I dislocated – or tore – something in my shoulder a few months ago and would very much like to get it fixed. Unfortunately for me, I have to pay the government – again – and that means I can’t afford to pay a doctor.
In about two weeks, I must send the county $841.50 – half the yearly “rent” I am obliged to pay – forever – in order to be allowed to continue living in the house I paid off 15 years ago.
As fas as the county is concerned, it will never be paid off.
Unlike the government, I can’t just print more money and send it a few sheets of devalued scrip and call it even. The money I’ve got is limited by how much I earn – and I don’t earn enough to pay to get my shoulder looked at and pay the government what it says I “owe” – though for the life of me, I cannot recall buying anything from the government nor incurring costs.
I’m a single/divorced dude without kids – so I haven’t got any in “the schools.”
While it may be a good thing for kids to attend school, I have never understood how it is that other people’s decision to have children obliges me to pay for their education – the primary justification for the bill I am looking at as I type this.
I am conversant in the Birds and the Bees and understand that, excepting rape, the reproductive act is a voluntary one that either party can opt out of, in order to not have kids – if they are unable or unwilling to shoulder the cost of raising them.
It’s an odd and terrible thing to be held up – and shaken down – on account of the actions of people you don’t even know, whose actions somehow impose these obligations on you. And without even the brief enjoyment of being a participant in the process that led to the obligation.
We all have to prioritize our finances, of course. But it is one thing to defer a new sofa in order to pay for an X-Ray and being forced to hand over a large sum of money and not only get nothing in return but less than nothing.
The $841.50 will be vacuumed out of my account and I will not get to see a doctor about my shoulder.
It’s a two-fer!
But what about health insurance? I’d rather just be able to pay a doctor – but mandatory health insurance has made medical care unaffordable. The insurance, too. I know something about this because I grew up around doctors – both my dad and grandfather were doctors, before everyone used insurance to pay doctors. 
My grandfather, an allergist, had his practice in his home – and had one nurse who doubled as his receptionist. Most people paid cash – which they could, because an office visit and shot was about $25. My grandfather did not have to pay a staff of health insurance paper-pushers half a million a year, which is why care was affordable.
The government ended that, too – via the same method. It took so much money away from people they could no longer afford medical care without insurance, then made insurance unaffordable by making it mandatory – the mandate used to make the healthy pay for the unhealthy (in the manner of forcing those without kids to pay for those with them, via the property tax extortion).
And the punchline is we’re all the poorer for it. We will never own our homes; we can’t afford to get sick.
But we’re all made to pay more for what we can’t afford anymore.
Or just do without – and go without.
. . .
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Hi Eric, 18 months ago I was splitting firewood with an axe for half a day. About a week later I noticed my right shoulder started to ache a lot and got very weak. Over the next year the aching got progressively worse. I tried physiotherapy and then went to a trusted chiropractor. Nothing helped. The aching and weakness continued, especially when raising my arm laterally. Intermittent throbbing pain bad enough to wake me up every night. After about a year I decided to see my regular doctor about it. He diagnosed a rotator cuff injury and gave me a cortisone injection in my shoulder. It helped somewhat but the pain returned within a week. I went back to my doctor and was sent for imaging (ultrasound). The results came back as a partial tear in a super-something rotator cuff tendon followed by chronic tendinitis. The doc said this can take a long time to heal, with scar tissue filling in the tear, and my shoulder will probably never have the same strength as before. Welcome to “getting old”! So now, 18 months later and it still aches, but not like before. It’s no longer bad enough to wake me up at night. Light tension pulls with an elastic band hooked in a pull-up several times a day seem to help in my case. This puts upward tension (resistance) on the shoulder tendons instead of the usual downward force when lifting a weight. Anyways, that’s my shoulder story. Good luck!
Hi Steve,
Yup. Getting old… dammit. Happens to us all, I know. But it was theoretical for me until this shoulder business. I’ve always recovered quickly – and completely – from every injury … until this one. I’m ok during the day, but at night, the thing aches without relenting and I haven’t had a solid night’s sleep in months. This is messing with me more than the shoulder pain, per se. Not being able to sleep results in a zombie-like state of perpetual tiredeness. I hope I can figure this out before my Big Show in NYC this spring.
I don’t want to do a microphone drop – a la Jackson Height’s own Randy Watson! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzANAr1V82c
eric, I could write a book on the “not getting any sleep”. Last trucking job I had was day only and I’d go 4 nights in a row sometimes with little to NO sleep. It was a problem with Shingles and the leg I broke 6 years ago, lots of nerve pain I could live with during the day but couldn’t get any sleep at night. I ordered my first bottle(Oranica Naturals)of CBD oil in January and by mid Feb. I had little to no pain.
It even helps the ribs I broke and the arms I broke(bofum, 3 times, yep, I’ve been a rowdy boy). But the leg thing went all over my body, esp. legs, arms and hands and up my back, often right into those bad ribs. Now, I might forget my name but I don’t forget to take my CBD oil. It took about 5 weeks before I noticed a big difference. Another month and I was sleeping like I haven’t in nearly 20 years.
And today, I’ll hook up that TENS unit to my shoulder(loading sacks of corn lately)and let it ride till I don’t have much or no pain. It builds up the muscle too and that’s a plus with a messed-up shoulder. I’ve be smoking pot in a heartbeat if not for DOT checks. It helps nerve pain too.
Sleep, eh?
Funny- I’ve been a night-owl since my teens- just literally the last month or so, I’ve FINALLY been managing to get to bed at 11:30- while still getting up at the same time I normally do. First couple of weeks were rough, as I’d just lay there and not fall asleep till AFTER the time I’d normally fall asleep if I went to bed a 1:30 or 2:00- but then I got into the new routine, and was falling off pretty quick, and getting more sleep- and it DID make a big difference, as far as having more energy during the day; not nodding off in my chair in the evening; and I can concentrate a lot better, and read without getting dog-tired.
For some reason (Although I’ve been religiously maintaining my new schedule) the last week, I’ve been taking long to fall off again- like I’ve lapsed back into the old routine, even though I’m keeping the new hours- BUT, the benefits of the new routine are still in evidence- I guess just being in bed longer, even if it doesn’t always mean getting more sleep, still has it’s advantages.
I’ve always greatly valued sleep/bed-time…..wish I would have started this new routine of getting to bed early, sooner. Sleep isn’t “wasted time” as some claim; it’s quality time! It keeps us healthy and more productive….and really, is one of the best feelings in the world- just to be able to stay in bed a little longer, or to not have to go to some job that you hate.
Being roused at 6:30 in the morning when I was but a kid, to go to government conformity camp was traumatic and ruined what otherwise would have been an idyllic childhood; but on the positive side, THAT probably did more to make me a libertarian/anarchist than any other thing ever could.
Eric, I have elbow problems from working in a warehouse moving heavy furniture and appliances. I have been going monthly to an acupuncturist, who finally has got it under control. He also uses a laser in conjunction with the needles, which do not hurt.
I am greatly interested in finding out how lasers and intense IR perform in the long run. I know an acupuncturist and am tempted to get an appointment with him but his wife is a real bitch and works there too. She’s the one that went over the edge when I said I didn’t want to take a breathalyzer(DOT) since I had been using a Hall’s Mentholyptus lozenge.
Steve, I used to do the thing with those bands and I tied them around a door knob and pulled up and out. Can you describe how you do it? I need to get back into it even when I use a TENS unit.
Sorry to hear about your shoulder, Eric. Whatever you do, DO NOT let anybody talk you into getting an operation until you exhaust every other option available. I know a few people who lamented not getting a second opinion. I, myself, had injured my left knee a while back (torn ligament, I think) and had initially considered going under the knife. But I immediately gave it a second thought and realized that as long as I can still use it, I’m good. Personally, I’d rather live with the slight pain than to have some greedy idiot fuck me up for life.
I got to the point I could do little with my right arm and it never quit hurting in my shoulder. Imaging showed it was a mess with a huge amount of bone spurs grown to the point you could barely recognize the parts. Once I had surgery(and it’s one of the most painful I found out), the inside looked just like the picture on the wall. The problem is, they whip your arm back in a position you could never get it nor want it. Like opening up any joint(not literally….which might have been better but then there would have been a lot of muscle to regrow and that would leave you waiting for that before you could do on to PR to get the juices flowing in the joint once more.
Fortunately, there’s only a couple places they go in and ream all that crap out. It was about 2 hours of that and it felt like it when I regained consciousness….which was pretty damned quick since I don’t stay under like most people. There’s enough pain to leave you a bit grumpy.
So they drag my clothes back on(fun fun), kicked me out the door and I had to ride with the wife. She asked did it hurt. I turned my laser eyes on her and she didn’t ask again. Then she said “Well, where to you want to go?”. “THE GODDAMN PHARMACY”. So we go to the pharmacy. They took their good ol time and before she could piss me off again to ask if I wanted one I grabbed the bottle and jerked it away from her and helped myself. Do you want a beer? she asked. Just get me to the goddamn liquor store….right over there pointing with my left arm.
We’re finally going down the road, me with a load of painkillers and alcohol surging through my system. That was my MO for a while since time lost all meaning. Of course I could only sleep if I had enough of a combo of painkillers, alcohol, muscle relaxers and plenty of pot. It must have been a month before I cared if I ate. This was in February and halfway through December I got to where I could do my PR and not have pain. It was a banner day. I could have lived through it without pot…..ostensibly. But I might have gone crazy without it.
By spring I was blowing and going and abusing hell out of it again(you gotta eat). In 07 and 08 I decided I’d be better off if I exercised it more so I’d back up to a rood and sling 80lb bundles of shingles for that side or as many as they wanted. I was in good shape and my shoulder didn’t begin to bother me again till 09 from lifting heavy compressed gas bottles all day(fuckers are heavy). I begin leaving my TENS unit on every night. It helped hell out of my shoulder and I wished I had done that before having surgery. Out of the shower one day I noticed the shoulder muscles on that side were much larger than the other side. That’s part of what took some strain off the joint. Would I do it again? Not unless the payoff looked good. But I was 52 then and nearly 70 now. I might just go to Mexico, grab me a young senorita and bring her home and the wife could KMA. That sounds better the more I think about it. Of course I’d get her spayed. Of course, if you don’t have a wife, then go to Mexico for a while and find a good’un since they’re replete and don’t mind an old man unlike the fatties here who are never satisfied.
Uh…
“…had to have a glaucome valve implanted….”
LOL -I already had the glaucoma!
The property taxes on our paid for house are $12,000+, and only go up every year. That amount already exceeds my wife’s SS income and is our absolutely largest expense in retirement. I have a decent pension but I think “the golden years” is when govco does their best to take whatever gold you might have left. On the brighter side it will eventually overcome my inertia and force us out of Taxachusetts to someplace warmer and cheaper – happy hour in Florida beckons 😀.
Modern medicine is great for traumatic injuries. The best. If I break my arm or get a piece of food stuck in my throat (which has happened) take me to the hospital. If I get a ball of wax stuck in my ear (which has happened) take me to the doctor. However most of the rest of is a scam in my opinion. As I get older if I went to the doctor for every ache and pain I would be there constantly and 99% resolve on their own. Before taking meds for cholesterol or blood pressure or diabetes try working out. If you have aches and pains in muscles or joints work out around them. Dont get trapped into the medical industrial complex if there is anyway possible to avoid it.
Hi Mark,
I’m with you – but this shoulder deal is ongoing and nothing I have tried has helped much. I think it’s dislocated – but that takes a quack to relocate!
eric, I dislocated my shoulder once and didn’t know it except it was KILLING me. I had just had back surgery so had plenty valium and hydrocodone although I wasn’t getting much relief with either/both. It had been brutal cold weather and then it broke and got pretty nice one day.
The wife was building a sidewalk with a stack of old bricks so I went out to help. She scolded me but I felt so bad I didn’t care. She had a couple 5 gallon buckets loaded with bricks so I reached down and picked on up and then the other. When I picked up that bucket of bricks with my dislocated arm it was so heavy it pulled the arm out and it went back into the socket when I put some muscle into it. I had eaten a plethora of valium and hydrocodone that morning. It was really killing me and this was about the 3rd day or so. I didn’t have to ask if it had gone back into socket since it was like the biggest relief you can imagine.
The funny thing was it gave me so much relief all the drugs I had taken suddenly took over. I had to go back in and lie down to keep from passing out from all the drugs. In a few days it was right as rain and so was the rest of me not needing to be drugged any longer. It was double relief. I used the old hold with my foot and pull on an arm to fix a buddy years later with the same problem. It hurt hell out of him…..briefly but he nearly melted when the pain ceased nearly immediately. Wish I were there to do same to you. Sounds like you really need it. Go to a chiropractor and he can do it really quickly.
Hi Eight,
Thanks! I’m making an appt. on Monday with a guy my weight lifting buddy swears by. He doesn’t believe in drugs and surgery as a last resort. According to the gal I’ve been palling around with lately, the whole mess “looks out of place.” I don’t even want to look. I just want the “mess” to get popped back into place!
Hope you get that taken care of OK! Some info here may be of help negotiating with doctors as a cash patient:
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-03-16/how-negotiate-directly-physicians-and-hospitals
Hi Jason,
Thanks, amigo!
I’m doing various stretches/trying to work it out without having to spend any money.
The really have us over a barrel. I am perfectly capable of supporting myself and paying for my own needs . . . if I didn’t have to hand over a third of what I earn to these legalized thieves who style themselves “the government.”
well if thats the case you have to get it fixed. Have you had an xray?
When it comes to doctors, be careful what you wish for…you may get it!
Friend O’mine- same guy I’ve mentioned previously who
hashad the prostate cancer- is a pretty tough dude. Was shot in the stomach by a hit-man years ago…pulled the tubes out and walked out of the hospi’l ten days later; has an artificial hip and knee, etc. had also had a shoulder problem. Went to the doc, and long story short, they ended up “fixing” it by sewing in some kind of cartilage from a horse.Now bear in mind, I’ve never heard this guy complain about any of his ailments….but after having that shoulder procedure, he was never the same; would complain about the resultant and ongoing pain being the worst he’s ever had; his arm is virtually useless; he had to have it redone…yada yada…. In retrospect, he wishes he just would have lived with the injury, ’cause the “cure” has proven to be far more debilitating. (The guy’s been unbder the knife so many times for such injuries; plus all of the resultant drugs they’d give him, I really think that had a lot to do with him getting the cancer).
I would definitely try Chinkypuncture; chiro-practy; witch-doctors, anything, before “modern” medicine.
And remember, Eric and everyone- if ya ever need anything really expensive, you can always go to Mexico to have it done for a tenth of the price- and the quality of care there usually surpasses what we have here now-a-days- of course, because the government isn’t standing over them screwing everything up.
I’m having the same issue. I retired this year at age 65, because rheumatoid arthritis has made it nearly impossible to work, at anything. Living on SS. Property tax coming due, $1900, can’t afford that AND my rheumatologist. Looks like I’m on downward spiral, along with most of the honest people in the country.
Hi JWK,
I feel your pain… literally. In my case, I’m still functional – like The Terminator, I re-route damaged systems to viable ones. But even if I could afford the doctor and the property taxes I still resent it deeply. I’m amazed more don’t share my anger. But then, I realize that most people are deeply in debt and will never pay off their houses (to the bank) anyhow, so paying the government is something that doesn’t pinch as much.
It’s worse than that. They don’t even KNOW what they are paying. I can’t tell you how many times, while ranting on this very subject, I’ve asked “How much do you pay in property taxes every year?” and the reply is “Oh I don’t know, it’s part of the mortgage payment, the wife pays that, blah blah blah”.
None of us own shit, we’re all just squatters on the King’s land, at his whim and as long as we keep coughing up payment.
Hi AF,
You’re right. It’s also self-servitude. These people don’t care that they’re owned. Which is they get mad when you object to being owned.
“While it may be a good thing for kids to attend school…”
No. It robs kids of their destiny and individual identity. As John Taylor Gatto notes, it takes at least 50 hours to teach the basics of reading, writing, and mathematics. Everything else can be mostly self-taught.
Kamala Harris wants children institutionalized for an additional 3 hours. Of course, property taxes would skyrocket for us responsible people. Gotta feed them free dinner, too! I think we know which group of parents that would support such a law…..
Hi Handler,
Agreed; I debated with myself over adding that line – on the basis that some people may think it is a good thing and I suppose they have the right to “educate” their kids as they prefer. But I agree with you that any form of collectivized “education” isn’t that at all; hence the quotation marks.
I think the only exception would be the Montessori school.
Morning, Handler!
I think we fundamentally agree that educating a child is the obligation of its parents and family, who have natural/rightful authority over the child. This idea that “the government” has a supervisory role to play is risible as “the government” is just other people and if the child’s parents have no natural/rightful authority over the child, then how do these other people who constitute “the government” have it?
They obtain it, of course – by force. But that is another matter.
I like kids; I often regret not having had any. But I strongly dislike the idea that I have en enforceable, open-ended obligation to provide money for the education of other people’s kids. Just as I do not believe anyone reading this has an obligation to finance medical care for my shoulder. I’d like to pay for this myself – but can’t, because my money has been taken to fund the education of other people’s kids.
eric, you’d better get to a chiropractor and get that shoulder fixed. The longer it goes on the more damage gets done. That shoulder I dislocated had to be “fixed” in 2002 and it was one painful experience and took from Feb. to halfway through December to rehab back to no pain.
People don’t want (or have the time) to be responsible parents. That’s why there’s so much support for the evil school system because it’s essentially a daycare center.
If Kamala Harris’ extended school day bill passes, the outcry from parents will be few and far between. Most will heave a sigh of relief.
That’s so true, Handler.
When I used to participate on public forums and would bring up anything about “public schools shouldn’t exist”, the overwhelming objection would always be “But what are we supposed to do with our kids?”.
They don’t give a damn about what their kids are learning, or if they are learning, etc.; their primary interest (Whether they work, or are on the dole, and just play around all day) is that someone else take care of their kids for a good part of the day, so that they don’t have to.
This would also include an having an abundance of after-school activities and programs, and summertime activities/summer school, etc. so that their kids would be out of their hair all year long and for as much of the day as possible.
Add to that, daycare, pre-school and all that….. THEY want kids…but they don’t want to raise them themselves; nor do they want to pay for these institutions to raise them.
Is it any surprise that they keep demanding socialism?
Well, you gotta have a new car. The other is a couple years old and I never liked the color anyway. The wife needs one too, she had a flat and has never trusted it since.
Besides, I’m just now getting that $50,000 ring paid off and we’re still on the line for the diamond and ruby ear rings and I don’t even want to say what they cost.
That new 126 inch Amoled tv was nearly 5K but boy, “our” teams sure look good.
And on and on and on and on. Besides, the HOA won’t let me park that car in the drive much longer since it’s getting too old. The twins are going to have to have new cars soon and they want King Ranch 350’s but will probably have to settle for the new MachE Mustang based SUV since the HOA doesn’t like pickups at all.
Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah……
“The wife needs one too, she had a flat and has never trusted it since.”
You almost had me on the floor with that one, 8! People will use every excuse to get a new car or whatever and put themselves further into debt.
They don’t even care who gets around their kids. Pedophiles gotta love that.
Hi Handler,
Yup – but it begs the question, eh? I mean, why have kids if you want others (the government) to raise them?
People want to have their cake and eat it too.
In the case of welfarites, they get compensated for having kids.
It’s even worse. The government schools are just brainwashing gulags. For parents and the rest of us, they’re not a positive, but a negative. The next generation of kids will be even more socialist than the last one. Electric cars won’t be good enough for them. They’ll demand we use only rickshaws — with us pulling the Elite in the back.
My mother being retired and on S.S. pays zero property taxes. At least they give that. Got someone elderly you trust that you could sign that title over to?
Hope you get that shoulder taken care of. Our medical system is broken. Got to be some MD’s out there catering to those in the gig economy that pay cash.
Bin, that only works in places with very low property values AND low taxes: They give oldsters and gimpers an exemption of a certain amount…which, in those places, can often exempt them from the tax bill entirely, since the exemption may be equal to or greater than what the taxes would be.
In more ‘spensive places, like MA. and NY, such schemes just reduce the bill a little.
Hi Eric! Been a long time since I’ve posted. If you remember, I opted out because I got sick of bitching about things that I can’t change. I’m old, and just tired of all the bullshit that goes on in this country, and I just don’t care anymore because I’ll be dead soon anyway. I do feel compelled to comment on this article though. I know how much you despise mandatory insurance, whether it be health or automobile. I agree with you 110%. However, at a certain point in life, health insurance makes a lot of sense. You’re not getting any younger, and you are going to have problems that you can’t ignore. I understand that our “healthcare” system is totally fucked up. Insurance companies, Medicare, Medicaid, government involvement et al have made an incomprehensible mess of the whole thing. The costs have no basis in reality. But, as with all the other things in the current USA, it is what it is. Right now, you have a shoulder problem that you can live with. In the future, you’ll have a heart attack, cancer, prostate issues, diabetes, or god knows what. Trust me, I don’t care how well you eat, how much you exercise, how well you take care of yourself, this shit is gonna happen. I’ve always considered myself to have a healthy lifestyle. Don’t smoke, don’t drink much, go to the gym 6 days a week, and am almost vegetarian. But I’m close to 70, and in the last year, I had a heart attack, 4 weeks in the hospital with pneumonia/pleural effusion, needed a chest tube, and 2 angioplasties. Along with the X-rays, MRI’s, lab tests, CT scans and on and on, my total medical bills this year are well over 300k. I pay about $400 a month for Medicare/supplemental/drug plan, and with copay, deductibles, etc my total cost for all of this was about $2500. I know you hate “the system”, as do I. But you know what? We ain’t gonna change it, so you might as well take advantage of it. Without insurance, I’d be either dead or bankrupt by now. If I were 25, I’d say no, I’m not gonna waste my money on health insurance. But if you’re over 50, believe me, no matter how tough you think you are, you’re gonna get way more out of it than you’ll ever put in. If you can’t afford to check out your shoulder, what the hell do you think you’re gonna do when you have a heart attack?
I can understand that, and am not going to dump on anyone for doing what they need to do in order to survive. For myself though, I have no desire to be an accessory to armed robbery – which is what those programs are in actuality.
Not to mention I’ve railed against the New Deal and Great Society my entire adult life, and have worked “under the table” for most of it. I’m certainly well past old enough, but to accept lucre from Social Security and/or Medicare etc. would be extremely hypocritical, and by proxy I’d be saying “Your money or your life!” with gun in hand to my younger neighbors. I find that unacceptable. Not to mention that I really don’t want to be dragged into the clutches of today’s medical doctors who increasingly are pushers for the drug and vaccine manufacturers. (I know people who have really gotten screwed up by their prescriptions; drugs on top of drugs on top of drugs to counteract each others side effects, until liver and kidneys are half dead – or worse.)
So I practice prevention, which helps but can only go so far – there’s no way to stop the years from passing by. What would I do if I had a heart attack? Probably die. Nobody lives forever. All you’ve really got at the end of the line is your own self-integrity.
I have a different take, one that many ‘libertarians’ don’t like. I paid 18% of my life’s earnings to Corpgov for what they call “insurance”. They stole the funds and replaced them with junk IOU treasuries. Then they used the funds to buy more weapons systems, carriers, destroyers, junk like the F35 and spent an additional 7-10 trillion dollars on wars of no meaning. How did they do this? By having the Fed monetize their debt, exactly what they’re still doing today. What funds they don’t have they print up. This has caused the dollar to lose well over half it’s purchasing power in the last fifteen years. I hear/see no outrage from the American public. In fact the only outrage one hears is if someone suggests they reduce the military and Intelligence budgets.
So I draw my SS and use Medicare with no remorse. I paid for it which is a hell of a lot.
different then a illegal family crossing the border and having the US citizens pay benefits to them.
The young are not paying my SS or Medicare,,, it’s being illegally printed up.
I commend those that have “principles” where this is concerned but when you die of that heart attack no one will care nor will it help eliminate the problems with Corpgov. They’ll just use the money they robbed from you and give it to a REAL undeserving person to buy a vote.
Hell they’re spending about fifty million a year just to feed “wild” horses that no one will adopt, so my measly $15K or so a year is nothing.
Hi Ken,
I don’t fault you. I get it. The system has us all by the balls. And in re SS: Every person receiving benefits today could continue to receive them without imposing a penny in taxes on younger workers – who could be allowed to opt-out entirely. All it would take is a 20 percent cut in “defense” spending.
The government would still have more imperial Hut! Hut! Hut! capability than the rest of the world combined.
The sad thing is, at 20% less spending with inflation factored in (the Feds taking more at the point of a bankster’s pen than the tax man’s gun), we’d probably be at levels similar to the “oh horror of horrors” Regan buildup, wherein we actually had a military capable of deterrence of bad guys (and bad guys who were susceptible to said deterrence back then). F-16’s and B-52’s are a helluva lot cheaper than the newest shiniest thing we have now, and do the deterrence job quite well enough. With fewer bad guys nowadays susceptible to said deterrence, that price tag should go down…nah, never happen. Too many grifter lawyers in DC get paid too much for the defense scam (shiny newness particularly) continuing.
How much does a Minuteman in the hole cost us right now, in 2019, compared to the new hotness?
Never forget the “unseen” of defense spending. What might have been developed by all those engineers working for the death merchants if peaceful companies not been outbid for their services?
True enough, however, every MM III, MM LF, LCC, etc. is now a sunk cost, paid off long ago by us tax slaves. They exist. We can either continue to use them as a deterrent, or give up on the idea of deterrence, or build shiny new hotness. Guess which one DC will choose?
Warfare and welfare are tied together.
Offer any welfare program to a leftist at the expense of the military industrial complex and they will not take the deal unless they are one of these rare anti-war leftists.
Social Security was a Ponzi scheme from the getgo where the current “investors” are mulcted to pay for those on the dole. Monies “contributed” by the “investors” have always gone into the general fund, that “fund” nothing but a bunch of worthless government IOUs. Supreme Court ruled long ago that SS is a welfare program where disbursements are made at the pleasure of Congress. The SS scam was detailed by Irwin Schiff back in the 1980s:
https://constitution.org/tax/us-ic/schiff/ss_swindle.pdf
The young are indeed being held up at gunpoint to pay Socialist Insecurity and Mediscare. No amount of rationalization will change that salient fact.
Additionally, in my case I’ve worked a cash business and not filed tax returns, paid income taxes, or paid “into” Social Security for most of my life. They’ve managed to rob very little from me so the idea that I would be just “getting back what I put in” doesn’t wash.
Correction to 1st paragraph above, should have read:
Monies “contributed” by the “investors” have always gone into the general fund, with the “Social Security fund” containing nothing but a bunch of worthless government IOUs.
I could have done that at one time, but it only works until you get caught and then the results may be less than desirable.
I sure don’t blame you for wanting to try it, however. If I’d had the money I paid for “self employment tax” to put back into my business, I might have actually succeeded. As it was we were broke every spring and could barely get started up for another season. When our insurance quadrupled we were done.
I’ve been doing it this way since the 1970s. If they come after me at this point, well I’ve had a good run and they have to give me 3 hots and a cot.
In my case, and Eric may possibly agree, If I have an otherwise fatal illness or condition that only hospitalization would prevent, I would hope someone would have the mercy to allow me to die with as little suffering as possible.Accepting death is easier when those around you have managed to suck all the fun and purpose out of your life, not to mention bleed you to death financially for “the good of society”.
Ditto, Graves!
I have the cover art for Meatloaf’s Bat Out of Hell album mounted on my wall. That’s how I hope to go out. Help me get in the saddle one last time…
Yeah, I hope to come off my horse and break my neck – but NOT today or tomorrow 😉
Funny … didn’t Meatloaf collapse at a concert a few years back ???
Gtc,
“I would hope someone would have the mercy to allow me to die with as little suffering as possible.”
I had a t-shirt with the mottos of the regional governments. Region 5 (Chicago) had the best, “Suffer Then Die.”
The Region 5 mascot was the ant
I’m 51. I had a series of occasional ioncredibly frightening chest pains on and off for about two years. That apparently have gone away for whatever reason. However 5 ER hospital visits. I do ok but if I didnt have insurance I would be completely fucked. My mom has alzheimers. Do I accept state aid for hospice and such for her. Youre goddamn right I do. Anyone who refuses state aid on moral principles isnt thinking clearly. At least youre getting back a few pennies of all theyve stolen from you.
Mark3,
I’m reading an interesting old book by Dick Quinn called “Left for Dead”. He touts cayenne pepper to ameliorate heart conditions. Seems like it opens up your arteries.
TLDR: work your way up to a teaspoon or so of cayenne pepper (hotter the better, and some do a tablespoon or more) in warm water.
Insurance only works when you have a large pool of people paying premiums, and only a small percentage making claims. “Insurance” where 99.8% of the participants have claims, is not insurance, ’cause the premiums must then be so high that you end up paying more for the insurance than you would for the actual services one is being insured for- unless one’s premium is subsidized by the healthy who don’t need the insurance- who, in their right mind would never consent to buying said insurance, so then must be forced to….as we are seeing with Obozocare.
It becomes the Social Security Ponzi scheme….only for medicine instead of retirement.
Looking at virtually everyone I know who participates in health insurance, from the healthy to perpetually sick, they have all paid more for the insurance than they would have for actual treatment, had they merely saved the money they were paying in premiums and paid cash- at pre-negotiated cash prices (Not the phony prices one sees on a hospital or doctor’s bill) which can always be at least 50% cheaper than the inflated bills one sees; and even as much as 90% cheaper.
As an eggsample: a few years ago, I had to have a glaucoma implanted in my eye. (Eye doc is the only doc I go to- for a congenital problem, and the resultant damages that past “treatment” has caused. Haven’t been to any other kind of doc in 40 years- It’s not that hard to maintain one’s health and heal injuries…)
Anywho:
Typical cost for what I had done, when seen on a bill: $12-$14K.
I paid $4500 cash total- including follow-up visits and medicines.-Which is the same as what the doc would have actually received from an insurance company, had I had insurance.
This was done at a private surgery center.
Doc tells me, that if I had had Medicare, they would have had to do it at a hospital, as an in-patient thing; the cost would have been over $20K in that case; and what I would have ended up paying out-of-pocket would have been as much, or more likely a little more than the $4500 I actually paid. (And of course, the taxpayers would have been mulcted for the difference; more services would have used- etc. )
THAT is why health care in this country is so screwed up and expensive- it all started with Medicare….and Obozocare is just an expansion of that.
All of these socialists are always crying for “socialized medicine”. Who do they think is going to pay for it? They don’t have the moral fortitude to care if it’s “the other guy”, nor the sense to realize that, when it comes to something that everyone uses, there is no “other guy”- The “other guy” is just as much them and their children, as it is the mythical ‘ebil rich man’ whom they envy so much.
Uh…
“…had to have a glaucome valve implanted….”
LOL -I already had the glaucoma!
Ill trade Property Tax bills with you. $5,000+