Slavery has to be unwound, you can't just create freedom all at once. The problem is, most Americans actually want Socialism. They want free food, free schooling, free transportation to school and back, and then when they're old, they want money and their health care paid for. The future is bleak.
The free healthcare systems that are cheaper than US healthcare where the doctors try to monetize on your sickness? Please move to Congo to your blind ideology. https://www.investopedia.com/articl...healthcare-costs-compared-other-countries.asp
Yes, and if we go with your philosophy we'll all be like Somalia where there's no evil government, no gun laws, and it's a theocracy. Just stop with the rediculous "progressives want to turn the U.S. into Venezuela" meme, it's as idiotic as saying conservatives want to turn the U.S. into Somalia and equally hyperbolic. Maybe try some constructive discussion with those who hold different views than you and actually listen to what those views are instead of hearing what they are from conservative sources and then insisting you know what they believe better than that do? Then you might actually accomplish something, not clear what you're accomplishing with this?
It's an interesting little thing you're doing, something you're probably not even aware of. You've decided that everyone who disagrees with you must be a lazy freeloader, as opposed to you, the hard working uber-American. That's not only a counterproductive mindset, it's dead wrong. I'm a 1 percenter in earnings (and taxes), a retired military officer, and have successfully started two businesses. I tell you this only to say that I don't want and won't receive anything "free", I put my life where my mouth was when it comes to being an American, and I'm the one paying, probably far more that you, into our system. And I'm not only fine with that I truly believe it's the best way forward for both me and us, as do the millions just like me who share my beliefs. You have to fundamentally grasp that in order to move from the complete individualist society that Hobbes so aptly described as "No arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death: and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short." we have to socialize things. We don't all build 20' of road in front of our house and leave it at that, we socialize transportation because it's better for all of us. We don't all have our own fire and police protection, we socialize that. We don't all have our own military, we socialize that. We don't expect that only the children of doctors can become doctors trained by their parents, we socialize education. I could go on and on, but basically if you don't believe in the fundamental concept that socializing costs provides benefits to all you are holding onto caveman ideals, which I'm sure isn't you. Now that you grasp that socializing costs is different from "free handouts", we can have an intelligent, well meaning discussion about how much to socialize costs. As a business owner, I, and I believe our country, benefit greatly from a highly educated workforce. I couldn't depend on educating my family to run my business (I'd run out of people pretty fast, for one). I couldn't run my business in most places where there isn't government funded education or otherwise socialized education, there just isn't the educated workforce I'd need. Do my taxes pay for "free" education to a bunch of what you would consider "unworthy" kids who by accident of birth didn't have wealthy parents? Absolutely and I'm damn happy that they do! Some of those kids, also by accident of birth, have parents who are deadbeats, addicts, or otherwise can't provide them food. Are some of my tax dollars going to pay for them to have food, so they can grow up to be my or someone else's educated workforce? Absolutely, and I'm damn happy they do, some of my workforce wouldn't be there if this wasn't the case! Would I rather that money I spent on education is being optimally used by kids who didn't either have to walk 5 miles to school each day or just miss school altogether because they didn't have this evil "free transportation to school" thing I'm paying for? Absolutely! Would I rather that our economy paid significantly less for health care overall while caring for more people, like pretty much every other advanced economy in the world, on the back of my health care contributions? Hell yes! You see, socializing costs produces benefits, that's undeniable. The disagreement that intelligent well meaning people have isn't if we socialize costs, that was definitively shown to be the superior route many thousands of years ago when we moved out of caves and into villages. The only question is how much. The vast majority of us think that excluding everyone who was born too poor to have transportation to school or the ability to pay for school from primary education is bad for us individually and as a nation. If you disagree, you're in a pretty small minority, and contrary to your stated wishes in this post, we are still a democracy which most of us think is a good thing. When it comes to college and community college, we could have a constructive discussion about how much and what type of higher education costs each state should socialize, although the beauty of our federated system is that this is indeed decided at the state level so there is large variation between states based on differing needs and viewpoints of residents. Again I could go on and on, but I think it would be constructive if you stopped with the "socializing bad, every man for himself good" mentality and on to one where we discuss where the benefits of socialization start to run out. I'm curious if you've ever encountered a progressive actually explaining what they believe and why, rather than you deciding you know what they believe and telling them? Perhaps your energy would be better served arguing the actual beliefs of progressives, rather than what you've decided their beliefs are, which really can't ever accomplish anything?
“Citgo just showed up for its own funeral,” Citgo Seeks to Delay Auction of Shares Citgo Petroleum Corp. is asking a federal judge to wait out a higher court ruling before auctioning off its assets to satisfy Venezuela’s creditors By Julie Wernau Aug. 20, 2018 5:41 p.m. ET Citgo Petroleum Corp. is asking a federal judge to wait out a higher court ruling before auctioning off its assets to satisfy Venezuela’s creditors. The request, filed in federal court, is the first time Citgo has commented on longstanding litigation from unpaid creditors seeking to seize the oil refiner in lieu of payment for debts owed by its embattled parent, the government of Venezuela. The company is asking for time to weigh in on the scramble to seize Citgo, Venezuela’s largest U.S.-based asset. “Citgo just showed up for its own funeral,” said Jay Auslander, a partner at Wilk Auslander, whose practice focuses on judgment enforcement and distressed debt litigation. Earlier this month, Judge Leonard P. Stark of the U.S. District Court in Wilmington, Del., authorized one of Venezuela’s creditors to take control of shares of Citgo’s U.S.-based parent company, the first step toward a sale of the company. Citgo is the only asset of its U.S.-based parent company PDVH, a subsidiary of Venezuela’s state oil company Petróleos de Venezuela SA. On Monday, Citgo asked that the judge delay the sale, pending the appeal and that he “hold a hearing on how to structure the process before asking the U.S. Marshals to wade into uncharted territory.” “Ascertaining the proper number of shares to be sold and the proper manner in which the sale should go forward so as to maximize value is a complicated task,” Citgo wrote in a court filing, calling the magnitude of such a court-ordered sale “unprecedented.” Crystallex International Corp., a defunct Canadian gold miner, has moved in on Citgo in an attempt to collect on a judgment over lost mining rights involving Venezuela’s government. Venezuela’s state oil company has appealed the ruling, the result of years of international litigation. Sinking HopesVenezuelan debt is falling as creditors move inon the country's remaining assets.JPMorgan Venezuelan bond indexSource: Thomson Reuters Jan. ’18MarchMayJuly700750800850900950 In earning the ruling, Crystallex had argued that Citgo was ultimately owned by PdVSA, which is an “alter ego” of Venezuela that is liable for the South American country’s debts. Citgo has employed a cadre of U.S. lobbyists at Washington-based VantageKnight Inc. and Cornerstone Government Relations. to prevent its value from being sapped by U.S. sanctions. Citgo is barred by current sanctions from repatriating money to PdVSA, further depressing Venezuela’s dwindling foreign-exchange earnings. The last time Citgo was marketed for a sale in 2014, it was in talks with approximately 20 buyers, Crystallex said in a filing, and another 20 could be interested in the auction. Petróleos de Venezuela SA bonds due 2020 have fallen 3.6% to 86.75 cents on the dollar since the Aug. 9 ruling. Some investors are betting that if Venezuela loses the case, the country will no longer have an incentive to stay current on those PdVSA bonds, for which Citgo shares are pledged as collateral. Venezuela and its state-owned entities spiraled into widespread default last year and the bonds containing Citgo are among the only debts on which Venezuela has stayed current. Bondholders have formed a committee but are barred by U.S. sanctions from dealing with the country’s current president or buying new debt from Venezuela. An exodus of Venezuelans intensified Monday after President Nicolás Maduro laid out a plan that economists said would further paralyze the economy and drive more people out. Those plans, which include a leap in the minimum wage, new taxes and a currency devaluation, are expected to further exacerbate food shortages and inflation that the International Monetary Fund is pegging at 1 million percent this year and come just three weeks after an alleged assassination attempt on the Venezuelan ruler. The country’s many unpaid creditors have grown concerned that there could soon be few assets owned by the cash-starved nation that could be seized in lieu of payment. Last week, a Spokane, Wash.-based mining company, Gold Reserve Inc., said it received an estimated $88.5 million in government bonds instead of cash as partial payment for the $1 billion it is owed as it runs out of cash. On Monday, ConocoPhilips said it had reached a payment plan with PdVSA over an unpaid $2 billion arbitration award in compensation for two oil projects that Venezuela’s leftist government nationalized in 2007. The Venezuelan portion of the JPMorgan EMBI Global Diversified benchmark bond index fell to a 2½-year-low Monday, down 5.3% since the Aug. 9 ruling. “Venezuela is not investible in my mind,” said Sean Newman, senior portfolio manager at Invesco. Mr. Newman said investors in Venezuelan debt are betting on a regime change but that information coming out of Venezuela is too opaque to reach any viable conclusions about the country.