The 2016 election.

The you are the rarity out there. Once you are the employer maybe then you will understand that $15 an hour minimum in a competitive market place is not a 'good thing'. And notice the trend to automation in the minimal pay rate marketplace, who will pay $5.00 for a Big Mac to keep that underachiever employed? Or, that overseas made widget costing $2.00 pitted against a $7.00 widget made domestically because of the higher costs of labor? And as the employer and having $X as my cost for labor in order to stay in business and provide a competitive priced product or service, and then the employees demand $X+ in pay and benefits, my options are to increase product and or service cost, losing market share and furthering the problem of staying in business , or cut labor force and decrease hours for the 'survivors' in order to stay competitive. Economy 101.

I am in a single payer system, The Veterans Administration Health Care System, and you really do not want this. Have you gone to your local VA Hospital and sat in the waiting room and observed or interviewed Veterans, bet not. You do understand the issues with England's National Health Care System correct, or the fiasco ACA has become.

What is your total overall tax rate, all taxes annually combined? Right now I am at 62% of out total family income goes to taxes of some kind, from federal to communications taxes. Where is the 'that's enough' point in that equation? Get the wife, kids, and house, then get back to me. And why are more and more taxes demanded to support other people who somehow can't seem to motivate themselves above and beyond the this does not work lifestyle, let's try and improve ourselves.

Lowly underpaid enlisted service member, pay far below my civilian counter parts, police officer, again not another high paying career field, yet somehow the family made it, kids off to college, after I paid local school taxes, then paid to put kids through private 'Catholic' school.

It is called 'priorities' in that you can't have everything right now and you have to occasionally say no, and prioritize personal/family spending. You pay for what you can afford, not all the time what you want, and then when your budget is overwhelmed expect others to bail you out or pay for things you did not prioritize (college for the kids, for example).

It's generational, and nothing is 'free' contrary to certain political beliefs. And once you run out of other peoples money, what then...see Venezuala.

Edited by oldsoldier - 30 August 2016 at 7:14pm

You all do understand that back in the day, Dad worked, made enough, mom stayed at home,(but with the option to work) and somehow we survived on one income. Then came 1964 and the tax increases, and all of a sudden middle class America could no long pay for what they could in 1963 and Mom had to go to work, and away the spiral went.

What is the limit, as prices rise to compensate for the $15.00 minimum wage what have we accomplished overall? Higher pay, higher prices, and almost a Zero sum game. And how are we going to compensate the long term prior employees? Will their pay rise with their seniority or just get the $15.00 min the new walk in the door employee gets, explain then the lack of motivation.

A classic case of all this is Venezuela, a micro attempt of what you all want, and what do we have left down there?

Explain how rewarding mediocrity (minimum wage 'career workers') and not expecting then to rise in the workforce, instead drag the remainder of the workforce down to them. Idiocy. How did we generations prior manage to survive and succeed? The son of a career Air Force Officer, in military for 23yrs being paid far less than my civilian counter parts, worked law enforcement, again not another high paying career field in NYC, exchanged 23yrs of blood sweat and tears for my college and 'free' medical through the currently seriously flawed Veteran's Administration Health Care System. Strange how illegals are a higher priority for Health Care on the Government than Veterans who served that Government, we wait, they have no lines instant care and benefits, how does that happen if not fishing for potential Democrat voters?

Lower the taxes, pay based on experience and skill, not just because they are there, return hard goods manufacturing to the US. And then see where we are. When high percentages of the population are on food stamps or other public assistance, paid for by we those of generations passed that actually worked hard to succeed, and are now punished by higher taxes to pay for these underachievers, what do you think we older 'middle class' people think of the new generation of we are owed this types. Yes we 'older' types are PO'd and all Hillary wants to do is take more of the fruits of our labor and give it to someone else, and we are at the end. Start paying 62% of your income to ALL taxes combined, and then get told by one party we need to raise your taxes, really is it that hard to understand.

Edited by oldsoldier - 31 August 2016 at 1:35am

SSOK wrote: I missed T&O.

Same. I have less time to enjoy it though, which is a bummer. 

agentwhale007 wrote: Everything is bad.

Yup.

Eville wrote: God wrote: That is terrible. The USA is doomed. /fixed

Fixed Better.

What we need is a candidate that combines the strengths of both the Democratic and Republican nominees.  You know . . . someone with the honesty of Hillary and the self-control and decorum of Donald.

Just plan accordingly people, it is going to be a long 4 to 8 years after the past 8. I am good to go either way, settled in, home paid for, two vehicles paid for, motorcycles paid for, farm land all around, ability to self sustain. All took time.

Odds are I will be gone in 2020, definitely taking dirt nap by 2024, wife is set up to survive, kids are prepped to cope, grandkids will be screwed, but at least I can look down and said did the best I could.

Whale warned you a long time ago that once you start working time tends to disappear, now get the wife, kids, house and bills and you got even less time, and more importantly money. Welcome to the grown up world.

Is your generation as well of as mine....don't think so, and it is going to get worse, as the next generation comes up behind you and demand more of what you worked for, so they can say 'life needs to be fair' for us.

Edited by oldsoldier - 12 September 2016 at 1:13pm

oldsoldier wrote: I am in a single payer system, The Veterans Administration Health Care System, and you really do not want this.

I don't think a universal healthcare system should run like the VA, though. The VA has major issues that all really stem from unpredictable funding and poor management. It can be easy to look at the poor management as proof that government cannot effectively manage healthcare -- but in reality, the issue us that people who are good at managing healthcare facilities and programs often don't make competitive money at the VA vs. a for-profit facility. 

I don't have all the answers, but I do think that the VA's method of owning facilities doesn't work. Even in a universal-coverage system, ownership of hospitals, clinics, etc., could remain in private hands, simply paid for by a pool of taxed money. Think about the setup with private contract prisons, except helping people get healthy instead of being evil. Let the people who know how to run healthcare run healthcare, just make sure that everyone has a fair right to access. 

I also don't think that an American universal healthcare system would look look the UK's NHS, or whatever the Canadians call their thing. We are a unique country with an enormous population -- our system will have to be different, built for us. 

But I think we should work toward building it. 

I'm interested to see where the media campaigns go from here. Trump hasn't spent nearly as much so far. If I were him, I'd wait until about the second or third week of October to start buying ad space and then absolutely inundate the market. Ads only impact polling for a short period of time, so I'd like to see how effective it would be to create a massive, short term high volume media blitz versus the traditional 6 month long smear fest we typically see. (And like the Hillary campaign team is currently running)

tallen702 wrote: agentwhale007 wrote: This election is now even because the Clinton 2016 campaign is the most inept group at messaging and recruiting I have maybe ever seen in a modern national campaign.  Trump is stumbling into a tie because Clinton is not aware of the perception toward her in the slightest.  How are they so bad at this.  Because they're caught up in the Clinton cult of personality. They can't see why others can't bring themselves to vote for her because they can't see a reason not to.

This could be the most accurate thing said in this entire election cycle.

To me it will be interesting to see if Hillary goes into debate without ear bud, and those advisors telling her how to respond after that short 'delay'. Does she ever have a real thought of her own anymore.

And then we have the New Yorker spontaneous response from Trump, sometimes rather funny, but I understand. The press is far too literal to understand Trump and his New York attitude. As I explain to the local Pollyanna Nebraska crowd, New Yorkers are famous for the blunt and argumentative response, the get you attention response initially, then we explain our point. The art of the kibitz. As I explained to my Nebraskan college professor friend. As a New Yorker the Democrats bring out a box, pull a Duck out of that box, and it looks like a Duck, quacks like a Duck, then you state it is a Turkey, and 'you do not understand', we New Yorker's go "What are you fricking talking about, it is a Duck, are you that stupid?" and somehow we are the 'dumb' ones.