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Gary – I understand your point generally speaking but I have to ask, where else would you go that could be better?
Doug – you are joking of course? It’s one thing to critize the manner of a popular vote and the nature of a treaty but something else to say you prefer an oppressive regime like that of Venezuela.
This guy will run the country into the ground just like all other state control freaks; just look at Che Guevara! That genius destroyed all the sugar cane production and just about everything else he touched leaving the people queuing for handouts.
oldfrog – a little jest…have a beer, get some sun…etc..
I wasn’t implying that you read those papers, it was a general comment about how people get their news and form their opinions; nothing aimed at you personally. I probably should have made it more clear.
I do think you gave the impression that you trusted in the system with your comments and my point is that it was never fair since one side had a bigger budget and used Govt facilities to back their case etc..
You also said that it was their (Ticos) decision and not GWB; here again I think you perhaps gave an unintended impression and it struck me that you were underestimating the power and financial influence of the YES campaign and their backers in the Whitehouse.
oldfrog’s not bad is it? I just didnt like your all CAPS name and the way it looked. I personally like this one better- shall we hold a vote?
yours smudge
Oldfrog – The U.S. people voted (in popular opinion) for the war based upon Gov’t information. They listened carefully to the argument and the evidence and then stopped thinking altogether and collectively thought…let’s kill them all; the mob had spoken.
The next twelve months will probably go well in CR; lots of new U.S. firms setting up shop but then little by little the details will seep out and just like in the U.S., the public that was so keen for war at the outset in Iraq and now feel tricked, this nation will want also out of their deal.
If you truly believe that this was a fair referendum you are sadly mistaken. I have heard reports that in the end many people simply spoiled their ballot because they just didn’t know anymore. The margin of victory amounts to around one percent of the population; not much of a mandate is it?
The best move would have been for no one to vote then Arias would claim victory and be solely responsible for the mess that’s about to come.
Remember how the press tried to convince everyone that the war was not about oil…”we don’t need oil, there’s plenty”! Remember that? Every paper and magazine telling the same lies; $100 oil, get used to it.
Oh yeah, while I’m at it. Ethanol is a scam, it costs more energy to produce than oil; it’s all political.
So if people keep reading the IHT, NYT, WSJ, etc..etc.. they’ll soon have a head of mush and a mind full of absurdities and downright contradictions.
Edited on Oct 08, 2007 18:14
maravilla – how about having neither monopolies or the empire building, corporate subsidies etc..? How about letting people get on with their lives without interference?
Redbaron – Thank you for your answer; I also never met Monge Senior but knew his daughter many years ago.
Thank you also for your marathon of posts over the last few days; your passion is inspiring. Costa Rica is not the same for me this time, but having left when I was 24 I can honestly say that after living in numerous countries since, this is the only one that made me feel I must come back….home at last…
Lotus – do you know why you are here?
What a surprise; I didnt think you could answer that and you didn’t!
I have the impression with you that you like telling people what they should and shouldn’t do. You seem to get upset when I don’t change my views to match yours and then you offer me personal advice to help amend my ways!
You should work for the Government!
Edited on Oct 08, 2007 09:02
I also understand the YES people have been caught handing out Government gasoline vouchers to YES voters to “assist” them in getting to the polling booth.
In this regard the result should now be declared fraudulent and be annulled.
On balance this deal will give CR more U.S. goods at lower cost and that’s about the extent of it.
Redbaron – You mentioned meeting the Monge family, did this include his daughter?
Lotus- my sister is in favour of State intervention in her daily life and believes in the socialist welfare system, but between the dream and the reality lays the rub.
Realising the woeful inadequacies of the school and health system she rejects them both and goes private; surely this is enough evidence of the facts for anyone! I simply find it a bit hypocritical.
Your point regarding high earners not receiving social security doesn’t make sense in this context; I didn’t say she shouldn’t be entitled to use the State system of course she should; she’s paid for it. But why support it if it’s not good enough and you then use something else?
If someone has paid into the fraudulent social security system their whole life they should of course receive what they paid for. But it’s my belief that they shouldn’t be paying into it in the first place; the Government knows how to spend money and not how to make or invest it. I also believe that anyone earning a low wage shouldn’t be taxed at all.
You haven’t experienced socialised medicine for the masses but wait till you do! Whilst I agree that in a less developed country like CR it may be the only solution for now it has proven to be a total disaster in the U.K. Millions of Pounds are wasted and the lines for operations get longer. People go private out of necessity and because when it comes to these matters they want the best professionals money can buy.
Affordable healthcare provided by the private sector is the answer for a developed nation.
You say this has nothing to do with socialism but I say that’s exactly what it’s about. Whenever the Government tries to be involved in industry it inevitably goes wrong. In the pre Thatcher years we used to have a Gov’t run car firm; they produced diabolically bad cars and when exposed to competition went bankrupt. Healthcare is the same; every year they produce accounts and millions have just vanished into thin air; no one can account for it and no one is held responsible; least of all the Government Ministers. If the same thing happened to a private medical facility someone would at least go to jail and have to face the music.
It’s always easier to spend someone else’s money!
Edited on Oct 06, 2007 16:06
Janozak – written before your last post
jankozak – you compare apples with oranges. Costa Rica already has a healthy work ethic even if they have a cultural tendency to be late. I have employed people in Europe and here and the difference is that Tico’s, generally speaking, appreciate the opportunity far more than any European I have ever employed.
I would have thought that having lived under communist rule you would be fed up with Government interference and yet you favour more tax and more market manipulation!
The reason the Czech farmers did not lose out is because other farmers, in the U.K. for example, were paid not to produce; it’s the exact opposite of fair trade and yet another Government flimflam. Now you propose that Costa Rica should tax it’s own people more to produce goods that they already have! Or worse, you propose subsidizing the farmers using CR tax payer’s money and or, dropping out of the sector altogether; what you seem to forget is that in the Czech case you were indirectly subsidized by the E.U. and the U.S. will not, as far as I’m aware, be paying to subsidize Costa Rican farmers.
Moreover, why should Costa Rica get out of farming? If it’s such a bad business, or it’s not modern as you say, why doesn’t the U.S. get out of it? The fact is that agriculture is the next boom; prices are going through the roof due to massive demand. Chinese demand for coffee is beginning to pick up and all soft commodities are at record highs and will move much higher.
This is not, as you seem to intimate, a matter of left wing or right, of socialist dogma versus capitalism. It is more an issue of common sense and not the simplistic argument used by the YES camp; I’ve heard them calling NO voters communists. How absurd.
You should represent the NO Vote! So far you’ve confirmed to me that TLC is a fraud.
jankozak – Your post assumes that both parties are operating on a level playing field. If the subsidised U.S. farmers can export here with U.S. tax payers assistance how that be considered fair trade?
redbaron – (your name’s too long – hope you don’t mind).
My point really with GM workers is more about how these people don’t stand a chance. One group or another has control of their healthcare money and it is probably invested in the wrong assets in the first place so it’s at risk and then even if they did get the money themselves it is unlikely they would have a clue what to do with it because frankly the average virtual novice investor only knows what he is told by the Govt and the mainstream press.
My comments may appear harsh but truly I believe that centralised healthcare is extremely wasteful; it doesn’t matter how much money they throw at it just doesn’t work. In the U.K. our system is used by people like Michael Moore to demonstrate how wonderfully it all functions; the truth of the matter is that anyone who has the means gets private cover because it’s so much better. Even my die-hard Labour voter sister has it and she also sends her kids to semi private school; oh the contradictions!
It may have changed, but when I last lived in the U.K. if you had your own private medical cover you still had to pay into the State system as it was deducted at source of earnings. Yet millions still go private. The Dutch have a pretty good system where everyone is responsible for paying their own insurance; not too sure of the full details but it seems to work better than the U.K. Now, the Dutch are, or were, notoriously socialist; so if they have a semi private deal that works perhaps that’s the model to copy.
And finally it’s my opinion that the population is generally healthy because of the diet and lifestyle and not necessarily the healthcare system. But people are fatter here now than in the eighties too just like everywhere else. I mean, just look at me! (Not really true but I’m not the svelte youngster I was.)
