Meanwhile In Balkans...

[JWB]

9 hours ago, Josh said:

It is estimated that a single payer healthcare system would remove >100,000 jobs from the US.

I've seen 500,000.

[Josh]

7 hours ago, Rick said:

One example of a single payer healthcare -- aka as government -- is "Medicare for All." The following is from the ultra-liberal website Democratic Underground. 

How would Medicare for All work from a financial aspect?

At present, 100% of contributions made to Medicare by everyone who has a job in this country cover the healthcare costs for the current program. Those tax dollars are barely enough to cover seniors on Medicare, who account for roughly 19% of the population.  So the question is: how much would payroll taxes need to increase to cover 100% of the population as opposed to the current 19%? The current tax rate is 1.45% for the employee and 1.45% for the employer, or a 2.9% total. 19% divides into 100% 5 times, so one assumes that one would need to raise the payroll tax five-fold to cover 100% of the population. That would mean that the employee would pay a tax of 7.25% as would the employer, equaling a tax of 14.5%.  Add into this the fact that current Medicare recipients pay monthly premiums of $109 on average, or $1308 a year.  So do the math: if you earn $50,000 a year, your Medicare tax would be $3625 at 7.25%. Add in your premiums of $1308, and you're paying just under $5,000 a year per person for Medicare for All. Sounds good.

But what if you are a family with a spouse who doesn't work and two young children who don't work? How are they covered in the Medicare for All scenario? Surely, there would be additional premium cost involved. They can't be covered free of charge. That $5000 per year mentioned above covers ONE working person, not their family members. Even if you waive the payroll tax deduction and charge only the average monthly premium per person (as Medicare currently does), you are looking at an additional $3900 per year to cover a non-working spouse and two children. That makes your cost around $9000 per year, and that is equal to 18% of that $50,000 income you are earning.

And, to cover all bases, let's not forget that you are currently paying 6.2% of your income in Social Security taxes. Add that into the mix, and your combined Medicare for All and SS expenses for that family of 4 with one bread winner described above would be over 25% of your income.

That's still a bargain when compared to the taxes paid in European nations, and it's the true cost of having a truly socialistic approach to things. It is what it is. Let's not downplay the realities involved.

I don't have the answers. I do know that while Medicare for All might well be the best and fairest approach we could take toward universal healthcare, it comes with real expenses and real costs to real people.

I’m not advocating single payer; I’m merely pointing out there is an entire industry in the US created by market driven healthcare. That has two repercussions:

one, a lot of paperwork is done just to determine who has healthcare when, at the company level, at the provider level, and at the middle man industry level.

two, were progressives to get their wish, it would put more people out of work than if the entire coal industry disappeared overnight by a factor of 5-10. That isn’t a thing you can do without a long transition, even if everyone wants it.

 

[JWB]

 

[BansheeOne]

Quote

Unrest in the Balkans

Why the Serbian Minority in Kosovo Feels Threatened

A clash last week between Kosovo police and Serbian fighters resulted in four deaths and growing fears of renewed conflict. Can the worst still be avoided?

By Muriel Kalisch in Mitrovica, Kosovo

06.10.2023, 18.08 Uhr

The autumn sun is shining brightly on the forest path, along which some two dozen men, armed with assault rifles, are carefully climbing over roots. A barking pack of feral dogs is hot on their heels, but the men are only interested in what might be hidden in the bushes.

One week has passed since heavily armed Serbian militia fighters attacked a Kosovo-Albanian police patrol here in Kosovo, in the nearby village of Banjska. One officer was killed in the attack, another wounded. The Serbian assailants, around 30 men, barricaded themselves in the monastery that keeps watch over the village, the bent-up entrance gates testifying to the violence. In the end, three Serbian men were also dead, and four others arrested. The rest of the unit escaped.

[...]

Concerns of a renewed source of conflict in Europe, however, remain. And on this Tuesday morning, special forces – under the protection of KFOR troops – are searching through the Kosovo forest for traces of the attack. They stomp through the underbrush, poke into the embankment and even flip over rocks in the stream in their quest for clues. In the Kosovo capital of Pristina, government officials are certain that the attackers were "Serbian terrorists" under the leadership of a man named Milan Radoičić. They were armed with heavy weaponry produced in Serbia.

Radoičić is thought to have close ties to Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić. He was vice president of the Serb List political party, which is considered a source of Serbian influence in Kosovo. The United States had imposed sanctions on him in the past, and he also confessed to being behind the attack. This week, he was arrested in Serbia, but then released for the time being. The government in Kosovo claims that instructions for the attack came directly from Belgrade.

For the people in northern Kosovo, in the divided city of Mitrovica, the crisis is swelling by the day, right outside their front doors.

The city has become a symbol. The Ibar River splits Mitrovica into a northern half and a southern half, Serbs spending dinars on one side, Kosovo Albanians spending euros on the other. On both sides, people gather in stylish cafés, children play on the streets, façades slowly crumble and power cables hang from the poles. Very few people can be seen walking across the EU-financed bridge, which is currently once again closed to automobile traffic.

It is 7:30 p.m. when Aleksandar Arsenijević walks into a bar called Akvarijus. Artworks, prints and installations are hung on the walls and there are ashtrays on the tables. He sits down with a group engaged in animated discussion and lights a cigarette. The 31-year-old, a former chemistry teacher, has become a spokesman for the Serbian minority in Kosovo, having founded an initiative called Serbian Survival. It is this minority that Serbian President Vučić is allegedly interested in protecting.

The Radicalization of Serbs in Kosovo

Arsenijević is a big man, his suitcoat stretched across his broad shoulders. As he speaks, he smokes one cigarette after the next. He grew up in Mitrovica and was just seven years old when the war began – and he hasn’t forgotten what bombs sound like when they rain down. Arsenijević doesn’t believe that the Serbian army will attack for as long as international peacekeepers are stationed in the country. But he is concerned that the attack on the police patrol last week will not remain a one-off.

"I warned that something like that could happen," Arsenijević says.

Many here know the men who were involved in the assault on the Kosovo Albanian police officers, or at least they know the ones who were killed. Arsenijević says that Serbs in Kosovo are becoming radicalized, and not without reason.

In November 2022, Serbs living in Kosovo walked out of the city halls, courts and all state institutions in the country. The move came at the request of Serbian President Vučić in response to a dispute over car license plates. Whereas Kosovo President Albin Kurti is eager to demonstrate that Serbia no longer has a say inside his country, Vučić has transformed himself into an advocate for the Serbian minority. But now, there is no longer anybody representing Serbian interests in public offices, in city parliaments or on the police force. Activist Arsenijević is seeking to fill the vacuum.

"The Serbian community has no trust in the institutions," he says. Kosovo's constitution may include strong protections for multiethnic regions, he claims, but those protections have never been implemented. "Institutions are required to make documents available in Albanian and Serbian," says Arsenijević, but they almost never do. Furthermore, he says, public officials are almost never able to speak Serbian, or refuse to. When he has an official appointment in Kosovo, says Arsenijević, it’s like having an appointment in Germany. "I feel like a foreigner in my own country."

The biggest problem, says Arsenijević, is to be found in the police force. In 2021, the government of Kosovo stationed special units in the northern part of the country. Trained for anti-terror operations, they are made up exclusively of Kosovo Albanians, despite the fact that the country’s constitution requires the police force in multiethnic regions to reflect the composition of the population. In Mitrovica, the special units began taking on more and more duties normally performed by the regular police force, say residents – things like conducting traffic stops or putting an end to overly loud parties late at night.

Arsenijević isn’t the only one who is critical of the government in the Kosovo capital of Pristina. Following riots in May, EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell demanded that the Kosovo government suspend all special police operations. In June, the EU imposed sanctions against Kosovo, in part because the government had not complied with Borrell’s demand. In addition, Prime Minister Kurti has refused to live up to an agreement according to which Serbian municipalities are to be given partial autonomy. The EU responded by canceling all high-level meetings with Kosovo government representatives and temporarily suspended economic aid for Kosovo. In addition, Brussels has threatened the suspension of the Stabilization and Association Agreement, which paves the way for Kosovo's possible future accession to the EU.

But the flames of the conflict have also been fanned by Serbian populist Vučić, who has complained of "ethnic cleansing," "pogroms" and "expulsions" in the north of Kosovo. People in North Mitrovica wave aside questions about such excesses, but many do say they are afraid of men who bear weapons of war and speak a language they don’t understand. And on top of that, stories of violence are circulating through the city.

"This Is Kosovo!"

Stories like that told by Miodrag Milićević. For over 20 years, Milićević worked for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and is now the head of a local NGO. He tells his story while sitting in his office.

Last autumn, he says, he was on his way to the Bosnian city of Sarajevo for a conference when a column of police vehicles passed him. A few kilometers later, the cars stopped him, and three men got out. They spoke Albanian, he says, and he responded in Serbian. They started screaming at him, says Milićević, forcing him up against his car and searching through his pockets for weapons. Because he had a Serbian ID, he says, they yelled at him "This is Kosovo!" before punching him in the stomach. And it isn’t the only such story making the rounds.

Finally, the men let him go. He went to the hospital to have his injuries documented and called a press conference the next day. He says he only just spoke with his lawyer. "I told him: We are going to push ahead in this case, no matter what happens. I want to know who those idiots were."

Another story recounts police officers at a checkpoint north of Mitrovica allegedly firing on a moving car. The police claim the car had been attempting to circumvent the checkpoint, but have so far refused to release video footage of the incident publicly.

The Kosovo police, for their part, deny most such incidents – effectively turning them into rumors that are shared among the population of North Mitrovica and, with populist support from Belgrade, slowly transformed into fear.

For Arsenijević and many of his neighbors, last week’s attack hardly came as a surprise. People feel as though they are at the mercy of the two leaders, Kurti in Kosovo and Vučić in Serbia. If people no longer have a way to vent their displeasure, says one woman, then violence is all that remains. Arsenijević condemns the Serbian militia attack in Banjska. "I mourn the loss of all four lives," he says, adding that the entire incident could have been avoided had the warnings been listened to.

A Sign of Protection

Fear of further escalation is one thing that everyone in Mitrovica can agree on. Aferdita Syla, a Kosovo Albanian who lives in the southern part of the city, heads up an association that has been recognized by international organizations due to the goal it strives for: bridging the ethnic divide. But staff members who live in the northern part of the city have stopped coming to the office in South Mitrovica since the incident out of fear of being attacked themselves. She understands that the special police units are frightening to the Serbs, Syla says. But in the south, they have a different view of the heavily armed forces – they see them as a sign of protection. Barricades in the northern part of the city have repeatedly gone up in flames in recent years, and Kosovo Albanians in the south are afraid that their neighbors’ fury might one day be directed at them.

[...]

In Mitrovica, Serbian activist Arsenijević is concerned about one thing above all following last week’s attack: He believes that the Kosovo Albanian police presence will be expanded. And more police translates to more pressure, and more anger with Pristina. And the distinct possibility of more unrest.

Arsenijević says he is currently talking with many different people. "If the war could be brought to an end, this can too. I am trying to convince people of that. There is an opportunity to lead normal lives," he says.

https://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/unrest-in-the-balkans-why-the-serbian-minority-in-kosovo-feels-threatened-a-8cbf30da-a035-44ab-a193-8a37de4a3967

[alejandro_]

Referendum in favor of "Serbian peace": how Montenegrins can become a minority in their country

https://www.eurointegration.com.ua/rus/articles/2023/10/24/7172043/

Use Google translate. Article points out that pro-Serbia parties could have more influence. Orthodox Church also plays a role.

Perhaps a consequence of organizing referendums on important matters but only need 55% of votes to go ahead - similar to Brexit I guess.

 

[ink]

50 minutes ago, alejandro_ said:

Referendum in favor of "Serbian peace": how Montenegrins can become a minority in their country

https://www.eurointegration.com.ua/rus/articles/2023/10/24/7172043/

Use Google translate. Article points out that pro-Serbia parties could have more influence. Orthodox Church also plays a role.

Perhaps a consequence of organizing referendums on important matters but only need 55% of votes to go ahead - similar to Brexit I guess.

 

Nothing anywhere in the Balkans is to be taken at face value... Or seriously, in 99% of cases, unless shots have literally been fired. Counts double for Bosnia. Triple for Montenegro.

[Stuart Galbraith]

On 10/1/2023 at 2:38 AM, Josh said:

I’m not advocating single payer; I’m merely pointing out there is an entire industry in the US created by market driven healthcare. That has two repercussions:

one, a lot of paperwork is done just to determine who has healthcare when, at the company level, at the provider level, and at the middle man industry level.

two, were progressives to get their wish, it would put more people out of work than if the entire coal industry disappeared overnight by a factor of 5-10. That isn’t a thing you can do without a long transition, even if everyone wants it.

 

We did.

 

[R011]

10 hours ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

We did.

 

Did you?  Here in the early seventies when we brought in a public system, the health insurance industry was negligible.  I don't think Britain in the 1940s was any better.

[Stuart Galbraith]

There were a number of employer backed schemes iirc.

[alejandro_]

Related to this topic, very neat presentation with different data (literacy, religion, employment): 

Yugoslavia in 1931
The Census Data on the County/Town Level

https://milospopovic.net/visualizations/census1931/index.html

[Perun]

44 minutes ago, alejandro_ said:

Related to this topic, very neat presentation with different data (literacy, religion, employment): 

Yugoslavia in 1931
The Census Data on the County/Town Level

https://milospopovic.net/visualizations/census1931/index.html

Interesting find

[alejandro_]

6 minutes ago, Perun said:

Interesting find

Note high percentage of Roman Catholics in areas which today are part of Republika Srpska or Northern Serbia. I was expecting a larger Orthodox population.

[Perun]

Excelent that you noticed. Today is oposite picture, unfortunately. Legacy of last war. Nothern Serbia is caled Vojvodina and not northern Serbia

Edited November 21, 2023 by Perun

[bojan]

Major changes already happened in WW2. Catholic in Vojvodina were mostly German (to be more exact mix of Austrians and Germans, but they called themselves Germans regardless of where they came from) and Hungarian population. Most of Germans were gone after WW2. Majority of Vojvodina Croatian population stayed during '90s, but a lot then moved out in the early 2000s due the economic reasons and opportunity to do so.

Map also does not paint full picture as it marks only majority, and difference between majority and minority was sometimes only few %. That can be seen on Kosovo, which is majority Muslim, while whole population in 1940. was ~50% muslim, ~40% orthodox, ~10% Catholic.

Edited November 21, 2023 by bojan

[Perun]

3 hours ago, bojan said:

Majority of Vojvodina Croatian population stayed during '90s, but a lot then moved out in the early 2000s due the economic reasons and opportunity to do so.

Not exactly true, many of them was forced to leave. Just it happens I know few of them and they told me that they were lucky just to be alive now

[bojan]

Some were intimidated and forced to leave* in '90s, but still less than 20% of total population left in the '90s for all causes (political or economical). Big wave was in the early 2000s, ~2002-2005, with a lot of travel restrictions being lifted and Croatia offering citizenship, almost 30% of population left then (mostly got Croatian passport and moved to the other countries). There was another wave post 2013 and Croatia joining EU.

*It was usually "volunteer" private arranged exchange of property with the Serbs from Croatia.

Edited November 21, 2023 by bojan

[Perun]

Well, I personaly dont know any that left their home voluntarely. Some did changed property but wast majority left only with basic laguage

[bojan]

Hence "volunteer" under "" when talking about '90s.

Edited November 21, 2023 by bojan

[JWB]

 

[ink]

22 minutes ago, JWB said:

 

Storm in a teacup. The government/regime are clearly unbothered. They have the support of all the main international players, and the bulk of the population are uninterested in this protest. It's just attracting the educated middle class for the time being. Looked to me like just a handful of police on the ground.

[AttilaA]

Doesn’t look like Bosnia has a real sovereignity over RS.

https://x.com/istragab/status/1744767632467800509?s=46

Edited January 10, 2024 by AttilaA

[bojan]

18 minutes ago, AttilaA said:

...Doesn’t look like Bosnia has a real sovereignity over RS...

By Dayton agreement which has ended the war it does not.

Edited January 9, 2024 by bojan

[ink]

In other "news":

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2024/jan/25/ukraine-hits-out-at-hbo-for-casting-pro-russia-actor-milos-bikovic-in-new-season-of-white-lotus

HBO under fire for hiring Serbian actor who worked in Russia.

[urbanoid]

I've seen the first season, it was decent, stopped ~halfway through the second one, as I got kinda bored.

[urbanoid]

Wow, I haven't heard about Serbo-Confederates before!