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Originally Posted by Wasillaguy
We're still enjoying the favorable jet stream. Record highs last week (48F), supposed to get to 34F today.
I was just in San Jose, Costa Rica, where everyone decorates their homes with bars on every window and door, and concertina wire on the top of every roof and fence.
That is, until you get out in the farm country. Suddenly you see normal looking houses that haven't been turned into little personal prisons.
So it turns out that in a country of about 5 million people, only about 12,000 have permits to own weapons. Who? Why the farmers of course, so they can do farming type stuff where they need weapons. Nice side benefit for them is they also get to live like normal humans. They don't need razor wire and iron bars to lock themselves away every night, cuz the bad guys know they got firearms.
They also got them some socialized medicine. Guide said if you know someone in the government or the military, you can get treatment, but the average Jose' can wait 3 or 4 years for an operation.
No prices on any of the gas stations. Why? Cuz the gov owns the only refinery, and sets the price. Everyone must sell at the same price, no competition. Somewhere around $6 to $6.50 a gallon.
They've been trying to build a highway to the coast for a dozen years now. Still not done, budget busted long ago.
Stayed at a real nice hotel, with absolute squalor all around. Roads are hideous, electric and cable tv wiring strung like crepe paper at a party, and rusty corrugated tin used for roofing, siding, fences, signs, and anything else they can think of.
Runaway inflation- the exchange rate went up in the 3 days I was there.
They couldn't even play a soccer game. Cancelled it before it started due to rioting in the stands.
I wouldn't retire there even if someone else paid for it.
You know you're in a great place when they charge you to leave. $27 U.S. to get out.
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The Koch Brothers would not mind an America like that if they could keep all the money they have. I can not talk about Costa Rica but I know about the Philippines because my wife is from there. There is no socialized medicine there I know from first hand experience....I pay for my in-laws health care all the time.
Your state of Alaska is kept afloat by my Federal tax dollars....imagine if Washington DC cut off your state from Medicare, Social Security, Obamacare and federal money in general? You r state would start to look like a very cold Costa Rica.
I find it funny how you conflate socialized medicine with poverty in developing nations.....a spurious correlation.