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Originally posted by: Shimraa
your living in a country that spends 700 billion dollars to blow up iraq, dint you thing your gov could take some of that money and put it into places where it would help the people. also canada has free health care, the only people that go to the states for care are people that need specialists.
i am not farmiliar with the stuff in the second part of your last post, since i dont live in america could you please enlighten me. what you mean that half of the price of stuff goes into those things you listed.
The economic issues that exist in the US go far beyond Iraq. They've been in existence ever since the creation of a central private bank, then broke away from a backed currency. An "elastic" money supply is the reason the US can do the things it does, however there are certain DIRE consequences.
You've not heard of people in Canada having to go to the US because they've been caught up in the beauracracy? I've heard it takes 6 months on average to get an MRI in Canada.
Most US companies have to provide health benefits to their employees, the costs are going up 16% on average this year alone. The way it usually works is the employer pays for the lion's share of the costs, with some of the burden being passed to the employees. I pay about $500 a month US out of my own pocket to provide health and dental insurance for my family of 4. In the US, that's a PHENOMENAL program. At another company I worked at, I paid $500 per paycheck. The reason for the runaway costs are many-fold, not the least of which is the lawyers and out of control malpractice suits.
On top of this the employers have to pay property taxes on just about anything it owns, income taxes, unemployment taxes. They're easily sued by current/ex employees for any number of bullsh#t reasons, same goes for people who use their products (hot coffee lady, anyone?), the lawyers they employ have to be paid.
Then you have the daily operational expenses, like paying suppliers, gasoline, maintenance, electricity, heating and water bills. Throw in Worker's Comp (a mandatory insurance program for employees who get hurt on the job which is frequently abused by the employees) and Union problems, and you can start to see where I'm coming from. Many of the countries these employers are going to don't have these types of concerns.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not anti-labor (my grandfather was a union coal miner, my father and brother also heavily involved in unions). I believe a worker has a right to a living wage and quality health care. But, as long as these types of things are abused, either by employees, lawyers, customers, it ain't gonna happen. How much more pressure does cheap foreign competition create? Now you can see why the playing field is not level. This is why the US and all other countries must have the right to exercise their tarrif power...to mitigate SOME of the pain of an almost non-paid foreign labor market.