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Uhh, the source was linked in his post. It is about electricity generation as well - and breaks it all down. Now, if you want to attribute 100% of all foreign war spending to "fossil fuels", go ahead - but that is highly disingenuous at best, given the other reasons for war (profit, currency stabilization, democratization, etc.); if that was the case, explain Syria, Bosnia, Afghanistan, Somalia, Haiti, and most of the places we've intervened. Looking at how much we spend for those sources, it's clear that wind has a shot at becoming viable, but solar is still a long ways away from being economically self-sufficient.

low-information taxpayers who have never figured out how little they spend subsidizing renewables, and how much they spend subsidizing oil, gas, and coal.

The subsidy on oil and gas, if attributed entirely to gasoline alone, works out to about 2.3 cents per gallon. Even if you take the high estimates some people like to use (which includes things like low income assistance to purchase home heating oil), it works out to about 10 cents per gallon. The Federal fuel tax on gasoline is 18.4 cents per gallon, plus about 30 cents per gallon at the state and local level. So there's no net subsidy for fossil fuels. Rather there's a huge tax on it (albeit not as big as in other countries). Huge enough to more than swamp out the coal subsidies (which are only about 1/4 that of oil and gas subsidies).

So low-information or not, they're still right. The people complaining about the "huge" subsidies fossil fuels get always look at total dollar amounts. The total amount is huge because the vast majority of our energy is still derived from fossil fuels. If you instead look at the subsidy per unit of energy generated (i.e. how much the subsidy skews the price, depending on the energy source), you can see how massive renewable subsidies are compared to fossil fuels and nuclear.

There's nothing wrong with this - you want to subsidize technologies you wish to develop more quickly. But arguing rewewables subsidies are underfunded compared to fossil fuels based on total dollar amount is just plain ignorant. It's like complaining that California gets $4 billion in federal highway funding while Wyoming only gets $360 million. It's not because Wyoming is being short-changed, it's because California has a lot more roads (and cars) than Wyoming. The proper comparison in that case would be federal highway dollars per mile of road (or perhaps miles driven on said roads). Just like the proper comparison for energy subsidies is per kWh or per megajoule.

the other is put into separate accounts and you are entitled to get this back when you get old

You really don't have any clue how SS works, do you?

That line item on your W2 goes to SS recipients today.

There is nothing to "get... back when you get old." If you're young (under 40-ish), there's basically 0% chance you're ever going to receive a single dime from SS. Just doing a random DuckDuckGo search gives me an estimate by the National Center for Policy Analysis that SS will be bankrupt in 2033.

I won't be eligible under current SS regulations until some time after 2045/2050 or so to get anything "back" (because I'm not getting anything "back," I'd be getting it from young people's paychecks then), and even then they're always raising the age. It'll probably be 90 before somebody born when I was can claim benefits. Well, I might get a dime or two if I can live as long as my great-grandmother. I'm getting bupkis if I only live as long as the other side of the family.

SS is not a 401(k). It's not a retirement plan. It's not a savings account. It's a scam. At the very least, I should be able to put the money in my 401(k) instead of supporting the "great" generation. Yeah, "great" all right. Great at stealing from me, and great at being completely irresponsible with their retirement and dependent on Old Folks' UBI! (OMG Socialism!) Also a good reason to vote Libertarian. Fuck the "great" generation and their "socialism for me and fuck all for you."

You see the problem here?

• Geothermal's subsidy costs about twice as much (1.25 cents/kWh).
• Wind's subsidy is nearly 9x more expensive (5.25 cents/kWh).
• Solar's subsidy is 161x more expensive than nuclear's cleanup costs (96.8 cents/kWh).

The long-term cost of the mishap could top $2 billion, an amount roughly in the range of the cleanup after the 1979 partial meltdown at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania.

Three Mile Island has been operating since 1974 generating on average 6645 GWh of electricity each year (yes it's still operating). At the U.S. average of 11.5 cents/kWh, that's $764.2 million/yr worth of electricity. Over it's 42 year history, that would be $32.1 billion worth of electricity generated by the plant.

So the $2 billion to clean up the partial meltdown of TMI reactor #2 amounted to an extra 11.5 * 2 / 32.1 = 0.72 cents per kWh.

Now consider that TMI was the only major commercial nuclear accident in U.S. history, and nuclear power in the U.S. has generated 24,196,167 GWh between 1971-2015. Then the $2 billion cost to clean up TMI works out to just 0.0083 cents per kWh.

Now consider that mdsolar's favored solar receives a subsidy of 96.8 cents per kWh. Or in other words, per unit of energy generated, the subsidy for solar is 11,711x more expensive than cleaning up TMI was.

Competition keeps prices low. Gasoline is much cheaper where there are multiple gas stations competing for customers on the basis of price. Right now there are multiple health insurance companies competing for my business on the basis of low premiums and good customer service. A lot of discipline is imposed on these companies when they have to operate efficiently in order to not lose market share to competitors.

Competition, in fact, is the only thing that has ever caused healthcare costs to decrease. As the National Center for Policy Analysis points out,

Patients don't bother to shop for medical care, and doctors don't advertise their prices because nearly 90 percent of patients' tabs are paid with other people's money. However, when patients pay their own medical bills, they act like normal consumers -- comparing prices and looking for value. And when patients act like prudent consumers, doctors who want their patronage must respond by competing on prices, convenience and other amenities.

Consider cosmetic surgery, one of the few areas of medicine where consumers pay out of pocket. The inflation-adjusted price of cosmetic medicine actually fell over the past two decades -- despite a huge increase in demand and considerable innovation... Wherever there is price competition, quality competition tends to follow. Take corrective eye surgery. From 1999 (when eye doctors began performing Lasik in volume) through 2011, the price of conventional Lasik fell about one-quarter due to intense competition. Eye surgeons who wanted to differentiate themselves from other surgeons, and charge more, began to provide more advanced Custom Wavefront Lasik technology using IntraLase (a laser-created flap). By 2011, the average price per eye for doctors performing Custom Lasik was about what conventional Lasik had been more than a decade earlier; but the quality is far better. Occasionally an eye surgeon will offer a daily deal at half this price.

One criticism skeptics often voice in discussions about fostering patient consumerism is that a patient having a heart attack is not in a position to shop for the cheapest cardiac care from the back of an ambulance taking him to the emergency room. Few people would disagree. But only about $1 out of $20 is spent on patients who enter the health care system through the emergency room door.

Consider the experience of an insured patient whose doctor orders an abdominal CT scan. Receiving this service at a hospital outpatient department could cost the patient (or her health plan) nearly $3,000 depending on whether the patient's deductible has been met. Yet this same service is available outside the hospital at a medical imaging center for prices that are often 85 percent less. Few health plans provide the tools for enrollees to compare prices and few patients have an incentive to ask about prices.

Doctors and hospitals don't quote prices and don't compete on price because most patients are largely insulated from the adverse effects of not making price comparisons and acting like consumers. Both economic studies and common sense confirm that people do not shop carefully and prudently when someone else is picking up the tab. The contrast between cosmetic surgery and other medical services is important. One sector has a competitive marketplace and stable prices. The other does not. The medical marketplace should work more like the market for cosmetic surgery.

I've asked the question many times, and no one has ever been able to explain how a single-payer system, with no competitors, would not eventually incur much higher costs because it has turned into a bloated bureaucracy that delivers rotten healthcare -- like that which our veterans get from the VA -- and operates as inefficiently as a DMV.

http://www.ncpa.org/pub/ba649

http://www.ncpa.org/pub/ba596

https://riffenberg.wordpress.c...

http://mjperry.blogspot.com/20...

http://talkbusiness.net/2009/0...

http://www.ncpa.org/pub/ba649

http://www.ncpa.org/pub/ba596

https://riffenberg.wordpress.c...

http://mjperry.blogspot.com/20...

http://talkbusiness.net/2009/0...

You and Arthur Laffer have both provided cogent descriptions of the same thing: the "Poverty Trap."

when those in poverty do go to work, they are effectively subject to extra, higher, marginal tax rates. Since welfare is phased out as income rises, the loss of benefits is economically the same as a tax on rising earnings.

Take the example of someone in poverty who receives $12,000 a year in welfare benefits and gets an offer for a job earning $16,000 a year.

- She will lose 50 cents in benefits for every dollar earned, an effective 50 percent tax that takes away $8,000 of her earnings.

- The payroll tax will take another 7.65 percent of earnings, federal income taxes another 10 percent at the margin, and state income taxes roughly another 5 percent at the margin, on the average.

- That leaves an effective marginal tax rate of 72.65 percent, leaving little incentive for the poor to work.

Art Laffer and Steve Moore call this "The Poverty Trap." Laffer examined the total effect of all needs tests and taxes affecting an inner-city family of four on welfare in Los Angeles. He found that the poor sometimes faced the highest marginal tax rates of all income groups. The family in his analysis, earning wages between zero and $1,300 per month, faced marginal tax rates ranging from 53 percent to a high of 314 percent. When the family's monthly wages increased from $1,000 to $1,100 per month, they lost $214 in spendable income. A 1995 Urban Institute study by Linda Ginnarelli and Eugene Steuerle confirmed these results, finding that the poor faced effective marginal tax rates of 70 percent to 101 percent. A more recent NCPA study by Laurence Kotlikoff and Jagadeesh Gokhale found that a low-income couple earning 1.5 times the minimum wage per hour moving from part-time to full-time work would lose an astonishing $1.06 for every extra dollar they earn.

I don't see anyone on the left who has nearly as much insight into this problem as you and Art Laffer do. Read more about how to eliminate the "Poverty Trap" here: http://www.ncpa.org/pub/ib143 {Hint: the solution is not a violent revolution.}

Getting rid of all subsidies would have little to no impact on fossil fuel costs, while it would be devastating for renewables. Fossil fuel subsidies are large only because a huge amount of fossil fuels are burned compared to other sources. On a per kWh basis, the subsidy for renewables is 25x that for fossil fuels. The subsidy for solar is 1600x that for fossil fuels.

Sure, Australia got rid of mass shootings.

And now, they've had increases in violent crime by criminals because they know civilians are unarmed.

http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/?A...

Rape increased 29.9%

So, they eliminated a scenario that was incredibly rare, and opened the doors to more crime and suffering...good job Australia!

Statistics show that concealed carry license holders are less likely to be involved in crime and violent crime than the general population. Concealed carry holders generally have to pass a criminal background check, and in many states get certified training. It's not unreasonable to think a plane full of CCWs is safer than a plane not full of them. You're the one making an unsubstantiated claim: http://www.ncpa.org/pub/ba324

http://www.ncpa.org/pub/ba766

Darn, sorry, hit "Post" instead of "Continue editing". If you aren't convinced yet, taxes are growing, here is another item: the share of Americans in the labor-force is lower in recent years than in Bush's era, the percentage collecting "disability" is record high, the official unemployment numbers remain stubbornly above Bush's, but the Federal revenue is the highest ever.

This can only mean one thing — those of us, who are still working, are paying the ever higher taxes...

You may find one such citation here.

At this point it is as common knowledge as the notion that pumping CO2 into the atmosphere is a bad idea. That is, it is true, has many sources, yet people deny it and attempt to fool people with carefully picked statistics anyway.

http://www.ncpa.org/images/106...

Among those SUSPECTS questioned, not invoking Miranda, 47% confessed! [21% not questioned, 10% Miranda, 36% questioned, but no confession obtained, 33% confessed.] Those that didn't confess or invoked Miranda, include a large number of people who weren't convicted.

I stand by my assertion that confession is the primary means of closing cases.

LA, apparently has something like 50% confession rate (meaning the the percentage of confessors among closed cases is VERY high), while New York County has a number as low as 15%.

If you want to increase the numbers even higher, you could argue that nearly every plea bargain contains a confession as well, although that confession is to a judge or DA, not the police.

sorry that was a typo, I was talking about australia http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/?Article_ID=17847

Even Australia's Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research acknowledges that the gun ban had no significant impact on the amount of gun-involved crime: In 2006, assault rose 49.2 percent and robbery 6.2 percent. Sexual assault -- Australia's equivalent term for rape -- increased 29.9 percent. Overall, Australia's violent crime rate rose 42.2 percent. Moreover, Australia and the United States -- where no gun-ban exists -- both experienced similar decreases in murder rates: Between 1995 and 2007, Australia saw a 31.9 percent decrease; without a gun ban, America's rate dropped 31.7 percent. During the same time period, all other violent crime indices increased in Australia: assault rose 49.2 percent and robbery 6.2 percent. Sexual assault -- Australia's equivalent term for rape -- increased 29.9 percent. Overall, Australia's violent crime rate rose 42.2 percent. At the same time, U.S. violent crime decreased 31.8 percent: rape dropped 19.2 percent; robbery decreased 33.2 percent; aggravated assault dropped 32.2 percent. Australian women are now raped over three times as often as American women.

> There is 50% chance you would have ended up bankrupt if you actually had to file medical claims. Have you filed substantial claims exceeding the premium any year? Was it paid without hassle?

Seriously, just stop making up garbage and parading it as fact.

They'd neither subsidize solar, or put road-blocks in its way.

While this may be true, the fact of the matter is that killing all subsidies in the field of energy would kill solar.

"A pet peeve with cars is the stupid engine light that gives no clue what the problem is."

That's by design. You can thank US government regulations, which require the MIL to light for a wide range of emissions related issues.

Private insurance companies have insured people for decades without running up any unfunded liabilities.

Medicare, on the other hand, has run up $89 trillion in unfunded liabilities; in other words, $89 trillion in future obligations, for which we currently have no idea where the money will come.

If everyone was aware of the economy-crushing magnitude of these liabilities, it would have a rather negative impact on Medicare's satisfaction rating.

You have helped to prove my point. The U.S. wasn't bankrupted by military expenditures that were far more massive than those that bankrupted the USSR. Why not? Adherence to free market principles had resulted in decades of economic growth, which in turn allowed the U.S. to easily absorb those massive military expenditures.

In 2013, U.S. military expenses as a percent of GDP are much lower than during the Cold War. What is currently bankrupting the U.S. is entitlements. (The $107 trillion in unfunded liabilities should scare you much more than the $17 trillion National Debt.)

I seem to recall various atheist countries that were afraid of their people getting loose used Marx, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Kim Jong Il, and others to control their people.

I seem to recall Marxist Feminism being born as a way to control women, convince them that they were oppressed by men and thus enter the work force, doubling the workers. It did not bring equility, it merely burdened women. It did not bring the choice to the family of which parent would raise the child, but instead normalized the method of human reproduction by having children raised by the state. Radical Feminism was born by adding to Marxist Feminism the idea that oppression was Patriarchal in nature; New-wave / 3rd wave / "mainstream" Feminism adds to these the idea that males can also be harmed by Patriarchy, and extends their narrative to all issues of gender -- All without any unbiased, peer reviewed evidence. All are examples of Marxist us-vs them divisionism applied to gender. Hilariously, a new Feminist theory of Kyriachy says that it is the elite rulers in power which cause the oppression... It is plain-jane Marxism! ha ha... oh, it would be funny if it weren't so sad, that this ideology is in control of nearly every political debate. Few speak out against it because they are labeled as villainous women haters. Womens Rights does not need Feminism, or any other ideology for that matter.

G.P. says, "Fear and Freedom don't mix well." Well, if that's true then why is it that fear of rape, abuse, and oppression of women are prominently used by Feminists in world governments to control the dialog of "gender equality" with no push back from those who would seek freedom from fear? Painting all men as potential rapists is as egregious as painting all blacks as murderous thieves simply due to crime stats. Even more egregious in the case of Feminism since they ignore the troves of evidence that men are over 90% the victims of violent crimes, and that women are as aggressive or more aggressive than men., the Feminists in the CDC have even redefined rape to exclude male victims and female perpetrators, saying that only penetration can be rape so vaginas can't rape (tell that to the guy tied to the bed with a q-tip shoved is his penis) -- Since most rapists and abusers have been victims of such abuse themselves this means the feminists are actually creating more female victims in the next cycle of abuse... Yet, speak out against them in order to fight for equality of both men and women, and reduce abuse, and you find yourself skewered by the ideologists for challenging their world views.

The ideologies care not for freedom, but perpetuating fear to further their fanatical and financial support. Ideologies are primarily the same in that they preach fear of harm coming to our women, and have no evidence to back their claims. From Islamic fundamentalists to Feminists, this holds true. For instance: Feminists harp on about equal pay, but there is no "wage gap", it hasn't existed for a very long time. Never married men make the same money as never married women... (and this has been true since the 70's). As a sexually dimorphic race women and men simply make different life choices, and men don't give birth. Additionally, ideologists cry out for "equal representation", but equal isn't 50% men and women. It's X% women vs men in at the bottom == X% women vs men out at the top. If the jobs are available to all, but 40% of women vs men apply for the bottom rung jobs then women should percolate up to the top jobs at a rate of 40%, eh? Same for 30%, 20%, 10%, even 0%. Women should be allowed to make different life choices, and not shamed for not being a stressed out workaholic CEO, in the same way we don't shame them for not being Coal Miners or Janitors or Game Developers -- the latter is i

HJED wrote:
> our gun license system works very well)

ORLY?

http://www.worldpublicunion.org/2013-04-05-NEWS-australian-gun-ban-resulted-in-higher-crime-rates.html

a bit sensationalist, but snopes supports some of the underlying figures:

http://www.snopes.com/crime/statistics/ausguns.asp

and here's an analysis which concludes there were no significant effects:

http://www.ssaa.org.au/capital-news/2008/2008-09-04_melbourne-uni-paper-Aust-gun-buyback.pdf

(interesting definition of ``success'')

and here's another study which notes a marked increase in assault, robbery and sexual assault (rape):

http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/?Article_ID=17847

FYI I'm Australian and lucky enough to be in a country that has proven gun laws work.

So... you're a serial rapist/violent criminal, then?

Because judging from the statistics, those are the only groups who would think that Australia's gun ban is working.

Then you have an inability to read
Australia Violent crime rose when guns became more controled (note snopes does not debunk this and doesn't even address it so stop citing it as a response) http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=17847/
England gun crime rose 35% as of 2003 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-154307/Gun-crime-soars-35.html/
and had doubled as of 2012 http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323777204578195470446855466.html/

Gun crimes actually went up a statistically insignificant amount (as per your link), violent crime however has gone up as per http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=17847

not true http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=17847

The point here is we can all find statics/studies to support our argument(s) In this case http://www.gunfacts.info/ presents argument and counter argument for most of the "facts", we hear in the "gun control" debate.
None of this is decisive, and it will not be, it is all, tired, old and waste of time.

If we want to reduce violent crime, I believe it is possible. We should agree to do it without violating the constitution. What methods do you propose, that do not include additional restrictions on gun ownership?
If you want to disarm citizens, for what ever reason, lets talk about changing the constitution,

It won't. Do some more research:
 
  http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=17847"

Seriously kid, stop watching fox, your bain is rotting away. Australia and Europe both got lower crime rates.

Rather bad news, I'm afraid, it seems that the rot has got you as well.

UK is violent crime capital of Europe - 02 Jul 2009

The figures were sourced from Eurostat, the European Commission's database of statistics. They are gathered using official sources in the countries concerned such as the national statistics office, the national prison administration, ministries of the interior or justice, and police.

A breakdown of the statistics, which were compiled into league tables by the Conservatives, revealed that violent crime in the UK had increased from 652,974 offences in 1998 to more than 1.15 million crimes in 2007.

It means there are over 2,000 crimes recorded per 100,000 population in the UK, making it the most violent place in Europe.

Austria is second, with a rate of 1,677 per 100,000 people, followed by Sweden, Belgium, Finland and Holland.

By comparison, America has an estimated rate of 466 violent crimes per 100,000 population.

France recorded 324,765 violent crimes in 2007 – a 67 per cent increase in the past decade – at a rate of 504 per 100,000 population.

The Home Office says there has been a downtrend in overall violence for the past decade.

But last October it emerged that levels of violent crime in England and Wales had been underestimated for more than a decade because of a blunder in recording methods.

Regarding Australia:

Violent crime statistics

Recorded assault increased again in 2007, to 840 per 100,000, compared with 623 per 100,000 in 1996. The 2007 rate was the highest recorded since 1996.

AUSTRALIA: MORE VIOLENT CRIME DESPITE GUN BAN

Since it "can't happen" . . .
Gun crimes soaring despite ban brought in following Dunblane - 15 Jul 2001

THE controversial ban on the ownership of handguns which was introduced after the Dunblane massacre has failed to halt an increasing number of crimes involving firearms.

An independent report, Illegal Firearms in the UK, to be published by the Centre for Defence Studies at King's College in London tomorrow, says that handguns were used in 3,685 offences last year compared with 2,648 in 1997, an increase of 40 per cent.

Culture of violence: Gun crime goes up by 89% in a decade - 27 October 2009

They will charge you double or more what they will charge an insurance company. Sad but true, they seem to be the one business that hates cash.

You are misinformed, they love actual cash http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=21973. If you offer them real cash in hand (folding money, up front) and ask for a price based on that payment method you can even get a price that is lower than your portion of an insurer's negotiated price (depends on the procedure, individual doctor, etc)

What they hate is non-cash payments that aren't backed by an insurance company because of the uncertainty of collecting and the costs that are statistically associated with collecting post-paid. They're not even that enthusiastic about payments that are backed by an insurance company because of the same is it covered is it not covered headaches that consumers hate which is why so many docts, dentists and hospitals are willing to offer a lower price for when pre-paying for services in actual cash.

This will immediately reduce food demand and, for double bonus, the saved money can be donated to charity.

I only take issue with this one statement.

Hopefully that charity is not in the form of free food. That way leads to more poverty, suffering and starvation [1].

(There's also a whole argument on how population will always rise to a limiting cap and how education and Women's rights is creating a cap lower than breeding-until-we-starve or war-ourselves-out. I'd rather focus on the free food fallacy.)

How? Once farmers can afford a better future for themselves and their children then can afford some labor saving devices, those huge populations to till the soil disappear. They can't when their livelihood is undermined by 'charity.'

Let's use the out of date first/second/third world country model, since it fits closest to the breakdown in your argument [2].

It is not the relatively wealthy people living in cities who are staving, but the poor farmers who cannot farm competitively with free food given in terms of 'charity.'

Compared to every other labor-intensive industry, farming sucks:

• needs a lot of land
• needs lots of water (often of drinking quality)
• high future risk
• mandatory large labor pool with neither the free time to improve themselves when in demand or income at all when not in demand.
• the product (food) ships poorly and spoils readily when stored

Even in the "first world" the farmers are heavily subsidized to protect their non-competitive industry [3].

The only real reason to farm (or ranch) is that you cannot get food any other way. (Queue meme about "Star Trek replicators and the post-farming society.")

The only African countries with first-world type wages have barred these 'charity' food dumps and have protectionism for their farmers. Food is expensive there, but then people are not starving due to collapsed local farming industry. (This excludes countries like the Republic of Congo which has incredible wage disparity and a Petroleum based economy.) The old story of an American farmer's child going to the big city to make their fortune seems to work in Africa as well.

The key to bringing a "third world" country out of the third world is to first not destroy its indigenous markets [4]. Then the population curve works out like other industrialized nations as farming efficiency improves and farming becomes a marginalized industry. (Unless you somehow think Africans are different from all other people.)

Dumping McDonald's leftovers onto people never solved anyone's problems yesterday and it won't start solving them tomorrow either [5].

How about scholarships to improve the education of ex-farmers and get them out of what is a dead-end career so they can feed their families?

1. 1. http://www.ncpa.org/pub/ba547
2. 2. http://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/third_world_countries.htm
3. 3. http://www.cfact.org/a/2134/Commonsense-wisdom-from-African-farmers
4. 4. http://econlib.org/library/Enc/AgriculturalSubsidyPrograms.html
5. 5. http://www.thefreemanonline.org/columns/it-just-aint-so/ending-farm-subsidies-wouldnt-help-the-third-world-it-just-aint-so/

It sure looks like Oxford's standards are slipping.

Perhaps the actual thing that is happening is that Autism is this decade's Disease du Jour, and like ADHD before it, is being overdiagnosed at a truly frightening rate.

But just wait until the next DSM comes out. We'll ALL be diagnose-able with SOME sort of mental disorder. So, at that point, maybe nutjobs like BARONESS von Greenfield will eventually be "right" (at least according to the increasingly out-of-their-ever-lovin'-minds psychiatric community).

The reason for a 15% had nothing to do with "combined tax" as reported above, which is just a "game" people play to say their taxes are too high. It was "Stimulus" for rich people to put more money into businesses. And keep the stock market hight

http://www.ncpa.org/pub/st307

"In May 2003, President George W. Bush signed into law his investment tax cut. This package included accelerated reductions in income tax rates, a cut in the dividend tax from 39.6 percent to 15 percent and a reduction in the capital gains tax from 20 percent to 15 percent. The purpose of the Bush tax cut was to provide an incentive for more domestic capital investment, more business spending and a turnaround in the stock market, which lost $6 trillion in value after the technology bubble burst in 1999-2000."

The asshat who wrote the first study sited in TFA is a shill for ExxonMobil. The article hinges it's entire premis on the results of the second scholarly work which is a month old draft of an unpublished, unpeer-reviewed, unproven idea for an econometric model to analyze policy effects on on safety (translate: probably not even close to accurate). In fact, the article states as it's first line "Research confirms that increasing fuel economy standards does cost lives on the road.", as if this is proven fucking fact now. Stuff like this on slashdot makes me want to punch people in the face. Few bother to question or even read linked articles but love to go all modern jackass on meta shit that doesn't even have anything to do with the subject.

http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=2045

The Amber Alert system has been used many times by one parent who didn't want the other parent to take little Johny for the weekend.

Did you ever hear about the time that one brand of doctoring felt threatened, and formed a lobby to make their competition illegal?

The lobby is still alive today. It's known as the "American Medical Association". Many of the competing philosophies have disappeared, or are completely marginalized, even though the therapies they used were vastly superior to the treatments that were then-advocated by the American Medical Association: bloodletting and quicksilver (mercury).

In the 1840's, 1850's, anyone could set up as a doctor. There were hundreds of medical schools. Some were good, some were okay, some were diploma-mills. In the early 1900's, the AMA got some help from the Carnegie foundation to form standards for medical education. This was after they'd successfully lobbied for state licensing laws.

This is the classic analogy about asking the fox to design fortifications for the hen house. The Carnegie foundation's goals were to concentrate wealth and power. Half the medical schools in the country closed due to the Flexner Report. Mr. Flexner was NOT a doctor, and didn't know anything about medical education. He was just a tool for the Foundation. Today doctors spend years learning about conditions and diseases, what to prescribe and how to do surgery. They also spend a week or two learning about the biochemistry of nutrition. They learn how to use their hands for diagnostics, but hands can be used to heal too (massage, ostepathic manipulation, etc).

The Osteopathic profession survived the Great Medical Purge, and during those flu outbreaks in 1918 or so, allopathic hospitals killed their patients by medicating fevers away and mixing flu patients with everyone else, while the Osteopathic hospitals made special sick wards, did their hands-on treatments, and allowed the fever as the body's natural defensive mechanisms. Osteopathic hospitals lost a handful of patients, but they were much more survivable than the AMA's death-houses, whose doctors were trained by the Carnegie Foundation.

There's a good link or two on that wikipedia page. I like 'How the Cost-Plus System Evolved': Part I Part II Part III.

100 Years of Medical Robbery has a really nice overview too.

Diabetes is something you're never cured from. No matter what such and such a diet might say, it may greatly improve things, but the diabetes is still there.

There is no pill to cure diabetes. But a good "acupuncturist" can balance the body's energy systems well enough to make it a complete non-issue (when combined with personal self-healing initiatives, like changes in diet and activity levels). And stopping the lipid-peroxidation chain reaction (which is caused by the great 20th-century switch in dietary fats from animal-sources to seed-oil) helps too.

Doctors are very smart people, but their education is tailored to make them servants to the pharmaceutical industry. There are better options than pills, for all chronic conditions (emphasis on CHRONIC - drugs are great in an emergency), but all the best health options are marginalized because they're relatively cheap.

Did you ever hear about the time that one brand of doctoring felt threatened, and formed a lobby to make their competition illegal?

The lobby is still alive today. It's known as the "American Medical Association". Many of the competing philosophies have disappeared, or are completely marginalized, even though the therapies they used were vastly superior to the treatments that were then-advocated by the American Medical Association: bloodletting and quicksilver (mercury).

In the 1840's, 1850's, anyone could set up as a doctor. There were hundreds of medical schools. Some were good, some were okay, some were diploma-mills. In the early 1900's, the AMA got some help from the Carnegie foundation to form standards for medical education. This was after they'd successfully lobbied for state licensing laws.

This is the classic analogy about asking the fox to design fortifications for the hen house. The Carnegie foundation's goals were to concentrate wealth and power. Half the medical schools in the country closed due to the Flexner Report. Mr. Flexner was NOT a doctor, and didn't know anything about medical education. He was just a tool for the Foundation. Today doctors spend years learning about conditions and diseases, what to prescribe and how to do surgery. They also spend a week or two learning about the biochemistry of nutrition. They learn how to use their hands for diagnostics, but hands can be used to heal too (massage, ostepathic manipulation, etc).

The Osteopathic profession survived the Great Medical Purge, and during those flu outbreaks in 1918 or so, allopathic hospitals killed their patients by medicating fevers away and mixing flu patients with everyone else, while the Osteopathic hospitals made special sick wards, did their hands-on treatments, and allowed the fever as the body's natural defensive mechanisms. Osteopathic hospitals lost a handful of patients, but they were much more survivable than the AMA's death-houses, whose doctors were trained by the Carnegie Foundation.

There's a good link or two on that wikipedia page. I like 'How the Cost-Plus System Evolved': Part I Part II Part III.

100 Years of Medical Robbery has a really nice overview too.

Diabetes is something you're never cured from. No matter what such and such a diet might say, it may greatly improve things, but the diabetes is still there.

There is no pill to cure diabetes. But a good "acupuncturist" can balance the body's energy systems well enough to make it a complete non-issue (when combined with personal self-healing initiatives, like changes in diet and activity levels). And stopping the lipid-peroxidation chain reaction (which is caused by the great 20th-century switch in dietary fats from animal-sources to seed-oil) helps too.

Doctors are very smart people, but their education is tailored to make them servants to the pharmaceutical industry. There are better options than pills, for all chronic conditions (emphasis on CHRONIC - drugs are great in an emergency), but all the best health options are marginalized because they're relatively cheap.

Did you ever hear about the time that one brand of doctoring felt threatened, and formed a lobby to make their competition illegal?

The lobby is still alive today. It's known as the "American Medical Association". Many of the competing philosophies have disappeared, or are completely marginalized, even though the therapies they used were vastly superior to the treatments that were then-advocated by the American Medical Association: bloodletting and quicksilver (mercury).

In the 1840's, 1850's, anyone could set up as a doctor. There were hundreds of medical schools. Some were good, some were okay, some were diploma-mills. In the early 1900's, the AMA got some help from the Carnegie foundation to form standards for medical education. This was after they'd successfully lobbied for state licensing laws.

This is the classic analogy about asking the fox to design fortifications for the hen house. The Carnegie foundation's goals were to concentrate wealth and power. Half the medical schools in the country closed due to the Flexner Report. Mr. Flexner was NOT a doctor, and didn't know anything about medical education. He was just a tool for the Foundation. Today doctors spend years learning about conditions and diseases, what to prescribe and how to do surgery. They also spend a week or two learning about the biochemistry of nutrition. They learn how to use their hands for diagnostics, but hands can be used to heal too (massage, ostepathic manipulation, etc).

The Osteopathic profession survived the Great Medical Purge, and during those flu outbreaks in 1918 or so, allopathic hospitals killed their patients by medicating fevers away and mixing flu patients with everyone else, while the Osteopathic hospitals made special sick wards, did their hands-on treatments, and allowed the fever as the body's natural defensive mechanisms. Osteopathic hospitals lost a handful of patients, but they were much more survivable than the AMA's death-houses, whose doctors were trained by the Carnegie Foundation.

There's a good link or two on that wikipedia page. I like 'How the Cost-Plus System Evolved': Part I Part II Part III.

100 Years of Medical Robbery has a really nice overview too.

Diabetes is something you're never cured from. No matter what such and such a diet might say, it may greatly improve things, but the diabetes is still there.

There is no pill to cure diabetes. But a good "acupuncturist" can balance the body's energy systems well enough to make it a complete non-issue (when combined with personal self-healing initiatives, like changes in diet and activity levels). And stopping the lipid-peroxidation chain reaction (which is caused by the great 20th-century switch in dietary fats from animal-sources to seed-oil) helps too.

Doctors are very smart people, but their education is tailored to make them servants to the pharmaceutical industry. There are better options than pills, for all chronic conditions (emphasis on CHRONIC - drugs are great in an emergency), but all the best health options are marginalized because they're relatively cheap.

> And do what?

How about an Open Fuel Standard? That would quickly and easily decouple our transportation from imported oil.

Just one example of many things that government can do to steer our economic development in a better direction.

So, here is what we hear from the proponents of government run socialized medicine:

I would like to second what you said. I'm currently in Venezuela, and the health care here is way better than what I had available when I lived in the US. First of all, it's really cheap, the doctors are top of the line, and maybe the only thing you can complain here is that when they actually see somebody here with insurance they really squeeze them dry, but you still get your medical attention. If you don't have insurance you can still pay the bills since they have a different rate so to speak.

And here is the reality:

Healthcare suffers in Venezuela

Palacios, Venezuela's largest public maternity hospital and once the nation's beacon of neonatal care, has fallen on hard times. Half of the anesthesiologists and pediatricians on staff two years ago have quit. Basic equipment such as respirators, ultrasound monitors and incubators are either broken or scarce. Six of 12 birth rooms have been shut.

On one day last month, five newborns were crowded into one incubator, said Dr. Jesus Mendez Quijada, a psychiatrist and Palacios staff member who is a past president of the Venezuelan Medical Federation.

The deaths of the six infants "were not a case of bad luck, but the consequence of an accumulation of circumstances that have created this alarming situation," Mendez said.

He and others say the problems at Concepcion Palacios are symptoms of a variety of ills that have beset the public healthcare system under leftist firebrand President Hugo Chavez. Cases of malaria nearly doubled between 1998, the year before Chavez took office, and 2007. Incidents of dengue fever more than doubled over the same period.

Poorly paid doctors regularly demonstrate at hospitals from Puerto La Cruz in the northeast to Maracay in the industrial heartland, demanding back pay and protesting the lack of equipment and supplies. Others are leaving in droves for Spain, Australia or the Middle East, where they make 10 times the $600 monthly average salary they earn in public hospitals.

More: WikiLeaks Embassy Cables Reveal Venezuela's Health-Care System Collapsing

And the UK?

US surgery safer than under NHS

By Thair Shaikh 12:00AM BST 07 Sep 2003
Patients who have major operations on the National Health Service are four times more likely to die than Americans undergoing such surgery, according to a new study.

The difference in mortality rates was blamed on long NHS waiting lists, a shortage of specialists and competition for intensive care beds.

The joint study, carried out by University College London and a team from Columbia University in New York, found that patients in Britain who were most at risk of complications after major surgery were not being seen by specialists and were not reaching intensive care units in time to save them.

Thousands of NHS operations cancelled because of blunders as complaints about standard of treatment rise

10 Surprising Facts about American Health Care

The Grass Is Not Always Greener - A Look at National Health Care Systems Around the World

However, a closer look at countries with national health care systems shows that those countries have serious problems of their own, including rising costs, rationing of care, lack of access to modern medical technology, and poor health outc

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.
-C.S. Lewis

The problem wasn't the stink. It was the economics. From the get go, they were relying on subsidies to make the process pay. These kind of businesses sprout up whenever there are government subsidies to be had or fuel prices spike. Their prospectuses will have a phrase that states that the company isn't profitable if you take away the subsidies or it will be profitable if the price of fuel rises faster than the rate of inflation. Had Renewable really developed a viable technology that delivered fuel at $15/barrel as they promised, there would have been more than enough money to clean up the stench.

science has... enumerated and identified... more than 13,600 diagnoses — 13,600 different ways our bodies can fail. And for each one we've discovered beneficial remedies... But those remedies now include more than six thousand drugs and four thousand medical and surgical procedures.

It's too bad that Western medicine doesn't have a comprehensive guiding philosophy. Imagine if they taught principles like these in M.D. schools:

• The body must be properly nourished, and must be able to assimilate nutrients from food and the environment.
• The body must be able to evacuate waste products from the system. The organs of elimination are the skin, the lungs, the kidneys/bladder, and the large intestine/colon. If any of these systems are compromised, problems will result.
• The body's structure must support the functionality of the body's organ systems.
• The activities of mind have a major influence on the body's state.
• The body has electrical properties which must be balanced for optimal health

Western medicine plays whac-a-mole with the body's symptoms - a pill for high blood pressure, a pill for acid reflux, a pill for high cholesterol, ad infinitum - while health practitioners guided by superior philosophies (there are many) try to distill down to the fundamental reasons for a given body's dysfunction.

The brand of medicine represented by this commencement address is defective because medical education was hijacked by the Carnegie Foundation (who represented the drug trusts). My favorite articles on this bit of history are 100 Years of Medical Robbery and the followup, Real Medical Freedom. "How The Cost-Plus System Evolved" (pt 1, pt 2, pt 3) is also well-written.

US Healthcare needs guiding principles: nothing more, nothing less.

science has... enumerated and identified... more than 13,600 diagnoses — 13,600 different ways our bodies can fail. And for each one we've discovered beneficial remedies... But those remedies now include more than six thousand drugs and four thousand medical and surgical procedures.

It's too bad that Western medicine doesn't have a comprehensive guiding philosophy. Imagine if they taught principles like these in M.D. schools:

• The body must be properly nourished, and must be able to assimilate nutrients from food and the environment.
• The body must be able to evacuate waste products from the system. The organs of elimination are the skin, the lungs, the kidneys/bladder, and the large intestine/colon. If any of these systems are compromised, problems will result.
• The body's structure must support the functionality of the body's organ systems.
• The activities of mind have a major influence on the body's state.
• The body has electrical properties which must be balanced for optimal health

Western medicine plays whac-a-mole with the body's symptoms - a pill for high blood pressure, a pill for acid reflux, a pill for high cholesterol, ad infinitum - while health practitioners guided by superior philosophies (there are many) try to distill down to the fundamental reasons for a given body's dysfunction.

The brand of medicine represented by this commencement address is defective because medical education was hijacked by the Carnegie Foundation (who represented the drug trusts). My favorite articles on this bit of history are 100 Years of Medical Robbery and the followup, Real Medical Freedom. "How The Cost-Plus System Evolved" (pt 1, pt 2, pt 3) is also well-written.

US Healthcare needs guiding principles: nothing more, nothing less.

science has... enumerated and identified... more than 13,600 diagnoses — 13,600 different ways our bodies can fail. And for each one we've discovered beneficial remedies... But those remedies now include more than six thousand drugs and four thousand medical and surgical procedures.

It's too bad that Western medicine doesn't have a comprehensive guiding philosophy. Imagine if they taught principles like these in M.D. schools:

• The body must be properly nourished, and must be able to assimilate nutrients from food and the environment.
• The body must be able to evacuate waste products from the system. The organs of elimination are the skin, the lungs, the kidneys/bladder, and the large intestine/colon. If any of these systems are compromised, problems will result.
• The body's structure must support the functionality of the body's organ systems.
• The activities of mind have a major influence on the body's state.
• The body has electrical properties which must be balanced for optimal health

Western medicine plays whac-a-mole with the body's symptoms - a pill for high blood pressure, a pill for acid reflux, a pill for high cholesterol, ad infinitum - while health practitioners guided by superior philosophies (there are many) try to distill down to the fundamental reasons for a given body's dysfunction.

The brand of medicine represented by this commencement address is defective because medical education was hijacked by the Carnegie Foundation (who represented the drug trusts). My favorite articles on this bit of history are 100 Years of Medical Robbery and the followup, Real Medical Freedom. "How The Cost-Plus System Evolved" (pt 1, pt 2, pt 3) is also well-written.

US Healthcare needs guiding principles: nothing more, nothing less.

Not all plants react the same way .

"The NASA findings indicate a mean worldwide temperature of about 58.496 degrees F., topping the previous record, set in 1995 of 58.154."

Ya gotta love the touch of using 'about', followed by a world temperature quoted to 1/1000 degree F. why we are justified in assuming such preposterous "accuracies" from processes that have half degree error bars? How do they estimate the Earth's temperature in 1938 to within a half of a degree. I would like to see the procedure used to do that, and the measures employed.

[For] example, we extrapolate station measurements as much as 1200 km. This allows us to include results for the full Arctic. In 2005 this turned out to be important, as the Arctic had a large positive temperature anomaly. We thus found 2005 to be the warmest year in the record, while the British did not and initially NOAA also did not. ...
It should be noted that the different groups have cooperated in a very friendly way to try to understand different conclusions when they arise.

And, oh yes, the person at the center of the CRU meltdown, Phil Jones, now admits there has been NO GLOBAL WARMING FOR THE PAST 15 YEARS. http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=18992&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=DPD There are many reasons to doubt AGW as a legitimate climate change candidate. The shrillness of its proponents not being the least. The FSM is as likely a cause. The sunspot minimum makes a far more beleivable.

Let me count the ways:
Constitutionality:
The constitution says people cannot be coerced into signing a contract. By anyone. If you don't like it amend the constitution, but you cannot just make up your own laws. That's called anarchy. So right there the bill is dead. But let me go on.

Common sense
The kings of inefficiency. The same people who spent so much of your social security and medicare money on things besides social security and medicare, to the point that the two programs have unfunded liabilities of over $100 trillion, are now going to, according to the bill, take 500B from medicare to pay for the new program and supposedly expand the roles of people on medicare and the new plan. Do some simple math! If you have a system that's already out of money, and you take more money from it to start a similar system, more than triple the number of people receiving benefits, it's going to cost more not less! You have to be insane if you think adding people to the government's dole will somehow lower costs as progressives claim. Keep in mind that in 1965 lawmakers predicted it would only cost 9$ billion by 1990, unfortuanly the real cost was $67 billion. But don't worry they were only off by A FACTTOR OF 7. I'm sure they are better and more trustworthy in making cost estimates today. Congress would never deceive us!

This bill causes lack of care (not coverage)
Sure the government will cover you for all preexisting conditions, there will just be no faciliteis or doctors to treat you! OH BUT YOU'RE COVERED!!! Tell it to the people in the UK or Canada who are waiting 6 months for a CT scan, where here in the U.S. it's unusual to wait for more than a few days. The New England Journal of Medicine estimates that a full 1/3 of doctors will "QUIT PRACTICING MEDICINE" if the bill passes, further eroding our resources. So ya, you're covered, but you're going to have to wait a few years for that liver transplant now. People other countries will no longer have a "capitalist health care system" to save them, unfortunately nether will we. We will have a government panel deciding who is worth said liver transplant and deciding who gets to live and die, instead of your doctor or a panel of your doctors. A healthy 19 yr/old kid, who hasn't put a dime into the system will be placed higher on the list than say a 60 yr/old man who has paid into the system his whole life. In essence the 60 yr/old man worked his whole life paying into a system that will deem him unworthy and spend his money on someone whom he has never met while he suffers and dies while younger "more economically viable" people will get treatment first. In the existing system, the same 60 yr/old man would be able to do whatever it takes for him to get his liver (insurance,debt,sell car/house etc.). While dems try and portray private insurers as evil for turning down procedures, drugs etc. keep in mind that the number 1 denier of care per capita is medicare! So there's another false argument made to try and pass this bill.

How much is too much?
People in this country continue to live longer and longer. This is attributable not to better diets or healthier living, but as a direct result of having invested such large sums of money into our health care system. I've heard 17% from democrats, decrying the amount. Dems say that our private insurance is increasing at too fast a rate (3%/yr) but they want to change us to a system that is similar to the unfunded medicare, but medicare is increasing at a rate much faste

I agree with a good deal of that. Just a few quibbles. I'm not sure what you mean by "our coverage is less." We have fewer people covered directly by insurance, that's true. But we do have Medicaid which pays for an awful lot of care for really poor folks. And we already have government-paid medical insurance for old people. And there's the s-chip program which provides substantial insurance for young children and pregnant women. We don't have "universal" insurance, true, but the folks without ANY safety net mostly haven't applied for the right government programs. The people screwed the most are the middle class, who don't qualify for those programs, but who must spend a lot of money to obtain the highest quality health insurance. Also, it's not at all clear from the statistics that our on-average shorter life span is caused by or even depends upon healthcare. If you look at specific survival types that DO depend on healtcare quality and access to it, the U.S. looks much better. Most of our cancer survival rates, for example, are substantially better than those in Europe and Canada. Life style choices probably have a much bigger role to play. The U.S. also generally treats many more severely premature infants as having been "born alive" for infant mortality purposes, births that would elsewhere count as "stillborn." This inflates our infant mortality numbers compared to those other countries, even though the real net result is that we have saved more lives through such methods than the other countries. I agree that the Republicans haven't pushed in the past as they should for market-oriented healthcare solutions. We currently have the worst of both worlds, something equivalent to privatized socialized medicine. The "first dollar" syndrome and HMOs encourage consumers to consume more healthcare without paying any more costs directly, while the HMO has the profit incentive to reduce care. If we restructured to focus more on catastrophic care coverage with high deductibles, combined with health savings accounts to fund routine medical payments up to that deductible amount, the consumer would have a strong incentive to consider price in obtaining coverage, and prices would soon fall. And there'd be a lot less bureaucratic red tape.