The Canary in the Mineshaft.

[FUTURE_OF_GM]

Who's finanacial standpoint , certainly not MINE . 53% of all healthcare in this country ( US) is paid by the government , GOVERNMENT IS THE PROBLEM . Your Socialist views towards healthcare are misguided , taxpayers get ripped off enough in this country , time to scale back all of these "entitlements " we are going bankrupt .

[post="28453"]<{POST_SNAPBACK}>[/post]

So you assume I'm a socialist when I posted a pretty neutral and apathetic response to a rhetorical question?

okay

Government sponsored anything is never great. You, of all people, should know that.

I never endorsed government sponsored healthcare... merely stated the facts. FOR GM, financially, that would be the best alternative.

[FUTURE_OF_GM]

My business professor was talking about a book she read called "The Earth Is Flat" (or something along those lines) and how it really challenged her way of thinking about global trade and how Americans do business.

According to this book (and her), we have, for too long, stopped producing a large number of children with a genuine interest in the maths and sciences and it's going to come back and bite us in the ass.  We've been #1 for decades because we've constantly improved things either we or others have invented in order to fit our continually higher standards of living.  By using our once-top notch education system we churned out scientist after scientist during WWII and the Cold War who then went off to invent or reinvent some awesome things.  Foreigners started coming to the U.S. to be educated and then went back to their home countries to carry out what they've learned.  That's why China, India and Co. are rapidly catching up to us and the U.S. is almost stagnant.

Let's face it, manufacturing jobs are not going to come back to the U.S. anytime soon and probably will not until the rest of the world (meaning all 3rd world countries) is on par with us when it comes to standard of living, when manufacturing costs are equal.  So you need to ask yourself a question:  should we do what I think we should (see last sentence) or wait for the world to catch up so we can have a level playing field?

We really do need to reinvent ourselves, our education system and our economy quickly.

[post="28529"]<{POST_SNAPBACK}>[/post]

Excellent post... And I'll have to check out that book as well, it sounds interesting.

[Drew Dowdell]

I agree, just look at USPS compared to UPS or Fedex, and you can see the differences. I like getting whats shipped to me in one piece, so I'll use Fedex and UPS when I have a choice.

[post="28490"]<{POST_SNAPBACK}>[/post]

Try getting UPS or Fedex to move that standard business envelope for 37 cents, across country in about a week. Let us know how that turns out.

UPS builds in $100 of insurance that you'll get your package in one piece. They charge you an additional 40ish cents per $100 of additional insurance.

What people like you fail to realize is that we all pay for health insurance. You pay into Medicare and SS. You pay for it in the price of items you buy. If the government paid for healthcare it would just shift the collection point of the money. Personally I'd like to see government run healthcare because it sicken's me to see the obsenely lavish offices of Highmark Blue Cross here in Pittsburgh. The Execs that run these healthcare companies are the ones that are benefitting the most from the high healthcare prices.