And Vid sums up one of the major problems in the USA.

(I know a lot of you don’t like outsiders passing comments, but seeing as I spend 2-3 months a year in the USA and have a green card application in, maybe you’ll let me comment ...).

Azmodeus, the OP of this thread can attest to the health system and how much it costs. His strokes costs him a fortune.

If a little country of 4,500,000 people (NZ) can provide a free healthcare system, why can’t the greatest economy in the world do it?

(We all know the answer is because the huge health insurance companies and their lobbyists fight it to the bitter end ... always follow the money trail!)

I know half of you hate Michael Moore because you sit on the conservative side of the fence, but put that aside for 90 minutes and watch his documentary Sicko and it may be an eye opener. The stories of hard working Americans losing everything because of ill heath are upsetting, to say the least.

I’ve seen the Santa Ana homeless camps that Azmodeus spoke of ... they’re huge.

One huge scandal that I think is about to break wide open is Big Pharma and their super powerful opiates that have ruined the lives of 10,000s of Americans. You can’t even get that stuff in New Zealand or any other country I know of. If you have a broken leg in NZ, they’ll give you morphine in the hospital for a day, fix your leg and send you on your way with a box of Panadols (strong aspirins!) If you want to watch something depressing, watch the documentary Heroin(e) on Netflix. Just a whole generation of kids disappearing across middle America. The doco focuses on 3 ladies making a difference which is awesome.

rd

Absolute tripe. It is increasingly hard to find "white outrage" in any great numbers, at any injustice, unless you include the whites that are part and parcel of minority protests. Detroit was one of the most fleeced black inner cities in America(it has rebounded quite nicely in the last 3 or 4 years), and is indicative of most inner cities that are, and have been run by Democrats for many years. You are actually just quoting the Alinsky method that is used to a much greater degree by the Left. You have digressed quite a ways from the original topic also. I have no clue who you are or what is your ethnic background, but your comments in this thread so far, have indicated you are fishing for ANY GULLIBLE people!

So we are measuring bank/savings accounts, taxes paid, charitable contributions and passport quantities.

Ok, I'll bite, if I'm on my 4th passport since '89; do I win anything?

Also, on my 2nd Passport radar detector.....

The homeless problem requires what most problems require to make any significant progress. It requires ground level involvement, not that pontification on a pinball forum is totally useless, but you have to have a lot of people committed in a particular area, to actually work on this on a case by case basis. There actually are quite a number of homeless that would prefer to stay that way, just as there are a number of people in the prison system that are much more acclimated to that lifestyle, than that of living in the free world where you have to structure yourself, and not have structure forced into your life(as bad as prison life is, the basic structure of it is something some individuals cannot bring about in their own lives). These problems take compassion, absolutely, but also a basic understanding of real human nature, and some sheer numbers of people willing to go wherever the problem lay(many boots on the ground). To address a point that was casually thrown out by the original poster, healthcare is not and should NOT be a basic human right LEGISLATED by ANY FEDERAL government. If legislated at all, it should be at the most municipal level, and should be governed at that level by compassionate, willing, capable people at that level. On this point and unfortunately I have to return to mentioning the left, is that the rhetoric that is thrown around about rolling back any part of Obamacare(Millions will die as a direct result is the mantra that is fed to gullible any people), is simply not true and is so foolish that it does not even merit a rebuttal. What IS TRUE and never gets traction with any carnival barker pundits, is that in the US last year alone 65,000 deaths were a direct result of the opioid abuse problem and that includes a number of the homeless.

Just want to chime in that an overwhelmingly disproportionate amount of street-involved youth are LGBTQ who have been exiled from their homes and communities.
And a disproportionate amount of adult homeless are veterans and/or suffering mental illness and/or have addiction issues.
All of these can be dealt with by a compassionate society that sees the individuals as worthy of their humanity. Gives the homeless homes. Build safety nets that catch all.

I know you spend a lot of time over here but if you think there's about to be a huge scandal over this you are wrong. Pharma companies are deeper in politicians pockets then Tobacco used to be. There's billions being made everyday on opiate based pain meds. There's literally pain clinics everywhere now that I could walk into at anytime and say I'm in pain and get a script without anything that resembles an exam. The drug companies are more worried about racing the next pattened product to market that they can charge 2000% markup up then anything else. I personally know 3 local politicians that are also pharma sales reps. The person likely to be Tennessee's next governor made over 100 million selling a pharma test that her husband invented. My wife and I own a veterinary hospital. We use the same equipment, same drugs, many of the same protocols, etc. The same surgical procedure done by a veterinarian costs on average 50-150x less then a human doctor and in many cases the veterinarian is a lot more competent surgeon.

I'm not sure why you bring up a subject like this on a forum site dedicated to pinball.

I come here to talk pinball, not discuss the world's problems. I think there are better sites for this kind of discussion. Perhaps if you want to solve this issue you should take you questions and concerns there.

Just my 2 cents....

I'm Russian, Orthodox (although I've practiced the Muslim faith in the past), been a soldier for much of my life, not a US citizen, and speak 6 languages (3 fluently).

What are you going to tell me about myself?

I think this quote is a very good example of how uneducated people are to homelessness in general. It is widely cited that mental health problems are common in the homeless. I've seen quotes as high as 80%. Our society looks at those with psychological conditions like people in the 1800's looked at lepers. We have a tremendously broken mental health system in the U.S. Improve residential and treatment facilities for mental health and I believe you will see an seismic change in the homeless situation.

Most people aren't homeless because they are lazy or don't want to work.

Hey pal, unless you can tell us how many passports you have or your adjusted gross income, nobody's interested!

It ain't free, somebody pays for it.

But I get your point, we get ripped off for what we pay in health care. If you use life expectancy as the outcome of healthcare the US ranks 31 in terms of healthcare outcomes:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expectancy
Croatia and the Czech Republic are ranked 29 and 28 respectively.
Cost: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_health_expenditure_per_capita
In healthcare cost per capita the USA is number 1 with $9892 in 2016, while Croatia and Czech Republic accomplish similar outcomes with spending only about 1/10 to 1/4 of the money, depending which chart you believe.
In short we are totally getting ripped off. We are paying top dollar for sub par outcomes. There's plenty of blame to go around. For profit educational institutions, hospitals, insurance companies, lawyers, pharma, everybody wants a piece of the action. You go to a doctors office, you are subjected to unnecessary test because that new million dollar machine needs to get use, $100+K malpractice insurance, $10 million bonus for insurance/pharma CEO, $500K student debt after medical school, etc.

I have alot to say, having been without a home for a month, homeless, when I was young, as well as having worked for the homeless both personally and with organizations.
Point one is a great deal of misinformation, judgement and politicization.... In all sides.
Equally, as hard, how this issue exists around the world.
indulge me with two stories.
The first deals with Pinball.
At Super Auctions here, I ran into a tall deshelved gentleman.
In short, he did pinball repair, and we became friends over time.
Bill would take 4 buses and 2 hours to visit for repair. He would set up a table offering services at Auctions...he was pretty good and kept my collection running.
Bill was homeless. He lived in a storage unit, the smallest and cheapest in the worst part of town. He slept on the floor, with a battery radio and light, along with rats, mice, and roaches.
He never smelled, or was drunk, although I new he drank.
He was in the Navy for a dozen years, and converted to Islam. He was even arrested for praying.
Yet, many here in Florida would not work with him because of his faith.
It was sad, to listen to the racist comments and fear, with false information, that were spread. He could not break the cycle, because
Judgement followed him everywhere.
He became a friend. He stayed for dinner, played with my kids and dogs, and became family.
When he died on the street of a heart attack,
I helped clean out his storage unit filled with parts, tools, and pin stuff.
I was taken back how many who shunned him ran out not to help, but to take.....from what he left, and even to fight over stuff.
I asked only for a donation, to help with funeral costs. $12.00 in total was donated.
The point being people do and say different things, and I fail to understand why those less fortunate are often vilified, and blamed.
It doesn't take much to embrace empathy and charity, instead.

Second one, quickly.
Our government for the last 9 years or so has focused an enormous amount of effort towards a potential war coming..
The war of lack of water...India in particular.
The migration of millions by foot is coming.
The destabilization will be beyond our imagination.
We will see the beginning, with Capetown, in this year.
What the government was doing was massive work, not shared with the public.
The world will be changing significantly in the near future.
We debate this globally, with all the war refugees today, hungry people create a harsher reality.

I can smell that you don't know your Detroit very well.

The longest serving mayor of Detroit was a Communist and was forced to appear before the McCarthy's House Committee on Un-American Activities.

After a few decades in office (1974-1998), he managed to kill Detroit dead.

Lousy Commies.......

I will agree with you that commits are lousy, and I will offer that communism is much more akin to the western leftist ideology than the right, and I certainly would not venture to make any assumptions about you, and you almost certainly missed my point if you think I was implying that I know your character. I DO have an assumption that YOU could tell me about YOU for days on end.

Naw, I keep under the radar.

I hear you. And a large % probably live much happier lives than most people with $$$. I point to my neighbors in Mexico and the Hispanic community.

They have a great culture that centers around family, hard work and religion (the drug and gang element is a small % like it is with any race) and many are the happiest people i know despite how much or how little money they make.

It's the corruption, greed and stupidity of the governments around the world that perpetuate the situation. i.e. Venezuela, North Korea, Iran etc.

And in countries like ours it benefits the "Elites" to maintain control over their voting block "peon class".

That's why we get comments from stupid "Elites" that demean their voters as "deplorables" and scoff at a few thousand dollars of increased take home pay as "CRUMBS".

So that $3,650 in TAX SAVINGS alone would go a long ways to help us peons and its NOT "crumbs" right?

Btw, i have run dozens of illustrations already this year with my tax planning software and in every case, at every income level, small, medium or large, families are going to get a boost of $2,000 to $5,000 in additional CRUMBS.

I have tried to help several homeless and drug addicted people over my life so far and one thing I can tell you is they will not change their circumstance until they make the choice to do it. You can't help anyone who does not want help or who does not want to change. Throwing money at homelessness does nothing.

I love my tax crumbs. I did my taxes over the weekend and we are getting $8200 back. By far the largest return we have ever got.

Your tax refund for 2017 is for the old tax system. You likely will save more with the new system next year when you do your 2018 taxes.
My main problem with the new 2018 tax system is that they are taking away about $13000 from my deductions. The plan should have helped people in the middle and upper middle class more than it does.

Absolutely spot on and agree with that.

I’ve been an analytical chemist/validation officer in pharmaceutical companies since 2001 and I don’t take medicines unless necessary as I know how messed up they are. Side effects etc. I also understand how these Cxxts work. Very sly.

In the states, someone here already mentioned that it’s super easy to get opiate pills in pain centres. It’s easy money. 100’s get hooked on pain relief like Oxy each day. There are quite a few UFC fighters and other athletes that have got hooked and gone down to pain relief pills after surgeries.

With the broken leg analogy, yes they’ll give you morphine for a day but they don’t send you with just Panadol; they give out Tramadol (opiate) for the pain (unless you refuse it). I have found they dish out Tramadol for anything pain related. They always gave me Tramadol for my back or neck when I ruptured 4 discs, broken hand, broken tib and fib. I refused it and they gave me Paracodol (500mg Paracetamol and 8mg Codiene). I also got given 60 mg Codienes which are super strong. And I also know for a fact that a company here in NZ is making Ketamine and OxyContin for NZ patients. I know because I worked on the process validation for them so although it’s hard for the patient to get them from the doctor, they are here and more are coming and will be available.

What worries me though is although NZ doctors don’t dish out strong pain relief at the drop of a hat, they do dish out other drugs at alarming quantities. Zopiclone (highly addictive sleeping drug) was given to my wife to help us in the plane to the UK back in December . They gave us 20 which is ridiculous, and they gave me a months worth of 25mg Quetiapine no problem.

I’ve had an interesting journey being in contact with a lot of alcoholics and addicts. Hearing people’s stories during my time in rehab for alcohol and in the AA rooms (now an active member of AA and best thing I ever did. Should’ve done it years ago), about taking handfuls of pills (benzos, opiates mainly) and chasing it with a beer before work and then operating shipping container cranes or being an arborist has been an eye opener and tragic. Another killer is people taking Paracodol to get the opiated fix and the ODing on the Paracetamol. The problem is real in NZ more than I realised.

People living in cars because they spend their money on drugs or alcohol, people living in the streets because of their addictions. It’s really tragic.

It’s a shame that there isn’t better government funded detox for people that genuinely want change. I have a friend who is looking after a girl who can’t get into Pitman House until the 22 Feb and he is moderating her drinking to 1 standard an hour. I don’t think she’ll make it until then. She can’t walk or talk and her body is shutting down. Lost all motor functions completely. When he’s taken her to hospital, they just hit her up with 10 mg Diazepam and send her on her way.

There’s definitely pros to a free health system but also cons. The UK health system is free but it’s crap and only getting worse. But at least they have emergency detox beds. Doctors and Nurses have had a 1% pay rise since 2008. That’s messed up and they’re shutting hospitals down (or sections).

In my hometown, they’re going to shut the maternity wing which means mums will have to travel to Exeter which is an hours drive away.

Crazy.

Gotcha, looking forward to next year then.

I’ve run many scenarios already for clients DC with their 2017 numbers in the system comparing apples to apples for 2018 and it’s significant across the board

As a % of tax decrease the lower and middle class benefit substantially more than upper class

It’s not just the marginal rate change. It’s the amount of $$$ you go up from 22 to 24% before you go into the 32% bracket

We run the calculations to take full advantage of Roth conversion for people NOW

But yeah it’s “Armageddon” for the American people this tax cut. What a F ing joke that is

Then again, you can’t hold onto to your voting group if they are better off now. What a shame

Ok, but if you owe $20k in taxes and get a 10% tax cut that’s $2k in savings. The guy that owes $1m could get “only” a 10% tax cut and save $100k. So % cut doesn’t tell you that much about where the actual benefits from the tax cut are going.

I tend to agree the opposition to the tax cut was misleading. The argument shouldn’t have been “your taxes will go up.” The argument should have been “we are massively slashing revenue to the govt and the vast majority of the resulting tax cuts will go to the very wealthy.” I’ve read that 82% of the cuts ultimately go to the top 1%. I’m sure you can analyze it other ways but I’ve yet to see anyone say that the bulk of the $$ saved here goes to anyone other than the rich.

Whether you view that as good, bad, or indifferent is another question. But that should have been the main opposition argument.

I just talked to my tax guy. I am getting $8200 back this year. He said that under next years (2018) plan I would have gotten over $10,000 back. i am middle to upper class, 4 kids (can claim 3 next year), mortgage and insurance deduction, church tithe deductions, and child care deductions. I have always had to pay in until I bought a bigger house and starting tithing 10%.

The big house and tithing may not matter tax wise anymore (due to > of standard deduction you might not need to itemize) but cheers on the $2k tax cut! Now if only you made enough to owe $1m in taxes, you’d be saving some serious coin next year.

That's whats great about percentages, they're equal. 10% is the same to everyone.

The gain is in Corporate Taxes.
I cant share my personal situation, but perhaps those smarter than me will correct me if Im wrong.
Wouldnt we expect a boom of LLC and Sub-S corporate applications, as even many people here who would do this would see tremendous Tax savings,
above and beyond the lower 15% in the new Bill?

If true, shouldnt many people here look into forming corporations and seeing if revenue can flow through that entity?

Anyone doing any amount of business should already have an established pllc or llc to protect their personal assets. It will also depend on how your business is classified as to wether the tax laws help you. Most people in the professional class will see little to know savings and depending on how you fall on the brackets you could actually see an increase.

From what I understand, the homeless will be getting the same tax breaks the rest of us will.

Figures

That's certainly what's great about percentages if you want to convince middle class people that they're the big winners under a tax plan that kicks 80%+ of the tax cuts to the super rich.

Again, I'm not trying to start a tax policy debate, you can make arguments for flat taxes etc. and that's fine. Just don't tell me that the majority of this tax cut's going to the middle class (or even the "slightly rich"). That's not what the numbers show.

Nothing from nothing leaves nothing?

Since you are losing your home tax credit exemption, the homeless are actually coming out ahead.

Ya gotta have somethin' ...

billy-preston (resized).jpg

Some people work some pretty low-paying jobs for lack of opportunity. Not everyone has the same opportunity to save as you.

I'm having difficulty parsing your post. What does self-righteousness and leaving America have to do with one another? I've been to quite a few countries, and I'm pretty sure I've run into pan handlers in all of them.

I work my low paying job for lack of wanting to work for some greedy asshole.

Yeah, that's a thing too. Quality of life matters.

I've got twenty minutes left in my workday to see how much more " quality" I can get out of pinside this afternoon.

Not much to be found here, I'm afraid, but best of luck in your search.

When you stay on a budget, cheap or free entertainment is your best friend.

That math is just wrong. Not even close to being accurate.

If i pay $300,000 a year, I'm not getting a $30,000 tax cut! Not even close.

Maybe $10k, so the while the lower and middle class might get a 10% net tax cut, the overall % to the top earners is MUCH less.

FYI

"The top 1 percent of income earners, those having an adjusted annual gross income of $480,930 or higher, pay about 39 percent of federal income taxes. That means about 892,000 Americans are stuck with paying 39 percent of all federal taxes.

The top 10 percent of income earners, those having an adjusted gross income over $138,031, pay about 70.6 percent of federal income taxes.

About 1.7 million Americans, less than 1 percent of our population, pay 70.6 percent of federal income taxes. Is that fair, or do you think they should pay more?

By the way, earning $500,000 a year doesn’t make one rich. It’s not even yacht money.

But the fairness question goes further. The bottom 50 percent of income earners, those having an adjusted gross income of $39,275 or less, pay 2.83 percent of federal income taxes.

Thirty-seven million tax filers have no tax obligation at all. The Tax Policy Center estimates that 45.5 percent of households will not pay federal income tax this year."

As for the "pass throughs" that Art is talking about, there are MANY types of businesses like my own that don't qualify for the corporate tax cut/exclusion.

If you sell goods/products you are likely to get the exemption. Services, nope, cpa's, lawyers, doctors, financial advisors etc. Still, via the marginal rate reduction taxes still go down

There is absolutely ZERO reason to select S-Corp over LLC status, in any State. And most businesses should have that LLC asset protection feature anyhow.

Good comparative post. The media down here likes to hype up the scourge of the so called ice epidemic, yet completely ignores the effects of legal over the counter drugs including alcohol and the long term harm they are doing to vulnerable sections of society.

Yeah those numbers were pulled out of thin air (I thought that was clear, sorry if not). Just pointing out that the % change in your taxes doesn't tell you who's getting what in terms of actual dollars under the new tax plan. If everyone got the same % reduction, the tax cuts would either be ruinously large (from the govt's perspective) for top earners or tiny for the middle class. Not a fiscally or politically realistic outcome.

Interesting stats and certainly an important part of the discussion. Though not terribly surprising given that we've had a progressive federal income tax (i.e. socialism) in the US since 1913. I don't have strong feelings about a particular percent that the top 10% should be contributing. But realistically it's got to be significantly higher than the bottom folks or you can't afford anything approaching a modern first-world government.

I think Aussie and NZ are well aware of the damaging effects of alcohol ...

You gotta admit, our “over the counter” drug problems pale into insignificance compared to the USA.

To address the other points, no “free” heath system is free (tax payer pays...) and certainly no health system is perfect. But it is very reassuring to know that when I have my upcoming massive coronary, the ambulance dudes will come pick me up, shovel me in the ambulance, hopefully shock me back into life, and not ask me how I’m gonna pay for it.

The biggest issue across the whole western world was the dismantling of mental health facilities in the 1970s and 80s. NZ used to have mental health “farms” all over the country, and if you were feeling “overwhelmed” or you had a breakdown, or you had addiction issues, you (or your doctor) could check you in, and you had a place to go where you’d be looked after. The whole social experiment of “community care” of mental patients has been an abject failure, the facilities can’t cope with demand, and people fall through the gaps, and there’s no safety net.

rd

That's because the incidences of legal presciption medication addiction are largely underreported in the media and therefore hidden here in Australia compared to the US. On a per capita basis, I've no doubt the stats would be similar given the traditional ease of access to such medications and our "socialised" health system.

We are only just beginning to acknowledge this and our Fed Govt has just taken steps in the last few days to block codeine based medication from over the counter transactions without a Dr's prescription.

Long overdue, IMO.

As for the point about alcohol, I'd like to see a greater emphasis in media reportage about alcohol fuelled violence in the same way that illegal drugs are given such emphasis. An ice addict who goes on a rampage should be treated in the same category as the drunk who coward punches a random into an induced coma on the street on a Saturday night or pushes them through a shop front window because he looked at him the wrong way.

If police down here actually enforced public intoxication laws with the same tenacity they enforce laws against someone in public under the influence of an illegal drug the remand centres would be filled to overflowing every night of the week.

Soapbox off.

There is a man in Vegas executing the homeless as they sleep.

Talk about final solutions....