something's not right with your figures, because as far as I know inflation has outpaced wages. Wages have not gone up 10% more than inflation. Probably the other way around.
When you take into account the multimillion dollar salary packages of the nation's top 10,000 wage earners, the average wage has gone up considerably...
ah yes, good point...
mattathayde had written this in response to
------------------------------------- hal@localhost wrote:
also "inflation" can mean different things depending on how you want to slant the stats. official cost of living ignores a lot of basic things (i think it was ignoring things like milk and gas), and inflation was ignoring most of cost of living. i cannot remember the exacts but it was pretty surprising to hear what was ignored for that kind of stuff
-matt
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The CEO of United Healthcare is probably due for another nice bonus ... already gets about a million dollars per day ...
Not when divided by 100 million odd workers to get an average.
Is you point that we should find out why it's gone up so much and fix it or just that we should adopt ObamaCare so we can keep on paying the exorbitant bill?
In a rational world the problem could be indentified and fixed. In the real however things are not so simple. Congress is being bribed by Pharma, lawyers and health corporations to thwart any meaningful fix, they want more of the same and that is what Republicans are trying desperately to give them.
Obama does not have the power to "fix" this problem directly. To confront the pirates would require a rational Congress willing to invoke anti-trust laws. That is not going to happen.
The only possibility at the moment is a "public option" which would compete with the pirates. I do not like that the fed would involve itself into health care but the alternative is the status quo, an unregulated extortion of America.
It is easy for us here to say how "things should be." Let's get realistic though, what solution do you see that is truly possible?
IIRC The *median* wage went down. The median real wage clearly did.
Seems like the fix may be in. All that loot at ~ 2 million per day on propaganda & bribes plus packs of fabricated winger lies .... We NEEDED universal care with single payer. THAT would give lots of cost controls like they have where people get better care (they live longer too) but it costs half (or less) as much per capita.
Instead I fear the insurance firms (and others) are to reap a windfall ... but actual care will not improve.
Curly Surmudgeon pinched out a steaming pile of:
coverage
The closest analog i can imagine is the formation of the union movement. It was fought by industry for a long time but it gave us the middle class. A Public Option would *restore* the middle class since it would give those who arnt so rich they can afford a second home, Hummer, yacht, the chance to save their earnings without fear of loosing it all to a catastrophic medical event which usually results in bancruptcy.
As long as "they" keep spreading poisons in the air, food, tobacco, and water, along with candy bars, there will "never" be "affordable" health care. The cost of fixing and caring for the old polluted population of this country is a black hole.....no pun intended. As long as technology keeps advancing for more and more expensive "tests" and procedures to fix what the "Masters" willingly and knowingly put into the slaves it will never end as long as "health care is a right" instead of commodity like any other that you get if you can pay for it. Why isn't sex a right? It's the healthiest thing on the planet.
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