cmarshall

9 hours ago, Fat is a type of crazy said:

You seem to assume Russia is going to win. You may be making the same mistake as Putin and thinking too much about politics and power and not enough about the effect morality and ethics is having on the people and soldiers on both sides. Around the world too. 

Cynicism about politics and power and human nature can only take you so far. 

Russia  has lost control and influence in neighbouring nations through it's own actions. This effort to reverse it's decrease in influence is showing to be a disaster. 

Ukraine has decided one side is better for its' interests than the other. The human toll is terrible but Ukrainians have decided that given the alternative of living under the control of a thug it is best to fight. 

 

 

Morality and ethics have as small a role in this conflict as they had in the illegal American war on Iraq, which is to say none.  Putin is going to achieve his goal of destroying Ukraine.  He probably won't annex all of it, but Zelenskyy's successor's will think twice before they say the word "NATO" again.

9 hours ago, ozimoron said:

Popular protest has erupted worldwide, including in Russia. In the first nine days of Russia’s new war, more than 1,800 public demonstrations protested its unprovoked aggression, according to the independent research organization ACLED. The protests, across at least 93 countries and territories, included at least 150 demonstrations in Russia, “95 percent of which were met with state intervention,”

 

https://www.usip.org/publications/2022/03/global-resistance-putins-war-historic

 

Protests have sprung in Moscow and other Russian cities since the attack began in the early morning hours of Feb. 24. As of Thursday, more than 8,000 people had been detained at anti-war protests across the country, according to tracking by OVD-Info. And several billionaire oligarchs – arguably the most powerful group of people in Russia other than Putin himself – have spoken out against the attack.

 

https://www.usnews.com/news/the-report/articles/2022-03-04/war-weary-russians-threaten-trouble-for-vladimir-putin-amid-ukraine-attack

That will change nothing.  The Russian dissidents are not going to overthrow Putin.  Putin will ignore the anti-war protests just as the Bush Administration ignored the massive protests against his illegal war in Iraq.  

9 hours ago, ozimoron said:

You're speculating and then accusing others of doing the same thing.

All talk of the future is speculation.  You are not speculating.  You are expressing your wishes, which are irrelevant.

2 hours ago, tgw said:

Even if he destroys Ukraine, Putin would still lose.

Putin isn't likely to lose.  Neither his oligarchs nor his citizens are going to rise up against him no matter what happens.  His economy may take a hit, but the Russians will tolerate that.  

You have to separate what you wish to happen from what is likely to happen.

1 minute ago, tgw said:

yes, that's what he says.

is it true ?

what would it mean for Russia to have NATO in Ukraine ?

would it mean that NATO would attack Russia ?

 

It doesn't matter if it is objectively "true."  Russia is a great power, because it has lots of nukes.  That means that you have to take seriously what they say rather than expecting that instead you can talk them out of it.  

When the Soviets put tactical and intermediate range nuclear missiles in Cuba in 1962, the US similarly regarded that "threat" as existential and intolerable to the point of making the risk of a nuclear war worth taking even though President Kennedy pointed out to his executive committee that, in fact, the balance of power had not changed since the Soviet nuclear-armed subs already had enough firepower to reduce the US to ashes.

That's what great powers do: they act on their own perceptions of threat from the enemy.

2 minutes ago, tgw said:

Putin can't win in Ukraine.

Every building that gets destroyed and every Ukrainian who dies, and also every Russian who dies in Putin's stupid war is only making Putin's final bill more expensive and more humiliating.

 

You are another dreamer.  Putin may not be able to annex Ukraine, even in the unlikely event that that is his goal, but he can destroy it.  And the US and the EU are powerless to stop him.

Just now, ozimoron said:

In what way? If you prefer, Ukraine IS free to join the EU and NATO.

It's not down to what you or I "prefer."  The fact of the matter is that Ukraine's current choice comes down to acquiescing to Russian dominance as gracefully as possible or watch all of his cities turned to rubble.  You might as well argue with plate tectonics.

Just now, ozimoron said:

Not available? You don't believe that Ukraine should be free to join the EU and NATO if it wishes? Ukraine is a poor country and it sees an opportunity to lift itself into prosperity.

You are experiencing a deep semantic confusion between the words "should" and "are."  

Just now, Fat is a type of crazy said:

It is a terrible price for Ukraine to pay for freedom.  If a gangster authoritarian tried to take over your country, that has an imperfect democracy,  what would you do. Rally the allies and fight or say best no one dies, historically we have done bad things at times, let the gangster take control.

It is hard to argue that Ukraine's move towards the west, similar to the Baltic states and other countries, is because of the extreme bullying of Russia. Yes.. maybe there are parallels with Cuba but it's 2022 now.

Think what it means for Ukraine to move towards the West .. integration with other democracies, new standards to maintain, a better economy. The west in 2022 is not as bad as you may think. 

Ukraine's freedom is simply not available.  To arm them and encourage them to provoke the Russian bear is the height of cruel stupidity.  Like a lot of people who have seen too many movies, you think this is about morality, but it's not.  It's about great power politics.  The great powers, the US, Russia, and China all pursue their own interests ruthlessly without reference to morality.  

9 hours ago, ozimoron said:

Got a link? I don't disagree that the US should have pursued non military solutions to the 9/11 attacks but your numbers appear to be exaggerated.

The October 2006 Lancet study by Gilbert Burnham (of Johns Hopkins University) and co-authors^[32][33] estimated total excess deaths (civilian and non-civilian) related to the war of 654,965 excess deaths up to July 2006. The 2006 study was based on surveys conducted between May 20 and July 10, 2006. More households were surveyed than during the 2004 study, allowing for a 95% confidence interval of 392,979 to 942,636 excess Iraqi deaths. Those estimates were far higher than other available tallies at the time.^[169]

On 3/8/2022 at 8:56 PM, skatewash said:

The US government imposes regulations on US financial institutions regarding where their customers live.  US financial institutions perform due diligence to determine whether they have any customers who live outside the US.  If they really wanted to find where I live, it wouldn't be hard.  But I'm not going to volunteer the information.

I don't know whether the KYC banking regulations require that banks know where their customers live.  If there is such a requirement it must only apply when opening an account since the banks never require periodic validation of US addresses for existing customers.

In any case there is no requirement of residency in the US to open or maintain a US bank account.  The banks themselves, most of them, decided not to open accounts for expats and to close existing accounts for them.  

There's an excellent piece in today's NY Times by the estimable Zeynep Tufecki on how the pandemic could have been managed to save millions of the lives that were lost, a number that "The Economist" now places at 20 million.

How could nations have gotten around China’s smokescreen? They could have done what Taiwan did.

On Dec. 31, 2019, the same day Taiwan officials sent that email to the W.H.O., they started boarding every plane that flew there directly from Wuhan, screening arriving passengers for symptoms like fever.

“We were not able to get satisfactory answers either from the W.H.O. or from the Chinese C.D.C., and we got nervous and we started doing our preparation,” foreign minister Joseph Wu told Time magazine.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/11/opinion/covid-health-pandemic.html

The most interesting case mentioned is Japan, where the big advantage they had was better scientists.

24 minutes ago, Yellowtail said:

Why does that impress you? 

 

This is not news to me,  why would you assume it is? I'm guessing it's because like a lot of people, you down on everyone you disagree with and think they're stupid. 

 

Again, none of this is news to me. I have benefitted from any number of things I do not think are for the greater good. I do not think the government should be guaranteeing home loans anymore than I think they should be bailing out banks, financial institutions, private corporations, homeowners etc. That I do or do not benefit from the bailouts is irreverent. 

 

I benefited from the student loan program, but I do not support it, and do not think it benefits working American. 

 

Are you Canadian eh? How about let's keep the government's hands off our healthcare altogether?  

Makes you the poster boy for cognitive dissonance.  

8 hours ago, Yellowtail said:

That free markets  government programs are pure and perfect and result in the best of all possible worlds is kind of like a religion. More about blind faith than reality.

It's always impressive to me to hear the conservatives decry government programs at the same time that they extol home ownership.  Well, here's some news for you: the US has a socialized system of home ownership from which your family has benefitted.  The banks make the mortgages, but then upstream the loans to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac while the FHA standardized loan terms.  The 30-year mortgage was created during WWII and is pretty much an American phenomenon along with the absence of prepayment penalties, which is unknown outside the US.  Your childhood home benefitted from the GI bill with its federal mortgage guarantee even if your father was not himself a veteran since it assisted in creating the buildout of the postwar suburbs.  

So, let's keep the government's hands off our Medicare, eh?

46 minutes ago, OneMoreFarang said:

In principle I like to think positive about guys who have plans to improve their life and live their dream. 

Although he has had an education his "dream" is just the old-fashioned, working-class goal of sitting around drinking beer and doing nothing, rather than, say, doing something.  

4 hours ago, stigar said:

I get 44721 NOK every month.I get a high pension because its higher if get an goverment approved pension after a accident at work offshore.From 20 of march 2 different incurecompines will pay me about 3000 NOK extra pr month.In 2018 the incurance gave me almost 2,6 million NOK after the accident.THey also gave me 70.000 NOK  for future transportbills.So its a big different depends what country ur from and pay ur tax to.

Most retirees do not come from a country of 5 millions with a sovereign wealth fund of USD 1.3 trillion.

1 hour ago, GypsyT said:

"I am just guessing here, but, after all, why would a national health plan qualify as an exemption from the Part B penalty for late enrollment only during employment abroad and not afterward.  So, an expat working in France for instance would not face the Part B late enrollment penalty while employed there, but if he then remained there during retirement he would suddenly face the penalty if he were to return to the US.  There doesn't seem to be a logical reason for it. "

 

The reason is there are two different types of National Health Insurance in the EU;

One based on EARNED credit (starting at 23 yrs age) , the other one valid only as long your are living in the country.

If you got the insurance based on only living you can't move it to an other EU country. So, moving it to USA won't work nether.

 

>There doesn't seem to be a logical reason for it. "<

I think it's very logical; Why wound some one just move in and get FREE lunch?

 

However, I don't know about the other, the earned one. Maybe you can move it to the States too? You can move it to all 28 EU countries with same benefits as people living there. All bills are paid by the country you earned the insurance originally.

 

Doesn't quite make sense to me, because Medicare is quite different in that it only covers seniors.  Americans pay in during our working years, but they are accruing credits that will only provide actual health care benefits at age 65.  The French Sécurité Sociale provides health care coverage to everyone.  I don't think there is any concept in the French system of paying now for future health care benefits.  From the taxpayer's point of view it is all pay-as-you-go.

So, an American worker in France is paying into the Sécu which provides for his current health care.  But none of those payments get passed on to US Medicare as far as I know.  So, when he moves back to the US and signs up for Part B without a late enrollment penalty he is indeed getting a free lunch.

It could be that the US French treaty permits this free lunch to Americans because of some reciprocal benefit that it provides to the French.   

13 hours ago, taxout said:

POMS, the Social Security bible of rules and procedures, is clear that the group health plan exemption depends on employment status.

 

"If the individual did not enroll in the initial enrollment period (IEP), he or she must be covered under a group health plan (GHP) based on his or her own or a spouse’s current employment status in the first month of eligibility for SMI and for all months thereafter."

 

https://secure.ssa.gov/apps10/poms.nsf/lnx/0600805270

 

Yes, that's what the text says, but it could just reflect an assumption that the only acceptable alternative to Part B would have to come from an employer's health insurance.  Also, the author of that text may have assumed that scope of the provision was the US, since why would an American expat even have Part B.  

I am just guessing here, but, after all, why would a national health plan qualify as an exemption from the Part B penalty for late enrollment only during employment abroad and not afterward.  So, an expat working in France for instance would not face the Part B late enrollment penalty while employed there, but if he then remained there during retirement he would suddenly face the penalty if he were to return to the US.  There doesn't seem to be a logical reason for it.

But that may still be the rule.  The question is is there any other provision in the POMS that would modify it?

3 hours ago, taxout said:

I'll let others do the digging to verify, but I'm pretty sure that exemption in question applies to insurance provided as part of employment to you or your spouse.

 

It's true that that text references employment abroad, but that may only be because of an assumption that Americans working abroad would eventually return to live in the US during retirement.  So, it employment abroad may not be an actual condition of the exemption.  After all, coverage is coverage.  It shouldn't matter if the foreign national coverage is provided as a condition of employment or not.

4 hours ago, Yellowtail said:

Does this mean that because  I am currently covered by Thai Social Security, I will not be penalized for not signing up for part B in the event I repatriate to the US?

It might be possible, but I don't know if all national health coverage qualifies.  Here is the quote from AARP on the subject:

If you or your spouse is working while abroad:

You can delay Medicare enrollment in Part B (and avoid its premiums) if you have health care coverage from: 

• An employer for which you (or your spouse) actively work and which provides group health insurance for you (or both of you)
• The public national health service of the country where you live — regardless of whether you or your spouse works for an employer or are self-employed 
• The sponsoring organization of voluntary service you provide abroad (for example, the Peace Corps)

https://www.aarp.org/health/medicare-qa-tool/medicare-if-living-outside-united-states/