OT Stereotypes of "liberals" vs "conservatives"

> > Han wrote:
> >>
> >> Society needs some kind of insurance, and the current system is
> >> dysfunctional.
> >
> > Dysfunctional? 300 million (out of 340 million) have insurance. Of
> > those, 80% or so are satisfied. Hardly dysfunctional.
> >
> > Folks are screeching about 40 million of our population are uninsured!
> > Of these, 14 million are illegal aliens, about 8 million are between
> > employer-provided insurance, a few million are eligible for Medicaid
> > and will get it as soon as they apply in the emergency room, many are
> > young, healthy, cash-strapped people who choose not to have insurance,
> > plus a few lesser categories.
> >
> > After doing all the arithmetic, we find there are exactly eight people
> > in the whole country without insurance who need it.
> >
> > As a result, there are those who would chance screwing up the system
> > for 339,999,992 people so these eight would not be inconvenienced.
> >
> > Bah!
>
> So I have to pay an 8% surcharge on hy hospitalization costs so that 8
> people in the US can get care? Hey, bud, you should check your
> arithmetic. And if you are between jobs with the full benefits you're
> used to, you suddenly have to pay $1300/mo for a family of 2 to keep your
> insurance?


Hey, it's not the guy's fault. He's ignorant. He's never had a health
problem that threatened everything he owns. He's never had a health
insurance company cancel his policy because he has a problem they don't want
to pay for or he's never had them raise premiums so high he can't pay them,
and he's never had his employer drop his insurance and make him pay for it
himself. Everyone who has had any of those things happen or simply doesn't
have the money to afford insurance understands what is wrong. The good thing
is that it's only a matter of time before him or someone in his family has
one of those things happen. He'll sing a different tune when he or his wife
has cancer and his insurance company says the treatment isn't covered. Just
wait, it'll happen sooner or later. But that is what it'll take for him to
get it.


Hawke

"Han" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...

> That is a refreshing point of view, and I would love to 100% support it.
> However, hospitals and doctors need to be profitable, at least to the
> extent they aren't losing money. To find the right balance between
> reasonably profitable and not losing money is the problem, both from the
> doctors' point of view and the patients'.
>
>
> --
> Best regards
> Han

i'm not an expert. i'm wondering why do hospitals need to be profitable?
just had a thought, when the government builds a road i don't think there's
any expectation it's going to turn a profit, it surely profits us all, and
it enables businesses to profit, but (non-toll, and probably a good many
toll) roads, i don't think, earn a profit. infrastructure. can't the
health of citizens, by some stretch of the imagination, be considered
"infrastructure"? or toward some common good?

b.w.

> > Take your pick. You can have your freedom or you can be an American but
you
> > can't have both. Because if you're going to be an American you have
given up
> > some of your freedom to be a part of something bigger and more important
> > than just your own selfish interests. Being part of a country and "a
people"
>
> You are dead wrong. My formulation is the one the Framers had in
> mind. Yours is the artifact of malignant 19th Century philosophy
> and evil 20th Century politics

Well, when the framers lived the population was 4 million and 90% of the
population lived within 50 miles of the east coast. Given that, they hadn't
a clue as to what it would take or be like to keep order in a country the
size of this one in the 21st century. Plenty of ideas of the time have
passed. Jefferson thought we should all be gentlemen farmers. I don't think
he had that right. Thinking you are the only person in the world and are
free to do anything you want is completely passe'.



> > means that the society and the "people" are more important than the
> > individuals. Otherwise why would anyone sacrifice anything for something
> > like "country" when you are all that matters? If you choose to be a part
of
>
> You clearly haven't read or understood a shred of U.S. Revolutionary
> history and its intellectual foundations. Guys like Locke and Jefferson
> (and Adams, and Madison, and Paine, and Hancock, and Witherspoon, and ...)
> would hold your view in utter contempt.

They probably would but they don't have the knowledge that I have that has
come from the hundreds of years since their passing. Times have changed and
if you look carefully you will find that most of their ideas are either no
longer working or are so changed that they wouldn't recognize them if they
saw them in action today. And by the way, I hold some of their ideas in
comtempt too. Lucky for me I have the benefit of a couple centuries of
knowledge they didn't. Otherwise they would probably have different views
too. I can't blame them for thinking the way they did then because they were
ignorant of many things. But you don't have that excuse.



> > society and part of a nation you make the choice to give up some of your
> > personal freedom it's the social contract. If you don't like the terms
then
> > get out and find some place else where you live on your own and are not
a
> > part of a larger entity. But if you are a conservative you want to have
> > everything you want for yourself without giving anything up to the
whole. In
> > other words the honor system won't work with people like you.
>
> I am not a conservative. But you are clearly a liberal - your argument
> is intellectually dishonest, unconnected to actual history, and ends
> with "love my view or hit the road".


Well, I do believe in liberal democracy, which seems alien to you even
though you live in one. You seem to be stuck in the wrong century. All I am
saying is that the world is a different place and the rules have changed.
You don't get to do everything you want when you live in a place with
thousands of others in a square mile, which is how most Americans live. Like
it or not you are part of the machine, the society. There are rules to
keeping the thing running and keeping order. You just are a romantic and
have not accepted the realities of today's world. Can't say I blame you for
that but this is the time and place you exist in so I'd say learn to like
it. You'll be a lot happier.

Hawke

"John R. Carroll" wrote:

> Now there is a guy that realy saw the world change.
> Did you know that aprox. 1/3 of all of the WWII draftees were
> rejected as physically unfit?
> Malnutrition and starvation were largely the cause.

My mother, my grandfather's youngest child, saw an even bigger change
in the world.

Born in 1905, she made it to mid 2008.

Lew

On Jun 9, 8:41=A0am, "[email protected]" <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Jun 9, 6:04=A0am, Tim Daneliuk <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> . The only place that government does a> consistently outstanding job is =
running the military and arguably the
> > DOJ.
>
> Even the military have figured out that using contractors to run mess
> halls and repair facilities is more efficient than having the
> government do the work.
>
A lot of that had more to do with handing lucrative contracts to
friends and relatives of Dick Cheney.

On Jun 8, 3:52=A0pm, "HeyBub" <[email protected]> wrote:
> Too_Many_Tools wrote:
> > LOL...another winger who would like to live The Great Bush Depression.
>
> > What's the matter? Disappointed that Obama hasn't fixed in a 100 days
> > what Bush screwed up in EIGHT years?
>
> Bush Depression? That's not true.
>
> During the Bush years we had 22 consecutive quarters of economic growth. =
Low
> unemployment, high productivity, and negligible inflation. All this in sp=
ite
> of Katrina, two wars, and a couple of bursting bubbles.
>
> Then the Democrats took over Congress.
>
> It took them less than 18 months to fuck it all up.
>
> Here's one chart I could find regarding recent GDP growth by quarter:http=
://www.economicshelp.org/blog/economics/us-economic-growth-statis...
>
> Notice the rough average for the Bush years shown is about 2.25%. Since t=
he
> 3rd quarter of 2007, the growth of GDP has plummeted and is now about -4%
> and unemployment is 9.8%.
>
> And if you can blame Bush for what happened during the last 100 days of h=
is
> administration, then you've got no complaint when criticism is leveled at
> the first 100 days of Obama's.

The Great Bush Depression.

If Obama isn't sucessful, your children will remember it as that.

TMT

On Jun 5, 12:13=A0am, "Hawke" <[email protected]> wrote:
> > >>> There seems to be a stereotype that "liberals" are the lazy sorts o=
f
> > >>> people who interrupt TV viewing only to go to soup lines, or smoke
> > >>> harmful substances, whereas "conservatives" are hard working, self
> > >>> reliant people who are very well off due to their own perseverance =
and
> > >>> work ethic.
>
> > >>> And yet, the few self proclaimed or suspected liberals and Obama
> > >>> supporters of this newsgroup, seem to be very well off, accomplishe=
d
> > >>> people, whereas many conservatives, while intelligent and interesti=
ng
> > >>> people on many levels, are not exactly above that kind of level of
> > >>> attainment.
>
> > >> Show us your data. =A0IOW, you're talking out your a$$.
>
> > >>> If that is the case, is that perhaps the time to reconsider our
> > >>> stereotypes?
>
> > >> Perhaps you should reconsider yours.
>
> > >i think what he is saying is that your stereotypes should be the
> > >same as his...
>
> > Ah, yes. =A0That is the leftist's way.
>
> At least that is what you think the leftist's way is. What people are
> forgetting is that there are stereotypes, which do have some truth to the=
m,
> and then there is reality. There are concrete things that actually make
> someone a liberal or a conservative. They each have their own ways and
> beliefs. The problem is when one side makes claims about the other side
> which are not true, which is usually the case. In this group, which is
> filled with right wingers and republicans denigration of "liberals" are
> posted constantly. That's because the "wingers" detest anyone who has vie=
ws
> that are different from theirs (a conservative trait). Proof of this is t=
he
> unending stream of criticism and invectives directed at liberals by them.
>
> Take one trait that is common among liberals; tolerance. This same trait =
is
> not shared or highly regarded by conservatives. A trait they like a lot m=
ore
> is authority or hierarchy. Each group has it's own group of attributes an=
d
> they are not shared much by the other group. Both groups have a low opini=
on
> of the other group. But if you want to know the facts about one group or =
the
> other you don't ask the other side because most of what they think is wro=
ng.
> Anyone can find the truth about liberals or conservatives if they want bu=
t
> for most people it's a lot easier to simply call the other group names an=
d
> say nasty things about them. On this group, most of the people doing that
> are conservatives. That's is not an opinion. It's a fact.
>
> Hawke

The real problem with most peoples politics(in my opinion), is that
most people are uninformed politically. They base their assumptions &
political viewpoints on whatever the media monster feeds them! Yet,
most of the news media are owned and controlled by the liberals! GWB
was no conservative by any stretch of the imagination! The issues that
are affecting us is really all that matters! Political correctness is
killing us! These stinking lousy politicians who keep pushing
healthcare and education; what about our industries? Gone. Jobs? Gone.
Marriage as a sacred institution? Gone. I guess my marriage is equal
to a pair of homosexuals...To each his own, but when my grandson asks
me what marriage is, I guess I say, 2 people...??? Insanity.
Besides a million and one issues that most Americans are really
clueless about, liberalism and conservatism is about as relevant as
Democrat versus Republican. How about Republicrats + Demicans? The
titles are meaningless.The oligarchs fiddle while Rome is burning.
Wake up people! Our president wants to lead the world, not the US of
A! He has his own agenda going on, and it won't be to our benefit! At
least we can know Mrs. BO's newest clothes style ideas. God help us.

On Jun 15, 10:29=A0am, "HeyBub" <[email protected]> wrote:
> rangerssuck wrote:
>
> >> Public policy made on the basis of ancedotal or apophrycal instances
> >> or the "how would you feel if..." mantra is virtually guaranteed to
> >> be bad public policy.
>
> > Guaranteed by whom? The entire concept of insurance is based on "what
> > if."
>
> Guaranteed by the laws of unintended consequences. "How would you feel if
> your grandmother was run over by an 18-wheeler?" would be a ghastly reaso=
n
> to ban interstate trucking.
>
> Insurance is NOT based on single episodes (unless you're talking about a
> Lloyd's policy on the size of Pam Anderson's tits).

But the scenarios that Hawke was talking about are not at all
uncommon. People DO have their policies canceled as soon as they get
sick, they DO pay rates that are untenably high, they DO lose their
policies because their employer refuses to pay it any longer.

These things may not have happened to you, yet, but they have happened
to many, many people.

On Jun 5, 4:04=A0pm, Steve Turner <[email protected]> wrote:
> Drew Lawson wrote:
> > In article <[email protected]>
> > =A0 =A0"Hawke" <[email protected]> writes:
> >> Take one trait that is common among liberals; tolerance. This same tra=
it is
> >> not shared or highly regarded by conservatives. A trait they like a lo=
t more
>
> > I must call bullshit on that one.
> > I find tolerance to be about equally practiced by liberals and
> > conservatives, though you may find it preached more frequently by
> > (political) liberals.
>
> > It is a trait I rarely see displayed by pundits of either side.
>
> That's one of the reasons I said Hawke's post was a load of shit. =A0Most
> of the most vehemently intolerant people I know are liberals. =A0Of
> course, that depends on what your definition of "intolerant" is... =A0If
> it's aimed in the right direction, it's somehow "justified".
>
> --
> See Nad. =A0See Nad go. =A0Go Nad!
> To reply, eat the taco.http://www.flickr.com/photos/bbqboyee/

I think there are "intolerant" people of both political persuasions.

In my experience the conservatives are the ones who win the SOB Award.

But the OP noted...and I agree...that many of the postings we see here
are from conservatives ranting and stamping their feet about the
latest "injustice".

Read the responses to this discussion...and note that the
conservatives are the ones bitching.

TMT

Morris Dovey wrote:
> Curious Man wrote:
>> There seems to be a stereotype that "liberals" are the lazy sorts of
>> people who interrupt TV viewing only to go to soup lines, or smoke
>> harmful substances, whereas "conservatives" are hard working, self
>> reliant people who are very well off due to their own perseverance and
>> work ethic.
>>
>> And yet, the few self proclaimed or suspected liberals and Obama
>> supporters of this newsgroup, seem to be very well off, accomplished
>> people, whereas many conservatives, while intelligent and interesting
>> people on many levels, are not exactly above that kind of level of
>> attainment.
>>
>> If that is the case, is that perhaps the time to reconsider our
>> stereotypes?
>
> I've always thought that "conservative" meant "not in favor of changing
> some established norm"; and that "liberal" indicated a willingness to
> try new approaches...
>
> I had a seventh grade teacher who gave my class some interesting
> guidance: "I don't want you to have closed minds, nor do I want you to
> have open minds," he said, "I want you to have /openable/ minds - to
> hold to what you know to be true, and to be prepared to replace the old
> ideas when you gave good reason to /decide/ that something is more true
> or works better."
>
> Does that make one a conservative liberal or a liberal conservative? :)
>
a difference in the meaning of "equality" - equal opportunity vs equal
outcome.

"Tim Daneliuk" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> Huh? Who called you a ward of the state. I was making a general
> observation. You're going to have to adjust to the idea that you are
> almost entirely alone here in making everything personal.

You have every time you've called me evil and a thief for receiving health
care in the Canadian medical system. Your extremely feeble attempt at
playing ignorant is just that.

> You know, I generally give you a lot of latitude because of your
> having told us all that you have a physical infirmity. Since I don't

I don't need nor want your fake latitude or mock pity. If you said it to me
in person, I'd happily break your face. That's not your way though, you
wouldn't be man enough to face me, physical infirmity or not. Your way is to
sow discord and then sit back and watch what happens. You're a leech on
society and that will never change. It's just not in you.

> most to be crabby. Nonetheless, you behave badly, you attack several
> of us personally with absolutely no knowledge of us a humans. Worst of
> all, you have nothing to contribute to the conversation but your angry

Funny though, how it's only a few individuals like you and Miller that I'm
happy to attack. The should tell even your stunted intellect something.

And just like always, you give nothing, you offer nothing and you whine
incessantly while doing nothing except crying about how much the system
costs you.

On Jun 10, 12:06=A0am, "Ed Huntress" <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> There are just a few problems with their...uh, "analysis." One is that
> anyone working for the WPA or any other government program wasn't counted=
>as "employed" by the C&O railroad.

I am sure you meant something else here. I just do not know what you
meant. Obviously someone employed by the government would not be
counted as employed by a rail road. I do not even understand why that
would be relevant.


Another is that their regression analysis is
> based on the assumption that there was no depression, not even a recessio=
n,
> before FDR was elected. Their projections for employment, wages, and pric=
es
> are all based on the assumption that nothing had happened at all, because
> they did a straight projection from the years 1923 - 1929.

So what kind of projection would you suggest? And what effect does
that have on the conclusion? I would think that regardless of the way
one did a projection, that wages would not be expected to rise in a
depression. And that if they did, it would slow the recovery.

Since this study was done quite a while ago, I would think other
economists have weighed in on this. I did some looking on the
internet and did not easily find an argument that refuted their
analysis. But did find this .......at
http://www.tuccille.com/blog/2009/01/economist-explains-why-new-new-deal.ht=
ml

......As I've pointed out before, Cole and Ohanian aren't alone in
their conclusions. A 1995 survey of economists and historians
published in the Journal of Economic History found "[h]alf of the
economists and a third of historians agreed, in whole or in part, that
the New Deal prolonged the Great Depression."

Dan





>
> Other than that, it was a fine piece of work. (pfhhht...)
>
> --
> Ed Huntress

rjd wrote:
>
> If I liberally apply a protective finish to one of my wood projects to
> conserve it, what does that make me?

A politician?

On Jun 9, 12:18=A0pm, "[email protected]" <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Jun 9, 5:02=A0pm, Too_Many_Tools <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> > They will remember it as the The Great Bush Depression just as Hoover
> > is remembered for the The Great Depression.
>
> > Interesting how you are demonstrating a definite amnesia toward
> > Republican contributions towards this mess.
>
> > TMT
>
> Not true. =A0If Obama fails, he will be remembered for the failure.
> Historians will argue about the causes, but with Obama in charge, he
> will be the one remembered for the success or failure of the
> governments actions.
>
> =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =
=A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 Dan

Wrong....Bush's failure is sealed in history.

Obama can only succeed in history...not fail.

TMT

Too_Many_Tools wrote:
> On Jun 8, 3:07 pm, Tim Daneliuk <[email protected]> wrote:
>> Too_Many_Tools wrote:
>>> On Jun 8, 9:16 am, Tim Daneliuk <[email protected]> wrote:
>>>> Upscale wrote:
>>>>> "Tim Daneliuk" <[email protected]> wrote in message
>>>>>>> ...and made most of it disappear.
>>>>>> So much unlike the nearly $4T Our Dear Leader at present a flushed in
>>>>>> less than 6 months.
>>>>> And how *exactly* do you now it's flushed away. As usual, you make all sorts
>>>> Because it has been committed by our Dear Leader and thus must be spent.
>>>> Most of it is being spent on things that are not necessary and not
>>>> permitted of the Federal government under the Constitution Of The US.
>>>> Most of it is political pork our Dear Leader is using to pay off his
>>>> political IOUs with Other People's Money.
>>>>> of wild claims before any type of final result is in. If you had any iota of
>>>>> common sense, you'd know that it takes years for final results to be
>>>>> tallied.
>>>> It will take far less than "years". We will see raging inflation
>>>> within less than a decade if the economists are even close to right.
>>>>> Not so for Tim Daneliuk, your mind is made up now. You're just full of all
>>>> That's because my mind is made up by facts and analysis not from smoking
>>>> Hopeium.
>>>>> kinds of criticism about your current government, but the truth is that
>>>> The current government is full of fools and charlatans and is led by
>>>> by a dangerous malignancy. There are precious few patriots and thinkers
>>>> in the current government.
>>>>> people like you are the least able to judge it. You didn't vote for either
>>>>> incumbent, you contributed nothing, gave nothing and whine all day about how
>>>> There was only one incumbent and he was not eligible to run again, so
>>>> you're right - neither I nor anyone else voted for him. I also didn't
>>>> vote for either candidate since cooperating with people that wish to
>>>> terminate at least some (or all) of your freedoms is self destructive.
>>>>> much it's going to cost you. The fact is that all you do is talk. And, that
>>>> How much will it cost me, my children, my grandchildren, and possibly
>>>> my great-grandchildren to pay off The Messiah's grandstanding? How
>>>> much will it cost the nation in prestige and future influence globally?
>>>> How much freedom will be undermined and power instead passed to the
>>>> government?
>>>> I don't know what's going on, huh? So far The Messiah has:
>>>> 1) Stolen wealth from those that legitimately owned it.
>>>> 2) Attacked, killed, or nationalized (same as killing) some of the very
>>>> largest institutions that produce *new* wealth.
>>>> 3) Sold out our key ally in the Middle East and at the same time,
>>>> bowed his head to the evil dictators of the Middle East.
>>>> 4) Openly supported the killing of children just weeks before birth.
>>>> 5) Supported a system of political corruption nation wide that buys
>>>> votes with tax money in the form of pork projects. He's done
>>>> this at a breathtaking scale never before seen.
>>>> 6) Generally spent more money that doesn't actually exist in a shorter time
>>>> than any U.S. president before him.
>>>> 7) Demanded public "sacrifice" while government lives like pigs.
>>>>> talk is based on nothing more than lack of experience, lack of action and
>>>>> lack of any kind of involvement.
>>>> It's based on a desire to not be anyone's slave. I realize that a good
>>>> many people like been well kept pets, but I'm not one of them.
>>>>> You're a "nothing" Tim and that's the worst kind of citizen.
>>>> I guess it's more honorable to be a citizen that wallows in being
>>>> a ward of the state.
>>>> --
>>>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>> Tim Daneliuk [email protected]
>>>> PGP Key: http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/
>>> So Tim...what's your plan?
>>> How would you save the United States from the brink of The Great Bush
>>> Depression we are standing at the edge of?
>>> I'm listening.
>>> TMT
>> 1) It was not particularly a "Bush Depression". A good many governments
>> before him conspired to make stupid decisions that led us to this place.
>> So did the dishonest, incompetent legislative fleabags like Frank,
>> Pelosi, Schumer, et al. Let's also not forget the role of the individual
>> Sheeple that decided to live way beyond their means. Let also also
>> not forget that the Bush administration - warts and all - *repeatedly*
>> try to warn the Congress that Fannie/Freddie were on very shaky
>> ground only to be waved off by the polluted social justice groupies
>> in he Congress (like Frank).
>>
>> 2) You don't "fix" economies. You stay out of their way and let them "fix"
>> themselves via market mechanisms.
>>
>> 3) The government should have focused entirely on any question of fraud or
>> outright illegality. Among these would include the cozy relationships
>> between rating agencies and the people constructing the CDOs as well as
>> the outright illegal practice of naked short selling.
>>
>> The best thing to do here would have been more-or-less *nothing*. We would have
>> had a very deep recession, possibly even depression which - like all market
>> cleansings - gets rid of driftwood and leaves healthier companies behind.
>> This pain - and it would have been immense pain - is far preferable to the
>> death by a thousand paper cuts being inflicted by our Dear Leader by means
>> of deficit spending, shadow and overt tax increases, inflationary monetary
>> policy, and picking and choosing marketplace winners.
>>
>> --
>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> Tim Daneliuk [email protected]
>> PGP Key: http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/
>
> So why didn't Bush do NOTHING?
>
> TMT

Because he too was caught up in the "government is here to help"
mantra, just not to the degree The Messiah is.

--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Daneliuk [email protected]
PGP Key: http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/

On Jun 6, 11:26=A0pm, "[email protected]"
<[email protected]> wrote:


>, imagine trying to
> think about questions before answering them, instead of just
> regurgitating the party line.

Now.. WHO in this crowd would belong to this group?.

On Jun 9, 12:55=A0pm, Tim Daneliuk <[email protected]> wrote:
> Too_Many_Tools wrote:
> > On Jun 9, 12:24 am, Tim Daneliuk <[email protected]> wrote:
> >> Too_Many_Tools wrote:
> >>> On Jun 8, 3:52 pm, "HeyBub" <[email protected]> wrote:
> >>>> Too_Many_Tools wrote:
> >>>>> LOL...another winger who would like to live The Great Bush Depressi=
on.
> >>>>> What's the matter? Disappointed that Obama hasn't fixed in a 100 da=
ys
> >>>>> what Bush screwed up in EIGHT years?
> >>>> Bush Depression? That's not true.
> >>>> During the Bush years we had 22 consecutive quarters of economic gro=
wth. Low
> >>>> unemployment, high productivity, and negligible inflation. All this =
in spite
> >>>> of Katrina, two wars, and a couple of bursting bubbles.
> >>>> Then the Democrats took over Congress.
> >>>> It took them less than 18 months to fuck it all up.
> >>>> Here's one chart I could find regarding recent GDP growth by quarter=
:http://www.economicshelp.org/blog/economics/us-economic-growth-statis...
> >>>> Notice the rough average for the Bush years shown is about 2.25%. Si=
nce the
> >>>> 3rd quarter of 2007, the growth of GDP has plummeted and is now abou=
t -4%
> >>>> and unemployment is 9.8%.
> >>>> And if you can blame Bush for what happened during the last 100 days=
of his
> >>>> administration, then you've got no complaint when criticism is level=
ed at
> >>>> the first 100 days of Obama's.
> >>> The Great Bush Depression.
> >>> If Obama isn't sucessful, your children will remember it as that.
> >> If Obama is successful, the republic will at least be deeply damaged
> >> and may not ever recover fully.
>
> >> If he is not successful it will hopefully remind the Sheeple why they
> >> kicked Carter out after one term and why they need to do the same
> >> with Obama.
>
> >> What our children (and grandchildren, and their children ...) will cal=
l
> >> anything is moot. =A0They'll be too busy paying off this generation's
> >> debt fostered in parts by a stupidly run government trying to spend
> >> its way out of debt, a bunch of greedy pigs in the population that
> >> want all the trappings of affluence whether they've earned them
> >> or not, and some unprincipled financial folks who knew they could
> >> take insane risk because the Obama's of this world would bail out
> >> their mistakes. =A0No, I don't think they'll call it The Great Bush
> >> Depression. =A0I think they'll call it "How I Got Shafted By My
> >> Stupid, Greedy, #$%^&* Grandparents".
>
> >> --
> >> ----------------------------------------------------------------------=
------
> >> Tim Daneliuk =A0 =A0 [email protected]
> >> PGP Key: =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/
>
> > You mean as they will be paying off the deficit that Bush ran up?
>
> You are confused. =A0The deficit existed going back all the way
> to WWII. =A0The exception was the Regan peace dividend that
> Clinton managed not to screw up. =A0You may recall that we
> were attacked in 2001 and this required military response.
> This takes money. =A0It was also the judgment of both the
> Rs and the Ds that Sadaam was a threat and needed remediation -
> this required money. (Never mind the current Democrat amnesia
> about just who voted for what). =A0'Hardly =A0"Bush's" deficit alone.
>
>
>
> > Amazing how you completely ignore the Republican contribution.
>
> Oh there is plenty of R contribution, but it will end up being
> rounding error compared to what The Messiah wants to spend.
>
>
>
> > Are you aware that Cheney recently admitted that there was NO
> > connection between Iraq and 9/11.
>
> There never was, nor was it ever so claimed. =A0He didn't "admit"
> anything. =A0He repeated what was always stated by the administration.
>
>
>
> > So why did we fight a TRILLION dollar war?
>
> To:
>
> 1) Show the Islamic world we could not tolerate their butchers.
> 2) Free the people of Iraq to make their own choices.
> 3) Stop a murderous thug that was funding Palestinian suicide bombers.
> 4) Stop genocide.
> 5) Create a military leverage point to put meaningful pressure
> =A0 =A0on the worst regime on the region: Iran.
>
> All these benefits have subsequently been undermined or outright
> rescinded with the election of the ObamMessiah who is a feeble
> child in the world of geopolitics. =A0Maybe he can repeat Carter's
> record and stand by while a bunch of American diplotmats get
> locked up (and worse) by some Islamic thugs.
>
>
>
> > TMT
>
> --
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------=
---
> Tim Daneliuk =A0 =A0 [email protected]
> PGP Key: =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/

Many words but little truth.

Bush started with a budget surplus and ended with a trillion dollar
deficit.

And history will show that.

TMT

"Lew Hodgett" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> > bar ~ You know, the necessities in life.
>
> Does 50 miles due north of Toronto qualify?<G>

Apologies, I should have qualified that a little further. My ideal location
would preclude snow of any type, in any season unless it's the local hockey
rink. Something temperate, you know, not too hot, not too cold...

Money being in relatively unlimited supply after winning a 50 million dollar
lottery, I've considered where I'd move to, probably somewhere in the US,
but that's also problematic. I've considered Kansas since it really is
supposed to be flatter than a pancake (since I hate hills so much), but
they've got tornados. Then there's Florida, but they get hurricanes and
flooding. It might be California, but they've got big earthquake potential
and the inevitable, several time a year brush fires, so that's out.

If it's not tornados, it's floods and if it's not floods, it's brush fires.
So, maybe 50 miles north of Toronto does qualify. :)

> >>> So would you rather have the government be involved in health care
> >>> or just leave it in the hands of people like used car salesmen?
> >>> There are private alternatives that are worse than the government.
> >>> How about having Bernie Madoff handling your health care or the
> >>> management of AIG? Think they would be better than the government?
> >>> I don't. The greed of businessmen is what
> >>
> >> False dichtomy and strawman. These are not the only choices.
> >>
> >>> makes them unacceptable for making decisions on people's health
> >>> care. You need people that aren't going to profit from your health
> >>> problems making the decisions. Hopefully, medical professionals
> >>> without a financial interest would decide what you need.
> >>>
> >>> Hawke
> >>>
> >>>
> >>
> >> This is hands-down the low point of this thread. If no one made a
> >> profit in healthcare there would be NO healthcare. Why should gifted
> >> people become doctors, pharma reseachers, nurses, or pharmacists?
> >> Without profit where is the incentive to risk $500M - $1B *per new
> >> drug* on the research side of things. In short, there would be few or
> >> no "medical professionals without a financial interest [to] decide
> >> what you need" without the opportunity for profit.
> >>
> >> I'll take greedy business people over boneheaded collectivist
> >> ideology any day of the week.
> >
> >
> > Of course you would but that is because of your short sightedness and
> > adherence to discredited right wing ideology, not because of the
> > facts. Plenty of organizations and businesses are non profit and they
> > operate just as efficiently and effectively as the for profit ones.
> > But how can that be when only profits make a business work? Or maybe
> > your set in stone beliefs are wrong.
>
> A "non profit" that doesn't run at a profit goes under very quickly.
> Calling your surplus of income over expendtures something other than
> "profit" doesn't make it any less so.
>
> And how many non-profits have brought new products to market?


Who knows? But I do know that bringing new products to the market isn't only
what non-profit businesses do. In fact many of them are not in business to
provide new products at all and have completely different reasons for being.

Hawke

Lew Hodgett wrote:
> "rangerssuck" wrote:
>
> ===================================
> Well I think you've hit the nail on the head. The problem here is that
> those on the right really don't believe that there is such a thing as
> "common good." They believe that the good of individuals is the only
> goal. As long as I am doing well, it doesn't really matter how you are
> doing - that's your problem.
> =======================================
>
> AKA: The Reagen doctrine.
>
> I got mine, you're on your own.
>
> Lew
>
>

No, the doctrine is called 'individual liberty'.

Outside some very narrow areas like the so-called "commons" (air,
water, risk of pandemic disease ...) there is no such thing as the
"common good". The "common good" is a pernicious notion invented by
people seeking power so that you'll follow them. They appeal to the
"but its good for everyone" argument, neglecting the fact that such
schemes inevitably require people to give up some or all of their
liberty. Such schemes benefit some to the detriment of others.
Such schemes place the few in charge of the many. Such schemes
are essentially totalitarian, dishonest, at least dangerous,
and at worst murderous. Such schemes cripple political, religious,
intellectual, and economic freedom.

I struggle sometimes to know what's good for me. I am pretty sure I
don't know what's good for you and I am *certain* that I do not know
what's good for other larger groups of people, the "common good". So
long as people do not steal, use force, or threaten each other, it is
simply no one else's business how they live their lives (as adults).

"The Common Good" in many forms has been the basic argument put forth
by every thug, gang, tin pot dictator, genocidal maniac, and human
rights violater throughout history. The argument took on many forms:

- Do it for the good of the tribe
- Do if for in the name of God
- Do it for the good of your Sovereign
- Do if for the good of your nation/community/race/ethnicity/cause

Every single one of these Common Good arguments always boils down to,
"You the many shall be forced to do what we the few dictate." The last
100 years alone is littered with the results of people forcing the
"Common Good" down their neighbors' throats. Here's just a few
memories from the Common Good Hit Parade

- The Bolshevik Revolution
- 1930s starvation of the Ukrainians by the Russians
- The attack of Nanking by Japan
- 1935 and following in Germany, Japan, and Italy
- Viet Nam, Cambodia, Laos
- The Chinese Maoist era
- The Castro Era
- Muslim-on-Muslim violence in the Middle East
- Congo, Somalia, Mauretania, South Africa, and Darfur
- Hussein's Iraq

*Every one of these* were genocidal nightmares (Hitler, Stalin,
and Tojo alone top something staggering like 100M dead at their
hands. Pol Pot was good for 1.7M. The Tutsi-Huttus another 1+M.
The Muslims of the Middle East, some 3+ M.). *Every one of these*
argued that they were working for the "common good" of their
people/nation/tribe/religion ...

You can keep your common good and the attendant villagers with
torches. I want my freedom ...




--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Daneliuk [email protected]
PGP Key: http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/

On Jun 5, 2:39=A0pm, Steve Turner <[email protected]> wrote:
> Morris Dovey wrote:
> > Curious Man wrote:
> >> There seems to be a stereotype that "liberals" are the lazy sorts of
> >> people who interrupt TV viewing only to go to soup lines, or smoke
> >> harmful substances, whereas "conservatives" are hard working, self
> >> reliant people who are very well off due to their own perseverance and
> >> work ethic.
>
> >> And yet, the few self proclaimed or suspected liberals and Obama
> >> supporters of this newsgroup, seem to be very well off, accomplished
> >> people, whereas many conservatives, while intelligent and interesting
> >> people on many levels, are not exactly above that kind of level of
> >> attainment.
>
> >> If that is the case, is that perhaps the time to reconsider our
> >> stereotypes?
>
> > I've always thought that "conservative" meant "not in favor of changing
> > some established norm"; and that "liberal" indicated a willingness to
> > try new approaches...
>
> > I had a seventh grade teacher who gave my class some interesting
> > guidance: "I don't want you to have closed minds, nor do I want you to
> > have open minds," he said, "I want you to have /openable/ minds - to
> > hold to what you know to be true, and to be prepared to replace the old
> > ideas when you gave good reason to /decide/ that something is more true
> > or works better."
>
> > Does that make one a conservative liberal or a liberal conservative? :)
>
> Whatever it is, I'm one of 'em. =A0:-)
>
> --
> Any given amount of traffic flow, no matter how
> sparse, will expand to fill all available lanes.
> To reply, eat the taco.http://www.flickr.com/photos/bbqboyee/

Yup. Me too. From a business perspective I'm a conservative. Small
government, low taxes, yadda, yadda. I'm anti abortion, but pro-
choice. I defend the right to own weapons. I think there should be a
central health-care system open to all, but more open to those who can
afford it, as long as it doesn't displace somebody from a list who
needs care. Cancer treatment is one thing, cancer treatment at a
country-club should be an option if you have the money.
I saw what you Americans can do when my sister needed the best of
care, and my hat is off to you for that kind of quality.
I am also aware of the bankruptcies caused by basic old-age care in
your fine country.
So I guess I'm a pinko-commie-librul when it comes to taking care of
those old people who built the countries we get to enjoy.
I was originally taken in by Bush's rhetoric on 'compassionate
conservatives' just to find out he was lying warmongering megalomaniac
who had an inferiority complex to the point that all he wanted to do
was please his daddy...how sick was that?
Bush did more to set back the concept conservatism than anybody I can
think of.

Put me in the middle, but don't call me a moderate-anything, because
that pisses me off. I'm quite vehement about those things I think are
right. I try to advance the technology in work-surface products and
now teach the skills at a local college to those who also think this
can be a real business. Now... here comes the funny part. The college
wanted to pay me. I passed. Not because I was feeling particularly
benevolent, but I would have to spend more money for somebody to fill
out the paperwork for the current government than I stood to make from
the whole project. WHICH makes me a non-liberal.

Ha!!

On Jun 5, 5:40=A0pm, "HeyBub" <[email protected]> wrote:
> Curious Man wrote:
> > There seems to be a stereotype that "liberals" are the lazy sorts of
> > people who interrupt TV viewing only to go to soup lines, or smoke
> > harmful substances, whereas "conservatives" are hard working, self
> > reliant people who are very well off due to their own perseverance and
> > work ethic.
>
> > And yet, the few self proclaimed or suspected liberals and Obama
> > supporters of this newsgroup, seem to be very well off, accomplished
> > people, whereas many conservatives, while intelligent and interesting
> > people on many levels, are not exactly above that kind of level of
> > attainment.
>
> > If that is the case, is that perhaps the time to reconsider our
> > stereotypes?
>
> > Curious Man
>
> Liberals tend to provide for the common welfare through the treasury;
> Conservative tend to promote the general welfare through the economy.
>
> Your observations have some merit. But the people who post here, who
> genuinely want to help others, yet express "liberal" tendencies, are mere=
ly
> proto-conservatives. As they age and accumulate wisdom, they'll change.

LOL...I used to be a conservative but as I get older I find myself
becoming much more liberal.

That liberalism comes from acquiring wisdom.

And if you haven't noticed, the Country just slapped the conservative
movement into the next decade after enjoying its "benefits" under
Bush.

As those voters who voted for Obama age, they will be liberal leaning
for decades.

TMT

"Tim Daneliuk" <[email protected]> wrote in > This is hands-down the low
point of this thread. If no one made a
> profit in healthcare there would be NO healthcare. Why should gifted
> people become doctors, pharma reseachers, nurses, or pharmacists?
> Without profit where is the incentive to risk $500M - $1B *per new
> drug* on the research side of things. In short, there would be few or
> no "medical professionals without a financial interest [to] decide
> what you need" without the opportunity for profit.
>
> I'll take greedy business people over boneheaded collectivist ideology
> any day of the week.
>
>
> --
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Tim Daneliuk [email protected]
> PGP Key: http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/

Last company I worked for before I retired was a biomedical company. We
spent $35 million on a new product. Due to mismanagement of the project.
Not my part, we injured a couple of women during the trials. Women's health
product. But without the carrot of a $700 million annual market, do you
think any money would have been spent? One women called me a male
chauvinist because we worked on women's incontinence. She just could not
accept it was profit driven. $700 million a year and 95% of incontinence is
females.

On Jun 5, 11:25=A0pm, Doug Winterburn <[email protected]> wrote:
> Too_Many_Tools wrote:
> > On Jun 5, 5:40 pm, "HeyBub" <[email protected]> wrote:
> >> Curious Man wrote:
> >>> There seems to be a stereotype that "liberals" are the lazy sorts of
> >>> people who interrupt TV viewing only to go to soup lines, or smoke
> >>> harmful substances, whereas "conservatives" are hard working, self
> >>> reliant people who are very well off due to their own perseverance an=
d
> >>> work ethic.
> >>> And yet, the few self proclaimed or suspected liberals and Obama
> >>> supporters of this newsgroup, seem to be very well off, accomplished
> >>> people, whereas many conservatives, while intelligent and interesting
> >>> people on many levels, are not exactly above that kind of level of
> >>> attainment.
> >>> If that is the case, is that perhaps the time to reconsider our
> >>> stereotypes?
> >>> Curious Man
> >> Liberals tend to provide for the common welfare through the treasury;
> >> Conservative tend to promote the general welfare through the economy.
>
> >> Your observations have some merit. But the people who post here, who
> >> genuinely want to help others, yet express "liberal" tendencies, are m=
erely
> >> proto-conservatives. As they age and accumulate wisdom, they'll change=
.
>
> > LOL...I used to be a conservative but as I get older I find myself
> > becoming much more liberal.
>
> > That liberalism comes from acquiring wisdom.
>
> > And if you haven't noticed, the Country just slapped the conservative
> > movement into the next decade after enjoying its "benefits" under
> > Bush.
>
> > As those voters who voted for Obama age, they will be liberal leaning
> > for decades.
>
> > TMT
>
> As my dear old departed mum told me almost 50 years ago - "When you're
> young, you're idealistic and liberal, then you got to work and start
> paying taxes and become a conservative, then you get old and start
> looking for help because you didn't plan ahead and you become liberal
> again".

LOL...tell me...what will the millions of Americans do in the next few
years for retirement when their 401Ks are worth nothing, their houses
are worth much, much less and with millions living off what savings
they might have?

Or the damning fact that 60% of bankruptcies are medical related...and
you incur most of your medical costs after retirement.

And you do realize that this deep, deep recession has a long way to go
yet. Best estimates that the economy MAY bottom out late next year. So
how deep of pockets do you have..especially if government payments are
cut?

The truth in life is that you can do everything right and still arrive
at retirement penniless.

TMT

On Sat, 06 Jun 2009 18:27:38 GMT, "Lew Hodgett"
<[email protected]> wrote:

>"Joseph Gwinn" wrote:
>
>> The basic storyline was originally from or at least attributed to
>> George
>> Bernard Shaw, reportedly from a real encounter with a woman sitting
>> next
>> to him at a dinner party:
>
>There is also a version that attributes the story to Disreali and the
>Queen.

I've always associated the story with Oscar Wilde, but that may have
more to do with my impression of him than the actual source.

One about Truman Capote that is probably also to good to be true.

At the height of his fame, a lady spotted him in a restaurant, rushed
over and asked him to autograph her breast. Capote did so. Her
husband, incensed, strode over, took out his penis and suggested
Capote might like to autograph that too.

“Well,” responded Capote, “perhaps I could initial it...”

--
Ned Simmons

Ed Huntress wrote:

<SNIP>

> Before we go off on a tangent, let me see if we understand each other about
> how the pharma business works.

Heaven forbid we go off on a tangent in this thread...

<SNIP Description Of How Private Sector Spends Billions To Bring Us New Drugs>

> Now, here's the interesting part to us US citizens: Our government doesn't
> control the price, even when the government is paying (Medicare, especially
> Part D), but every other government does. So it may cost 5 times as much or
> even more in the US as it does in Canada, France, or Mexico. It's been said

But the "price" in these other countries is distorted two ways: 1) It
is set artificially without regard to actual scarcity and 2) The true
costs are underwritten via a very inefficient government taxation system.

> that every other government is parasitic off of the US drug-development
> system, but the EC did some studies that says we get most of the good pharma
> jobs and those big research centers as a result, and we actually make out. I

Of course they would "find" this. The EU/EC cannot bear to face the bald
fact: They collectivist experiment has utterly failed and placed them
at a relative disadvantage not only to the U.S. but also China and India.
That's the reason there is increasing pressure in the UK to withdraw
from the snarl that is the EU.

> doubt if we really make out in the end, but that's a side issue. Let's say
> it satisfies our free-market doctrine and helps us keep the libertarians on
> the reservation. We sure don't want to let them get into the FDA regulations
> or we'll be dropping like flies. <g>

Unclear. Suppose you had no FDA regulation, but you had liability laws
with real teeth - the kind that put Boards Of Directors in jail for
knowingly selling deadly and flawed pharma. I rather think there would
be real self-interest in keeping out of jail. Moreover, the "We Want More
Regulation" crowd is almost universally of the opinion that business leaders
are eeeeeeeeevil and cannot be trusted. It's a stupid and bigoted premise.

>
> Yet, the pharma companies will claim they make a profit selling the drug in
> Europe or South America at, typically, 1/3 the price they sell it for in the
> US. Like the Social Security Trust Fund, it's all in the accounting. The
> research and other upfront costs are written off against the US sales. The
> rest of the world is charged with the manufacturing cost, distribution, and
> sales costs to that country, and, often, that's it. If it's a rich country

These are little more than Silly Accounting Tricks to placate the European
(and other) collectivist political hacks.

> with a little slack in their pricing there will be some fractional recovery
> of upfront costs from that country, too. But the US is the big sugar daddy.
> Even if the drug is developed in Switzerland, it's the US market where they
> intend to recover the development costs, including the costs of all of those
> drugs that didn't make it out of the research stage or the trials.
>
> If you short-circuit this system by buying drugs "on the Internet" (read,
> "from foreign sources or from black-marketeers in the US with a foreign
> supply"), you're changing the game in mid-stream -- the game being the
> patent life of the drug. And if it's made legal, that will pretty much kill
> off the introduction of new drugs and crush the pharma industry, except for
> the generics producers. That is, unless the government starts financing the
> whole development process, and nobody wants to go there.

I disagree. If you open the doors as suggested, you will undermine the
unnatural market interference the collectivists love. Once, say, the EU
figures out I'm getting my drugs on their nickel they are going to start
howling - which is exactly what healthcare needs: Global, competitive markets.

>
> You may think that's OK. People who are waiting for new drugs to save their
> lives may disagree. In any case, without the free market in the US and
> protection from sales coming from overseas, that's the end of the drug
> business, except for the drugs we already have.

I am skeptical. Because the markets have been distorted as you describe,
there would be a period wherein the "invisible hand" slapped everyone
involved appropriately. But with global competitive markets for pharma
in place down the road (i.e., Undermine the insanity of the collectivists)
there would be *more* pharma in *more* places. Remember when the airlines
had a government protected monopoly? Remember the prices? Remember what
happened when they got deregulated? I do - I worked for a major
US carrier at the time. The pain was awful as the system adjusted.
In the longer pull, though, what happened was more capacity in the system
at a lower cost (to the consumer) with more choice of providers. This
is the exact same thing that could and should happen to pharma and healthcare.

>
> I'm not being judgmental about this, only describing the reality. Are we on
> track about how it all works? Competition is not the issue. Life or death of
> new drug development is the issue.

I don't buy your premises - though I understand them - and hence, I don't
buy your conclusions. The fact is that pretty much all large business
interest do NOT want free markets. They want *their* markets protected
by government. Pharma is no different and they will come up with any
number of convoluted arguments to defend their turf - just like the steel,
auto, airline, and banking industries have historically. They are all
fundamentally dishonest when they do this.
>
>>>>>> Prices are artificially high today
>>>>>> precisely because the providers are guaranteed government payment
>>>>>> for some part of the service or pharma vended.
>>>>> How does that explain the fact that health care prices in Europe run
>>>>> around
>>>>> 1/2 - 2/3 of ours, even where the government guarantees *all* of the
>>>>> payment
>>>>> there?
>>>> Now compare the depth, completeness, and speed of care here and there.
>>>> Care can cost more in the U.S. because everyone wants - and mostly
>>>> gets -
>>>> instant, very high quality care on-demand. This is decidedly not the
>>>> case in the socialized systems with which I am most familiar (Canada and
>>>> the UK leap to mind).
>
> That doesn't explain why they get better outcomes overall. And they do. You
> can find the studies on PubMed (PubMed Central, if you want to read the full
> articles for free).

Better is arguable. As in the comment below, would you prefer to be
cared for there under this "better" system or here?

>
>>>> Also, those European "prices" often to not
>>>> fairly reflect the actual tax burden associated with them. Something
>>>> can only be "cheap" or "free" in that world if someone is propping it
>>>> up with Other People's Money.
>
> I'd have to see your sources on that one. All indications are that the
> accounting is accurate.

>
>>> There have been endless studies that show that simply isn't true. Those
>>> are
>>> mostly myths. Of course European costs are paid with taxes. But the
>>> accounting for costs has been done by the best professionals in the
>>> field.
>> That doesn't give me a lot of confidence.
>
> If you know better, you have a future in debunking a lot of very expensive
> article research.

It's not that I specifically "know better" it's that I both lived
in Europe and have many painful examples since of encountering their
bureaucracy. The EU is a morass of paperwork, tin pot turf-protecting
bureaucrats, and internecine bickering. There is *no way*
anything springing from such a political mess could remotely be
economically efficient.

>
>> Government accounting
>> "professionals" managed to miss the Fannie/Freddie meltdown, the
>> incorrectly rated CDO debacle, the naked shorting and all the rest we
>> see today. Government always acts by coercion or the threat of same.
>> It cannot help therefore but to distort price and therefore market
>> dynamics. That's why I can buy a hammer for $25 that costs the Air
>> Force $600.
>
> I'll bet their hammer is a lot better than yours. <g> Those stories are
> always cut short; I tracked down a few of them when I was an editor at
> _American Machinist_. Those weren't researchers, they were fancy
> quartermasters.

The essential problem in most such cases was demanding Milspec
for everything when it wasn't remotely needed. The hammer didn't
cost $600, but the Milspec certification drove it to that price.
A prima facia example of why you want to minimize the places
government gets to make the call. As I said, government is
not motivated by economic efficiency or the moral high ground.
Government operates by consensus, back scratching, and back room
dealing. It is the *least* honorable institution in our society
yet a depressing number of Sheeple think we need more and more of it.

>
>> As to the healthcare on average being inferior in socialized systems,
>> I had extensive discussions on the matter with a number of my Canadian
>> relatives working *in* that healthcare delivery system. They all
>> independently say more-or-less the same thing: If your condition
>> is life threatening, you will receive adequate or better. In all other
>> situations you will receive slow, rationed care where in the Big Bad
>> Government Bureaucracy decides just what- and when you will get.
>> A goodly number of people with non-life threatening problems like
>> gall stones, buy travel insurance and manage to have an "attack"
>> while visiting the U.S. - it's the only way they can get relief
>> from their suffering in a prompt manner. Other examples abound
>> in the U.K. system.
>
> Then how do they get better results?

Better by what measure? Go have a gall bladder attack in Canada and
see how much "better" it is. Be 75 with congestive heart failure in
the UK and see how that works out.
>
<SNIP>

>>> I'm a writer and editor. Before I went freelance again, I spent five
>>> years
>>> in medical editing, winding up as Senior Medical Editor in the managed
>>> care
>>> (HMOs, PPOs, Medicare) division of a medical communications company. That
>>> was a full-body immersion in the economics of health care, and I worked
>>> with
>>> some top experts in medical economics.
>>>
>>> As for competition in the field, of course it would be the best way to
>>> handle it and is always to be preferred, IMO, if the pieces align to
>>> produce
>>> the benefits we all associate with real competition. But, as I said,
>>> competition is pretty much an illusion in health care. We're the only
>>> developed country with no price regulation on drugs -- it's a free-market
>>> free-for-all. And we have the highest drug prices in the world, by far.
>>> It
>>> seems that people will pay anything they can to prolong their lives.
>>> That's
>>> why Europe has lost so much of their pharma infrastructure to the US;
>>> this
>>> is where the real money is. Within 25 miles of my house, our clients
>>> included Pfizer, Sanofi-Aventis, Bayer, Merck, Wyeth, Novartis, and too
>>> many
>>> others to list.
>>
>> That's why we should *deregulate* things like where people buy their
>> pharma.
>
> See above.
>
>> You'd see a big equilibrium in price being established when the
>> Canadians,
>> Brits (and other Europeans) realized that by selling pharma to the U.S.
>> consumer, their own taxpayers would effectively be underwriting the
>> costs. Nothing forces people into global transparent markets like real
>> (honest) global competition.
>
> No country today is going to start funding drug development costs that
> they've pawned off onto us for decades. We're the only ones who are
> ideologically blinded enough to do it. Even the Japanese don't do it.

You'd be shocked to discover what rational self interest would do.
If EU citizens started dropping like flies because they couldn't
get antibiotics, they'd discover very quickly why they need a pharma
industry.

>
>> You also note - perhaps without meaning to - a real downside to
>> regulation:
>> It drives out the innovators. Why on earth would a Pfizer or Merck want
>> to live in the morass of EU regulations when they can stay here, innovate,
>> profit, and do well instead.
>
> No reason at all. That's why you pay 3 to 5 times more for drugs here. Katie
> bar the doors, and praise the Lord...this is the promised land for the
> pharma industry. <g>

It is also the promised land for you and me. We get access to the best
and brightest minds giving us the highest quality of life (by many measures
anyway) on the planet.

>
>> This is the central fallacy of the
>> "healthcare shouldn't be profit motivated" scheme of things. It is one
>> thing to either legislate or regulate around poor product quality and/
>> or outright fraud. It is quite another to say "we the villagers with
>> torches
>> will take your pills and tell you how much we'll pay for them, if
>> anything."
>> Distorting markets creates horrible results whether the distortion stems
>> from fraud or government meddling - they are equivalent in their general
>> results.
>
> I would never say it *shouldn't* be profit motivated. I *will* say that
> profit incentives in health care often lead to undesirable results. This is
> one of the situations that Stiglitz described when he wrote about the
> situations in which normal market incentives don't work, or aren't really
> present.

I cannot imagine a downside for a bright young organic chemist being
incented with the billions they might make for, say, curing Type II
diabetes.

>
>>>> <SNIP>
>>>>
>>>>> You can, however, get much better results by aligning incentives
>>>>> properly
>>>>> so
>>>>> that all health care management is driven toward a goal of providing
>>>>> better
>>>>> care for less money. That won't happen as long as the system is mostly
>>>>> private, because the financial incentives for health care insurers, for
>>>>> example, are to deny coverage as much as possible; to pay providers as
>>>>> little as possible; and to exploit the vast statistical and actuarial
>>>>> complications of health care, along with an advertising and promotion
>>>>> program in an effective cost benefit ratio, to give the impression of
>>>>> better
>>>>> service while actually providing as little as they can get away with.
>>>>> Financial incentives for other providers in the system are similarly
>>>>> twisted
>>>>> and perverted, although the case is most obvious on the insurance side.
>>>> IOW, the only way to fix the incentives is by the point of the
>>>> government's
>>>> gun. You want to replace voluntary private sector commercial
>>>> arrangements
>>>> with the coercive power of an institution than can't run the DMV
>>>> properly,
>>>> can't manage to appoint a cabinet full of people that have all paid
>>>> their
>>>> own taxes, can't manage to balance a budget, and mostly works like a
>>>> large scale version of villagers with torches. Wonderful.
>>> I'd disagree with your characterization of government. If you want to see
>>> a
>>> screw-up, you should see the way Sanofi handled the last drug I worked
>>> on,
>>> spending $110 million on pre-approval marketing alone, and then having
>>> the
>>> drug fail FDA approval -- for a good reason that S-A should have known
>>> going
>>> in.
>> Right, but *I* don't have to pay for their screwups - their shareholders
>> do.
>
> An illusion. Their prices across the board are set to cover such losses.
> Shareholders took a brief hit on that one (rimonabant), because it was such
> a huge investment. But you and I will pay in the end.

Even if true, we will do so *voluntarily*. Paying for an expensive
drug is something I do that is in my own self interest (or at least
I perceive it to be). Having government meddle in all this is an
*involuntary* activity jammed down the throats of all citizens
with the threat of force behind it. Which is more ethical?

>
>> Their shareholders also have the ability to easily get rid of the
>> bozos in charge of the screwup. That is *not* the case with government.
>
> The bozos are still there, as is usually the case.
>

Only because they usually are not as big a bozos as everyone outside
the company thinks. Mst big companies are owned by institutions
like labor pension funds and the like. If they didn't think they
were getting their money's worth, they'd toss the board and leadership
teams of these companies out in a heartbeat. The reality is that most
large companies serve their employees, vendors, shareholders, and customers
very well, and that's why the system is relatively free from churn.... well,
it would be except that increasingly, the purification of failure is being
interdicted by government. When Pope Obama decided to "save" the auto
industry (he did no such thing, he paid off the union stooges), what he
really did was make sure that feedback got damped out of the system.
In the long haul, this will *harm* the auto industry as it will fail to
learn from its mistakes.

>> The majority of the government that pushes us all around is NOT elected.
>> It is the various flavors of regulators and other appointed civil servants
>> that really run day-to-day government. Short of a very expensive lawsuit,
>> it is essentially impossible to get the BATF, EPA, IRS, DEA, FDA, BLM, and
>> all
>> the rest of the alphabet soup of government to back off when they are
>> wrong.
>> When the private sector is wrong is fails and either adjusts or
>> permanently
>> disappears (unless they have a kindly idiot President bailing them out
>> of their own sins). When government fails, it just spends more money
>> doing more of the same - there is no meaningful feedback loop for most of
>> government. I'd guess that in an average year, the government screws
>> up a lot more, bigger, and with more money than the vast bulk of
>> private sector.
>
> I'll bet we read the same Civics textbook. I think that one is out of print.
> <g>

Evidently. We have citizens that think that government is formed for
the good of group. We have citizens that think government grants rights.
We have citizens that think business is evil but trust their government.
All of this in the face of contrary historical and factual evidence ...
it's depressing.

>
> I have to say that you've made your point of view clear, Tim, and I agree
> with most of it in principle. But principles often get in the way of
> actually seeing what's going on. The reality often doesn't agree with the
> ideology, and that's clearly the case with health care.

There is nothing particularly ideological about this. I just believe
that private property should be at the disposal of those who own that
property whether "those" means a person or a corporation with many
owners. In my lifetime, I have seen the many and horrible excesses
of government all over the world (including this country). I have
seen *no* damage done by private sector actors that remotely touches
the abuses of government. The Enrons, the Madoffs, the CDO rating
agencies, and their ilk are rounding error in the kinds of economic
and human rights abuses practiced regularly by governments all over
the planet. Anyone who trusts government over the private sector
is naive to the real damage uncontested power has done ...

>
> As I said, competition would be great, if we were talking about plows or
> electricity production or automobile tires. But it doesn't work without
> regulation in many cases. And in the case of healthcare, just getting the
> incentives aligned to benefit the consumer has been beyond anyone's ability
> for a very long time.
>
> I don't know the anwer, but I've worked in the industry and I know it's a
> train wreck.
<SNIP>

>> Given a serious medical condition that required state-of-the art
>> skills, tools, and practitioners, would you prefer to be treated
>> in the U.S. or in one of the collectivist nirvannas you cite?
>
> If you're paying, I'll get treated in the US, at the finest hospital,
> please, and with a private room and nice looking nurses. <g>
>

Uh, what happened to "But it's so much better under the collectivist
healthcare scheme????"

<SNIP>

>> As I said above, you need generalists, specialists, and so on all in
>> the medical ecosystem. Smith's Pin Factory example leaps to mind...
>
> I don't disagree with that. In fact, that's what we have. And we still have
> a broken system.

Wait a second... Just *who* thinks it is "broken":

1) Politicians that wish to insert themselves into the process to
acrue more power.
2) The self anointed saviors of man who think that their drooly view
of the world entitles them to pillage other people's wallets.
3) People who believe that unless things are nearly perfect they
are lousy.


I grew up very poor. We always had some level of basic healthcare long
before the government goobers got into the act. Today, some 80+% of
Americans have basic- or better healthcare. I'd argue the system isn't
broken, its just not perfect.

It reminds of me of an old joke - One guy says to another "How's your
wife?" The other guy replies "Compared to whom?" How "broken" the
system is- or is not ought to be contextualized by the alternatives.
At the moment, most of the alternatives proposed are far worse
than what we have. The only people I've seen that have some actual
insight into a *better* system are the folks at Cato.

<SNIP>


>
> But its future is uncertain. Among companies with 200 or more employees, 98%
> still offer health insurance, although with an increasing percentage of
> employee contribution.

So what? I have to pay for my good, tools, gas, and so on. Why
is there is presumption that healthcare is principally the responsibility
of the employer? I rather think that if more people had to bear some
part of their healthcare costs, they might quit shoving donuts into
their maws, waddle away from their TVs and actually take care of
themselves better.




--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Daneliuk [email protected]
PGP Key: http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/

"J. Clarke" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> Lew Hodgett wrote:
>> "John R. Carroll" wrote:
>>
>>> It's also worth remembering that people did't last much beyond 65 YO
>>> in the thirties, large numbers even less.
>>
>> Which just points out how remarkable my grandfather was.
>>
>> Born in 1848, he made it to 83.
>
> Once again the myth of "life expectancy" rears its ugly head. It's an
> average--those who made it to adulthood lived about the same amount of
> time
> as people today, but fewer of them made it to adulthood.


The life expecrancy "at birth" in 1930 of all sexes and races combined in
the US was 59.7 years.
It was 77.8 in 2005.
People are living much longer today as a rule. That and changes in age
weighted distribution of he population are the cause of forecast shortfalls
in the SS fund.

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0005148.html


JC

Get back to woodworking...

Hawke wrote:
> "Tim Daneliuk" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:[email protected]...
>> William Wixon wrote:
>>> "Han" <[email protected]> wrote in message
>>> news:[email protected]...
>>>
>>>> That is a refreshing point of view, and I would love to 100% support
> it.
>>>> However, hospitals and doctors need to be profitable, at least to the
>>>> extent they aren't losing money. To find the right balance between
>>>> reasonably profitable and not losing money is the problem, both from
> the
>>>> doctors' point of view and the patients'.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> Best regards
>>>> Han
>>> i'm not an expert. i'm wondering why do hospitals need to be
> profitable?
>>> just had a thought, when the government builds a road i don't think
> there's
>>> any expectation it's going to turn a profit, it surely profits us all,
> and
>>> it enables businesses to profit, but (non-toll, and probably a good many
>>> toll) roads, i don't think, earn a profit. infrastructure. can't the
>>> health of citizens, by some stretch of the imagination, be considered
>>> "infrastructure"? or toward some common good?
>>>
>>> b.w.
>>>
>>>
>> I do not wish our hospitals to be run at the same levels as the DMV or
>> the Highway Department...
>
>
> Would you prefer if they were run like General Motors or AIG, those paragons
> of American business expertise?
>
> Hawke
>
>

Yes - they'd still be better than having the government run them.

--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Daneliuk [email protected]
PGP Key: http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/

On Thu, 4 Jun 2009 22:12:43 +0000 (UTC), Curious Man
<[email protected]> wrote:

>There seems to be a stereotype that "liberals" are the lazy sorts of
>people who interrupt TV viewing only to go to soup lines, or smoke
>harmful substances, whereas "conservatives" are hard working, self
>reliant people who are very well off due to their own perseverance and
>work ethic.
>
>And yet, the few self proclaimed or suspected liberals and Obama
>supporters of this newsgroup, seem to be very well off, accomplished
>people, whereas many conservatives, while intelligent and interesting
>people on many levels, are not exactly above that kind of level of
>attainment.

Show us your data. IOW, you're talking out your a$$.

>If that is the case, is that perhaps the time to reconsider our
>stereotypes?

Perhaps you should reconsider yours.

Ed Huntress wrote:
>
> Tim, we can go around on this endlessly, but let me give one example
> that illustrates how our present health insurance system has
> completely screwed-up incentives. This is a case I was involved in,
> so I can testify as to its accuracy.
>
> A few years ago Beth Israel Hospital in New York set up a
> preventive-care clinic for diabetes. They're among the top experts,
> and they know how to keep diabetes under control. They could save
> endless agony and huge expenses with a good program.
>
> Within nine months, they had to close it down. They could enroll a
> person in the program for a little over $300/yr., but private
> insurers wouldn't pay for it.
>

Today, on the other hand...

Private insureres (United Health and Aetna to name two) WILL pay for
diabetes education and both will subsidize - if not pay completely - for
hospital-run "fitness" centers.

"HeyBub" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> Stuart Wheaton wrote:
> >
> >> Our incompetent President
> >
> > Hmmm.... Today the Dow is 600 points above where it was on the last
> > day of Bush.... And 200 points above where it was right after the
> > election...
>
> And 4,000 points below its high during the Bush years.
>
> >
> > Gee, most of us are enjoying a tax cut, but if you are getting more
> > than 250K /yr and can't shield it, I feel no pity.... Or is this a
> > "Joe the plumber" thing where you have no clue about income vs
> > taxable income?
>
> Right. I saw one investor who managed to save $13,000 in taxes per DAY by
> the simple expedient of moving from New York to Florida.
> http://www.buffalonews.com/cityregion/story/672153.html?imw=Y
>
> >
> > So, Bush's silly little war and Reagan's deficits are OK for you, but
> > buying better highways is the road to ruin?
>
> Yes. We already pay a highway tax - and right now the highway tax has a
huge
> surplus. Blame the politicians for dipping into the highway kitty to
provide
> psychological counseling for troubled pets.
>
> >
> > What about the massive bill about to come due for Social Security? Are
> > you going to show me where you advocated paying higher taxes during
> > the Bush years so we could start to get ahead of the SS juggernaut?
>
> I can't; it didn't come up. You may recall that the first item on Bush's
> political agenda back in 2001 was reform of SS. Reform failed.
>
> >
> > Not better, but with somewhat less carnage. Recall, it was the market
> > that got us here, and then screamed for mommy when their lousy
> > decisions put the whole economy in peril.
> >
> > How do you feel about "too big to fail?"
>
> Personally? The bigger they are, the harder they fall, but fall they must.


That sounds nice but I'm sure you would be singing a different tune if the
government had done nothing and let the market resolve the bubble by itself.
You wouldn't be complaining about the government being too involved in the
car business because GM and Chrysler would be gone, and all the jobs that
went along with them. You wouldn't be complaining about the government
owning banks because they would be gone too along with all the jobs related
to them, and you would be complaining about having to pay off all the
depositors those banks owed money to. You would be complaining about the 15%
or higher unemployment and the total destruction of the credit and money
markets and the destruction to business and the economy that would also go
too. In short, without the government getting involved the country would be
in another depression right now and you would probably be laid off or would
have lost whatever investments you had. But you would rather have that
happen than have the government get involved in the market. That's easy to
say now, isn't it. It's like holding someone's coat when they have to fight.
You're all for that.

Hawke

On Jun 5, 7:28=A0pm, "Ed Pawlowski" <[email protected]> wrote:
> <[email protected]> wrote in message
> > If you believe in "reverse racism", then you believe in racism.
>
> Both exist

I should have been more clear. Neither should. They are both based
on the same principle -- racial collectivism -- treating groups based
upon race or ethnicity. People who believe that affirmative action is
a redress for the racism of the past only justify it in principle.
But pragmatists don't believe in principles, only results -- the ends
justify the means. In practice, they end up creating more racism by
practicing a version of their own. Pragmatist mix good and bad
principles indifferently. The bad ones always end up being more
expedient and take over the show.

Pragmatism vs. ideology:
A guy carries a briefcase into a bar, walks up to the prettiest girl,
opens the briefcase to reveal one million dollars, and asks the girl
if she will sleep with him for the million dollars. She thnks,
"Hmmm...For a million dollars? O.k.!". He then closes the briefcase
and pulls out a one dollar bill and says, "Will you sleep with me for
one dollar?" The girl immediately slaps him in the face and asks,
"What kind of girl do you think I am?" and he says, "We've figured out
what you are, now we're just negotiating the price!"

On Jun 8, 4:48=A0pm, "Ed Huntress" <[email protected]> wrote:
> "Tim Daneliuk" <[email protected]> wrote in message
>
> news:[email protected]...
>
>
>
> > Too_Many_Tools wrote:
> >> On Jun 8, 1:22 am, Tim Daneliuk <[email protected]> wrote:
> >>> Robatoy wrote:
> >>>> On Jun 7, 10:17 pm, "HeyBub" <[email protected]> wrote:
> >>>>> . The thing the Republicans supported - in the
> >>>>> last administration - was less than a trillion ($837 billion if I
> >>>>> recall
> >>>>> correctly).
> >>>> ...and made most of it disappear.
> >>> So much unlike the nearly $4T Our Dear Leader at present a flushed in
> >>> less than 6 months.
>
> >>> --
> >>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------=
-------
> >>> Tim Daneliuk =A0 =A0 [email protected]
> >>> PGP Key: =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/
>
> >> LOL...another winger who would like to live The Great Bush Depression.
>
> >> What's the matter? Disappointed that Obama hasn't fixed in a 100 days
> >> what Bush screwed up in EIGHT years?
>
> >> TMT
>
> > Bush's administration tried to warn the Congress there was a big proble=
m
> > (repeatedly). =A0It is the liberal Democrats that had their fingers in
> > their ears screaming "la la la". =A0Moreover, even if it was all W's
> > fault (it isn't) the absolute worst thing that Obama could have done
> > was to enter upon the profligate spending plan he followed. =A0You don'=
t
> > quit heroin by taking more heroin. =A0You don't fix an economy over
> > leveraged with more debt.
>
> Just curious, Tim, and with no pre-judgment, but what's your background i=
n
> economics?
>
> --
> Ed Huntress

Drinking beer and listening to Rush.

TMT

On Jun 9, 4:25=A0am, Too_Many_Tools <[email protected]> wrote:

>
> The Great Bush Depression.
>
> If Obama isn't sucessful, your children will remember it as that.
>
> TMT

If Obama is not sucessful, my children, grandchildren , and historians
will remember it as" How Obama failed while spending trillions,
created the hyper-inflation and the largest deficit ever."

Dan

On Jun 9, 6:04=A0am, Tim Daneliuk <[email protected]> wrote:


. The only place that government does a
> consistently outstanding job is running the military and arguably the
> DOJ.
>
Even the military have figured out that using contractors to run mess
halls and repair facilities is more efficient than having the
government do the work.

> This statement is absurd and flatly false on its face. Ask the
> Europeans if they agree. The bombs of WWII, not to mention all the
> other treasure and blood expended, were of almost incalculable value.
> Imagine a Nazified Europe today if you think otherwise.
>

You left out Asia taken over by the Japanese. And a Nazified United
States.
Defense of the country is the most important function of the
government.

> --
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------=
---
> Tim Daneliuk [email protected] PGP Key:http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/

On Jun 23, 8:51=A0am, "[email protected]" <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Jun 22, 10:23=A0pm, "Hawke" <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>
>
> > We have three good choices for quality health care, four actually. Bein=
g
> > French or Canadian, being filthy rich, or being a member of congress. G=
od
> > Damn it!, I don't qualify for any of them. Wouldn't you know it. Being =
a
> > member of the unwashed masses sucks.
>
> > Hawke
>
> I think it ought to be a requirement that members of Congress have to
> use only whatever government health plan they come up with.
>
> =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =
=A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0Dan

Hear, Hear!

I have heard it said that the quickest way to solve the healthcare
mess is to either have congress get the same care we get, or we get
the same care congress currently gets.

"Tim Daneliuk" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> I guess it's more honorable to be a citizen that wallows in being
> a ward of the state.

So, I dare you to explain how I'm a ward of the state? That's your area of
experience with your absolute lack of contribution to anything. Instead of
using my healthcare to stay well enough to keep working and pay taxes
contributing back the best I can, you'd have me be completely indigent to
receive the same healthcare and give absolutely nothing back.

Which way costs the system more money?

That sad fact is that people like you take in life and give nothing. That's
ALL that can be said about you and it's a really sad state of affairs. An
extremely large part of the current economic crisis in the US was caused by
people who take and take and take. The incessant whining you do is only
because you've never been in the position of taking enough to be
independently wealthy. And, it looks good on you.

All you are is a whiner. You don't contribute anything either physically or
metaphorically which is confirmed with your presence here. How long as it
been since you've been here? Two, three years? In all that time you've
managed to inject ONE woodworking comment. You are a waste and you
demonstrate it every day. You accuse me of wallowing? Try looking in the
mirror at least ONCE in your sorry life.

On Jun 9, 5:04=A0pm, "HeyBub" <[email protected]> wrote:
> Robatoy wrote:
> > On Jun 9, 8:41 am, "HeyBub" <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> >> And there are still some adults in positions of responsibility. Ruth
> >> Bader Ginsburg(!) just ordered a stay in the sale of Chrysler to
> >> Fiat to keep 1st priority bond holders from being forced to take 23=A2
> >> on the dollar.
>
> > By the time those efficiency experts at SCOTUS are done with this,
> > they'll be lucky to get 10=A2 on the dollar.
>
> The court is not into "efficiency," they're into the rule of law. The dea=
l
> with Fiat was a clear violation of both bankruptcy and contract statutes.
> The Chrysler bond holders - pension trustees, insurance companies, and th=
e
> like - owed a clear fiduciary duty to their members to protest.
>
> As I understand it, the bonds were bought with the provision that, in the
> event of bankruptcy, the bond holders would be paid first and at a
> significantly higher rate that the 23% that the Obama administration
> insisted upon.

I see. Best they take the 23 %. If Fiat pulls out, (keep in mind
they're after Opel as well) Chrysler with not find it easy to find
another buyer.

On Jun 14, 6:36=A0pm, "Hawke" <[email protected]> wrote:
> > >>>>> What's irritating is that no matter how many times you show these
> > >>>>> numbers
> > >>>> =A0to
> > >>>>> right wing guys it just doesn't sink in
>
> > >>>>> Hawke
>
> > >>>> Just to irritate you some more, it still has not sunk in. =A0The
> > >>>> problem is while it is easy to come up with those numbers, it is a
> > >>>> lot harder to know why. =A0Correlation does not mean cause and
> > >>>> effect.
>
> > >>>> An easy way to decrease the cost of healthcare in the US, would be
> > >>>> to eliminate all procedures which will only prolong someones life
> > >>>> by six months and also eliminate all procedures that do not have a
> > >>>> proven success record. =A0If we had done this say thirty years ago=
,
> > >>>> we would not have any heart transplants , artificial heart valves,
> > >>>> etc.
>
> > >>>> =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =
=A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 Dan
>
> > >>> Until you have been involved in the decision whether to treat a
> > >>> loved one aggressively to prolong life or let go ("let nature take
> > >>> its course"), you don't know what you are talking about.
>
> > >> It isn't a question of treatment or not. The question is payment.
> > >> There isn't any reason a person shouldn't be able to buy insurance t=
o
> > >> cover anything they need.
> > >> Their needs, and the needs of their families for emotional placation=
,
> > >> are not the needs of society.
>
> > >> JC
>
> > > If you think payment is the question, not treatment, then I have to
> > > ask payment for what? =A0The cost of (let's say) a liver transplant f=
or
> > > a patient who is going to die soon, whether or not the transplant
> > > occurs, is WAY more than the cost of palliative treatment. =A0I have =
to
> > > ask what we are insuring against. =A0A basic low(er) level of treatme=
nt
> > > costs, or the costs of treating everything. =A0IMNSHO, a asic level o=
f
> > > insurance (however defined) should be compulsory (yes, that bad word,
> > > and whether the employee or the employer pays is ultimately only
> > > semantics). =A0On top of that a person should be allowed to insure
> > > against the costs of more complex events/procedures. =A0Freedom of
> > > personal choice, etc., etc.
>
> > > Society needs some kind of insurance, and the current system is
> > > dysfunctional.
>
> > Government in the medical business is a permanent solution to a tempora=
ry
> > problem. =A0When I was a kid, when you got sick you went to the doctor =
and
> he
> > did what he could and it didn't cost much. =A0Now he can do a lot more =
but
> > it's all cutting edge and the costs are horrendous. =A0A hundred years =
from
> > now when the technologies have matured and an NMR scanner is a child's
> > plaything that you get at Toys R Us for 50 bucks it's going to be back =
to
> > where most people can pay for most medical issues out of pocket without=
it
> > hurting particularly.
>
> > But if we get government involved now then government will still be
> involved
> > then.
>
> So would you rather have the government be involved in health care or jus=
t
> leave it in the hands of people like used car salesmen? There are private
> alternatives that are worse than the government. How about having Bernie
> Madoff handling your health care or the management of AIG? Think they wou=
ld
> be better than the government? I don't. The greed of businessmen is what
> makes them unacceptable for making decisions on people's health care. You
> need people that aren't going to profit from your health problems making =
the
> decisions. Hopefully, medical professionals without a financial interest
> would decide what you need.
>
> Hawke

Here's another angle:

I pay over $10,000 per year for health insurance. A significant
portion of that bill is for prescription drugs. So why the fuck is it
that for the two generic prescriptions I fill each month, it's cheaper
to pay the drug store directly than to pay the copays from the
insurance company?

Last week, I noticed a sign at my supermarket saying that their
pharmacy would fill antibiotic prescriptions for FREE, and many others
for $3.95.

My point is that there MUST be a less expensive way to do this.

| >
| > That's only because you're a right winger. You guys always dislike the
| > truth. Especially when it's said about you. I'm sure we could confirm
that
| > by asking your wives or girlfriends.
| >
| > Hawke
|

Political Correctness is a way to hide and misrepresent the truth.

Is that a Conservative or a Liberal concept?

On Jun 8, 11:08=A0am, Tom Watson <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Mon, 08 Jun 2009 10:43:23 -0500, Tim Daneliuk
>
> <[email protected]> wrote:
> >I sometimes find myself in the smallest room of the house with a
> >printout of your "shtick" before me. =A0It often ends up behind me.
>
> I am gratified to hear that you keep my shtick in your leebrary.

Mr. Daneliuk in the leebrary with a shtick?

On Jun 16, 10:18=A0pm, "Hawke" <[email protected]> wrote:



> You don't get to do everything you want when you live in a place with
> thousands of others in a square mile, which is how most Americans live.

Can't say I blame you for
> that but this is the time and place you exist in so I'd say learn to like
> it. You'll be a lot happier.
>
> Hawke

Part of the reason I live in a place where there are not thousands of
others in a square mile. I decided not to learn to like living with
thousands of people in a square mile. So I took advantage of the
right to pursue happiness, and I am a lot happier for it.

Dan

Doug Winterburn wrote:
> Ed Huntress wrote:
>> "Doug Winterburn" <[email protected]> wrote in message
>> news:[email protected]...
>>> Ed Huntress wrote:
>>>> "Doug Winterburn" <[email protected]> wrote in message
>> <snip>
>>
>>>>> I guess it's old math - the meaning of surplus, deficit and their effect
>>>>> on debt. If you have a deficit (expenses exceed revenue), your debt
>>>>> goes up because you had to borrow the difference. If you have a surplus
>>>>> (income exceeds expenses), your debt goes down because you use the
>>>>> difference to pay some/all of your debt. At least that's the way it
>>>>> works in my house.
>>>> Equating a household's finances with the finances of our federal
>>>> government
>>>> is the source of a great deal of confusion. In our case, most of the
>>>> confusion is the result of having intragovernmental accounts, which don't
>>>> work like a household at all. SS is a pay-as-you-go program, as it always
>>>> has been, but we've larded it with this bit of accounting since the
>>>> mid-'80s, in which we issue special bonds in exchange for surplus SS
>>>> revenue. Meanwhile, we're taking in the revenue, which is counted as
>>>> current
>>>> revenue, and we're making SS payments, which is counted as current
>>>> expenses.
>>>> The fact that we might have to pay a shortfall out of future general
>>>> revenues will look good on paper -- we'll be retiring some of those SS
>>>> bonds
>>>> when we do it -- but it isn't going to change the fact that we have to
>>>> pay
>>>> them out of current revenues. Both ways, the "bonds" create a fictional
>>>> idea
>>>> of what is happening, because, again, there is no way to store those
>>>> surpluses.
>>> Sure there is - invest in non government instruments. But that would
>>> mean the dreaded privatization word would enter the picture.
>> Uh, would you rather have had GM Preferred or would you just go for
>> California state bonds? <ggg!>
>>
>> There are many problems with that. For one thing, you'd have the federal
>> government locked into a positive feedback loop with the state of the stock
>> or bond markets. For another, you'd have the government having to protect
>> its own investments -- tempting preferential treatment.
>>
>> Or you could just invest it in a S&P index fund which would reduce the
>> preferential treatment issue. Let's see, how much money did they lose over
>> the past year?....
>
> It sure did better than what happens now - all the surplus is spent and
> the only way to recoup is to tax folks again for the same purpose.
>

You only get taxed once, Take 2002, you paid taxes, part for SS, part
normal... Out of that, all your regular taxes were needed to pay
federal expenses, SS needed about 50% of your SS taxes to pay my
Grandmother, and they gave the rest to the general revenue. The feds
gave the feds a note saying, "thanks for the extra SS money, If you
ever need it, we'll get some for you." The general revenue needed more
money, since we had given the rich a tax cut, and then started a war.
Rather than tax people for the war, and the tax cut for the rich, the
feds borrowed the SS surplus. That still wasn't enough, and instead of
raising taxes, since if people had to actually pay for the optional war,
they might have rebelled against it, we called our best buddies, the
Chinese, and said, "we'd like to borrow a few hundred Billion, could you
help?" Someday, we will need to pay them, and for the war that we put
on the credit card, and we can use some of that money to pay SS benefits
if needed.


>> Ain't no way. Nohow.
>>
>>>> The two problems with that are, first, that the bonds don't represent any
>>>> additional debt. The future obligations are the result of a statutory
>>>> program. The bonds help clean up the accounting. But there is no more or
>>>> less "debt" owed for future SS obligations than there was before we used
>>>> the
>>>> bond gizmo to account for it. In that sense, there is no parallel to a
>>>> household. We don't replace statutory obligations with I.O.U.s at home.
>>>> If
>>>> we tried it with our taxes, for example, we could find that the
>>>> government
>>>> takes a very dim view of it. <g>
>>>>
>>>> The second problem is that, from an accounting point of view, this has
>>>> the
>>>> unfortunate effect of adding the value of the "bonds" to our total
>>>> debt --
>>>> even though our system works entirely on currect accounts, and there is
>>>> no
>>>> real way to offset the debt represented by those bonds. This is totally
>>>> unlike a household, where you could put the cash in a savings account or
>>>> invest it in something. So the debt goes up, even when nothing really
>>>> changed, either in terms of current revenues and expenses, nor in our
>>>> future
>>>> obligations.
>>>>
>>>> If you keep all the pieces in mind, the use of bonds in a "Trust Fund" is
>>>> a
>>>> useful accounting device and helps keep track of where SS stands. But
>>>> when
>>>> you're looking at the "national debt," and use total debt as the value
>>>> for
>>>> it, it just keeps adding something that isn't really there.
>>>>
>>>> In accounting terms, it will come out in the wash when we retire the
>>>> bonds -- if we ever do. But that may be decades away. Meantime, they
>>>> screw
>>>> up the impression many people have of what is happening. Many think the
>>>> cash
>>>> is going into a pot somewhere. When you ask them what the Treasury is
>>>> supposed to do with that revenue, most of them give you a blank stare.
>>>> <g>
>>> The question shouldn't be what the Treasury shhould do with the excess
>>> revenue - it should be what the SS administration should do with them.
>> I'm surprised that you'd trust them to invest your retirement money.
>
> Actually, I don't. That's why I invested 10% of my gross in public
> instruments so I now have a real retirement fund that is paying out much
> better than SS.
>
>> Actually, they've already invested in what is considered by investors around
>> the world to be the world's most secure investment: US Treasury bonds.
>>
>>>>> In the governments case, it doesn't really matter who they owe money to
>>>>> - China or the SS trust fund or a savings bond holder. When a bond
>>>>> holder redeems a bond, the taxpayer is the source of the money.
>>>> Right. But when you hold the bond, as the federal government does, and
>>>> you're the payer of the bond, as the federal government is...it gets a
>>>> little strange. Internal accounting is a useful thing. Just don't mix it
>>>> up
>>>> with money we owe to someone else.
>>> It may well be converted to money we owe someone else. The Treasury may
>>> have to issue public bonds to raise the cash to pay the SS
>>> administration. Kind of like paying off your Mastercard with your VISA
>>> card.
>> Possibly. Let's hope that SS is reformed enough by then that it won't have
>> to be funded (for long periods, anyway) with debt.
>
> It already is.
>
>> --
>> Ed Huntress
>>
>>

On Jun 5, 6:40=A0pm, "HeyBub" <[email protected]> wrote:
> Curious Man wrote:
> > There seems to be a stereotype that "liberals" are the lazy sorts of
> > people who interrupt TV viewing only to go to soup lines, or smoke
> > harmful substances, whereas "conservatives" are hard working, self
> > reliant people who are very well off due to their own perseverance and
> > work ethic.
>
> > And yet, the few self proclaimed or suspected liberals and Obama
> > supporters of this newsgroup, seem to be very well off, accomplished
> > people, whereas many conservatives, while intelligent and interesting
> > people on many levels, are not exactly above that kind of level of
> > attainment.
>
> > If that is the case, is that perhaps the time to reconsider our
> > stereotypes?
>
> > Curious Man
>
> Liberals tend to provide for the common welfare through the treasury;
> Conservative tend to promote the general welfare through the economy.
>
> Your observations have some merit. But the people who post here, who
> genuinely want to help others, yet express "liberal" tendencies, are mere=
ly
> proto-conservatives. As they age and accumulate wisdom, they'll change.

Into what?

Tim Daneliuk wrote:
> Ed Huntress wrote:
>> "Tim Daneliuk" <[email protected]> wrote in message
>> news:[email protected]...
>>> Ed Huntress wrote:
>>>> "Tim Daneliuk" <[email protected]> wrote in message
>>>> news:[email protected]...
>>>>> Too_Many_Tools wrote:
>>>>>> On Jun 8, 1:22 am, Tim Daneliuk <[email protected]> wrote:
>>>>>>> Robatoy wrote:
>>>>>>>> On Jun 7, 10:17 pm, "HeyBub" <[email protected]> wrote:
>>>>>>>>> . The thing the Republicans supported - in the
>>>>>>>>> last administration - was less than a trillion ($837 billion if I
>>>>>>>>> recall
>>>>>>>>> correctly).
>>>>>>>> ...and made most of it disappear.
>>>>>>> So much unlike the nearly $4T Our Dear Leader at present a flushed in
>>>>>>> less than 6 months.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> --
>>>>>>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>>>> Tim Daneliuk [email protected]
>>>>>>> PGP Key: http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/
>>>>>> LOL...another winger who would like to live The Great Bush Depression.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> What's the matter? Disappointed that Obama hasn't fixed in a 100 days
>>>>>> what Bush screwed up in EIGHT years?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> TMT
>>>>> Bush's administration tried to warn the Congress there was a big problem
>>>>> (repeatedly). It is the liberal Democrats that had their fingers in
>>>>> their ears screaming "la la la". Moreover, even if it was all W's
>>>>> fault (it isn't) the absolute worst thing that Obama could have done
>>>>> was to enter upon the profligate spending plan he followed. You don't
>>>>> quit heroin by taking more heroin. You don't fix an economy over
>>>>> leveraged with more debt.
>>>> Just curious, Tim, and with no pre-judgment, but what's your background
>>>> in
>>>> economics?
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> Ed Huntress
>>>>
>>>>
>>> What I know about economics I learned from Adam Smith, F.A. Hayek,
>>> Hazlitt, and
>>> Friedman. I also learned a lot of negative things about economics
>>> watching
>>> politicians (on all sides) tap dance around Reality.
>> Aha. Those are all good ones, although, if you actually read them, you
>> probably recognize that many of their fundamental philosophies have fallen
>> pretty badly in practice. For example, Friedman's theory is that the dollar
>> should now be trading for a very a small fraction of its current price on
>> world markets. He'd be scratching his head over all of the money we've been
>> printing for over six months with no signs of inflation. Smith would have
>
> I'd argue that this is hysteresis in the system and that we will see
> massive inflation down the road. I *really* hope I'm wrong.
>
>> been appalled at the idea of letting financiers self-regulate. Hazlitt had
>> the unfortunate circumstance (for him) of writing about how government
>> deficit spending was the road to perdition, even as the US economy was
>> getting its biggest boost in history, and quickly reached unprecedented
>> levels of production, from history's enormous, and equally unprecedented,
>> deficit-spending spree and make-work project: World War 2. Our national debt
>
> Noted, but it has to be said that this was money directed (for war reasons)
> at projects that had enduring value after the war: roads, machinery,
> manufacturing, and so forth. This is very much unlike the social justice
> spending and pork projects that are the hallmark of this administration.
>
>> soared to more than twice as much as a percentage of GDP as it is now, and
>> the debt was paid off in less than a decade. In economics terms, that was
>
> It's helpful when you win a big war.
>
>> deficit spending and make-work all the way. The fact that the output was
>> economically useless -- exploded shells, sunken ships -- only further proves
>> the point.
>
> But it wasn't useless. It created a reusable infrastructure that carried us
> well into the 1980s in some cases. The actual work product was ultimately
> destroyed, but so too is a new Chevy - it just takes longer. The
> individual artifacts may have been economically useless but a
> wealth creation engine was brought into being.
>
> Note also that Hayek warned what would happen if the West didn't
> back off its collectivist regulated economies after the war -
> and then we all went off and did an experiment. Europe kept trying
> to manage its economies, Easter Europe doing so with considerable
> force. The U.S. threw off the shackles more-or-less as Hayek
> suggested. Canada, NZ, and Australia ended up somewhere between
> these two options. Guess who won the economic war? Hayek was
> both predictive and, as it turned out, entirely correct.
>
>> All of those writers were excellent theorists and contributed a great deal
>> to what we know about economics. But they represent less than half of
>> current understanding. If you haven't read the others, from Keynes to
>> Schumpeter to Galbraith (a minor one, but important to understand money and
>> oligopolies), to Stiglitz, you'll have a one-sided view that's based on
>> comfortable-sounding theories that have, for the most part, been little
>> supported in actual practice. Their logic is great. Their ability to
>> predict, however, sucks in a major way.
>>
>> You could get a job at George Mason University, though, or Loyola, and join
>> the last remaining covens of the Austrian School. <g>
>>
>> BTW, congratulations for reading Smith. I hardly know anyone else who has.
>> I've gone through my 1072-page two-volume set twice, which probably is a
>> sign of an ill-spent youth, but it's worth it just to be able to explain to
>> right-wing cranks what foolish impressions they have about _The Wealth of
>> Nations_. Smith assumed that economic activity had to be regulated, or greed
>> would run the show. It's too bad that Greenspan didn't take him to heart.
>>
>> --
>> Ed Huntress
>>
>>
>
> Honesty compels me to admid that my study of Smith was limited to
> listening to a series of lectures that summarized WON. I keep meaning
> to go back and read the whole thing from cover to cover, but other
> reading intervenes. In the mean time, I've sampled bits of him here
> and there.
>
> I would take some issue with your claim that the Austrians are not
> well supported by practice. Because ... *no* economic school is well
> supported by practice nor do any of them do a great job of macro
> prediction. FDR's New (bad) Deal is cited as a victory for Keynes,
> for instance. But in reality, it was the industrialization for
> war that bailed him out of the Depression. It wasn't some kind
> of profligate Obama-like government spending on random activities
> that did it.

I find it curious that you view spending on an artillery shell to have
merit and residual value, but seem to discount any value of things like
the TVA powerplants, the Rural Electrification Project, The Parks and
forests developed by the CCC and the public buildings that were built by
the WPA. The results of that Government spending had far longer lasting
value than any bomb dropped on Germany.

Did you know that just the firefighting efforts of the CCC saved
billions of tons of coal from mine fires that had been burning for decades?


>
> I also stipulate that some regulation to prevent fraud or force
> is appropriate. But the intention is not to prevent greed, the
> intention is to prevent theft. I am happy to see the greediest
> capitalist pigs get fabulously wealthy so long as they don't
> cheat people or - just as bad - do it with tax money.
>

Robatoy wrote:
> On Jun 7, 10:17 pm, "HeyBub" <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> . The thing the Republicans supported - in the
>> last administration - was less than a trillion ($837 billion if I recall
>> correctly).
>
> ...and made most of it disappear.

So much unlike the nearly $4T Our Dear Leader at present a flushed in
less than 6 months.

--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Daneliuk [email protected]
PGP Key: http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/

Hawke wrote:
> "Andrew Barss" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:[email protected]...
>> <snip of hysterical rant about the coming end times>
>>
>> A fine example of intolerance -- well done! Who is the
>> loony you quoted?
>
> That's a good question. Obviously he's nobody anyone ever heard of. But I
> have to feel sorry for the Roger though. Here it is in the 21st century and
> he's still reading the fairy tale called the Bible and believes it like it
> really came from a supernatural being when it was obviously written and
> printed by other men. That puts him in the same boat as the Taliban loonies
> and other Muslims who think the same think about the Koran. They all fall
> for the same line of bull. Believe this book and don't believe what science
> or reason says. Heaven is up in the sky. Guys like him still believe that
> even when we all know there is nothing in the heavens but outer space. It
> can't help but make you wonder how anyone with even an average IQ believe
> such nonsense. But damn, they sure do and by the millions. Lucky for us the
> trend is for people to drop those ancient beliefs more and more as time
> passes. In another 20 years people like him will be rare as hen's teeth.
>
> Hawke
>
>

False dichotomy. Science does not speak to teleology, nor can it by
its very methods. It must be mute on question of first cause and/or
the questions of a creating deity. Reason has real limits - see Godel
for the proofs. Real science conducted honestly cannot possibly speak
to questions of purpose or ultimate cause (or the lack thereof). More
specifically, anyone well acquainted with science who is honest in
their practice of the discipline would *never* appeal to science as a
disproof of faith. That itself would require a spectacular leap of
faith far beyond that of the most religious person on the planet.
It is interesting to note that a few very loud atheist scientists
are attempting to do this in our time and they demonstrate themselves
regularly to be intellectually incoherent with an argumentation
style that resembles a 3 year old's temper tantrum far more than
it does rational discourse.

Sneering at people of faith and substituting some hand waving
reference to science and "reason" as the alternative is the sign of
understanding neither faith nor science (nor reason for that matter).
Equating such people with the Taliban is an ad hominem argument that
further signifies the lack of any real argument on your part. I happen
to be personally acquainted with literally hundreds of people deeply
devout in a number of major religious traditions. Not a single one of
them has taken up arms against innocents, oppressed their women,
invaded their neighbors, and murdered wantonly. These people of faith
- many of whom with which I disagree thoroughly - manage to
demonstrate considerably better manners than you - they can conduct a
debate without attacking rationalists for being their intellectual
inferiors.

In short, you don't understand faith, science, or the limits of
reason.
--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Daneliuk [email protected]
PGP Key: http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/

[email protected] wrote:
> On Jun 8, 11:08 am, Tom Watson <[email protected]> wrote:
>> On Mon, 08 Jun 2009 10:43:23 -0500, Tim Daneliuk
>>
>> <[email protected]> wrote:
>>> I sometimes find myself in the smallest room of the house with a
>>> printout of your "shtick" before me. It often ends up behind me.
>> I am gratified to hear that you keep my shtick in your leebrary.
>
> Mr. Daneliuk in the leebrary with a shtick?
>
>
>
>

Hey! A new game for the wreckers to play: Clueless.

--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Daneliuk [email protected]
PGP Key: http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/

Tom Watson wrote:
> On Mon, 08 Jun 2009 17:05:43 -0700, evodawg <[email protected]>
> wrote:
>
>> Just heard today from one of the State News Organizations that 60% of the US
>> population is receiving government money in one way or another. How long
>> can this go on? We are truly becoming a Socialist Country!
>
>
> I would submit to you, Sir, that one hundred percent of the population
> is receiving government money.
>
> I would further submit to you that this has been the case since the
> founding of the country.
>
> I would direct your attention to the preamble of the Constitution,
> wherein it states:
>
>
> "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect
> Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the
> common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings
> of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish
> this Constitution for the United States of America."
>
>
> In the performance of those acts related to the above ALL AMERICANS
> receive the value of the acts and therefore enjoy the results of the
> monies needed to fund them.
>
> You may argue over the distribution of assets but you may not argue
> that those assets have not been generally distributed.
>
> You may have a particular predilection to argue over the fine points
> of the phrase, "Promote The General Welfare", as is your right, but to
> imply that you are disenfranchised, or that others are
> overcompensated, misses the point.
>
> I would remind you, Sir, that this republic has stood longer than any
> other. That this form of governance has outlived any other. That
> Washington's prediction of the life of the Great Experiment has gone
> times beyond his imagining.
>
> In short, we should embrace ourselves and wonder that we have stood
> the test of time.
>
> And we should congratulate ourselves, Sir, in that we are even able to
> have a discussion such as this.
>
>
>

I actually more-or-less agree with you on all that, but I'm still
ticked off about the government's failure to maintain the post
roads and issue bills of attainder...


--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Daneliuk [email protected]
PGP Key: http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/

HeyBub wrote:
> Robatoy wrote:
>> On Jun 9, 8:41 am, "HeyBub" <[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>>> And there are still some adults in positions of responsibility. Ruth
>>> Bader Ginsburg(!) just ordered a stay in the sale of Chrysler to
>>> Fiat to keep 1st priority bond holders from being forced to take 23¢
>>> on the dollar.
>> By the time those efficiency experts at SCOTUS are done with this,
>> they'll be lucky to get 10¢ on the dollar.
>
> The court is not into "efficiency," they're into the rule of law. The deal
> with Fiat was a clear violation of both bankruptcy and contract statutes.
> The Chrysler bond holders - pension trustees, insurance companies, and the
> like - owed a clear fiduciary duty to their members to protest.
>
> As I understand it, the bonds were bought with the provision that, in the
> event of bankruptcy, the bond holders would be paid first and at a
> significantly higher rate that the 23% that the Obama administration
> insisted upon.
>
>

The Obama administration hasn't let the rule-of-law get in its way yet...

--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Daneliuk [email protected]
PGP Key: http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/

Robatoy wrote:
> On Jun 11, 4:21 pm, Tim Daneliuk <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>
>> Apparently, at least in some
>> quarters, the most complicated information space people are capable
>> of considering is binary.
>>
>
> You mean: (Bush quote)
>
> "You're either for us, or against us?"
>

He was, of course, wrong. The largest part of humanity "doesn't
care one way or the other about us" ... until, of course, they
get into trouble whereupon they come begging for help.
(cf Indonesia for just one such example)

--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Daneliuk [email protected]
PGP Key: http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/

Hawke wrote:
> "Ed Huntress" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:[email protected]...
>> "Tim Daneliuk" <[email protected]> wrote in message
>> news:[email protected]...
>>> Ed Huntress wrote:
>>>> "Tim Daneliuk" <[email protected]> wrote in message
>>>> news:[email protected]...
>>>>> Ed Huntress wrote:
>>>>> <SNIP>
>>>>>
>>>>>> There is no real competition in the health care insurance industry,
>>>>>> except
>>>>>> for the management of large corporate accounts. Large corporations
> are
>>>>>> not
>>>>>> actually insured by insurance companies; they're self-insured, with
> the
>>>>>> big
>>>>>> insurance companies managing the account for a fee. Corporations have
>>>>>> the
>>>>>> best set of incentives to drive health care effectively and
> efficiently
>>>>>> but
>>>>>> it isn't like buying iron ore or accounting services for them, and
>>>>>> they,
>>>>>> too, are limited in how much they can shape the overall system.
>>>>> Nonsense. Take a look at what is going on in places like Wal-Mart
>>>>> and other large chain clinics that are operating on a no-insurance
>>>>> basis (at least some of them are) and compare their prices to the
>>>>> costs assessed in traditional government-supported care facilities.
>>>>> It's not even close. Take a look at what happens to pharma prices
>>>>> when the regulatory bozos get out of the way and let people
>>>>> order their meds over the internet.
>>>> Nonsense back at you. <g> If you select a few treatments, drugs, and
>>>> tests
>>> :)
>>>
>>>> that you're going to supply to the exclusion of all others, and don't
>>>> have
>>>> to carry the full overhead of a regular medical facility, you can make
>>>> them
>>>> as cheap as you want to. It all depends on what you're going to do.
>>> That's right. Just like all markets, some actors are specialists, some
>>> are generalists, some make money at volume, some make money in boutique
>>> niches. That's what *markets* produce and government never will:
>>> Self directed efficiencies.
>>>
>>>> As for letting the regulatory bozos get out of the way, Wal-Mart's
>>>> clinics
>>>> are fully government regulated, and they are in most, if not all cases,
>>>> co-sponsored by local hospitals. If someone shows up with something
> more
>>>> serious they send them on to the hospital:
>>>>
>>>> http://walmartstores.com/FactsNews/NewsRoom/6419.aspx
>>>> Wal-Mart's initiative is a good one, but it's a part of the existing
>>>> system -- licensing, regulation, and so on. They're regulated the same
> as
>>>> any other pharmacy or treatment facility. They just concentrate on the
>>>> least
>>>> expensive kinds of work. As for high pharma prices, they're the result
> of
>>>> the US having the world's only major drug market with no price
>>>> regulation.
>>>> When you buy patented drugs or generics, you're paying the free-market
>>>> price
>>>> for either one. The high prices are not the result of regulation;
> they're
>>>> the result of LACK of regulation. Just look at what the same drugs cost
>>>> in
>>>> other countries, where prices are regulated to beat hell.
>>> Uh ... that was a nice dance, but not convincing. The "regulation"
>>> to which I was referring was that which prevents U.S. citizens from
>>> freely seeking the lowest cost pharma over, say, the internet, whether
>>> or not it is a U.S. source. The "regulation" to which you refer is
>>> the distortion of price created when the force of government
>>> is used to keep prices artificially low. This has all kinds of
>>> secondary consequences as you well know - it is not a free lunch.
>>> In an open market with all players operating honestly, competition
>>> over the long pull will drive prices down, not up. The only reason
>>> some drugs cost so much today (or at least one of them) is that
>>> the manufacturer is amortizing their R&D costs over the relatively
>>> short period of time that they have exclusive control of the drug
>>> they paid to invent (i.e., Before it goes generic.)
>> Before we go off on a tangent, let me see if we understand each other
> about
>> how the pharma business works.
>>
>> Here's a typical new drug, called a "small molecule" drug to differentiate
>> it from biological drugs, such as human insulin (which really is produced
> by
>> genetically modified e. coli bacteria): The basic research is done in a
>> university research lab -- with a lot of taxpayer money. If they come up
>> with something, they license it to a Big Pharma company. (The university
>> doesn't give the taxpayer money back no matter how much they collect on
> the
>> license fees. This is what keeps university hospitals and research centers
>> afloat these days, since much of the federal money has dried up.)
>>
>> The "drug" that the lab licensed is really just a chemical at that point,
>> not a drug. It probably would kill you in the form they produce it, but
> not
>> always. The Big Pharma company puts the chemical into their own
> development
>> lab, modifies it, and develops it up to the point where it's ready for
> human
>> trials. This is all Big Pharma's money -- a lot of it. If the drug has
> been
>> sufficiently modified that it justifies a patent different from the one
> the
>> university has on the drug, they patent the drug at this point. The patent
>> clock is now ticking, if it hasn't been from the day they got their hands
> on
>> it. I forget how many drugs make it this far but it's on the order of one
> in
>> ten.
>>
>> Then the drug goes into clinical trials. This is where the really big
> money
>> goes, typically tens or even hundreds of millions. Teams of overpaid
>> staffers are doing all sorts of things at this point, not the least of
> which
>> is trying to figure out how hard a time they're going to get from the FDA.
>> The latter has given some hint of what they want to see because they had
> to
>> approve the human trials. Many people -- starting with dozens, and
> sometimes
>> running up to tens of thousands -- are taking the drug before the clinical
>> trials are completed.
>>
>> Then the FDA looks over the results and decides whether, and on what
> terms,
>> they'll approve the drug. The Big Pharma company has already placed its
>> bets, often putting tens of millions into pre-approval marketing before
> they
>> know for sure if the drug will be approved. Most drugs that have gotten
> this
>> far will be approved. But three to ten years of the patent's life have
> been
>> eaten up getting here.
>>
>> Then the drug goes on the market. More tens of millions go into marketing.
>> The price is set on the basis of expected returns over the remaining
> patent
>> life of the drug, and amortizing all of the research, marketing, trials,
> and
>> other expenses incurred up to this point. The drug may sell for a couple
> of
>> dollars per dose, or a couple of hundred.
>>
>> If this is a drug with some rough edges, or if it's one with only a modest
>> benefit (like a fat drug), the FDA will require extensive post-marketing
>> trials and monitoring. This is where some drugs go in the tank. Something
>> that doesn't show up when a few thousand have taken it under very
> controlled
>> conditions may rear its head when hundreds of thousands or millions are
>> taking it in the wild. If too many people die or are crippled by the drug,
>> relative to the FDA's utilitarian calculus of its benefit, the drug is
> taken
>> off the market. Or, more likely, it will get a big black-box warning on
> the
>> package. Fat drugs and hair restorers don't get much slack. Cancer drugs
> for
>> late-stage terminal patients that save 20% of the people who take it,
> while
>> killing 5% of the remainder outright, are going to get a lot more slack.
>>
>> Now, here's the interesting part to us US citizens: Our government doesn't
>> control the price, even when the government is paying (Medicare,
> especially
>> Part D), but every other government does. So it may cost 5 times as much
> or
>> even more in the US as it does in Canada, France, or Mexico. It's been
> said
>> that every other government is parasitic off of the US drug-development
>> system, but the EC did some studies that says we get most of the good
> pharma
>> jobs and those big research centers as a result, and we actually make out.
> I
>> doubt if we really make out in the end, but that's a side issue. Let's say
>> it satisfies our free-market doctrine and helps us keep the libertarians
> on
>> the reservation. We sure don't want to let them get into the FDA
> regulations
>> or we'll be dropping like flies. <g>
>>
>> Yet, the pharma companies will claim they make a profit selling the drug
> in
>> Europe or South America at, typically, 1/3 the price they sell it for in
> the
>> US. Like the Social Security Trust Fund, it's all in the accounting. The
>> research and other upfront costs are written off against the US sales. The
>> rest of the world is charged with the manufacturing cost, distribution,
> and
>> sales costs to that country, and, often, that's it. If it's a rich country
>> with a little slack in their pricing there will be some fractional
> recovery
>> of upfront costs from that country, too. But the US is the big sugar
> daddy.
>> Even if the drug is developed in Switzerland, it's the US market where
> they
>> intend to recover the development costs, including the costs of all of
> those
>> drugs that didn't make it out of the research stage or the trials.
>>
>> If you short-circuit this system by buying drugs "on the Internet" (read,
>> "from foreign sources or from black-marketeers in the US with a foreign
>> supply"), you're changing the game in mid-stream -- the game being the
>> patent life of the drug. And if it's made legal, that will pretty much
> kill
>> off the introduction of new drugs and crush the pharma industry, except
> for
>> the generics producers. That is, unless the government starts financing
> the
>> whole development process, and nobody wants to go there.
>>
>> You may think that's OK. People who are waiting for new drugs to save
> their
>> lives may disagree. In any case, without the free market in the US and
>> protection from sales coming from overseas, that's the end of the drug
>> business, except for the drugs we already have.
>>
>> I'm not being judgmental about this, only describing the reality. Are we
> on
>> track about how it all works? Competition is not the issue. Life or death
> of
>> new drug development is the issue.
>>
>>>>>>> Prices are artificially high today
>>>>>>> precisely because the providers are guaranteed government payment
>>>>>>> for some part of the service or pharma vended.
>>>>>> How does that explain the fact that health care prices in Europe run
>>>>>> around
>>>>>> 1/2 - 2/3 of ours, even where the government guarantees *all* of the
>>>>>> payment
>>>>>> there?
>>>>> Now compare the depth, completeness, and speed of care here and there.
>>>>> Care can cost more in the U.S. because everyone wants - and mostly
>>>>> gets -
>>>>> instant, very high quality care on-demand. This is decidedly not the
>>>>> case in the socialized systems with which I am most familiar (Canada
> and
>>>>> the UK leap to mind).
>> That doesn't explain why they get better outcomes overall. And they do.
> You
>> can find the studies on PubMed (PubMed Central, if you want to read the
> full
>> articles for free).
>>
>>>>> Also, those European "prices" often to not
>>>>> fairly reflect the actual tax burden associated with them. Something
>>>>> can only be "cheap" or "free" in that world if someone is propping it
>>>>> up with Other People's Money.
>> I'd have to see your sources on that one. All indications are that the
>> accounting is accurate.
>>
>>>> There have been endless studies that show that simply isn't true. Those
>>>> are
>>>> mostly myths. Of course European costs are paid with taxes. But the
>>>> accounting for costs has been done by the best professionals in the
>>>> field.
>>> That doesn't give me a lot of confidence.
>> If you know better, you have a future in debunking a lot of very expensive
>
>> article research.
>>
>>> Government accounting
>>> "professionals" managed to miss the Fannie/Freddie meltdown, the
>>> incorrectly rated CDO debacle, the naked shorting and all the rest we
>>> see today. Government always acts by coercion or the threat of same.
>>> It cannot help therefore but to distort price and therefore market
>>> dynamics. That's why I can buy a hammer for $25 that costs the Air
>>> Force $600.
>> I'll bet their hammer is a lot better than yours. <g> Those stories are
>> always cut short; I tracked down a few of them when I was an editor at
>> _American Machinist_. Those weren't researchers, they were fancy
>> quartermasters.
>>
>>> As to the healthcare on average being inferior in socialized systems,
>>> I had extensive discussions on the matter with a number of my Canadian
>>> relatives working *in* that healthcare delivery system. They all
>>> independently say more-or-less the same thing: If your condition
>>> is life threatening, you will receive adequate or better. In all other
>>> situations you will receive slow, rationed care where in the Big Bad
>>> Government Bureaucracy decides just what- and when you will get.
>>> A goodly number of people with non-life threatening problems like
>>> gall stones, buy travel insurance and manage to have an "attack"
>>> while visiting the U.S. - it's the only way they can get relief
>>> from their suffering in a prompt manner. Other examples abound
>>> in the U.K. system.
>> Then how do they get better results?
>>
>>>>>> Medicare pays only about 80% of what private insurance pays; Medicaid
>>>>>> pays
>>>>>> even less. The price standards are set by private managed-care
>>>>>> insurers,
>>>>>> not
>>>>>> by the government. If it was government-pay only, prices would be at
>>>>>> least
>>>>>> 20% less just by that fact alone. And corporate benefits managers in
>>>>>> Fortune
>>>>>> 500 companies are the ones who are determining the managed-care
> rates.
>>>>> No they wouldn't - the *apparent* price would fall because - like I
>>>>> said -
>>>>> the collectivists never want to express the real cost of burdensome
>>>>> taxation,
>>>>> government bureaucracy, and picking up the tab for the various kinds
>>>>> of self-inflicted wounds so popular among today's professional
> victims.
>>>>> You're an economist (or very well educated therein). You should know
>>>>> this
>>>>> better than anyone: Price is a measure of scarcity that directs
>>>>> resources.
>>>>> Without a fair and transparent market, price/scarcity cannot be
>>>>> ascertained.
>>>>> When government is in charge, it artificially decides what is- and is
>>>>> not
>>>>> scarce and who should get what. This is inefficient, expensive, and
>>>>> ultimately
>>>>> ineffective, at least by comparison to the alternatives.
>>>> <ho!> Economics is one of my two lifelong academic hobbies, the other
>>>> being
>>>> constitutional law, although I did study it some in college. My son is
> a
>>>> senior economics major and math minor, and he's already disgusted with
> my
>>>> inability to follow the econometric models he works with. I don't do
>>>> third-semester calculus or linear algebra. <g>
>>> (That's the fun stuff, though I personally loved the more esoteric
> corners
>>> of systems of differential equations, and much later, computational
>>> theory.
>>> You haven't lived until you've spent a whole weekend doing a single
>>> proof. SWMBO once picked up one of my texts and said, "There is
> literally
>>> nothing in this book I can read, let alone understand" - it was almost
>>> entirely symbolic.)
>> I'm with your SWMBO.
>>
>>>> I'm a writer and editor. Before I went freelance again, I spent five
>>>> years
>>>> in medical editing, winding up as Senior Medical Editor in the managed
>>>> care
>>>> (HMOs, PPOs, Medicare) division of a medical communications company.
> That
>>>> was a full-body immersion in the economics of health care, and I worked
>>>> with
>>>> some top experts in medical economics.
>>>>
>>>> As for competition in the field, of course it would be the best way to
>>>> handle it and is always to be preferred, IMO, if the pieces align to
>>>> produce
>>>> the benefits we all associate with real competition. But, as I said,
>>>> competition is pretty much an illusion in health care. We're the only
>>>> developed country with no price regulation on drugs -- it's a
> free-market
>>>> free-for-all. And we have the highest drug prices in the world, by far.
>>>> It
>>>> seems that people will pay anything they can to prolong their lives.
>>>> That's
>>>> why Europe has lost so much of their pharma infrastructure to the US;
>>>> this
>>>> is where the real money is. Within 25 miles of my house, our clients
>>>> included Pfizer, Sanofi-Aventis, Bayer, Merck, Wyeth, Novartis, and too
>>>> many
>>>> others to list.
>>>
>>> That's why we should *deregulate* things like where people buy their
>>> pharma.
>> See above.
>>
>>> You'd see a big equilibrium in price being established when the
>>> Canadians,
>>> Brits (and other Europeans) realized that by selling pharma to the U.S.
>>> consumer, their own taxpayers would effectively be underwriting the
>>> costs. Nothing forces people into global transparent markets like real
>>> (honest) global competition.
>> No country today is going to start funding drug development costs that
>> they've pawned off onto us for decades. We're the only ones who are
>> ideologically blinded enough to do it. Even the Japanese don't do it.
>>
>>> You also note - perhaps without meaning to - a real downside to
>>> regulation:
>>> It drives out the innovators. Why on earth would a Pfizer or Merck want
>>> to live in the morass of EU regulations when they can stay here,
> innovate,
>>> profit, and do well instead.
>> No reason at all. That's why you pay 3 to 5 times more for drugs here.
> Katie
>> bar the doors, and praise the Lord...this is the promised land for the
>> pharma industry. <g>
>>
>>> This is the central fallacy of the
>>> "healthcare shouldn't be profit motivated" scheme of things. It is one
>>> thing to either legislate or regulate around poor product quality and/
>>> or outright fraud. It is quite another to say "we the villagers with
>>> torches
>>> will take your pills and tell you how much we'll pay for them, if
>>> anything."
>>> Distorting markets creates horrible results whether the distortion stems
>>> from fraud or government meddling - they are equivalent in their general
>>> results.
>> I would never say it *shouldn't* be profit motivated. I *will* say that
>> profit incentives in health care often lead to undesirable results. This
> is
>> one of the situations that Stiglitz described when he wrote about the
>> situations in which normal market incentives don't work, or aren't really
>> present.
>>
>>>>> <SNIP>
>>>>>
>>>>>> You can, however, get much better results by aligning incentives
>>>>>> properly
>>>>>> so
>>>>>> that all health care management is driven toward a goal of providing
>>>>>> better
>>>>>> care for less money. That won't happen as long as the system is
> mostly
>>>>>> private, because the financial incentives for health care insurers,
> for
>>>>>> example, are to deny coverage as much as possible; to pay providers
> as
>>>>>> little as possible; and to exploit the vast statistical and actuarial
>>>>>> complications of health care, along with an advertising and promotion
>>>>>> program in an effective cost benefit ratio, to give the impression of
>>>>>> better
>>>>>> service while actually providing as little as they can get away with.
>>>>>> Financial incentives for other providers in the system are similarly
>>>>>> twisted
>>>>>> and perverted, although the case is most obvious on the insurance
> side.
>>>>> IOW, the only way to fix the incentives is by the point of the
>>>>> government's
>>>>> gun. You want to replace voluntary private sector commercial
>>>>> arrangements
>>>>> with the coercive power of an institution than can't run the DMV
>>>>> properly,
>>>>> can't manage to appoint a cabinet full of people that have all paid
>>>>> their
>>>>> own taxes, can't manage to balance a budget, and mostly works like a
>>>>> large scale version of villagers with torches. Wonderful.
>>>> I'd disagree with your characterization of government. If you want to
> see
>>>> a
>>>> screw-up, you should see the way Sanofi handled the last drug I worked
>>>> on,
>>>> spending $110 million on pre-approval marketing alone, and then having
>>>> the
>>>> drug fail FDA approval -- for a good reason that S-A should have known
>>>> going
>>>> in.
>>> Right, but *I* don't have to pay for their screwups - their shareholders
>>> do.
>> An illusion. Their prices across the board are set to cover such losses.
>> Shareholders took a brief hit on that one (rimonabant), because it was
> such
>> a huge investment. But you and I will pay in the end.
>>
>>> Their shareholders also have the ability to easily get rid of the
>>> bozos in charge of the screwup. That is *not* the case with government.
>> The bozos are still there, as is usually the case.
>>
>>> The majority of the government that pushes us all around is NOT elected.
>>> It is the various flavors of regulators and other appointed civil
> servants
>>> that really run day-to-day government. Short of a very expensive
> lawsuit,
>>> it is essentially impossible to get the BATF, EPA, IRS, DEA, FDA, BLM,
> and
>>> all
>>> the rest of the alphabet soup of government to back off when they are
>>> wrong.
>>> When the private sector is wrong is fails and either adjusts or
>>> permanently
>>> disappears (unless they have a kindly idiot President bailing them out
>>> of their own sins). When government fails, it just spends more money
>>> doing more of the same - there is no meaningful feedback loop for most
> of
>>> government. I'd guess that in an average year, the government screws
>>> up a lot more, bigger, and with more money than the vast bulk of
>>> private sector.
>> I'll bet we read the same Civics textbook. I think that one is out of
> print.
>> <g>
>>
>> I have to say that you've made your point of view clear, Tim, and I agree
>> with most of it in principle. But principles often get in the way of
>> actually seeing what's going on. The reality often doesn't agree with the
>> ideology, and that's clearly the case with health care.
>>
>> As I said, competition would be great, if we were talking about plows or
>> electricity production or automobile tires. But it doesn't work without
>> regulation in many cases. And in the case of healthcare, just getting the
>> incentives aligned to benefit the consumer has been beyond anyone's
> ability
>> for a very long time.
>>
>> I don't know the anwer, but I've worked in the industry and I know it's a
>> train wreck.
>>
>>>
>>>>
>>>>>> That's not to say health care providers are so cynical that they're
>>>>>> driven
>>>>>> only by money, or that they'll always grab the opportunity to
> deceive.
>>>>>> I
>>>>>> worked in that industry long enough to know better. But if financial
>>>>>> incentives are pulling one way and ethical incentives are pulling in
> a
>>>>>> different way, ethical considerations are going to lose some, if not
>>>>>> most,
>>>>>> of the battles. In the end, profit is the most demanding incentive,
> and
>>>>>> the
>>>>>> ways to achieve it are mostly counter-productive to the goal of
> better
>>>>>> and
>>>>>> more cost-efficient care. As the system is structured now, there is
> no
>>>>>> benefit to coming up with a solution that's 95% as good, but at half
>>>>>> the
>>>>>> price. Only killing 5 people out of 100 is not a good advertising
>>>>>> slogan
>>>>>> in
>>>>>> the health care business.
>>>>> Again, you fail to make the comparison with the alternative. The
>>>>> government has *no* respect for ethics - only power. The government
>>>>> innately works for the "group not the individual - I can think of
>>>>> no more terrifying place to apply this than healthcare: "Since, on
>>>>> average,
>>>>> people your age don't get strokes, we're not obligated to do much
> about
>>>>> yours." The government operates by compromise not principle and it
> will
>>>>> always be worse, therefore, than the most debauched profit-motivated
>>>>> private sector actor (except those that act fraudulently).
>>>> The relative success of other countries' systems suggests that is so
> much
>>>> bunk. I worked in the health care industry. I have no faith in its
>>>> structure
>>>> of motivations, incentives, or results, taken as a whole. The system,
> as
>>>> it
>>>> really works, doesn't give a damn about you -- unless you have a lot of
>>>> money, in which case you're all set.
>>> Given a serious medical condition that required state-of-the art
>>> skills, tools, and practitioners, would you prefer to be treated
>>> in the U.S. or in one of the collectivist nirvannas you cite?
>> If you're paying, I'll get treated in the US, at the finest hospital,
>> please, and with a private room and nice looking nurses. <g>
>>
>>
>>>>>> Whether the system is mostly private or mostly government-run matters
>>>>>> much
>>>>>> less than how well the incentives can be aligned with the goals of
>>>>>> producing
>>>>>> the best service at the lowest cost. Unlike most industries, health
>>>>>> care
>>>>>> is
>>>>>> inherently resistant to the benefits of competition, for the reasons
> I
>>>>>> cited
>>>>>> above. It isn't that competition and beneficial incentive structures
>>>>>> are
>>>>>> impossible; it's just that no one has figured out how to accomplish
>>>>>> them.
>>>>> Wal-Mart has. Some of my local drugstore chains have.
>>>> Right. For flu shots and blood pressure testing, and to dispense cheap,
>>>> 50-year-old drugs whose patents have long expired.
>>> I have direct experience with a family member that belies this. I
>>> watched the corner cheapo clinic diagnose a family member with
>>> a life threatening condition that precipitated hospital care
>>> and saved the person's life. No, the cheapo clinic didn't have
>>> the resources to treat the problem, but as a first line of triage -
>>> where so much cost is sunk today - they did just fine, and for only
>>> a few hundred dollars.
>>>
>>> As I said above, you need generalists, specialists, and so on all in
>>> the medical ecosystem. Smith's Pin Factory example leaps to mind...
>> I don't disagree with that. In fact, that's what we have. And we still
> have
>> a broken system.
>>
>>>>> The freestanding
>>>>> "quicky clinic" on the corner has. The real problem here in IL is
> that
>>>>> the liability laws are insane and are driving medical practitioners
> out
>>>>> of
>>>>> the state. When a newly minted Ob/Gyn has to pay upwards of a half
>>>>> million
>>>>> dollars (give or take) per year for liability insurance, it's hard to
>>>>> keep those folks in state.
>>>> That's the free market for you. Nobody is regulating tort lawyers. It's
> a
>>>> free-enterprise system, with a democratic selection of juries. d8-)
>>>>
>>>> Now, if the quicky clinic was so bold as to get into the riskier
> aspects
>>>> of
>>>> medicine, they wouldn't be so cheap. But ask for an arterial stent and
>>>> they'll send you away.
>>>>
>>> The whole tort thing is really troublesome. On the one hand you
>>> want people truly harmed to have redress. On the other, it's become
>>> a get-rich-quick scheme for unscrupulous lawyers and stupid sheeple.
>>> I would also point out that the problem is largely not the
>>> judges, it is the *juries*. Having served on a criminal jury, I shudder
>>> at the thought of ever being at a jury's mercy in either criminal or
>>> civil court.
>> It's true that many cases anger juries (or anyone) so much that they want
> to
>> hit the doctor or the hospital really hard, to punish rather than to
>> compensate. That's a fundamental issue with torts in the US today.
>>
>> But there are some misconceptions here, too. If you just look at the sum
> of
>> awards in the country for medical malpractice in a year, the amount is
>> trivial. It's the insurance that's outrageous. I started to read an
> analysis
>> of this once but I never finished it. I really don't fully understand
> what's
>> going on.
>>
>> BTW, I forget to post a URL in the last message that succinctly explains
> the
>> role of the Fortune 500 companies in bargaining for better health
> insurance
>> at lower prices. It's one of the few instances in health care in which
>> competition really works. And the standards set by employer policies
>> influence the other private insurance policies, and have some influence on
>> rates. Here's the article:
>>
>>
> http://www.insurancerate.com/177-health-insurance-big-corporations-use.html
>> But its future is uncertain. Among companies with 200 or more employees,
> 98%
>> still offer health insurance, although with an increasing percentage of
>> employee contribution.
>>
>> If you really want to dig into it, here's a lengthy 2006 report from the
>> Kaiser Family Foundation. We used this report when I was editing medical
>> material. Note Exhibit E on page 4:
>>
>> http://www.kff.org/insurance/7527/upload/7527.pdf
>>
>> --
>> Ed Huntress
>
>
> I don't think you're getting anywhere, Ed. This guy doesn't seem to have any
> notion of what just happened when we had a government that did just the sort
> of things he's advocating. Deregulation, small government, free market
> solutions to every problem, privatization. The last administration did
> everything it could to do just what he's recommending and the result is that
> this country is a disaster scene. It makes me wonder how could he be
> recommending this shit when it was just tried and it failed so completely.
> It just goes to show you that no matter how good one is at math that doesn't
> mean you know shit about anything else. Which he just proved. Keep sending
> your troops over open ground to face machine gun fire Tim. Just because it
> failed over and over doesn't mean you shouldn't keep doing it. That's right
> wing thinking at its best.
>
> Hawke
>
>

<It is not necessary to become angry to the point of spitting when
disagreeing with people. Disagreeing agreeably is called "being an adult".>

1) I'm an not now, nor have I ever been right wing.
2) The problems you describe were not caused by markets or a lack of regulation.
They were caused by a *lack* of markets (like bailing out badly run
companies", too *much* government interference in the business
cycle, and grotesque amounts of government deficit spending for
over 60 years.
3) Markets and small government are not discredited ideas. They are
misunderstood ideas.
4) Personal attacks demonstrate you have no real argument.

--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Daneliuk [email protected]
PGP Key: http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/

Upscale wrote:
>
> "Lew Hodgett" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> > > bar ~ You know, the necessities in life.
> >
> > Does 50 miles due north of Toronto qualify?<G>
>
> Apologies, I should have qualified that a little further. My ideal location
> would preclude snow of any type, in any season unless it's the local hockey
> rink. Something temperate, you know, not too hot, not too cold...
>
> Money being in relatively unlimited supply after winning a 50 million dollar
> lottery, I've considered where I'd move to, probably somewhere in the US,
> but that's also problematic. I've considered Kansas since it really is
> supposed to be flatter than a pancake (since I hate hills so much), but
> they've got tornados. Then there's Florida, but they get hurricanes and
> flooding.


Florida gets some rare snowfalls, too. As far south as Orlando. It
was cold enough for a couple weeks for it to snow this last winter in
Ocala, but it was too dry.


--
You can't have a sense of humor, if you have no sense!

"Curious Man" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> There seems to be a stereotype that "liberals" are the lazy sorts of
> people who interrupt TV viewing only to go to soup lines, or smoke
> harmful substances, whereas "conservatives" are hard working, self
> reliant people who are very well off due to their own perseverance and
> work ethic.
>
> And yet, the few self proclaimed or suspected liberals and Obama
> supporters of this newsgroup, seem to be very well off, accomplished
> people, whereas many conservatives, while intelligent and interesting
> people on many levels, are not exactly above that kind of level of
> attainment.
>
> If that is the case, is that perhaps the time to reconsider our
> stereotypes?
>
> Curious Man

If you want some interesting thoughts, you might want to ask conservatives
what they think a conservative is, and liberals what a liberal is. That
should be much more interesting than asking either group to consider what
the opposing ideology is.

To the degree that they're in opposition, their answers probably will have
nothing to do with the historical meanings of either idea, but it would be a
refreshing change from listening to them demonize each other. They might
even be surprised to learn that neither idea has much to do with the other,
or to opposing each other, but that's a lot to ask.

--
Ed Huntress

"cavelamb" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> krw wrote:
>> On Thu, 4 Jun 2009 22:12:43 +0000 (UTC), Curious Man
>> <[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>>> There seems to be a stereotype that "liberals" are the lazy sorts of
>>> people who interrupt TV viewing only to go to soup lines, or smoke
>>> harmful substances, whereas "conservatives" are hard working, self
>>> reliant people who are very well off due to their own perseverance and
>>> work ethic.
>>>
>>> And yet, the few self proclaimed or suspected liberals and Obama
>>> supporters of this newsgroup, seem to be very well off, accomplished
>>> people, whereas many conservatives, while intelligent and interesting
>>> people on many levels, are not exactly above that kind of level of
>>> attainment.
>>
>> Show us your data. IOW, you're talking out your a$$.
>>
>>> If that is the case, is that perhaps the time to reconsider our
>>> stereotypes?
>>
>> Perhaps you should reconsider yours.
>
> i think what he is saying is that your stereotypes should be the
> same as his...

More likely what he would have said, had he not been so polite, is that the
people who identify themselves at either end of the spectrum are out of
their minds. And, of course, he would be correct. d8-)

--
Ed Huntress

Curious Man wrote:
> There seems to be a stereotype that "liberals" are the lazy sorts of
> people who interrupt TV viewing only to go to soup lines, or smoke
> harmful substances, whereas "conservatives" are hard working, self
> reliant people who are very well off due to their own perseverance and
> work ethic.
>
> And yet, the few self proclaimed or suspected liberals and Obama
> supporters of this newsgroup, seem to be very well off, accomplished
> people, whereas many conservatives, while intelligent and interesting
> people on many levels, are not exactly above that kind of level of
> attainment.
>
> If that is the case, is that perhaps the time to reconsider our
> stereotypes?

I've always thought that "conservative" meant "not in favor of changing
some established norm"; and that "liberal" indicated a willingness to
try new approaches...

I had a seventh grade teacher who gave my class some interesting
guidance: "I don't want you to have closed minds, nor do I want you to
have open minds," he said, "I want you to have /openable/ minds - to
hold to what you know to be true, and to be prepared to replace the old
ideas when you gave good reason to /decide/ that something is more true
or works better."

Does that make one a conservative liberal or a liberal conservative? :)

--
Morris Dovey
DeSoto Solar
DeSoto, Iowa USA
http://www.iedu.com/DeSoto/

"Doug Winterburn" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> Morris Dovey wrote:
>> Curious Man wrote:
>>> There seems to be a stereotype that "liberals" are the lazy sorts of
>>> people who interrupt TV viewing only to go to soup lines, or smoke
>>> harmful substances, whereas "conservatives" are hard working, self
>>> reliant people who are very well off due to their own perseverance and
>>> work ethic.
>>>
>>> And yet, the few self proclaimed or suspected liberals and Obama
>>> supporters of this newsgroup, seem to be very well off, accomplished
>>> people, whereas many conservatives, while intelligent and interesting
>>> people on many levels, are not exactly above that kind of level of
>>> attainment.
>>>
>>> If that is the case, is that perhaps the time to reconsider our
>>> stereotypes?
>>
>> I've always thought that "conservative" meant "not in favor of changing
>> some established norm"; and that "liberal" indicated a willingness to
>> try new approaches...
>>
>> I had a seventh grade teacher who gave my class some interesting
>> guidance: "I don't want you to have closed minds, nor do I want you to
>> have open minds," he said, "I want you to have /openable/ minds - to
>> hold to what you know to be true, and to be prepared to replace the old
>> ideas when you gave good reason to /decide/ that something is more true
>> or works better."
>>
>> Does that make one a conservative liberal or a liberal conservative? :)
>>
> a difference in the meaning of "equality" - equal opportunity vs equal
> outcome.

As should be clear from the last half-century of debates about human rights,
that's a false dichotomy. It's another 18th-century Enlightenment conceit
that sounds good in theory, and that helps maintain the logic of (classical)
liberal thought, but it falls apart in practice.

I liked the analogy made by someone back when affirmative action was first
being discussed, around 1970 or so. He said that breaking down legal
barriers to employment opportunity was like telling someone who had been
chained up for 20 years that, now that his chains were removed, he is
expected to compete in a 100-yard dash on an equal basis. "Now, go run, and
no more complaints from you," it says.

--
Ed Huntress

"Drew Lawson" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> In article <[email protected]>
> Morris Dovey <[email protected]> writes:
>>
>>Does that make one a conservative liberal or a liberal conservative? :)
>>
>
> I've long prefered the phrase from a comic strip (maybe B.C.) that
> was reprinted in one of my textbooks:
> a radical middle-of-the-roader

"Radical centrist" and the "radical middle" are developing political ideas
that show up in all sorts of contexts. It's part of the "Third Way" group of
political philosophies but it largely rejects the idea of the center as a
compromise position. It works more as a synthesis than a compromise, to the
degree that it does work.

Some people would consider Clinton to be a Third Way politician who
triangulates conflicts to arrive at a balance that mollifies conflict. By
that light Obama is more of a radical centrist, a pragmatist who is focused
more on what should work rather than what will satisfy conflicts, which is
why he pisses off the left almost as often as he pisses off the right. He's
trying to glue it all together by means of rhetorical skill and sharp
political maneuvering.

--
Ed Huntress

"Tim Daneliuk" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> Too_Many_Tools wrote:
>> On Jun 8, 1:22 am, Tim Daneliuk <[email protected]> wrote:
>>> Robatoy wrote:
>>>> On Jun 7, 10:17 pm, "HeyBub" <[email protected]> wrote:
>>>>> . The thing the Republicans supported - in the
>>>>> last administration - was less than a trillion ($837 billion if I
>>>>> recall
>>>>> correctly).
>>>> ...and made most of it disappear.
>>> So much unlike the nearly $4T Our Dear Leader at present a flushed in
>>> less than 6 months.
>>>
>>> --
>>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>> Tim Daneliuk [email protected]
>>> PGP Key: http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/
>>
>> LOL...another winger who would like to live The Great Bush Depression.
>>
>> What's the matter? Disappointed that Obama hasn't fixed in a 100 days
>> what Bush screwed up in EIGHT years?
>>
>> TMT
>
> Bush's administration tried to warn the Congress there was a big problem
> (repeatedly). It is the liberal Democrats that had their fingers in
> their ears screaming "la la la". Moreover, even if it was all W's
> fault (it isn't) the absolute worst thing that Obama could have done
> was to enter upon the profligate spending plan he followed. You don't
> quit heroin by taking more heroin. You don't fix an economy over
> leveraged with more debt.

Just curious, Tim, and with no pre-judgment, but what's your background in
economics?

--
Ed Huntress

"Tim Daneliuk" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> Ed Huntress wrote:
>> "Tim Daneliuk" <[email protected]> wrote in message
>> news:[email protected]...
>>> Too_Many_Tools wrote:
>>>> On Jun 8, 1:22 am, Tim Daneliuk <[email protected]> wrote:
>>>>> Robatoy wrote:
>>>>>> On Jun 7, 10:17 pm, "HeyBub" <[email protected]> wrote:
>>>>>>> . The thing the Republicans supported - in the
>>>>>>> last administration - was less than a trillion ($837 billion if I
>>>>>>> recall
>>>>>>> correctly).
>>>>>> ...and made most of it disappear.
>>>>> So much unlike the nearly $4T Our Dear Leader at present a flushed in
>>>>> less than 6 months.
>>>>>
>>>>> --
>>>>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>> Tim Daneliuk [email protected]
>>>>> PGP Key: http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/
>>>> LOL...another winger who would like to live The Great Bush Depression.
>>>>
>>>> What's the matter? Disappointed that Obama hasn't fixed in a 100 days
>>>> what Bush screwed up in EIGHT years?
>>>>
>>>> TMT
>>> Bush's administration tried to warn the Congress there was a big problem
>>> (repeatedly). It is the liberal Democrats that had their fingers in
>>> their ears screaming "la la la". Moreover, even if it was all W's
>>> fault (it isn't) the absolute worst thing that Obama could have done
>>> was to enter upon the profligate spending plan he followed. You don't
>>> quit heroin by taking more heroin. You don't fix an economy over
>>> leveraged with more debt.
>>
>> Just curious, Tim, and with no pre-judgment, but what's your background
>> in
>> economics?
>>
>> --
>> Ed Huntress
>>
>>
>
> What I know about economics I learned from Adam Smith, F.A. Hayek,
> Hazlitt, and
> Friedman. I also learned a lot of negative things about economics
> watching
> politicians (on all sides) tap dance around Reality.

Aha. Those are all good ones, although, if you actually read them, you
probably recognize that many of their fundamental philosophies have fallen
pretty badly in practice. For example, Friedman's theory is that the dollar
should now be trading for a very a small fraction of its current price on
world markets. He'd be scratching his head over all of the money we've been
printing for over six months with no signs of inflation. Smith would have
been appalled at the idea of letting financiers self-regulate. Hazlitt had
the unfortunate circumstance (for him) of writing about how government
deficit spending was the road to perdition, even as the US economy was
getting its biggest boost in history, and quickly reached unprecedented
levels of production, from history's enormous, and equally unprecedented,
deficit-spending spree and make-work project: World War 2. Our national debt
soared to more than twice as much as a percentage of GDP as it is now, and
the debt was paid off in less than a decade. In economics terms, that was
deficit spending and make-work all the way. The fact that the output was
economically useless -- exploded shells, sunken ships -- only further proves
the point.

All of those writers were excellent theorists and contributed a great deal
to what we know about economics. But they represent less than half of
current understanding. If you haven't read the others, from Keynes to
Schumpeter to Galbraith (a minor one, but important to understand money and
oligopolies), to Stiglitz, you'll have a one-sided view that's based on
comfortable-sounding theories that have, for the most part, been little
supported in actual practice. Their logic is great. Their ability to
predict, however, sucks in a major way.

You could get a job at George Mason University, though, or Loyola, and join
the last remaining covens of the Austrian School. <g>

BTW, congratulations for reading Smith. I hardly know anyone else who has.
I've gone through my 1072-page two-volume set twice, which probably is a
sign of an ill-spent youth, but it's worth it just to be able to explain to
right-wing cranks what foolish impressions they have about _The Wealth of
Nations_. Smith assumed that economic activity had to be regulated, or greed
would run the show. It's too bad that Greenspan didn't take him to heart.

--
Ed Huntress

"Tim Daneliuk" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...

<snip>

>>>>
>>> What I know about economics I learned from Adam Smith, F.A. Hayek,
>>> Hazlitt, and
>>> Friedman. I also learned a lot of negative things about economics
>>> watching
>>> politicians (on all sides) tap dance around Reality.
>>
>> Aha. Those are all good ones, although, if you actually read them, you
>> probably recognize that many of their fundamental philosophies have
>> fallen
>> pretty badly in practice. For example, Friedman's theory is that the
>> dollar
>> should now be trading for a very a small fraction of its current price on
>> world markets. He'd be scratching his head over all of the money we've
>> been
>> printing for over six months with no signs of inflation. Smith would have
>
> I'd argue that this is hysteresis in the system and that we will see
> massive inflation down the road. I *really* hope I'm wrong.

We'll have inflation when the economy picks up and there's a lag in cutting
back on the overhang of dollars in circulation. The trick is to get the
timing as close to right as possible, or inflation will spiral upward -- the
"hysteresis" you're referring to. It's not built-in. It depends on policy.

Meantime, we're in a liquidity trap, exacerbated by banks hanging onto their
new free money, tucking it away back in their Fed accounts or sitting on it
to build up their reserves. Velocity is a fraction of its normal level.
Thus, no inflation now. There's plenty of money but it's all tied up and not
circulating. We actually have had a touch of deflation, even with all of the
money-printing going on.

But without the stimulus money now, there will be no inflation later,
either. Because companies don't invest when they don't have prospects of
growing sales. We'll be in a Hooverian stall, like Japan has been in for
over a decade. That's the reality of what a Hayek, a Hazlitt, or a
Friedman's prescription has to offer us. They wouldn't have believed that a
liquidity trap is possible with all of the money being printed. Their jaws
would be hanging down around their knees about now. Something has to
kick-start consumption. Business can't budge because of the shortage of
credit, and wouldn't budge if it had the credit, because consumption is
declining as they keep firing more workers. Without a kick-start, we'll
spend a decade or more sitting here with our thumbs up our butts and
insufficient growth, like the Japanese have been experiencing.

John Carroll wants to let them go bankrupt to free up the capital. But I'd
need to see some numbers before I'd believe that there is a lot of capital
to free up. Non-bank financial institutions are trying to de-leverage now
but their leverage ratios were so high, at 35:1 or better, that it looks on
the surface as if there would be damned little capital to free up, after all
of the defaults. And the GMs etc. are tangled in financial dependencies that
I haven't tried to follow, so I'm not sure what we'd really free up by
letting them just liquidate, either.

>
>> been appalled at the idea of letting financiers self-regulate. Hazlitt
>> had
>> the unfortunate circumstance (for him) of writing about how government
>> deficit spending was the road to perdition, even as the US economy was
>> getting its biggest boost in history, and quickly reached unprecedented
>> levels of production, from history's enormous, and equally unprecedented,
>> deficit-spending spree and make-work project: World War 2. Our national
>> debt
>
> Noted, but it has to be said that this was money directed (for war
> reasons)
> at projects that had enduring value after the war: roads, machinery,
> manufacturing, and so forth. This is very much unlike the social justice
> spending and pork projects that are the hallmark of this administration.

I don't believe that's the case. Regardless, we're talking about the
benefits of huge government expenditures to get the economy moving. You're
saying there are good expenditures, and bad ones. Your economics gurus say
that they're all bad. Obviously, based on the WWII example, that's utter
nonsense, the most obtuse variety of intentional blindness, of allowing
doctrine to overcome what they could see with their own eyes if they looked.
Those gurus of yours are *all* doctrinal ideologues. It's an appealing way
for smart economists to spend their lives, because it allows them to concoct
brilliant-sounding theories and to achieve fame and glory. Just don't try to
implement the nonsense they write about.

>
>> soared to more than twice as much as a percentage of GDP as it is now,
>> and
>> the debt was paid off in less than a decade. In economics terms, that was
>
> It's helpful when you win a big war.

In economics terms, a big war is a huge sinkhole for wealth. However, like
other vast government-spending projects, they *can*, under ideal
circumstances, create the conditions necessary for *future* wealth. Which is
exactly what our government is trying to do now.

>
>> deficit spending and make-work all the way. The fact that the output was
>> economically useless -- exploded shells, sunken ships -- only further
>> proves
>> the point.
>
> But it wasn't useless. It created a reusable infrastructure that carried
> us
> well into the 1980s in some cases.

True. But doing it with government spending in a downturn is a corollary of
Keynesian economics, not of Hayek or Friedman. And some of the best examples
are things that Obama is trying to implement now -- vastly improved
education, and pump-priming basic scientific research.

> The actual work product was ultimately
> destroyed, but so too is a new Chevy - it just takes longer.

The "wealth" in a new Chevy is the use-value over time, which can be five or
even ten years of use. The wealth in a bomb ends when you drop it.

As Smith said, the wealth of a nation is the total value of its productive
output over a given period of time -- typically, a year. But there is value
to consumers, beyond that national wealth. In the case of a durable good
useable for many years, the value is the cumulative use-value over its
lifetime. So Chevies add more to the cumulative wealth of an economy than
bombs. But, according to Smith, and the point that was his greatest insight,
our ability to pay for those Chevies is solely dependent on the *rate* at
which we're producing output. Thus, Obama's desperate push to get output
going in a positive direction.

> The
> individual artifacts may have been economically useless but a
> wealth creation engine was brought into being.

Very true. And that's the reason to stimulate the engine, when it's sitting
on its heels and hamstrung by a lack of credit and prospects for growing
markets.

>
> Note also that Hayek warned what would happen if the West didn't
> back off its collectivist regulated economies after the war -
> and then we all went off and did an experiment. Europe kept trying
> to manage its economies, Easter Europe doing so with considerable
> force. The U.S. threw off the shackles more-or-less as Hayek
> suggested. Canada, NZ, and Australia ended up somewhere between
> these two options. Guess who won the economic war? Hayek was
> both predictive and, as it turned out, entirely correct.

As you said, we had the benefit of having won a war, without destruction of
our infrastructure, and we had started the whole thing with an economy
geared for consumption as well as production. When the Depression came to an
end, the consumption doors blew open again within a few years.

And then, as they rebuilt, Europe and Japan caught up -- making Hayek's
predictions moot, if not outright wrong. The Austrian School economists only
look good if you ignore about half of what's happened in the world. <g>

>
>>
>> All of those writers were excellent theorists and contributed a great
>> deal
>> to what we know about economics. But they represent less than half of
>> current understanding. If you haven't read the others, from Keynes to
>> Schumpeter to Galbraith (a minor one, but important to understand money
>> and
>> oligopolies), to Stiglitz, you'll have a one-sided view that's based on
>> comfortable-sounding theories that have, for the most part, been little
>> supported in actual practice. Their logic is great. Their ability to
>> predict, however, sucks in a major way.
>>
>> You could get a job at George Mason University, though, or Loyola, and
>> join
>> the last remaining covens of the Austrian School. <g>
>>
>> BTW, congratulations for reading Smith. I hardly know anyone else who
>> has.
>> I've gone through my 1072-page two-volume set twice, which probably is a
>> sign of an ill-spent youth, but it's worth it just to be able to explain
>> to
>> right-wing cranks what foolish impressions they have about _The Wealth of
>> Nations_. Smith assumed that economic activity had to be regulated, or
>> greed
>> would run the show. It's too bad that Greenspan didn't take him to heart.
>>
>> --
>> Ed Huntress
>>
>>
>
> Honesty compels me to admid that my study of Smith was limited to
> listening to a series of lectures that summarized WON.

No problem. I suspected that was the case. I've known dozens of people who
cite Smith in discussions about economics, but I only know two people
besides myself who have actually read _The Wealth of Nations_. Most people
have better things to do. <g>

> I keep meaning
> to go back and read the whole thing from cover to cover, but other
> reading intervenes. In the mean time, I've sampled bits of him here
> and there.

Try to sneak it into your life. He was a very wise old guy, much wiser than
the Cliff's Notes version suggests. But he was as tedious as an old Scottish
academic, which, of course, he was.

>
> I would take some issue with your claim that the Austrians are not
> well supported by practice. Because ... *no* economic school is well
> supported by practice nor do any of them do a great job of macro
> prediction.

I agree. That's why I don't do "schools." I try to read both sides.

> FDR's New (bad) Deal is cited as a victory for Keynes,
> for instance. But in reality, it was the industrialization for
> war that bailed him out of the Depression.

Right. The current thinking is that FDR lost his nerve, or political power
to keep it going, in 1935 - 36, and the whole economy took a huge setback.
That's what Obama is trying to avoid. If you follow Krugman, he'll tell
you -- and he's one of the best econometricians on this subject -- that
Obama hasn't done nearly enough. Politically, he can't. My fear is that
Krugman is right.

> It wasn't some kind
> of profligate Obama-like government spending on random activities
> that did it.

Right. It was some perfectly managed government spending on desert boots,
artillery primers, and jungle-packed cigarettes. Nothing random or
profligate. Nosirree...<g>

>
> I also stipulate that some regulation to prevent fraud or force
> is appropriate. But the intention is not to prevent greed, the
> intention is to prevent theft.

I think the idea is that greed justifies some astonishing things in the
minds of the greedy. Including theft.

> I am happy to see the greediest
> capitalist pigs get fabulously wealthy so long as they don't
> cheat people or - just as bad - do it with tax money.

And the lions shall lie down with the lambs -- and eat them. d8-)

--
Ed Huntress