World is Falling Apart Thread (Locked forever)

[marurun]

Trump's twitter strikes again; this time influencing the House to back off the Ethics power strip. The Republicans would not listen to complaints from Democrats, but heeded Trump.

I'm sure the massive number of news outlets reporting on this prior to Trump's tweet had NOTHING to do with this at all

Oh and watch for the WikiLeaks Founder interview that Trump was hinting tonight on Fox concerning the supposed Russian hack.

Julian Assange is about as reliable as a $30 bicycle... He provides no evidence of the US assessment being incorrect. We must merely settle for his word on the matter.

[MrPopo]

Earlier this month I was in the Bahamas for vacation and when we went into town from the resort we had a local driver who was very friendly and talkative, and he was mentioning how the Bahamas has free healthcare for everyone. The trade off there is if you want to go see the doctor you have to take off the day due to the waiting times. It's actually bad enough that those who can afford it go with the paid healthcare to trade off money for time. So that's an eventual consideration for making healthcare more accessible as well.

[Sarge]

That's a good point. I still believe we have the best health care in the world, even with all our foibles, and we don't have nearly the sort of wait times that you do in other nations. It's just shifting costs somewhere else in single-payer. The wait times would be hideous, but those with enough money would be able to buy themselves care outside of that system. When it comes down to it, the rich are always going to have access to the best health care, in any system.

[marurun]

Well, you're right, the rich will always be able to buy the best care. And we actually don't have the best health care system in the world for anyone who isn't already somewhat privileged. The Canadians, Brits, Germans, and various other Europeans are generally far happier with their health systems than we are with ours, and their populaces all have better health outcomes than we do. Further, they are much less likely to go bankrupt because of serious illnesses like cancer. I think for that I'd definitely tolerate some wait times.

[Blu]

Trump's twitter strikes again; this time influencing the House to back off the Ethics power strip. The Republicans would not listen to complaints from Democrats, but heeded Trump.

I'm sure the massive number of news outlets reporting on this prior to Trump's tweet had NOTHING to do with this at all

Or the thousands of citizens that subsequently bombarded our congresspersons phone lines today. Yep, that was what did it.

Seriously, CRT, stop with this nonsense. Trump's twitter isn't the divine calling you're making it out to be. He alone didn't do anything, let alone solve this. It was the combined citizenry, whom after the FREE PRESS reported this sneaky power grab, gave citizens reason to organize. Trump was seeing where the citizenry were lining up, and he marched right along.

[Blu]

Double post incoming about plausibility of Russian hacking of our election. These are my hunches and reportable facts.
Follow the bouncing ball:

1.) Trump owes Blackstone/ Bayrock group $560 million dollars (one of his largest debtors and the primary reason he won't reveal his tax returns)

2.) Blackstone is owned wholly by Russian billionaires, who owe their position to Putin and have made billions from their work with the Russian government.

3.) Other companies that have borrowed from Blackstone have claimed that owing money to them is like owing to the Russian mob and while you owe them, they own you for many favors.

4.) The Russian economy is badly faltering under the weight of its over-dependence on raw materials which as you know have plummeted in the last 2 years leaving the Russian economy scrambling to pay its debts.

5.) Russia has an impetus to influence our election to ensure the per barrel oil prices are above $65 ( they are currently hovering around $50).

6.) Russia can't affordably get at 80% of its oil reserves and reduce its per barrel cost to compete with America at $45 or Saudi Arabia at $39. With Iranian sanctions being lifted Russia will find another inexpensive competitor increasing production and pushing Russia further down the list of suppliers. As for Iranian sanctions, the 6 countries lifting them allowing Iran to collect on the billions it is owed for pumping oil but not being paid for it. These billions Iran can only get if the Iranian nuclear deal is signed. Trump spoke of ending the deals which would cause oil sales sanctions to be reimposed, which would make Russian oil more competitive.

7.) Rex Tillerson (Trump's pick for Secretary of State) is the head of ExxonMobil, which is in possession of patented technology that could help Putin extract 45% more oil at a significant cost savings to Russia, helping Putin put money in the Russian coffers to help reconstitute its military and finally afford to mass produce the new and improved systems that it had invented before the Russian economy had slowed so much.

8.) Putin cannot get access to these new cost saving technologies OR outside oil field development money, due to US sanctions on Russia, because of its involvement in Ukrainian civil war.

9.) Look for Trump to end sanctions on Russia and to back out of the Iranian nuclear deal, to help Russia rebuild its economy, strengthen Putin and make Tillerson and Trump even richer, thus allowing Trump to satisfy his creditors at Blackstone.

10.) With Trump's fabricated hatred of NATO and the U.N., the Russian military reconstituted, the threat to the Baltic states is real. Russia retaking their access to the Baltic Sea from Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia and threatening the shipping of millions of cubic feet of natural gas to lower Europe from Scandinavia, allowing Russia to make a good case for its oil and gas being piped into eastern Europe.

Sources (Lying Press /s): Time Magazine, NY Times, The Atlantic, The Guardian UK.

I stand ready to be called wrong by these predictions, but I think they are plausible, if not likely.

[Erik_Twice]

That's a good point. I still believe we have the best health care in the world

Just from a quick search on the internet:

- Around 60% of all bankrupcies in the United States have medical costs as a cause.
- 16% of Americans report that they can't afford the medicines they need. The rate skyrockets to 42% for those suffering from a chronic condition.
- 37% of American adults are reported to have avoided medical care because they couldn't afford it.
- Thanks to Obamacare, the insured rate has been raised to around 88%. Other developed countries have rates of around 98,5% or higher.
- Even worse, a fourth of that 88% cannot afford healthcare despite being insured.
- The timeliness of care is lower than that of Switzerland, the United Kingdom, The Netherlands and Germany.
- Out of a comparison with 11 countries the United States is last in Efficiency, Equity, Accessiblity/Cost and the worst in general care. (The US spends significantly more per capita than any other country in the world)
- According to the World Health Organization, the United States is at the 31st spot on the best healthcare ranking, despite it spending the most of any other country and being the richest country in the world. It's not only surpassed by most European countries, but also by developing countries like Colombia or Morocco.
- Healthcare costs per capita in the US almost doubled in the decade from 2000 to 2010.
- According to the Harvard Medical School "Almost 100,000 people died in the U.S. yearly because of lack of needed care"
- Among adults surveyed in the U.S., 37% reported that they had foregone needed medical care in the previous year because of cost; either skipping medications, avoiding seeing a doctor when sick, or avoiding other recommended care. The rate was higher — 42% — among those with chronic conditions. The study reported that these rates were well above those found in the other six countries surveyed: Australia, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, and the UK.[160] The study also found that 19% of U.S. adults surveyed reported serious problems paying medical bills, more than double the rate in the next highest country.

The US does not have the best healthcare system in the world. It doesn't have particularly great timeliness of care, either, nor is it "awful" in any other developed (and many non-developed) countries. That's just what politicians tell you man

hello ack

[CRTGAMER]

Did Wikileaks sway the election by providing the truth to the voters?
The Wikileaks Julian Assange interview (YouTube) stating source is not from Russia. Julian Assange stated Wikileaks released Clinton's Email due to on a private server to prevent exposure from the Freedom Of Information Act. He stated he did the same on Sarah Palin's Email for the same private server issue.

Julian Assange Part One Interview - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wr2uWYTgtw

Transcript Part One - http://www.foxnews.com/transcript/2017/ ... overnment/

ASSANGE: There is -- there is a difference, which is our material is better presented, less intermediation. The public responded to it more than -- than The New York Times. But the editor of The New York Times -- he has come out and said that he would do the same thing as WikiLeaks. If they had obtained that information, they would publish it. Now, unfortunately, I don't believe that is true. I believe they would selectively maybe publish just a bit here and a bit there. They would not have done what we did, which is present the American public everything that we knew.

Can you just imagine that if WikiLeaks had information about Debbie Wasserman Schultz helping to rig the primary with Bernie Sanders and we withheld that information until after the election? That would be an absolutely unconscionable act for a media organization to engage in. Unfortunately, those sorts of acts do happen. But not with this organization.

WikiLeaks Hillary Clinton EMail Archive - https://wikileaks.org/clinton-emails/?q ... %20Clinton

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/01 ... mails.html

Assange: Russian government not the source of WikiLeaks emails
Since Trump’s victory over Hillary Clinton in November, Clinton’s allies have stepped up claims that the WikiLeaks email releases significantly damaged her candidacy – particularly the leak of thousands of emails from Campaign Chairman John Podesta’s account. An earlier release of DNC emails over the summer led to the resignation of Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

Damning emails from Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman did not come from Russian hackers and the claim is being made to "delegitimize" Donald Trump, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange told Fox News' Sean Hannity in an exclusive interview. “We can say, we have said, repeatedly that over the last two months that our source is not the Russian government and it is not a state party,” Assange said.

More than 50,000 emails were released during the 2016 presidential campaign, exposing dubious practices at the Clinton Foundation, top journalists working closely with the Clinton campaign, key Clinton aides speaking derisively of Catholics and a top Democratic National Committee official providing debate questions to Clinton in advance.

Asked if the emails changed the outcome of the election, Assange said: “Who knows, it’s impossible to tell. But if it did, the accusation is that the true statements of Hillary Clinton and her campaign manager, John Podesta, and the DNC head Debbie Wasserman Schultz, their true statements is what changed the election.”

[Ack]

Actually the trend towards decreases in wait times in those non-US countries is relatively recent, having primarily occurred in the mid-2000s as a reaction to poor performance in previous decades. The UK, Finland, and the Netherlands have all seen massive reductions in wait times for medical procedures within the last decade. In the case of the UK and Finland, this is generally because the government imposed requirements on maximum wait time guarantees which involved sanctions(economic or otherwise) against hospitals that violated those periods while also increasing the resources available to perform necessary operations.

Waiting times in Denmark, the Netherlands, and Portugal meanwhile have seen reduction or relative low stability because of patient choice and policies enabling competition: patients who wait beyond a maximum time may seek treatment elsewhere, with the original provider incurring some of the expenses of the individual's medical procedure as a result. Again, resources have also been improved and increased to enable this transition.

The argument that Finland and the United Kingdom experienced long wait times are in fact true...or at least they were. In the late 1990s, wait times for necessary medical procedures were in fact double those of many other European nations for British and Finnish citizens.

Unfortunately wait times in many European nations have since gone back on the rise in the last few years, likely due to economic recession. They're not back to 1990s levels by any means, but they have increased comparatively to the late 2000s.

Source: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/ar ... 1014002267

Our politicians aren't wrong in their thinking, per se, but they are operating off of outdated information.

Hey Erik

[Blu]

Did Wikileaks sway the election by providing the truth to the voters?
The Wikileaks Julian Assange interview (YouTube) stating source is not from Russia. Julian Assange stated Wikileaks released Clinton's Email due to on a private server to prevent exposure from the Freedom Of Information Act. He stated he did the same on Sarah Palin's Email for the same private server issue.

Assange: Russian government not the source of WikiLeaks emails
Since Trump’s victory over Hillary Clinton in November, Clinton’s allies have stepped up claims that the WikiLeaks email releases significantly damaged her candidacy – particularly the leak of thousands of emails from Campaign Chairman John Podesta’s account. An earlier release of DNC emails over the summer led to the resignation of Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

Damning emails from Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman did not come from Russian hackers and the claim is being made to "delegitimize" Donald Trump, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange told Fox News' Sean Hannity in an exclusive interview. “We can say, we have said, repeatedly that over the last two months that our source is not the Russian government and it is not a state party,” Assange said.

More than 50,000 emails were released during the 2016 presidential campaign, exposing dubious practices at the Clinton Foundation, top journalists working closely with the Clinton campaign, key Clinton aides speaking derisively of Catholics and a top Democratic National Committee official providing debate questions to Clinton in advance.

I'm sorry, this doesn't provide a motive that holds water. Assange (an alleged sexual predator on the run so long, his SoL is about to run out on the charges) to be a feel-good about exposing corruption? Despite his character flaws, what exactly does Assange stand to gain? Altruistic pursuits so his mind can rest easy? Sorry, not buying it.

It beckons asking who might be pulling the strings. The sanctions on Russia have hit quite hard, and it seems more credible (in terms of Occam's Razor) that a Clinton regime would be more of the same in regards to sanctions. With Trump saying the Iran deal is bogus, statements of admiration for Putin, and that the sanctions on Russia should be lifted, it appeared Russia would have a favorable outlook with a Trump presidency. The program (Grizzly Steppe) that allegedly hacked the DNC was of Russian origin. The groups responsible operated behind enough proxy to give the Russians agencies (GRU and FSB) plausible deniability. The ten points I provided I believe are possible, if not likely, to come true if and when Trump starts to lift sanctions on Russia.

Do you really think that Dear Leader, President-Elect Trump has more Intelligence and Counter-intelligence smarts, training, and skill than Putin, KGB trained, former head of the FSB? Give me a break.

Here's some good reporting on the topic, give it an objective read.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/29/us/po ... .html?_r=0

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If you need more substantial proof, and it's out there, readily available at your fingertips. It's unburdened proof as to why Russia might be using what tools it has in a time of desperation:

First, go look at the Ruble to USD, starting in 2014, to present. (https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=c ... +to+dollar).

See the big dip starting in 2014? Wonder who or what caused that? Two things, the drop in price of crude oil, and the international sanctions on Russia after their annexation of Crimea and aggression towards Ukraine.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_f ... 93present)

I urge you to follow the money, not the talking heads. The items I've provided you above lend much more credence to my argument than anything that can come out of Assange's mouth, or any other figurehead who runs their gab.