<p>"How can you be economically rotten to the core?"</p>
<p>I can't believe you asked that question. Ever hear of a capitalist? Economic evil is the root of all other evils.</p>
<p>Uh, wouldn't that be morally rotten to the core? And speaking of economic evils, Lefty McLefterson, you're the one that judges the quality of a school by how much money it will make you and how impressive your dinner guests find it.</p>
<p>Yes, but I plan to be rich like doing something great for society through the sciences. Either that, or I'll die poor and obscure. One thing I won't do is become some business mogul and exploit the proletariat.</p>
<p>If I were a betting man I'd go with #2.</p>
<p>The odds are definitely higher. If I were I betting man, I'd go with #2 too.</p>
<p>Gutrade, just out of curiosity, where are you REALLY going to school next year?</p>
<p>I am REALLY going to Yale. But, since I could care less whether anonymous people on college forums really believe me or not, it's up to you to decide what you want to regard as the truth.</p>
<p>Ok, not that you care if I believe you or not, but I guess I believe you. But...I'm still wondering why you made no mention of it for months afterward, and never on the Yale boards. Like I said, who cares, right? But jotting a few sentences about it would go a long way towards convincing any doubters.</p>
<p>Gut--economics makes the world go round. Without capitalism (which you supposedly denounce) your parents couldn't pay for your tuition.</p>
<p>Anyway, if you think that economics is "evil" then move to some communist country and see how you deal with their culture/society. Communism doesn't work realistically--so good luck with that. </p>
<p>Seriously, don't denounce something when the food that you eat comes from capitalism. People like you amaze me, seriously. You know absolutely nothing about economics do you? (One of my majors is economics.) I'm simply "shocked" honestly with your naivete.</p>
<p>Anyways, Yale's science department is supposedly bad. Yale is famous for literature and arts, not science. You should have chosen another school for science.</p>
<p>Youre funny. I mean really, i laughed at your post. If you really are so knowledgable please explain how Sweden's economy doesnt work realistically. I mean youre right the taxes are a bit hefty, and that guaranteed healthcare thing is pretty whack. I mean what is a country coming to when it ensures that every citizen has healthcare. I mean we can pride ourselves in that nearly a fifth of our illustrious country has absolutely no healthcare when 200B dollars is spent on a war looking for oil, all the while watching OPEC slam us with $56 barrels. I mean if we really want to start talking about strange economics, please explain to me why the concentration of wealth and lowering taxes favoring the highest wage earners in society helps stimulate an economy. I mean all those cutbacks sure does nothing to create a class of consumers. But youre the non-naive one please explain it to me. Now, "shocked" one, i may not be a great economics major like you, but i at least realize how screwed up this political system is, regardless of whether or not it gives me the food i eat. </p>
<p>P.S. Economics may make the world go round, but that doesnt really imply that capitalism is the only system that works, and saying that is just stating the blatantly obvious.</p>
<p>Yay! Let's start a revolution together yllwep! We'll overthrow these callous capitalists and end the tyranny of the owners of the means of production.</p>
<p>Good one bud. I simply want to point out that there are certain things overlooked, and that the current political and economic system in place has much to improve upon, but whose faults are overlooked in sensational neoconservative hooplah about gay rights and spreading freedom and democracy (aka delivering surgical strikes via $600k Tomahawk cruise missiles). Im not trying to incite some type of riot and your lack of humor is in itself amusing. If thats the best that you can come up with as a retort, please, refrain.</p>
<p>capitalism produces the rich and the poor. socialism/communism just makes everybody poor. awesome.</p>
<p>Socialism doesn't necessarily make everyone poorer, it just kills competition and efficiency in sectors it controls. Communism just kills the economy.</p>
<p>Then again, look at what a controlled economy like the USSR managed to accomplish for almost 40 years after WW II.</p>
<p>Actually, some socialistic forces are good for perfecting competition. Such as anti monopoly legislation. There are others... but thats for my thesis... =D</p>
<p>Also, the US did engage in communist practices regarding rationing during WWII and the Soviet Union did resort to the market economy several times selling government rations on the black market during the Bolshevik Revolution era.</p>
<p>I would argue that California's $ 60 billion that goes to subsidize other state's welfare can be considered a version of socialism by definition. One would have to compare Balance of Payments between the USSR provinces and US Democratic states to others. Thats why red states being republican is even more ironic than u think...</p>
<p>our health care system is good precisely because it is private. when was the last time you were administered a drug from a european company? not to mention it keeps our taxes down. european healthcare is inefficient and results in a misallocation of resources. the solution to healthcare disparities in the US is not to fully socialize the system but to help the lower classes pay for it through programs such as medicaire and medicaid.</p>
<p>"Then again, look at what a controlled economy like the USSR managed to accomplish for almost 40 years after WW II."</p>
<p>yeah, it collapsed.</p>
<p>I find it highly amusing that a 17-year-old can know ANYTHING about health care. When have you needed it? For a booster shot? </p>
<p>Let me tell you what Medicare and Medicaid and such did for my elderly mother when she had a stroke. The good nursing homes--where someone will change your diaper immediately when you need it, where the food is good, where you get some privacy when you're bathed or helped to the toilet--don't accept Medicare or Medicaid. They cost $12,000 a month. So my mother went to a Medicare-approved home. </p>
<p>Medicare paid for her to be in a nursing home that smelled of poop, where her roommate was a crazy woman who stayed naked all day and moaned all night. When the 100 days the Medicare would cover ran out, she had to start paying for the nursing home out of her meager savings. When she was down to her tiny condo plus $75K in TOTAL NET WORTH, Medicaid kicked in and paid for the nursing home. Except that they wouldn't pay for the nursing home she was already in--she had to move to an even worse one. Someplace positively Dickensian. </p>
<p>When my elderly father-in-law was dying, his Indian attending physician was mortified to have to discharge my FIL from the hospital--insurance company rules about how long he could stay there. The doctor shook his head and said, "Even in India, a poor country, we don't kick a dying man out of the hospital." </p>
<p>We are the richest country on earth and most of the money in health care is being made not by doctors and nurses and hospitals but by insurance companies (who do nothing but warm their hands on the paperwork) and rapacious pharmaceutical companies. We are closing emergency rooms all over the country because that's where Medicaid people (the "lower classes" you referred to, you nasty little snob) go for treatment. </p>
<p>You can judge a civilization by how it treats its most helpless members--the poor, the old, the children, even the animals. I can see that YOU think that all those unlucky ones are just Darwinian victims.</p>
<p>"european healthcare is inefficient and results in a misallocation of resources'</p>
<p>actually, we are the only highly industrialized nation to have such a privatized healthcare system. We also spend the most on healthcare and it is the most inefficient.</p>
<p>^ agrees. but the politicians refuse to do anything because they either can't agree, or have no guts to make changes that might affect their reelection.</p>
<p>Nothing matters for the next four years because this past presidential election had clear evidence of election fraud of up to 10 million votes as verified by statistician professors from Berkeley, UPenn, and Cornell. </p>
<p>Nothing we say matters. Nothing you think matters. Democracy does not exist so it is irrelevant what you think about health insurance.</p>