PsyPup

As someone who has never been to the US and finds American politics confusing, I think most of the world is currently wondering how exactly a government with the power and funds of the US can allow this to happen? .

Please explain what the people who have caused this are thinking and why they can get away with it, as many countries comparable to the US consider the US attitude towards public healthcare extremely confusing already, let alone how far this has progressed.

Edit : I'm surprised to find this actually downvoted... so I'm going to reword it slightly in the hopes of satisfying those who may feel I'm judging their politics.

Edit 2 : Wow, I can't believe how popular this has turned out :) However, I can't help but be disappointed by the fact our Mr Costa doesn't appear to have replied to any questions for 4 hours? themantis5000 has probably explained this better than anyone has thus far, all the upvotes to him!

Edit 3 : Well this is now my most upvoted comment, by a mile, it's been pointed out that Mr Costa did reply to this but in response to one of mantis' posts below.

Fascinating, yet a terrifying concept. My, admittedly ignorant of all the facts, perspective on what is going on here is essentially a government being held hostage.

I asked this very question of Scott and he didn't answer it in a satisfactory way either :(

A fair enough response, however let me pose a follow up question.

Would you support neutral research into the safety of GMOs and into safer methods of generating nuclear power? I'm thinking specifically along the lines of organizations such as the CSIRO and CERN, who would be able to perform this research without undue influence from either Pro OR Con camps.

It seems to be that both of these subjects are similar in that people get very emotional in response to them. You must, as a rational person, recognize that feelings and emotion have absolutely no place in the making of policy in relation to scientific research and development, and legislation for or against developments MUST be based ONLY on evidence.

An early copy of Game Informer from EB Games had an article in which they discussed the "Australia Tax". Apparently many of the industry insiders they discussed it with said that much of the difference is logistics and advertising costs. It costs more to transport physical hardware/software copies, as well as advertising reaching less people per ad than it does in the states.

Basically bullshit and just goes to show not even the gaming industry is properly embracing the savings available through digital distribution and passing them on :/