Also, he didn't address the AstraZeneca pause in EU and elsewhere after the blood clot deaths. (link was found, just the EMA announced that due to the extreme rarity, the benefits outweigh the risks). But that also makes John's "zero deaths" from vaccines statement false (maybe he was only counting Pfizer/Moderna/J&J ?)

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-56620646

The EU is re-opening to vaccinated American. Light at the end of the tunnel!

The whole industry in the US is being hamstrung but obstructionist greens, lack of access to cheap financing and dithering politicians.

Asia are building reactors on time and on budget, the US and EU need to play catch up especially as China and Russia are developing soft power from exports.

The EU has open borders and free travel amongst the various nations if you are a citizen of a member nation. I will agree our per capita death rate is higher, but still (based on the well researched Lancet study) you cannot lay more than about 40% of the deaths at Trump's feet. I don't deny he could have handled the pandemic much better, but it has been some time since we have had a pandemic on this level. Multiple leaders have handled it differently and time will eventually label them for the history aspect of it.

I go by the facts. Not conjecture, and not opinion. I also don't consider Birx to be even remotely a good source since she rode down the trail willy nilly with the same person you are blaming all the deaths on. I will never trust or vote for Trump again, but you cannot lay the percentage you are proposing on him solely. Just like we cannot move Biden to almighty status for his handling of the situation when he is currently running a similar death rate on par with the same time last year, WHILE having massive vaccination.

Has he made steps that have helped? Certainly and I would say he is definitely doing a better job than Trump, but by your own admission almost anyone could. The fact of the matter is, as I said last year, you cannot fight a pandemic like this without having the martial law like power China had or being in a situation to isolate yourself from outside contact.

Yes, they had isolation we don't, but also had fewer resources to work with by far, and are much closer to the outbreak in China with tons of travel between countries. I would say having a reasonable, thoughtful population that wanted to avoid being someone who spread the virus and killed people, so followed instructions nearly without exception, compared to the U.S. who had a leader denouncing closings, masks, and social distancing and a population that was happy to spread the disease for political reasons. I think that has WAY more to do with our horrific , worst on the planet per capita despite the most resources by far outcome.

We only have two borders to close. Canada is easy, just ask nicely and they'll stay home. The border with Mexico is a problem, granted, I found it odd Trump didn't use emergency powers to finish his fence when he had a legitimate reason, but that would mean admitting Covid is dangerous, but if we cooperated with Mexico to secure the border we could have minimized all international travel early.

Back to Canada, with two open borders. They have 23000 and a population of 37.59 million, so they also have a per capita death rate well under 1/2 ours, close to 1/3, and they also could have done better if we had done better. It's impossible to figure out what percentage of their infections came from the U.S., but it's definitely a significant number.

Other nations have divisions, if not states, provinces, prefecture, or some other separation of areas. I don't agree that because we have states in our country we are like the EU, because a federal law or executive order covers all states and territories, the EU has no such mechanism as far as I know.

We were the only nation with an international Global Health Security and Biodefense unit, with teams in China and elsewhere, designed to identify new diseases early to avoid pandemics. Trump is totally responsible for dismantling that office, meaning there's a likelihood every non Chinese death and most Chinese deaths would have been avoided had Trump not been butt hurt over a good system set up by Obama. His racist and political hatred put the planet at risk. That alone puts most deaths, U.S. and global, directly on his hands.

Also, the EU population is double ours, meaning with all the multiple open borders and haphazard mix of regulations from different countries, and the enormous immigrant populations, and some actual temporary lockdowns in some of their countries (but not all by far) their infection/death rates are barely over 1/2 what ours are per capita. That's not on par, sorry.

Some of their leaders have some blood on their hands because of poor or slow decisions, but few actually fought against all science and public health measures, denying the mortality rates and doctor's recommendations to convince their populations to do nothing at all to mitigate the pandemic...Brazil did....look at them now. Yes, the president of Brazil absolutely has blood on his hands, and his response mirrored Trump's.

I would say we can't pick and choose on the measures some countries took. In your examples, one country is an island and the other might as well be, given that they have a DMZ with the only other part of their country that touches any other nation.

I would say our closest comparison to a nation state composed of multiple 'states' is the EU. Which, if you add up the number of their deaths in total as of now, 627,242 deaths have been reported in the EU/EEA. Their lockdowns were FAR more stringent than ours, and their death total is on par. Do all of their leaders have as much blood on their hands?

@eric3579 had it right, because the first link looks like the source:
https://www.peoplespolicyproject.org/2019/04/08/us-workers-are-highly-taxed-when-you-count-health-premiums/

But when that source lists the graph that Cross used as "labor tax", it is listed as coming from OECD NTCP, with NTCP standing for "Non-Tax Compulsary Payments" and has the same 11% for Canada and other numbers. So, the OECD 'original' source of the data is 100% excluding Federal and State/Provincial income taxes, and potentially sales taxes as well.

So with that knowledge, yeah, gross misrepresentation.

And it gets worse in that peoplespolicyproject is showing 2017 numbers, so maybe that is the only difference... But they list Belgium at 38.3% while the OECD current 2019 data shows 44.5, so maybe some year-year change, but the US data from OECD for 2019 comes in at 24.1%, and at the least in the middle of EU countries while whatever source ppp used pegged Us at 43%.

So not only is it deceptive in describing it as 'tax' when the numbers are expressly sourced from NonTax data(named as such), it's also at BEST number that can double or drop by half within 2 years as well and so maybe not a great policy benchmark either unless you average out multiple years at minimum

Thing is, any American - be it Republican or Democrat-leaning - think that powerful countries/block of concern (i.e. the EU, Russia or then USSR, China, Japan, etc.) DON'T want to influence US presidential politics is a bloody fool. The US *IS* the #1 meddler of world politics by far, both overtly and covertly. And the US is not shy of using any means necessary: military, economic, culturally, sanctions, covert-ops. So what right does the US have to ask those countries NOT to do the same?

External meddling should be EXPECTED. Is foolish not to. To say there's no external meddling is to lie to its people.

To focus on external meddling is to lose focus. So it's up to the parties to work their political messages to counteract those noise. That how you win elections.

Naw, previous to the fucking idiot at 1600 completely botching the Covid response and turning America into the laughingstock of the world, a US passport would have gotten me to Lyon, France, where I had a job waiting. Thank fuck Estonia wants my start-up in their country, which at least offers me a way into the EU and away from this unspeakable shithole.

Nah - the shipping charges to non-EU countries were too steep.

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Well, the video already mentioned the cost of getting traffic lights as well as laying down miles (or Kilometres) of electric cables, so this is a rural area (otherwise a city/town would've certainly found the money to do it)... installing traffic cams will need to lay those same cables.

They could do a roundabout maybe? UK & EU are fond of those...

What can't the USA and progressives like Bernie talk what's necessary to get universal health care? There are many first world countries that got it. Canada, UK, EU, etc... they are bankrupt like what the Conservative fears.

Tax the rich is part of the equation, compare what the people already pay now through insurance + co-payments averages, and convert that as "tax" to support HC4A, would that be a money saving for the tax-payer? HC4A gives the government huge bargaining power to bulk-buy meds. That alone could save billions and billions.

Yeah, that's what he said. The Government, Military and Education systems mentioned received 100% of their revenues from taxation of a capitalism based(not pure) economy. That same government and military rely heavily on issuing contracts for R&D, supplies, and equipment all to companies operating in a capitalism based economy. That education system relies heavily on private investment and grants from corporate and private entities all generating their incomes from within a capitalism based economy.

That stands in contrast to the same governments, militaries and education systems elsewhere in competing countries like China and Russia, heck even the only slightly less capitalist EU too. Not a single one of the listed innovations came from any of those sources, but instead from within America. I think it is more than naive, but in fact dishonest, to ignore that being able to profit of your own ideas and grow your own business and keep the profits from it is just maybe a contributing factor in all that.

From the start of the video: iPhone, Android, macbook, pc, kindle, netflix, facebook, instagram...

The video really feels like a over drawn insistence that people recognize that the American economy isn't a pure capitalistic 100% free market environment. That's something that should really be obvious, and not require being said unless your audience are 12 year olds or idiots. It still stands that compared to other giants of the world in China or Russia, it is still America taking the lead on 100% of the innovations that Rob listed, and by comparison, a far more capitalist oriented economy sets America apart. Heck, even include the EU in there as a slightly more socialist economy than America's, and still low and behold it is America that came out with every single example listed...