The fact that despite this, the dollar is now dominating the euro is quite depressing to me

This is because as much as the Democrats assfucked our economy, the Euros did worse, because at least we have the Republicans to resist and rein things in somewhat. If it wasn't for Joe Manchin holding them back, Biden would have spent 4 trillion on 1 bill instead of under 1 trillion.

The Euros also locked down harder and tanked their economies because they didn't have red state governors like Ron DeSantis telling Joe Biden to fuck off.

If Japan can survive with 200%+ national debt, I think the US can with its reserve currency boondoggle (not advocatng for it).

Japan is a special and unique case because it is an ethnostate with a strong collectivist culture. The result of that is that the Japanese private citizens sacrifice by lending their money to the Japanese government at NEGATIVE interest rates in order to sustain Japan's otherwise unsustainable welfare state. Americans and Euros would never do that. The Japanese people buy government bonds like it's a form of charity.

They shut down the government and they lost. So clearly, they came to some sort of understanding. You can't pin the blame or the credit on one party or the other. Most likely, it's just because it's less easy to agree on more spending when there is actually some opposition.

No, the Republicans did not "lose", they got a balanced budget. They just had to compromise on some things and didn't get everything they wanted, which is how politics works. Clinton and the Democrats wanted more spending and more taxes. The Republicans wanted less of both, so you can't give the Democrats any credit. They were the problem and the Republicans were the solution.

It sickens me when Democrats try to take credit for fiscal responsibility. That's like a rapist trying to take credit for not raping you because the police [republicans] arrived in time to stop him.

Patriot Act

Patriot Act is exactly the name you'd expect for Authright legislation, though.

And then they have to gall to say that their "INflation Reduction Act" was the most significant action against climate change in history. And no one calls them out.

The right wing media calls them out, but as far as the liberal media? Of course not, they're all Democrat operatives.

I'm sure you'll view this as a Eurofag bashing America again, but in all honesty, your media is even worse than ours. I'd say about 3 times as bad. Here they at least pretend to do some critical scrutiny of the powers that be.

Bashing the libtard media in the US is not bashing America. Your comments obviously do not apply to things like Ben Shapiro and the Daily Wire, or other conservative outlets like Tucker Carlson.

But both parties don't give a damn about what "voters" think. As everywhere. So there must be some other reason.

The Democrats see voters as sheep to be manipulated. The Republicans see the Democrats as communists they need to protect the common people against by red pilling them on Democrat insanity. I think the Republicans in the present year care far more about what the voters want, which is why we are getting a red wave.

But in the past have there been times where the republican party got corrupted by special interests? Such as on China and illegal immigration? Yes. When the republicans gain too much power for too long, as they did in the GWB years, they got fat and corrupt and wasted a lot of money. That's why the voters turned against them and put Obama for 8 years.

This seems like something that no reasonable person, left or right, can oppose.

I agree. I think the government should ban all the deceptive tactics businesses use to conceal and manipulate their pricing information. When I try to book plane tickets and hotels, I constantly have to deal with hidden fee bullshit. Google flights and Google hotels tries to include fees, but hotels routinely, for example, charge "resort fees" that are not optional and are very expensive at $50/night or more. Airlines like Spirit Airlines are absolute assholes about trying to upcharge you with hidden fees and lying about things like tax charges. It's infuriating and makes it 10x harder to get the best deal when these fucks can lie to you.

It would be child's play to simply ban these tactics and pass a law that says "you're not allowed to charge any extra fees and must give a single, all-inclusive price in all your advertisement, period."

Also bear in mind that the government easily could have stopped spam calls by passing a regulation that bans phone number spoofing, and yet it's taken years for them to slowly get around to it.

This is one area [consumer protection] where the EU sometimes pulls ahead, mostly because they have no loyalty to US companies who are the primary culprits of a lot of these practices.

It sure as hell wasn't the answer to banking. Or Big Tech.

The 1 time regulation is required is when capitalism cannot function because you're dealing with a natural monopoly or cartel. Big Tech is natural monopolies. Banking is a big different. While there are only a handful of big banks and they sometimes act like a cartel, there are also a lot of smaller banks and credit unions, so it's pretty easy for you to not do business with big banks if you don't want to. That isn't an option with Big Tech.

But most consumers are insured. So why would they care about the cost? When I am picking health care plans, I can pick between plans that allow me to get treatment in all hospitals, or just most. I'm always willing to pay a bit more to get all hospitals, even though there are several hospitals in the city where I live that are covered anyway. You never know...

It matters. Even if only 5% of consumers are actually engaging in price discrimination, these people [like me, I'm uninsured by choice] are the trailblazers and trend-setters who drive the change in the system. It's like how most of the stock market is passive investment in index funds, but the small minority of active investors end up controlling all the market prices.

The answer is that (1) some medical providers and clinics would start to compete on price, then (2) insurers would notice that clinics were profitably and sustainably giving these services at a fraction of the price, and would demand that the providers in their network slash prices to gain competitive advantage so they could lower insurance premiums and gain market share [capitalism], (3) consumers buying insurance would see the cost of the insurance plans drop, or if the insurance was "free", they'd see the coverage scope and limits improve.

It's like how the "Southwest effect" means that whenever 1 company is willing to buck the cartel and offer lower prices, ALL the companies have to slash prices so as not to lose all market share. So when Southwest Airlines began to serve a particular airport, ALL airlines operating in that airport were forced to slash prices, because if they didn't, Southwest would take over. That's capitalism.

Humans are fundamentally shitty and selfish. Capitalism is so amazing because it keeps them honest and forces them to invest their energy into providing the best product at the best price instead of into how to exploit people.

Not letting people die is not really a 'gibs', is it? I wouldn't want to live somewhere if people who earned less were simply left to die because a grocery store employee is considered less valuable than a VP of Diversity of Inclusion.

That's a straw man. In the US, hospitals are not allowed to deny life saving care to anybody, insured or not. Nobody ever gets left to die in the streets, and life saving care represents an insignificant fraction of the total care for people. The vast majority of life saving care resources are spent on super old people, to buy them just a short amount of additional time. Socialist governments kill these old people to save resources by using waiting lists to ration their care and ensure they die while waiting. The truth is that it simply is not a wise investment of resources to spend $1 million to buy some 85 year old 6 months more of life.

Now if we empirically examine the health care system in Japan, is it better than Europe and America in practice as well as on paper for you?

The stats in this study suggest Japan > US > EU in outcomes. I think Japan has somewhat of an advantage having a much healthier population, though.