction and the poverty flows the other is American dominance and the dominance of the dollar particularly.

You think I’m privileged because I’m not a warehouse worker but I’m saying the warehouse workers of the US are still privileged by global standards, and absolutely stand to lose that privilege when American empire ends. You’re so intent to cry your narrative about the wealthy of the US lording over the rest of the US that you ignore the fact we’re all privileged.

Maybe we all should lose that and that’s all for the best. I don’t know of any reason we should be so anointed. But it’s the height of stupid self pity to bleat that you don’t care if the dollar crashes because the ruling class! As long as you’re paid in dollars, you have a lot to lose here.

To sum up: maybe you have more in common with the ruling class than you think. Maybe you’re throwing stones inside a glass house. This is why you’re so angry, I think: because you clutch the narrative SO tightly that you’re actually the embattled underdog, when 90% of the people in this world would kill to be in your shoes. You clutch this image of me as a billionaire fascist when I’m an immigrant’s kid, you complete buffoon. People hate having their dearest held narratives ripped away. Not sorry.

I haven’t expressed any preferences or allegiances any way. All I argued with was the contention that only the “ruling class” benefit from American dominated world order. That’s plainly false.

Next thing I know you’re wailing about killing brown people and trying to pivot the topic and telling me I’m all for imperialism and an asshole. Yes I’m ignoring your bullshit tangents and ad hominem tantrums, because that’s what they are.

You made a claim. It’s wrong. If anyone here is too full of themselves it’s you, because you are demonstrably incapable of recognizing when you are plainly wrong, and will yell expletives at anyone who dares point out that you are.

It’s a perfectly fine example and I answered it directly. I just think it was especially chosen to be a worker on the lower end, at a notoriously inhumane employer, in order to present a challenge to me in showing how that person could possibly be benefitting from the US dominated world order. But that’s fine. Better than fine, because I still had a direct and completely valid answer to how America’s global empire benefits that person. If anything, that example helped me, because if there’s an answer for Amazon warehouse workers, then there’s pretty much an answer for everybody.

And my answer has gone completely ignored while we all, me included, bitch about whether it’s a cherry picked case. It doesn’t matter.

Ah and now with the name calling. And yeah you tried to argue more about the Amazon worker being a cherry pick when it doesn’t matter at all.

Listen kid, I’m all for not killing brown people by the millions too. I’m glad we agree on that.

Where we don’t agree, and where you’ve been utterly put in your place beyond question, is on the topic of whether only CEOs benefit from American empire. All Americans do. Period. That’s the only topic here. Me saying it’s now closed is not smugness: it’s a fact. You can call me more names if it makes you feel better.