Comments (19)

My thought's on Mike's below

The American government isn't afraid to hand out free health care. Senior citizens get it. Veterans get it. As SiCKO shows you, even the detainees at Guantanamo Bay get it.

Big corporations aren't afraid to hand out money. Their employees get it. Their suppliers get it. As corporate records will show you (sorry, I don't have anything to plug) even their lawyers get it.

So, too, do our federal elected officials. It doesn't matter if they are Republicans or Democrats, young or old, healthy or sick -- they are entitled to free, government-provided health insurance. They don't have to worry about being able to pay for medical help -- even if many of their constituents do.

So your suggestion is that legislators should live as the most downtrodden of all Americans? By your rational, they should not have homes or food either.

When Senator Sherrod Brown was running for a seat in the House of Representatives over 10 years ago, he saw something wrong with this. He pledged not to accept his free government health care until everyone in the United States had the same luxury. (He's still waiting.)

How has he survived without healthcare for 10 years?

Brown reasoned that politicians should have the same privileges as those they represent. I know a lot of the Democrats running for President understand this principle. Monday night during their YouTube debate, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Mike Gravel, Dennis Kucinich, Barack Obama, and Bill Richardson all pledged to work for the minimum wage should they be elected president -- to show that they're in touch with the plight of everyday Americans, and to make sure they are personally invested in making sure the minimum wage in this country is a livable one. Good for them.

Did they pledge to make that minimum wage their only means of providing for their families or themselves? If not, it sounds like empty rhetoric to me.

Now, candidates, how about giving up your health care too? If elected president, you and your family will be entitled to free government health care, courtesy of the fine doctors at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland. But nearly 50 million of your constituents will go without any medical care at all -- and 18,000 of them will die during your first year in office simply because they lack health insurance. As the head of the government, how can you take advantage of its health care services, but deny it to so many citizens?

There seems to be confusion here. Are we talking about health insurance or provided health care for the legislators? This makes a difference as to whether we are discussing a for profit or not for profit system

I am calling on each presidential candidate to pledge to refuse their free government health care until every person in this country also has it. I want every candidate who said they'd work for the minimum wage as president to work uninsured, too, until health care is universal. And I want the other candidates to join them. (Yes, I'm looking at you, too, Republicans. I know you can afford to do it.)

Let's have them vow not to come up for air until everyone can breathe underwater while we're at it.

During Monday night's interactive debate, I submitted this exact challenge on YouTube, just like everyone else. CNN didn't choose it -- maybe Dr. Gupta was making the selections? Anyway, I am issuing it here. All candidates should pledge to take whatever health care is available to the least fortunate American. Right now, that's nothing. Hopefully as president, they'll have to make it something.

You mean you got treated just like the rest of the entrants, without special consideration for who you are? That's terrible. Sounds biased to me.

Here's what I'd like to see from you, Mr. Moore. A vow not to profit from the proceeds of your documentaries until the problems they "expose" are resolved as you lay out within. Sounds like an even trade off for your demands, wouldn't you say?

Oh, and by the way, I'm a Dem (since we're making this a partisan issue).

-David Emerson (not the Canadian one)

I love when people argue to raise the minimum wage. I question how much. How much would be acceptable as a minimum wage? $40,000 a year? $50,000? Even if we raise the minimum wage to 1 million a year, we would have poor people in America, and someone would be trying to win an election by saying we should raise minimum wage.

Here's the problem with minimum wage: it's based on outdated numbers. According to a book I read in a particular college class (one book? You're basing this statement on ONE BOOK you READ? I know, I know!) minimum wage when it was set up was based on an at-the-time realistic estimation that food accounted for roughly 1/3 of a family's total expenses. So you multiply that by three to get roughly what a person needs to make to cover their bills and whatnot and base it off that. The problem is the raises to wage have continued to be based off that one cost, while other expenses have risen at disproportional rates, meaning you can't live off minimum wage. Some of the people in the book were working two or three jobs and still living like six to a hotel room.

And, just like the lady who wrote the book, all those politicians have a lot of their own money they've already earned, as well as a lot of other things someone on minimum wage wouldn't have. So, it's a lovely gesture, but they wouldn't really be living like someone on minimum wage would.

The book was called Nickel and Dimed, BTW.

if you raise the minimum wage, you raise the price of food. It's a cycle. If a bakery has to hire someone at a higher wage, they have to raise the price of bread to cover it. Then you figure out that the cost of food has risen above 1/3 the household income. whoops, better raise minimum wage. The cycle starts again.

For "Nickle And Dimed", Ehrenreich never stayed at a job long enough to earn more.
I used to wait tables and I loved busy nights. Ehrenreich quit after a busy night at her waitress job. A good waitperson should never, ever make minimum wage. She also spent one day in a housekeeping job before she quit.

She claims to be suprised that unskilled person(this is what she claimed to be when she applied for jobs) that never holds a job for more than a month, can't make a living.

She also refused to make use of any support services that we already have built in to our society.
This book is like a literary version of "Supersize Me". She starts of with a premise, then sets restrictions on herself to ensure that the premise holds true.

"This book is like a literary version of "Supersize Me". She starts of with a premise, then sets restrictions on herself to ensure that the premise holds true."

How did "Supersize Me"s methods change for its premise?

A quick bit on the minimum wage. It just got hiked, according to the Department of Labor, and The Washington Post. The post notes that it was tacked onto a Iraq spending bill.

Ahem, anyway.

David, we all know that the "interactive" YouTubeâ„¢ debates are just staged like normal debates. I highly doubt that any real questions get through.

Also, what Mr. Moore is not mentioning is that universal health care is paid for with TAXES. And who wants a tax hike? Although I know several billion dollars that could be spent in this country, instead of in another once, but, I digress.

And don't get me started on drug companies. $5 each for a pill I should take every day? I mean come on. Canada has the drug companies reigned in. And how come I can pay a $20 co-pay for a $150 'script under my insurance. I understand the concept of insurance, but I don't believe that my insurance company is paying the drug company the full price of those meds.

Oh, and in case anyone was wondering, it's Adderall XR, 20mg. :P

Quote Archmagio

Slightly off topic, but a big increase in food prices has been the increasing demand for corn to make into ethanol. Not to mention the enormous subsidies that the government has given to farmers not to grow various crops, including corn. I don't get the whole farm subsidy system. But, that is for another time.

Okay, I can't view the source, but I'm curious if you've just added a quote function to Vent.

I might be working on that

"Supersize Me" set out to prove McDonalds was bad for you. The rules he set for himself was to cut back on his exercise, eat McDonalds for EVERY meal, he had to get supersized if he was asked. These restrictions took away any healthier choices he could make(walk more, order water instead of pop, etc.)
Then he acted like it was McDonalds fault he was out of shape at the end of the movie.

I'm not arguing that McDonalds is healthy, but that Spurlock imposed rules that ensured that McDonalds food would dramatically cause him harm.

It would be like making a documentary on the hazards of walking across the street and then setting a rule that I had to do it while blindfolded.
These restrictions hurt the integrity of the message in my opinion.

That's not exactly what Supersize Me claims it's proving. It asks the question, "What if someone were to subsist totally on a McDonalds diet?" and then sets out to answer that question.

The 5,000 steps per day that he limited himself too were the average number of steps a person walks in a day.

While it is true that he had to get supersized if asked, he got it ONLY when asked. It is worth noting that many of the McDonalds Spurlock visited did carry water, and he often purchased it (as it was his only source for water).

Also, a couple of the doctors he visited prior to his experiment did not expect a dramatic change.

Sure, he went off the deep end, but a movie about an experiment in which a guy eats at McDonalds once a day (and many people in this country do do that) and gains 10 to 20 pounds over the course of a few months wouldn't be as interesting. Spurlock wanted people to realize that diet drastically effects health, and he was extremely successful in that endeavor.

ok. Let's not get into semantics here and argue the nit-pics. The film targeted fast food in general and McDonalds specifically. It also set up rules to ensure the outcome. I'm not saying he lied. I know he did it to dramatize a point.

Spurlock used the steps that an average person walks, but he ate far more fast food than the average American eats. He used different methodology in setting up his rules in order to ensure an outcome. Therefore his results were unrealistic.

I'm saying that the woman that wrote "Nickle And Dimed" did the same thing.

Mostly I'm not interested anymore, but before I stopped reading I caught this: "f you raise the minimum wage, you raise the price of food. It's a cycle. If a bakery has to hire someone at a higher wage, they have to raise the price of bread to cover it." and could not let it pass.

Only someone who has never owned a business would say this. The cost of labour is nearly incidental in most businesses. Normally, labor cost will account for less that 10% of gross sales- food service does run higher than average labour costs. In that industry workers can account for almost a fifth of gross sales. Other considerations have much more to do with price: raw materials, overhead, taxes, fees, advertising, etc.

Add to that the fact that minimum wage really effects very few workers. Most of the 'working poor' fall into two categories: those who make slightly more than minimum anyway, and those to whom minimum wage requirements do not apply. This is especially true in food service.

Quote Nathan Tyree

So if it increased to be more than 10% of their gross sales (which they had planned), you don't think the price of their goods would be adjusted and they would just absorb the extra cost? Only someone who doesn't understand basic economics would say this.

10% is a negligible amount, was the point. Trust me, most business owners are more concerned with the rising cost of utilities than with labor costs.

Regardless of that, most food service workers are not directly effected by minimum wage, and increases to same do not effect the cost of food.

Following the logic set forth by Archi: Japanese workers make more than American workers, therefore Japanese products cost more than American products.

XBox360- $500
Wii- $250

Hmmm...

By the by, while in NYC I saw Nintendo World. It was sort of amazing.

Quote Nathan Tyree

Okay, it's official. You've lost your fucking mind. This is like comparatively pricing a coffee mug to a crystal glass.

no- I'm comparing to video game systems from the same generation. WE could compare MP3 players if you like. Japanese electronics are cheaper (for the most part) than their American counterparts, despite the fact that Japanese workers are paid more than Americans in similar positions.

I'd be curious which you think is the coffee mug?

The Wii. It's all around specs are much lower than the XBox's, hence the lower component cost. Not to mention the fact that you're pricing the elite system for the 360. Which leads to this...

Xbox 360 - $500
Playstation3 - $600

That being said, the Wii is still my system of choice, based on the innovative control scheme.

What Mp3 players do you want to compare?

The N&D lady didn't stay in her jobs very long, no. I think it's the people she worked with and talked to that were probably most interesting. She had her whole support network to fall back on any time she wanted, and she got a book out of the whole thing. She was never in any financial trouble and always had a way out whenever she wanted it.

That being said, I think she made some interesting and valid points, even if she sort of cheated on her experiment. Same as the "Supersize Me" guy.

The 360 is the crystal glass: it's too expensive, it's not something you'd use every day.

The Wii is the coffee mug: the everyday, everyman's beverage holder of choice, relatively cheap but practical, functional, and dare I say more fun.