Commies at IMF to US: "You Need Universal Health Care"

No kidding. Wow.

 

Yes, rather than address the criticism directly, they undercut it by saying they have no business talking about it. The Swift-boating of the IMF, if you will.

Interesting that he also says this about cutting the deficit (certainly in the purview of the IMF)

or this one is funny too

Interpretation: The dollar is tanking! Help us out here!!

 

Particularly as the Bush regime isn't exactly slow in lecturing others about their economies.... Anyway, the IMF is correct; the US's tying of healthcare to employment really isn't going to be sustainable in the long run for either companies or individuals. Unfortunately, it's going to take the bankruptcy of a company like GM for that lesson to be learned.

 

so instead of having private sector companies deal with the problem and possibly go bankrupt due to market forces, we should go ahead and let our gov't take full responsibility of health care and go bankrupt instead? good plan guys, good plan. The major European countries are suffering from a graying, declining population. this means less workers are available to pay for all those generous benefits, meaning even higher taxes and less growth. so basically, they'll be running themselves into the ground.
ps--GM isn't going bankrupt any time soon...

The IMF truly has no business in this arena. Where were they calling for the European countries to balance their budgets when we were running surpluses? Why aren't they calling out the European countries for having deficits that (as a percentage of GDP) are equal to ours? It is simply typical anti-US rhetoric coming from the IMF.
I know you guys will only say I'm capable of the same 'swift boating' yada yada yada...but seriously, let's look at it objectively. do we need to cut our deficit? yes. if we cut it in half as we propose, will we be better for it? yes. is a balanced budget most desirable? of course, but one step at a time guys. why is the budget unbalanced? runaway spending. how do we stop it? VOTE. are taxes contributing to the budget deficits? NO. tax receipts are showing a second straight year of double digit gains after the 2003 tax cuts.

 

Thanks for getting that in so I didn't have to. GM actually sold more cars and trucks last year than in any other year. GM may be in a little trouble, but the road from record breaking sales year to bankruptcy is a lot longer than some of the Wall Street analysts would have us believe.

 

Cool. I'm all for cutting spending. There's a stupid, pointless war that's costing us zillions of dollars. Can we cut spending to that and fully fund a national healthcare system instead?

In addition, maybe we can simply hand out contracts for 2 instead of 3 shiny new B2s per year. A bomber a year, that's all we ask... Then let's fully fund Head Start. And if there's still money left over, we'll pay for college tuition for all Americans.

"Runaway Spending" is another term for "skewed priorities". If the priorities of this nation were to ensure that all of her people had a real chance (and no, Horatio Alger's protagionists don't count) at living happy, successful lives, we'd all see a nation in much better economic health.

 

http://english.sina.com/business/1/2004/1111/801.html

http://www.imf.org/external/np/sec/pn/2006/pn0604.htm

http://www.imf.org/external/np/ms/2005/071105a.htm

Sorry, you're talking nonsense.

 

not quite. the two articles you linked are agreed upon consultations by those governments. we didn't ask to hear the IMF's opinion, nor would I ever ask them..

 

So the IMF isn't entitled to an opinion on the world's largest economy and the problems it may be facing, because it wasn't asked by said country's government for such an opinion? Talk about being closed-minded!!

 

It would help the IMF if they knew what the actual definition of "Universal Health Care" and how many countries actually follow it.

 

not when they only choose to throw such opinions in our direction.

 

Just so long as MLS linesmen don't hear about this new rule, we're all OK.

 

And has already been demonstrated, they have opinions on most if not all major economies and the issues they face. So your gripe is simply that in the case of the US, said opinion wasn't asked for. As I said, how closed-minded can you get?