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>Im just aghast how shitty your country is. We have a lot of social programs for the poor, especially in regards to health. No its not Euro-style universal hea

>Im just aghast how shitty your country is. We have a lot of social programs for the poor, especially in regards to health. No its not Euro-style universal healthcare, but this idea that they'll starve in the streets if they lose their jobs is ridiculous. That's on top of COBRA, which allow you to stay on your employers plan for a bit while you work out a new provider. Or subsidized ACA exchange insurance. We are down to 11% uninsured right now. In the 90s we were getting close to hitting 20%. There's a lag period before you can apply for and get benefits, but that's what unemployment insurance (which is mandatory) is for and you know... your own savings. You are putting away savings right? The real problem here is that I find most middle-class people have no idea how welfare works. None. They've never had to apply for these things. They just think they're for "welfare queens" and "drug addicts." They don't realize that these programs are pretty much everywhere in the USA. For example, food stamps are mostly used by white people. So these people have unrealistic ideas of what loss of income means. They think they're going to debtors prison and being forced to die in their basements from lack of healthcare. Europeans like yourself buy into this nonsense because they have an anti-US bone to pick. The reality is that you're both being incredibly disingenuous. Perhaps you should do some basic research before making these shoddy generalizations? Its also worth mentioning that every HP product we use is fairly terrible. All of our servers, printers, etc. A lot of sysadmins I've talked to are either considering moving to Dell or already have moved. These jobs are going to migrate to Dell or elsewhere I imagine. That's how competition works. Yeah, its ugly, but HP has not been competitive for some time in many areas. You can't expect a lifetime of labor without shake-ups, especially in the volatile tech sector.

Domenic_S 11y ago
> The real problem here is that I find most middle-class people have no idea how welfare works. I got a taste when I applied for PFL in California when we had a baby. The scale of people the State serves is insane, and navigating the system could be a full-time job in itself. (PFL is California's supplemental program that pays some fraction of your salary for family leave - in my case new child bonding) I took 3 weeks leave, and on the last Friday got a phone call from the PFL office: "We have a question about your PFL application, and if you don't return our call today we will deny your claim". I call, and after battling the phone tree got, "Our system is over capacity. Please try again later click". I finally got through at the end of the day via email. I finally got paid the first day I returned from leave (!). Luckily for me I wasn't depending on the money or else my kids would have been eating rice. What a nightmare. I don't envy anyone who has to use social services.
cookiecaper 11y ago
>For example, food stamps are mostly used by white people. Not how ratios work. In absolute terms, there are more white people who use food stamps than non-white people because 3/4s of the country's population is white. Per capita, many more non-white people are on food stamps than white people.

Domenic_S 11y ago

> The real problem here is that I find most middle-class people have no idea how welfare works. I got a taste when I applied for PFL in California when we had a baby. The scale of people the State serves is insane, and navigating the system could be a full-time job in itself. (PFL is California's supplemental program that pays some fraction of your salary for family leave - in my case new child bonding) I took 3 weeks leave, and on the last Friday got a phone call from the PFL office: "We have a question about your PFL application, and if you don't return our call today we will deny your claim". I call, and after battling the phone tree got, "Our system is over capacity. Please try again later click". I finally got through at the end of the day via email. I finally got paid the first day I returned from leave (!). Luckily for me I wasn't depending on the money or else my kids would have been eating rice. What a nightmare. I don't envy anyone who has to use social services.

cookiecaper 11y ago

>For example, food stamps are mostly used by white people. Not how ratios work. In absolute terms, there are more white people who use food stamps than non-white people because 3/4s of the country's population is white. Per capita, many more non-white people are on food stamps than white people.