In the Western popular imagination — particularly the American one — World War II is a conflict we won. It was fought on the beaches of Normandy and Iwo Jima, through the rubble of recaptured French towns and capped by sepia-toned scenes of joy and young love in New York. It was a victory shaped by the steeliness of Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, the moral fiber of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and the awesome power of an atomic bomb.
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Great Recession at 10: $500k wine & jailing Black footballers for insider trading
RAMIN MAZAHERI—The Great Recession in America was just a case of bad getting worse – dilapidated infrastructure from the Depression or Eisenhower eras remaining dilapidated, widespread drug and alcohol addiction falling deeper into the rabbit hole, near-zero government assistance remaining near-zero, tons of crime devolving into tons of crime now committed by people with tattoos on their faces – i.e., no real change and no real hope for change.
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The Precautionary Principle, the Politics of Selfishness
GARY KOHLS—Interestingly, the US Chamber of Commerce, which has an active chapter in Duluth, seems to have close relationships with some of the above institutions. The Chamber website states that it opposes the domestic and international adoption of the precautionary principle as a basis for regulatory decision making. The Chamber of Commerce explicitly states that one of its strategies is the “education” of consumers, businesses, and governmental policymakers about the “regulatory implications of the precautionary principle”.
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A Response to Trump’s Demonization of Single Payer Health Care
GREG WILPERT: So finally, the White House paper that I cited earlier argues that wait times in the U.S. are shorter mainly because in single payer systems there are no market signals about what type of care is needed, and that the lack of deductibles and all that would cause an overuse of certain treatments. And so as a result, single-payer systems have much longer wait times. And they specifically cite the example of Canada actually having one of the longest wait times, whereas the U.S. in an international comparison supposedly has the shortest. What’s your response to that argument?
WENDELL POTTER: Well, once again, when you’re looking at the U.S. compared to other countries, keep in mind that many millions of us wait forever for the care that we need because we don’t have the money, and we don’t have insurance. And 30 million of us don’t have insurance. The wait is indefinite. And so that’s something that needs to be factored in, as well, too.
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