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[HideousBeing]

As for what I think we should do now since everyone is saying it (as if I'm an expert...) we should make large social security and medicare cuts and use that to focus on the economy, reduce our debt and generally get our shit together (lowering taxes is nice...).

What a monumentally bad idea. Or do you think that 300% rise in crime rates is somehow a good thing for the economy? If you want to slash something, slash the military budget, god knows it's overbloated.

We're going to make cuts to this stuff anyway over the next few years (and already have cut Medicare advantage) because they are going to rise significantly in cost; especially medicare. Currently, medicare, medicaid and social security combined already cost more than our military budget, which is bigger than the rest of the world's military budgets combined (didn't do the math, but that should be right). I think we can afford to make a few cuts somewhere...

EDIT: wikipedia budget breakdown if anyone cares http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget

Also I guess literacy rate would go up from more internet =D

[Grakelin]

Your medicare, medicaid, and social security benefits SHOULD cost more than your military budget.

[DJ]

Wow, you throw that much money at it, and you still have one of the worst healthcare systems in the first world?

I think what you really need to slash is wastage.

[Muz]

Also I guess literacy rate would go up from more internet =D

I have a friend who used to fail English at school. He hated reading books, so he just read game reviews to improve his English. Since then, he got straight A's for English. True story.

[Nikov]

Your medicare, medicaid, and social security benefits SHOULD cost more than your military budget.

I disagree, only because the United States is not in a position to afford a military budget of zero.

[HideousBeing]

Wow, you throw that much money at it, and you still have one of the worst healthcare systems in the first world?

I think what you really need to slash is wastage.

I think were talking about the same thing now I have a millionaire grandma (who is very likely a psychopath by definition) that gets 3 social security checks (from each of her dead husbands...hmm...) and medicare. There are various ways to reduce costs/waste, but it's been an almost untouchable system for political reasons. Our healthcare costs are also inflated for various reasons that I don't really know about that well. Pharmaceuticals have monopolies or something.

As to whether we should spend more money on social benefit programs than military... It's a good point, but we also overspend on our military and still manage to spend more than double that on social programs. Either way I would rather they lower taxes or something because I don't really trust our government to get anything worthwhile done (see: medicare, medicaid, social security wastage).

[Zangi]

Your medicare, medicaid, and social security benefits SHOULD cost more than your military budget.

I disagree, only because the United States is not in a position to afford a military budget of zero.

I'm pretty sure that cutting military budget down to zero was never mentioned.

The opinion is to cut it down to a level lower then medicare/medicaid and social security.  18-19% as opposed to 23%

[Duuvian]

Wow, you throw that much money at it, and you still have one of the worst healthcare systems in the first world?

I think what you really need to slash is wastage.

I think were talking about the same thing now I have a millionaire grandma (who is very likely a psychopath by definition) that gets 3 social security checks (from each of her dead husbands...hmm...) and medicare. There are various ways to reduce costs/waste, but it's been an almost untouchable system for political reasons. Our healthcare costs are also inflated for various reasons that I don't really know about that well. Pharmaceuticals have monopolies or something.

As to whether we should spend more money on social benefit programs than military... It's a good point, but we also overspend on our military and still manage to spend more than double that on social programs. Either way I would rather they lower taxes or something because I don't really trust our government to get anything worthwhile done (see: medicare, medicaid, social security wastage).

I watched a documentary a few years back about wastage by companies with military contracts. A company, I believe it was KBR, actually bought computers then piled them up and burned them because they were paid $1.50 for every $1.00 they spent. Apparently it happened quite often. Anyone know what that documentary was called? I can't remember.

One thing that disturbed me about the health system was when my aunt was hit by a drunk driver. She never woke up, but literally hours later, once everyone was at the hospital, the hospital was pressing for signatures for her organs as she was a donor. The doctor literally said they already had someone on the way from an out of out of state hospital that specializes in transplants, on an airplane to take her organs back to his hospital. While I harbour no distrust for hospitals, they never really gave her a chance and pressured my uncle to make a choice then and there, and I wonder how much organs sell for and how that whole system operates.

Wow I de-railed my own post in two different directions.

[HideousBeing]

Thats more of a problem with being a donor. They have to get your organs out before they die, so they don't really do as much as they could and supposedly like to declare people dead a little bit earlier than normal. Still sucks though.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Thats more of a problem with being a donor. They have to get your organs out before they die, so they don't really do as much as they could and supposedly like to declare people dead a little bit earlier than normal. Still sucks though.

If I recall correctly, organ donation requires brain death, a somewhat irreversable state.

[HideousBeing]

Thats more of a problem with being a donor. They have to get your organs out before they die, so they don't really do as much as they could and supposedly like to declare people dead a little bit earlier than normal. Still sucks though.

If I recall correctly, organ donation requires brain death, a somewhat irreversable state.

I've heard horror stories of proclaiming brain death a little bit early, but they might just be stories.

[MrWiggles]

Hostipital do pressure organ release because they simply dont have the time. They have literally hours to do anything with an organ. The longest organ that can be kept out currently are the lungs, at 18hrs, that only if its hooked up to a an artificial repository system circulating blood. The last time I read anything on that, it was still going through trails.

Hospitals dont make money by harvesting organs. Organs are expensive to deal with, and need to be used ASAP. It doesn't surprise me they had a specialist being flown in order to handle it. The more time an organ is out or in a dead body, increases the chances of it being rejected.
Anyway, no free internet wouldnt make anyone smarter. As being given access to information isn't enough. You need tools to tell a part useless, misleading, incorrect information from something factual.
And the US has done a fairly decent job of regulating the Internet as it, being its de facto care take since its inception. 

[Dwarf]

I think everyone who wanted internet already has it, or is this middleclass white boy talking?

Because if you aren't exposed to something then how would you know about it?

I think it's middle class white boy talking. Lots of people want internet and can't get it. Even in rural regions of developed nations.

I live in one of the poorer parts of my city, and everyone at my school has internet.

I'd also probably question what city you live in. Not that it's important. Let me show you a major region where people aren't as likely to have internet but crave the knowledge contained within.

Spoiler: Highlighted in Yellow For You (click to show/hide)

I think your graph needs some refinement. We've definitely got internet everywhere in Switzerland, except some very rural places.
Also, Scandinavia, Central Europe? Really?

[smigenboger]

Back in my day, we had these buildings called libraries, and they don make dumb people smart, they just make smart people think they're smarter..

[Nikov]

Your medicare, medicaid, and social security benefits SHOULD cost more than your military budget.

I disagree, only because the United States is not in a position to afford a military budget of zero.

I'm pretty sure that cutting military budget down to zero was never mentioned.

The opinion is to cut it down to a level lower then medicare/medicaid and social security.  18-19% as opposed to 23%

My opinion is that medicare, medicaid, and social security all deal with individual welfare and are best improved by efforts of the individual, whereas national defense is a matter of national welfare and is improved by the efforts of the nation. To put it simply, for the military budget to be less than the welfare budget would require a budget of zero, in my mind, as I don't believe in the right, but the pursuit, of happiness and such programs are best abolished.