Obamacare cost...

[Pelado]

Does VoIP count? Well, I actually have Ooma as well. It costs me $3.77/mo.

You didn't upgrade for the Premier Service?

http://www.ooma.com/products/premier

[Uncle Ted]

You didn't upgrade for the Premier Service?

http://www.ooma.com/products/premier

No, I just use it for my conference calls. All that other stuff it seems I have on my cell phone.

[il Padrino Ute]

We do.

I haven't ever had a cell phone. And I like it that way. Leave a message, I'll call back. My wife has a cell but it's a pretty cheap grandfathered plan thing without internet and all that.

[woot]

I have had exactly one job that required me to have a cell phone and that employer provided the cell phone for me. Are there some jobs that require it? Sure, but in most instances such an employer would either subsidize the cost of a cell plan or provide it at no cost to their employee.

Is a cell phone nice to have and will it make a job hunt a bit simpler? Sure, but is it a luxury that one should enjoy while hard working taxpayers pick up the bill for their health insurance? I vote no.

You liberals can literally paint any good and service as a vital necessity.

And "you conservatives" can [figuratively] paint any aspect of being poor as the fault of the poor.

[All-American]

You liberals can literally paint any good and service as a vital necessity.

No they can't.

[Goatnapper'96]

And "you conservatives" can [figuratively] paint any aspect of being poor as the fault of the poor.

That is what the narrative is, but what conservatives believe is that the evidence shows that socially engineered solutions are failing. The reality is that many social programs reinforce povery and fail to teach folks the skills they need to lift themselves out of poverty. The truth might be that the poor are not to blame for their poverty, but that truth does them no good. The intellectual justification of the professional left might convince theose on the right that the poor deserve some alms but it fails those it is designed to help - if the goal is to do anything more than provide them a subsistence lifestyle.

[CardiacCoug]

That is what the narrative is, but what conservatives believe is that the evidence shows that socially engineered solutions are failing. The reality is that many social programs reinforce povery and fail to teach folks the skills they need to lift themselves out of poverty. The truth might be that the poor are not to blame for their poverty, but that truth does them no good. The intellectual justification of the professional left might convince theose on the right that the poor deserve some alms but it fails those it is designed to help - if the goal is to do anything more than provide them a subsistence lifestyle.

Yep.

Passing a law that everybody should have easy access to "good" health insurance sounds great. Who could be against that? Let's make the minimum wage $15/hour too while we're at it. But the real life outcome of implementing the ACA is clear: more unemployment, more underemployment, and skyrocketing health care costs.

Sure the left has good intentions. Sure the poor aren't at fault for their poverty. But the market is smarter than the most well-designed laws and policies (not that the ACA is well thought out). If the government makes it way too onerous for companies to employ and insure poor, underskilled people then it's the poor that suffer. Big hearts, little brains like Dr. Paul said.

[woot]

That is what the narrative is, but what conservatives believe is that the evidence shows that socially engineered solutions are failing. The reality is that many social programs reinforce povery and fail to teach folks the skills they need to lift themselves out of poverty. The truth might be that the poor are not to blame for their poverty, but that truth does them no good. The intellectual justification of the professional left might convince theose on the right that the poor deserve some alms but it fails those it is designed to help - if the goal is to do anything more than provide them a subsistence lifestyle.

I actually agree with this to a great extent. I'm generally sympathetic to conservative arguments on a lot of this stuff; it's just unfortunate that they are so often accompanied by a "fuck the poor" mentality. There's often a complete blindness for how indebted the upper class is to the infrastructure facilitated their wealth (that's how you get "redistribution of wealth" as the great Satan, as if said wealth was obtained in a vacuum), and how vastly more difficult a similar feat tends to be among those born in poverty. I think an awareness of these issues is imperative to good policy decision-making; many of the left's policies have done more to enhance the divide between the upper and lower classes, despite their best intentions. I wish the republicans would have introduced some kind of free market health care bill as an alternative -- I think either could work, but at the time it seemed most republicans were content to defend the current system, which is madness. I suppose I could be remembering that wrong though.

[imanihonjin]

And "you conservatives" can [figuratively] paint any aspect of being poor as the fault of the poor.

Where exactly have I done that in connection with this thread?

[Surfah]

Bono says:

“Aid is just a stop-gap. Commerce [and] entrepreneurial capitalism takes more people out of poverty than aid.

“In dealing with poverty here and around the world, welfare and foreign aid are a Band-Aid. Free enterprise is a cure.

“Entrepreneurship is the most sure way of development.”

http://www.nationalreview.com/feed/3...greg-pollowitz

[Omaha 680]

Bono says:


http://www.nationalreview.com/feed/3...greg-pollowitz

Many economists agree. In fact official state foreign aid often makes the problem worse by helping entrench despotic rulers whose policies stunt growth.

[ERCougar]

Bono says:


http://www.nationalreview.com/feed/3...greg-pollowitz

I love that the National Review is now citing Bono.

Not that I disagree--this is why I love kiva--just strange bedfellows.

Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 2

[ERCougar]

Yep.

Passing a law that everybody should have easy access to "good" health insurance sounds great. Who could be against that? Let's make the minimum wage $15/hour too while we're at it. But the real life outcome of implementing the ACA is clear: more unemployment, more underemployment, and skyrocketing health care costs.

Sure the left has good intentions. Sure the poor aren't at fault for their poverty. But the market is smarter than the most well-designed laws and policies (not that the ACA is well thought out). If the government makes it way too onerous for companies to employ and insure poor, underskilled people then it's the poor that suffer. Big hearts, little brains like Dr. Paul said.

Two points: 1) you're putting a lot of faith in markets in a system where they really just don't work that well much of the time and 2) while I agree that the best conservatives just differ in their preferred method of helping the poor, I suspect there are a fair number who really do have small hearts. Or at least, blissfully ignorant ones.

Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 2

[calicoug]

Obama - worst president ever?

http://washingtonexaminer.com/is-oba...rticle/2534688

I don't know about EVER, but he's working hard on being included in the conversation.

Is your historical outlook limited to about the past 4 years? If not, he doesn't even approach that conversation, regardless of your politics.

[calicoug]

I heard, but perhaps it was from some conservative wacko can't remember, that these cell phones have all sorts of apps. GPS, games, texting capability, etc. If it is provided for them and they need to communicate, why shouldn't the phone be a flip phone that just takes incoming and makes outgoing calls?

The government isn't buying phones for people. It is reimbursing cell phone companies less than $10 a month.