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CA renter.
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October 21, 2013 at 10:49 AM #767116October 21, 2013 at 10:57 AM #767117
bearishgurl
Participant[quote=spdrun]Yet smoking rates are higher and sugar-substitute use is much lower in European countries with a higher life expectancy. The keys, IMHO:
(1) Active lifestyle — a lot more people commute on foot or by bike
(2) Portion control
(3) Lower levels of stress. 50 hr work weeks combined with 3 hr/day commutes are much less common.BTW, outside of CA, indoor smoking in restaurants and bars was allowed well into the 2000s. NY banned it only in 2003, NJ waited till 2005 or 2006 to outlaw it. It’s still legal indoors in bars in Pennyslvania.
As far as sugar substitute use, it’s not clear that most substitutes are any healthier than sugar itself, when used in moderation (since they tell the body to expect a load of sugar while not delivering, confusing the pancreas). And if anything, since a lot more sugar comes from HFCS than it did 20 years ago, we may be worse off now.[/quote]
spdrun, I’m unfamiliar with Europe/Eastern Europe. Is the smoking rate really higher in those countries than in the US? I wouldn’t have thunk it!
As far as sugar use vs. sugar-substitute use, I could see where Europeans would want to stick to their recipes and not substitute sugar for a substitute. And also drink plain coffee and tea with or without plain milk. And have plain biscuits and scones to go with them. Unlike Americans, most of who seem to like their hot drinks and pastries all duded up (not ME!), I see Europeans as being more of a “purist” in that regard.
I’ve used powdered Splenda in recipes that called for sugar for the last few years.
October 21, 2013 at 11:03 AM #767118ParticipantI forgot to add that our forebears drank more (100+ proof) spirits than we do.
With the proliferation of US wineries, wine has been much more popular in the past 20+ years than mixed drinks, especially in CA.
Also, my math was wrong. 2.85 years worth of boomers are now eligible for MC (and growing every day).
October 21, 2013 at 11:27 AM #767119spdrun
ParticipantSplenda is heat-stable, just don’t use Nutrasweet in baked recipes since it breaks down into toxic substances when heated.
October 23, 2013 at 7:34 AM #767202SD Realtor
ParticipantOctober 23, 2013 at 2:09 PM #767217no_such_reality
Participant80 programs and an average of $740 Billion a year not including the States portion of Medicaid at $200 Billion or including Medicare and Social Security.
October 26, 2013 at 11:59 PM #767316CA renter
Participant[quote=livinincali][quote=no_such_reality]There’s several reasons.
First thing we need to address is that per capita, the USA across it’s levels of Government is currently and has for the last five years been spending on par with GReat Britain, France and Germany. We haven’t taxed to that level, but per person, we’re spending the same level of Government.
Except we don’t have universal health care, SS is kind of like their pensions, but overall, we’ve been funneling our money into the Military.
When you look at Norway, firstly, their top tax rate is 48%, their GDP per capita is twice ours, with a GDP at basically $100K/person.[/quote]
We have universal health care for 119 million people in this country (medicare and medicaid) at a cost of $940/119 = $7,899 per person on the program. Most industrialized nations provide health care for about $3,500-5,550 per capita. http://kff.org/global-indicator/health-expenditure-per-capita/
The real big problem is the total cost of providing medical care is this country. The key is figuring out how to provide medical care for less not figuring out how to get more people to help pay for the exorbitant costs.[/quote]
That’s because Medicare and Medicaid are covering our **most expensive** patients in the U.S., while other developed nations cover the sick AND the healthy (less expensive) patients.
What so many “anti-socialists” seem to miss is that we already cover the most expensive patients with publicly-funded healthcare programs (the elderly, pregnant women, infants/children, and the indigent all tend to be the most expensive patients). Taxpayers are subsidizing the healthcare industry by covering most of the expensive patients (these subsidies for the private market absolutely dwarf the problems related to the “pension crisis,” but you’ll never hear about it because the capitalist elites benefit from it).
We’ve socialized the losses by shunting the expensive patients to Medicare, Medicaid, and other publicly-funded programs; and privatized the profits by leaving the most profitable/healthy patients for the private market…as we usually do in our “capitalist” system.
October 27, 2013 at 12:21 AM #767318scaredyclassic
Participantheck yeah. it’s kind of hilarious how we pretend to be market driven. we should give up the facade and do single payer, or just let old people die and let freelance midwives deliver babies both in the privacy of the home.
one or the other, whatever you people want, but this pretend stuff is silly.
October 27, 2013 at 1:23 AM #767320Participant[quote=SD Realtor]http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/report-us-spent-37-trillion-welfare-over-last-5-years_764582.html[/quote]
As other posters have mentioned, one of the main reasons for the increased welfare expenditures is the loss of good-paying manufacturing jobs. While some of this is due to automation, millions of jobs have been lost to other countries with low/no environmental or labor protections, in just this past decade.
The people who are complaining the most about welfare recipients (corporate/financial elite) are the very same people who have intentionally dismantled the job base in the U.S. And let’s not forget the billions of dollars of taxpayer subsidies that most of these companies are getting, either directly or indirectly. Funny how they never complain about that.
“About $59 billion is spent on traditional social welfare programs. $92 billion is spent on corporate subsidies. So, the government spent 50% more on corporate welfare than it did on food stamps and housing assistance in 2006.”
BTW, that corporate welfare number does NOT include govt contracts with well-connected (or not) private companies, etc. You know, stuff like this from the “small govt/no deficit” crowd:
“WASHINGTON — Built to dominate the enemy in combat, the Army’s hulking Abrams tank is proving equally hard to beat in a budget battle.
Lawmakers from both parties have devoted nearly half a billion dollars in taxpayer money over the past two years to build improved versions of the 70-ton Abrams.
But senior Army officials have said repeatedly, “No thanks.”‘
http://www.cleveland.com/nation/index.ssf/2013/04/ohio_budget_hawks_in_congress.html
October 27, 2013 at 8:01 PM #767325ParticipantAbrams should have been killed long ago. Look into the reasons why it was not. Pretty easy to figure out. Hint, it was not Army officials. I understand what you are saying about big contracts. Kind of like CGI a Canadian firm being selected for the technical development of the Obamacare website…. Interesting relationships there.
October 27, 2013 at 11:02 PM #767326ParticipantRight. I know it’s not the Army officials, that’s why I referred to the “small govt/no deficit” crowd…
“If there’s a home of the Abrams, it’s politically important Ohio. The nation’s only tank plant is in Lima. So it’s no coincidence that the champions for more tanks are Rep. Jim Jordan and Sen. Rob Portman, two of Capitol’s Hill most prominent deficit hawks, as well as Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown. They said their support is rooted in protecting national security, not in pork-barrel politics.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/28/abrams-tank-congress-army_n_3173717.html
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Many people claim that they want to cut govt spending, but only as long as it’s someone else’s govt spending that gets cut.
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