Percentages

This edition of Where's My Cane is forgoing the podcast and going straight to text.  There are a few reasons for this but the primary one is that our hobbies are keeping both of us rather busy and sitting down to record a podcast is unlikely to happen until after Clothesline Festival.

So on to the rant.  Percentages.

Let's talk about taxes.  And while we are at it... let's throw in education, healthcare, and for good measure we'll also talk about how arrogant the US as a whole is.

First let's get one thing out of the way.  We are not special.  Just because we live in the US, just because we are born here, raised here, just because our founding fathers were rich white men, we are not special.  I say this because it seems everyone is always acting specialized.  This is a pandemic that runs macroscopically and microscpocially.  From how we consider ourselves as a nation down to how we consider ourselves as individuals the mass of our country feels as if the ONLY things that will work in the US are born and raised in the US.  Ideas, budgets, concepts, even people must be internal and nationalized or else it "won't work here".

How many times have you thought that?

"That won't work here."

"We are different."

"But that's a different culture."

In business this line of thinking would be suicide.  In fact apply a "that won't work here" ideology to just about anything and it will cause failure.  We are willfully ignoring known successes.  Because we are special.

So what am I on about?  What the hell am I actually referring to?

Taxes.  Healthcare.  Education.

I don't care what party you align yourself with politically.  It doesn't matter what religion or lack of religion you choose to explore.  If you are unaware that those three major topics are faulty, have been broken, and continue to break, then there is nothing I can do for you.

In our two party system each blames the other for these issues.  Each has a different approach.  But neither admits we are doing everything wrong and have been for some time.  They only differ, that is to say, on specifics.  Where the funds come from, who should be taxed more, etc etc.  Facts are stubborn things and to snag a fact out of political vitriol is like trying to bob for apples in a vat of sulfuric acid.

Let us look at some facts, then.

Healthcare Costs (includes percent GDP)
I ask you to browse this chart and ask yourself if our healthcare system costs us MORE or LESS than cradle-to-grave systems of socialized healthcare systems.  Look solely at numbers and try NOT to think like a black-and-white-two-party American.  Your affiliation DOES NOT MATTER.  Go get bent if you think it does.  Take baby steps.  Do you admit that something is wrong?  Something, in fact, is broken?

Do you think that the amount you pay out-of-pocket per year is higher or lower than the taxed rates of socialized systems?

In the next blog we'll dig into more detail!