Author Topic: My life in a Liberal hell hole.  (Read 33989 times)

ysette9

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My life in a Liberal hell hole.
« Reply #200 on: July 10, 2019, 05:10:00 PM »
At the least I'd like to see a nominal charge when visiting a medical clinic or emergency room.  Say $50.  I've heard from ems responders that they often get calls from lonely old people who really don't have emergencies.  We don't need to incentivize wasted public resources.   I think that would be a good place to start.  Im not prepared to dismantle the healthcare system in canada, but id like to see some introduction of price discovery.

Wow!  There isn't even a charge to visit the emergency room!  That was a price discovery to me.

One more thing about the US post office.  I like it.  Where else can I see my picture hanging on the wall and what's more they tell me I'm wanted.  You can't get much better than that.

The ER is quite expensive.  They just bill you a different way...
Sure, there is no free lunch here. But a quick look on Wikipedia at overall healthcare costs by country and overall health outcomes shows that the lunch costs 50% less in every country outside the US. Usually this is accompanied by better overall health outcomes for the population as a whole. We can debate logistics and details all day, but at the end of the day we in the US are paying way more for what is delivering, on average, a lower quality product. That should outrage anyone who cares about fiscal responsibility.

Wrenchturner

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Re: My life in a Liberal hell hole.
« Reply #201 on: July 10, 2019, 05:24:11 PM »
At the least I'd like to see a nominal charge when visiting a medical clinic or emergency room.  Say $50.  I've heard from ems responders that they often get calls from lonely old people who really don't have emergencies.  We don't need to incentivize wasted public resources.   I think that would be a good place to start.  Im not prepared to dismantle the healthcare system in canada, but id like to see some introduction of price discovery.

Wow!  There isn't even a charge to visit the emergency room!  That was a price discovery to me.

One more thing about the US post office.  I like it.  Where else can I see my picture hanging on the wall and what's more they tell me I'm wanted.  You can't get much better than that.

The ER is quite expensive.  They just bill you a different way...
Sure, there is no free lunch here. But a quick look on Wikipedia at overall healthcare costs by country and overall health outcomes shows that the lunch costs 50% less in every country outside the US. Usually this is accompanied by better overall health outcomes for the population as a whole. We can debate logistics and details all day, but at the end of the day we in the US are paying way more for what is delivering, on average, a lower quality product. That should outrage anyone who cares about fiscal responsibility.
The high cost of health care in the US could be attributed to many causes though, high wages, purchasing power parity, high standards of production and regulation, etc.  Correlation doesn't necessarily indicate causation. 

Not trying to argue against this point, just saying it isn't a clear metric.

HBFIRE

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Re: My life in a Liberal hell hole.
« Reply #202 on: July 10, 2019, 05:32:28 PM »

The high cost of health care in the US could be attributed to many causes though, high wages, purchasing power parity, high standards of production and regulation, etc.  Correlation doesn't necessarily indicate causation. 

Not trying to argue against this point, just saying it isn't a clear metric.

This is exactly right.  There are many reasons for our high health care costs and we need to solve the root causes.  Socialized healthcare doesn't address the underlying issues.  Curious to see what Buffet and Bezos come up with in their attempt to lower healthcare costs.

ctuser1

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Re: My life in a Liberal hell hole.
« Reply #203 on: July 10, 2019, 05:44:21 PM »
Correlation doesn't necessarily indicate causation. 

Correlation very much mean "indication"!!

"Causation" in the logical/mathematical sense is irrelevant for - well - everything in the real world.

Your drug trials are decided based on correlation. Wherever you hear "confidence interval" - well that is the mathematics of correlation at play!!

That "math of correlation" was good enough for particle physicists to declare they have discovered the Higgs Boson (they have some ridiculously high confidence interval number - but still it is not "proof" or "causation" in the sense you are using).

When you have a sample size of 20 or so in the world, and 19 of them display a certain behavior (half the cost, better outcome) - and one is the odd one out, the confidence interval of the statement "US healthcare costs double for same or worse service" is ridiculously high and it would be pretty "illogical" to dismiss that statement saying "doesn't necessarily indicate causation".

 

js82

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Re: My life in a Liberal hell hole.
« Reply #204 on: July 10, 2019, 05:52:35 PM »
For the sake of pointing it out:

In 1980, U.S. health care spending was relatively high, but not that different from other wealthy nations.  It is now far, far beyond other nations.  At the same time , our gains in life expectancy didn't nearly keep pace with those in the rest of the world.

What happened in the U.S. in the 80's and beyond from an economic perspective?  Hint:  It wasn't socialism.  In fact, it was quite the opposite, from an economic perspective: the flattening of our tax structure, deregulation, and the whittling down of our social safety nets(and the jump in wealth inequality that resulted from these policies).  Usual caveats about correlation and causation apply, but the conclusion is pretty clear:  Health care in the U.S. has been broken for a long time, but it wasn't always broken, if one goes back several decades.  If there's one thing that available data clearly refutes, it's the idea that throwing more unfettered capitalism at U.S. health care is going to fix it.


A couple sources for the health spending/life expectancy vs. time data:

https://www.joepaduda.com/2017/03/15/healthcare-costs-not-insurance-premiums/

https://www.top500.org/news/us-healthcare-is-ripe-for-an-ai-intervention/

(If you prefer to look through data yourself, the google query I used was "health care cost by country vs time")

GuitarStv

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Re: My life in a Liberal hell hole.
« Reply #205 on: July 10, 2019, 06:15:16 PM »
For the sake of pointing it out:

In 1980, U.S. health care spending was relatively high, but not that different from other wealthy nations.  It is now far, far beyond other nations.  At the same time , our gains in life expectancy didn't nearly keep pace with those in the rest of the world.

What happened in the U.S. in the 80's and beyond from an economic perspective?  Hint:  It wasn't socialism.  In fact, it was quite the opposite, from an economic perspective: the flattening of our tax structure, deregulation, and the whittling down of our social safety nets(and the jump in wealth inequality that resulted from these policies).  Usual caveats about correlation and causation apply, but the conclusion is pretty clear:  Health care in the U.S. has been broken for a long time, but it wasn't always broken, if one goes back several decades.  If there's one thing that available data clearly refutes, it's the idea that throwing more unfettered capitalism at U.S. health care is going to fix it.


A couple sources for the health spending/life expectancy vs. time data:

https://www.joepaduda.com/2017/03/15/healthcare-costs-not-insurance-premiums/

https://www.top500.org/news/us-healthcare-is-ripe-for-an-ai-intervention/

(If you prefer to look through data yourself, the google query I used was "health care cost by country vs time")

NRA logic.  You obviously need more guns to solve the problem that easy access to guns has caused.  Otherwise you hate freedom, you commie.

ctuser1

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Re: My life in a Liberal hell hole.
« Reply #206 on: July 10, 2019, 06:24:00 PM »
For the record - capitalism for healthcare will work just like it does "work" in many third world countries!!

It just means you get no ER treatment unless you pay up front!! Blame Reagan for breaking that "capitalistic" model via EMTALA - that mandated ER care without proof of pay!!

I don't think that any of the first world countries, including the truest of the true libertarians in the US, have any stomach for such a capitalistic healthcare system. And if they do, a few deaths on the steps of ER rooms for insurance paperwork snafu would quickly change their minds as soon as they hit the TV news networks.

Go to any country with a capitalistic healthcare system, and such death of poor people for lack of treatment would not even make local news!

On the American Right, it is a competition of who can be a bigger hypocrite than the next, on many topics - but especially healthcare!!

RetiredAt63

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Re: My life in a Liberal hell hole.
« Reply #207 on: July 10, 2019, 07:35:38 PM »
For the sake of pointing it out:

In 1980, U.S. health care spending was relatively high, but not that different from other wealthy nations.  It is now far, far beyond other nations.  At the same time , our gains in life expectancy didn't nearly keep pace with those in the rest of the world.

What happened in the U.S. in the 80's and beyond from an economic perspective?  Hint:  It wasn't socialism.  In fact, it was quite the opposite, from an economic perspective: the flattening of our tax structure, deregulation, and the whittling down of our social safety nets(and the jump in wealth inequality that resulted from these policies).  Usual caveats about correlation and causation apply, but the conclusion is pretty clear:  Health care in the U.S. has been broken for a long time, but it wasn't always broken, if one goes back several decades.  If there's one thing that available data clearly refutes, it's the idea that throwing more unfettered capitalism at U.S. health care is going to fix it.


A couple sources for the health spending/life expectancy vs. time data:

https://www.joepaduda.com/2017/03/15/healthcare-costs-not-insurance-premiums/

https://www.top500.org/news/us-healthcare-is-ripe-for-an-ai-intervention/

(If you prefer to look through data yourself, the google query I used was "health care cost by country vs time")

Another interesting line of inquiry would be the dates of introduction of universal health care in the various countries studied.  Canada did not always have universal health care, for example, it came in stages.  The Canada Health Act was passed in 1984. 

pecunia

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Re: My life in a Liberal hell hole.
« Reply #208 on: July 10, 2019, 08:25:55 PM »
Soooo,....the really high cost of US health care started when Reagan was president.

Hmmmm, this must be another fine example of supply side economics.  One of the most important things to be done to prove how good it worked is to find isolated pristine examples where everything is great and point them out as the norm.

I really don't get this.  The people in power are largely Republican.  Republicans support business and fiscal responsibility.  Good businessmen go for what works.  Evidence points to the example that what is being done in the US does not achieve the expected results, is not fiscally efficient for the customer in either the short term or the long term.  The GOP should be leading the charge to reform this system.

Do you think that just maybe, they are bought off?

Abe

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Re: My life in a Liberal hell hole.
« Reply #209 on: July 10, 2019, 08:35:32 PM »
To be fair, this also happened starting in the 1980s:


And this started after World War II:

Obviously healthcare costs are ballooning out of control in the US, but I think there are multiple reasons and not all are due to profit-seeking by healthcare companies.  Maybe by other companies (i.e. employers not providing good healthcare insurance, food companies selling crap with too much sugar, people having to work longer hours to keep same standard of living so can't cook healthy food), but it's not all due to the healthcare sector alone.
« Last Edit: July 10, 2019, 08:56:33 PM by Abe »

Abe

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Re: My life in a Liberal hell hole.
« Reply #210 on: July 10, 2019, 09:30:22 PM »
Sorry, couldn't help myself. I made some graphs of obesity rates and changes for developed country from the supplementary material for this paper: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1614362

Warning, the supplement is 140 pages and may crash your computer!

Obesity has gone up quite a bit in 30 years throughout, but clearly more in the US than other comparable countries.

aspiringnomad

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Re: My life in a Liberal hell hole.
« Reply #211 on: July 10, 2019, 10:09:11 PM »
I'm a centrist in a very liberal city and wish there were a stronger Republican party here to help keep the Dems honest. But then I remember that the GOP's current national standard bearer has the mental capacity of a six year old and it's a lot tougher to get too worked up about local politics much as they might have a more direct impact on my life.

pecunia

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Re: My life in a Liberal hell hole.
« Reply #212 on: July 11, 2019, 04:57:34 AM »
So, we all got fatter about the time they released supply side economics and some deregulation.

When did they make the big shift from beet and cane sugar to corn syrup?  I wonder if that also lines up.

We never ate in fast food places when I was a kid.

I'll bet if we had Socialistic medicine, we'd have more guidance in preventive medicine.  We would want to spend less tax dollars on the medical thing.  Prevention is less expensive than treatment.  A stitch in time saves nine.  We could even have more sidewalks.

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Wrenchturner

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Re: My life in a Liberal hell hole.
« Reply #214 on: July 11, 2019, 01:39:55 PM »
This is interesting.  It appears millennials are now changing trend and moving away from cities.


https://www.foxbusiness.com/features/millennials-leaving-cities-rising-costs?utm_source=Iterable&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=campaign_695559&fbclid=IwAR1UIqWQv5rqijfbWO65bcvqPSfKvObpvIFM4fNdLYhMui1H-tb64WH-q4A

Cities are losing their competitiveness for the working class.  High housing, bad commutes.  And some remote places will pay you handsomely to work for them.

bacchi

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Re: My life in a Liberal hell hole.
« Reply #215 on: July 11, 2019, 01:47:40 PM »
This is interesting.  It appears millennials are now changing trend and moving away from cities.


https://www.foxbusiness.com/features/millennials-leaving-cities-rising-costs?utm_source=Iterable&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=campaign_695559&fbclid=IwAR1UIqWQv5rqijfbWO65bcvqPSfKvObpvIFM4fNdLYhMui1H-tb64WH-q4A

Cities are losing their competitiveness for the working class.  High housing, bad commutes.  And some remote places will pay you handsomely to work for them.

It's not just the working class. Millennials have to compete in housing with boomer empty-nesters and Gen X and, financially, it's a no-win situation.

I do hope towns and small cities get some of this emigration. Some of the towns I'm looking at moving to are in great locations but the risk of becoming Methville is too high for me to drop $250k on a house.

Wrenchturner

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Re: My life in a Liberal hell hole.
« Reply #216 on: July 11, 2019, 04:10:32 PM »
This is interesting.  It appears millennials are now changing trend and moving away from cities.


https://www.foxbusiness.com/features/millennials-leaving-cities-rising-costs?utm_source=Iterable&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=campaign_695559&fbclid=IwAR1UIqWQv5rqijfbWO65bcvqPSfKvObpvIFM4fNdLYhMui1H-tb64WH-q4A

Cities are losing their competitiveness for the working class.  High housing, bad commutes.  And some remote places will pay you handsomely to work for them.

It's not just the working class. Millennials have to compete in housing with boomer empty-nesters and Gen X and, financially, it's a no-win situation.

I do hope towns and small cities get some of this emigration. Some of the towns I'm looking at moving to are in great locations but the risk of becoming Methville is too high for me to drop $250k on a house.
True but at least non-working people can avoid rush hour.  The dearth of good light rail transit in north American cities is rearing its ugly head with population growth.

I just read a headline that toronto has the sixth worst commute in the world.  Pretty amazing considering all the enormous Asian cities lacking infrastructure.

Abe

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Re: My life in a Liberal hell hole.
« Reply #217 on: July 11, 2019, 09:30:06 PM »
Re: towns becoming Methville - that's been a big concern of ours when looking for jobs. My wife and I are in fields that any town would need, we could easily be paid a king's ransom, and the demand is highest in more rural areas. The problem is a lot of these places have nothing going on, and will peter out within a decade or two.

I don't think those commuting surveys consider a lot of the Asian mega-cities.

pecunia

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Re: My life in a Liberal hell hole.
« Reply #218 on: July 12, 2019, 04:48:38 AM »
Re: towns becoming Methville - that's been a big concern of ours when looking for jobs. My wife and I are in fields that any town would need, we could easily be paid a king's ransom, and the demand is highest in more rural areas. The problem is a lot of these places have nothing going on, and will peter out within a decade or two.

I don't think those commuting surveys consider a lot of the Asian mega-cities.

Will it really turn out that way?  Surely, we've all seen the flight of manufacturing jobs from the North American shores to other shores.  However, what has happened to this electronic working from home thing that was the buzz just a few years back?  Won't that allow people to live in a nice quiet small town instead of a crowded dirty megalopolis?  Looks like this isn't happening.  Instead, we mayl see the resurgence of the ghost town.

TomTX

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Re: My life in a Liberal hell hole.
« Reply #219 on: July 12, 2019, 05:19:45 AM »
Re: towns becoming Methville - that's been a big concern of ours when looking for jobs. My wife and I are in fields that any town would need, we could easily be paid a king's ransom, and the demand is highest in more rural areas. The problem is a lot of these places have nothing going on, and will peter out within a decade or two.

I don't think those commuting surveys consider a lot of the Asian mega-cities.

Will it really turn out that way?  Surely, we've all seen the flight of manufacturing jobs from the North American shores to other shores.  However, what has happened to this electronic working from home thing that was the buzz just a few years back?  Won't that allow people to live in a nice quiet small town instead of a crowded dirty megalopolis?  Looks like this isn't happening.  Instead, we mayl see the resurgence of the ghost town.

The majority of the manufacturing job losses isn't transfer to other countries. It's elimination through automation/streamlining. The USA is still a manufacturing powerhouse - it's just we do it with far fewer people.

GuitarStv

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Re: My life in a Liberal hell hole.
« Reply #220 on: July 12, 2019, 09:43:47 AM »
I just read a headline that toronto has the sixth worst commute in the world.  Pretty amazing considering all the enormous Asian cities lacking infrastructure.

We've worked very hard to ensure that commute times will be world-class bad.

Remember when our crack addicted mayor Rob Ford was elected . . . and then he scrapped the LRT project that was funded and underway (paying large cancellation fees) in order to replace it with subways?  But then turned out that subways need to be surveyed, with plans developed to build them.  And that the population doesn't support subways where they were planned to be built?  And then that even if we got the plans in place, construction would take 10 -15 years to complete?

Now that the drug dealing brother of our deceased crack addicted mayor is the head of the provincial government he will continue to slash budgets for public transit and cycling infrastructure in order to win the 'war against cars' that he has always been concerned with.  More cars on the road of course, is the conservative solution to gridlock.

Wrenchturner

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Re: My life in a Liberal hell hole.
« Reply #221 on: July 12, 2019, 10:42:27 AM »
I don't know much about the situation in Ontario.   Hopefully smart cars will help alleviate this.  Autodriving cars are cool, autodriving groups of cars are way cooler.

mm1970

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Re: My life in a Liberal hell hole.
« Reply #222 on: July 12, 2019, 11:35:37 AM »
Re: towns becoming Methville - that's been a big concern of ours when looking for jobs. My wife and I are in fields that any town would need, we could easily be paid a king's ransom, and the demand is highest in more rural areas. The problem is a lot of these places have nothing going on, and will peter out within a decade or two.

I don't think those commuting surveys consider a lot of the Asian mega-cities.

Will it really turn out that way?  Surely, we've all seen the flight of manufacturing jobs from the North American shores to other shores.  However, what has happened to this electronic working from home thing that was the buzz just a few years back?  Won't that allow people to live in a nice quiet small town instead of a crowded dirty megalopolis?  Looks like this isn't happening.  Instead, we mayl see the resurgence of the ghost town.
This is what I see in my home area.  Lotta meth and other drugs popping up.  Light manufacturing gone or nearly gone.  About all that is left is, well, service type jobs for the people who live there, and some summer tourism from the nearby larger cities.  The high school I attended - we had a massive (ha) graduating class of 110 students.  My niece's grade has 32 students.

Now, I have a friend from HS who homeschools her child - she's half Japanese, and her kid is 1/4 and the jerks at the school were making fun of his eyes, which - yeah, that town can be shitty.  Everyone is white.  She has managed to piece together some decent at-home work for Amazon and similar companies.  Recently, she organized an info session at the library to show others how to also get those types of jobs (high speed internet, unfortunately, is still not everywhere in my home county).

dougules

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Re: My life in a Liberal hell hole.
« Reply #223 on: July 12, 2019, 11:49:33 AM »
Re: towns becoming Methville - that's been a big concern of ours when looking for jobs. My wife and I are in fields that any town would need, we could easily be paid a king's ransom, and the demand is highest in more rural areas. The problem is a lot of these places have nothing going on, and will peter out within a decade or two.

I don't think those commuting surveys consider a lot of the Asian mega-cities.

Will it really turn out that way?  Surely, we've all seen the flight of manufacturing jobs from the North American shores to other shores.  However, what has happened to this electronic working from home thing that was the buzz just a few years back?  Won't that allow people to live in a nice quiet small town instead of a crowded dirty megalopolis?  Looks like this isn't happening.  Instead, we mayl see the resurgence of the ghost town.

I don't think you'd need a resurgence.  Go to Welch WV, Youngstown OH, or Keota CO and you will see it's already a thing. 

Digital nomads are becoming more common, but so many of them are opting to leave developed countries like the US for places where money goes much further than even rural Mississippi. 

HBFIRE

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Re: My life in a Liberal hell hole.
« Reply #224 on: July 12, 2019, 12:01:47 PM »

Digital nomads are becoming more common, but so many of them are opting to leave developed countries like the US for places where money goes much further than even rural Mississippi.

As a digital nomad myself (affiliate marketing for 15 yrs), I tried this out for awhile as did many in our space -- southeast asia and Thailand are very popular choices (Chiang Mai/Bangkok, for ex).  Typically after a few years they end up returning to the US once they start missing the infrastructure it provides.  I eventually settled in a pretty HCOLA just for the quality of life it offers without having to drive anywhere.  I have everything I need within a walk.
« Last Edit: July 12, 2019, 12:18:55 PM by HBFIRE »

Wrenchturner

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Re: My life in a Liberal hell hole.
« Reply #225 on: July 12, 2019, 03:19:59 PM »

Digital nomads are becoming more common, but so many of them are opting to leave developed countries like the US for places where money goes much further than even rural Mississippi.

As a digital nomad myself (affiliate marketing for 15 yrs), I tried this out for awhile as did many in our space -- southeast asia and Thailand are very popular choices (Chiang Mai/Bangkok, for ex).  Typically after a few years they end up returning to the US once they start missing the infrastructure it provides.  I eventually settled in a pretty HCOLA just for the quality of life it offers without having to drive anywhere.  I have everything I need within a walk.
Maybe it's an age thing too.  Now that I'm >30 my wanderlust  is fading.  I'd still like to travel but I'm more interested in having a home.

pecunia

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Re: My life in a Liberal hell hole.
« Reply #226 on: July 12, 2019, 04:38:33 PM »

- SNIP -

Maybe it's an age thing too.  Now that I'm >30 my wanderlust  is fading.  I'd still like to travel but I'm more interested in having a home.

Probably find some really good housing deals in Welch WV, Youngstown OH, or Keota CO.

Wrenchturner

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Re: My life in a Liberal hell hole.
« Reply #227 on: July 12, 2019, 05:09:52 PM »

- SNIP -

Maybe it's an age thing too.  Now that I'm >30 my wanderlust  is fading.  I'd still like to travel but I'm more interested in having a home.

Probably find some really good housing deals in Welch WV, Youngstown OH, or Keota CO.
Can a conservative guy move from a liberal hell hole (canada) to a conservative utopia (US) as a political refugee?  Do you guys have some jerbs i can terk?

RetiredAt63

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Re: My life in a Liberal hell hole.
« Reply #228 on: July 12, 2019, 05:57:17 PM »

- SNIP -

Maybe it's an age thing too.  Now that I'm >30 my wanderlust  is fading.  I'd still like to travel but I'm more interested in having a home.

Probably find some really good housing deals in Welch WV, Youngstown OH, or Keota CO.
Can a conservative guy move from a liberal hell hole (canada) to a conservative utopia (US) as a political refugee?  Do you guys have some jerbs i can terk?

Better to just get a job -  our mentor did, after all.

Just Joe

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Re: My life in a Liberal hell hole.
« Reply #229 on: July 15, 2019, 08:11:08 AM »

- SNIP -

Maybe it's an age thing too.  Now that I'm >30 my wanderlust  is fading.  I'd still like to travel but I'm more interested in having a home.

Probably find some really good housing deals in Welch WV, Youngstown OH, or Keota CO.

$130K, 5 bedrooms. Just depends on what a person's entertainment requirements are.

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Re: My life in a Liberal hell hole.
« Reply #230 on: July 15, 2019, 10:03:26 AM »
I don't know much about the situation in Ontario.   Hopefully smart cars will help alleviate this.  Autodriving cars are cool, autodriving groups of cars are way cooler.

I don't get this reply at all. Why try to solve a long standing problem [commute hell] with an unproven solution [driving automation] that is at least 5-10 years away, assuming the majority of drivers can even afford this or desire to give up their cars?

Why not just use a proven solution that has worked for 100+ years in the most successful cities in the world [light rail, bike lanes, and city design for human beings instead of vehicles]?

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Re: My life in a Liberal hell hole.
« Reply #231 on: July 15, 2019, 10:37:00 AM »
I don't know much about the situation in Ontario.   Hopefully smart cars will help alleviate this.  Autodriving cars are cool, autodriving groups of cars are way cooler.

I don't get this reply at all. Why try to solve a long standing problem [commute hell] with an unproven solution [driving automation] that is at least 5-10 years away, assuming the majority of drivers can even afford this or desire to give up their cars?

Why not just use a proven solution that has worked for 100+ years in the most successful cities in the world [light rail, bike lanes, and city design for human beings instead of vehicles]?
Extraordinary infrastructure costs, for one.  And light rail can't go everywhere.

I like pragmatic solutions.

Wrenchturner

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Re: My life in a Liberal hell hole.
« Reply #232 on: July 15, 2019, 10:41:03 AM »

- SNIP -

Maybe it's an age thing too.  Now that I'm >30 my wanderlust  is fading.  I'd still like to travel but I'm more interested in having a home.

Probably find some really good housing deals in Welch WV, Youngstown OH, or Keota CO.

$130K, 5 bedrooms. Just depends on what a person's entertainment requirements are.

And presumably low on employment options?  Is that generally the case for LCOL areas in the US?

JGS1980

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Re: My life in a Liberal hell hole.
« Reply #233 on: July 15, 2019, 10:58:01 AM »
I don't know much about the situation in Ontario.   Hopefully smart cars will help alleviate this.  Autodriving cars are cool, autodriving groups of cars are way cooler.

I don't get this reply at all. Why try to solve a long standing problem [commute hell] with an unproven solution [driving automation] that is at least 5-10 years away, assuming the majority of drivers can even afford this or desire to give up their cars?

Why not just use a proven solution that has worked for 100+ years in the most successful cities in the world [light rail, bike lanes, and city design for human beings instead of vehicles]?
Extraordinary infrastructure costs, for one.  And light rail can't go everywhere.

I like pragmatic solutions.

Pragmatic solutions that are currently impossible?

Sure infrastructure costs money. Do you think that forever maintaining highways don't cost money as well? I'd argue that the cost per rider is much higher when we keep on unthinkingly building and rebuilding highways for 1 passenger vehicles.

Wrenchturner

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Re: My life in a Liberal hell hole.
« Reply #234 on: July 15, 2019, 11:42:09 AM »
I don't know much about the situation in Ontario.   Hopefully smart cars will help alleviate this.  Autodriving cars are cool, autodriving groups of cars are way cooler.

I don't get this reply at all. Why try to solve a long standing problem [commute hell] with an unproven solution [driving automation] that is at least 5-10 years away, assuming the majority of drivers can even afford this or desire to give up their cars?

Why not just use a proven solution that has worked for 100+ years in the most successful cities in the world [light rail, bike lanes, and city design for human beings instead of vehicles]?
Extraordinary infrastructure costs, for one.  And light rail can't go everywhere.

I like pragmatic solutions.

Pragmatic solutions that are currently impossible?

Sure infrastructure costs money. Do you think that forever maintaining highways don't cost money as well? I'd argue that the cost per rider is much higher when we keep on unthinkingly building and rebuilding highways for 1 passenger vehicles.
I'm not disagreeing with you.

pecunia

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Re: My life in a Liberal hell hole.
« Reply #235 on: July 15, 2019, 04:33:22 PM »
I can't see bike lanes, walking paths and sidewalks to be too expensive.  If a governmental unit is really tight, don't pave them just use gravel and stone.  I can't see there being a lot of maintenance as there is a lot less weight on the paths.

I've stayed in Motels in areas where absolutely nothing was done for walkers.  I guess there is no money to be made.  I think the Liberal hell hole cities may be a bit better for bike paths.

js82

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Re: My life in a Liberal hell hole.
« Reply #236 on: July 15, 2019, 05:18:59 PM »

- SNIP -

Maybe it's an age thing too.  Now that I'm >30 my wanderlust  is fading.  I'd still like to travel but I'm more interested in having a home.

Probably find some really good housing deals in Welch WV, Youngstown OH, or Keota CO.

$130K, 5 bedrooms. Just depends on what a person's entertainment requirements are.

And presumably low on employment options?  Is that generally the case for LCOL areas in the US?

That entirely depends on what employment options you're looking for.

Software industry or high-paying finance jobs?  Good luck.  (Unless you work remotely - I know some in the software industry who do)
Non-software variety of engineering?  Definitely possible, if you can find a company in a small town that is looking for your skillset.  Probably won't pay as much as a role in a bigger city, but might work out with the cost of living difference.
Welder, electrician, carpenter, etc?  Excellent odds, though once again it'll probably pay less than in areas where your customers are wealthier.

However, there are many more areas where I'd classify the cost of living as "medium" with excellent employment options across a full range of careers.