Slashdot Mirror
Canadians May Face 25% Download Tariff
C-Yo writes "While Canadians have battled against an iPod tariff for more than a
year, now comes news that Canada's copyright collectives are seeking a
tariff on iTunes as well. Professor
Michael Geist (who last
week dismantled music industry claims about peer-to-peer) reports
that one collective is demanding an incredible 25% of the gross revenue
of music download services as well as 15% of webcasters' gross revenue
and 10% of gamers gross revenue (free
version of report or Toronto
Star reg. version). When combined with other tariff
proposals, it would appear that Canada's collectives want to the kill
the download industry, demanding at least 40% of everything iTunes,
Napster, and other new services earn."
I am not so sure that Canada's collectives want to "kill the download
industry" as much as they are still upset about the United States
failure to comply with the WTO ruling on the Byrd Amendment. In fact,
on March 31st of this year Canada put this out:
"The Government of Canada announced today that it will retaliate
against the United States in light of its failure to comply with the
World Trade Organization (WTO) ruling on the Byrd Amendment. Following
extensive consultations with domestic stakeholders, Canada will impose
a 15 percent surtax on U.S. live swine, cigarettes, oysters and
certain specialty fish, starting May 1, 2005"
Seems to me this download tariff is just another retaliation like the
above. It isn't just Canada either, several countries are upset that
the US has not complied.
For those that don't know, The Byrd amendment, passed by Congress four
years ago, provides that when foreign manufacturers are found to be
dumping goods in the U.S. market -- that is, selling at unfairly low
prices -- any anti-dumping duties that are imposed can be handed over
to the U.S. companies that brought the dumping case, rather than to
the Treasury. It has benefited U.S. firms in industries including
steel and pasta, with one of the largest beneficiaries being Timken
Co., an Ohio maker of bearings, which collected about $40 million last
year.
--greg Vulcan quiescent... Q: What machine shutdown with this message?
25%? Isn't that a lot over the wider picture of things?
Derive Politics
And 7% of gross revenue from hamburger sales since it's been shown that copyright violaters eat them, and 11% of posters of 70s rockers in cheesy poses since their images retain valuable copyrightable money-making potential, and 3% of the sale of every wheelbarrel since they can be used to haul off copyrighted material, and 1% of every breath you take since that's part of a copyrighted song lyric...
We can safely blame Canada for killing music downloading?
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The Signature could not be accessed. Please try again later or contact the administrator
The whole point of the tariffs were to collect funding based upon implied piracy. (IE tariff's on blank video tapes because blank tapes were used to "illegally" copy movies and broadcast NFL games and such)
But, at least in the case of iTunes, you're already PAYING for the product. So there's no need to tariff it because the product is being legitimately purchased.
(Of course, that won't stop your friendly government from figuring out how to tax you...)
I don't really like our new music & movie association overlords. Thank goodness for sites such as www.allofmp3.com. Since I already pay a tax on my blank media, I feel no shame in downloading from KaZaA or Usenet or Morpheus or IRC. And the music & movie industries blatant cash grabs such as this are simply going to make it harder for legitimate business to prosper, since users won't be as eager to move to them. Quite frankly, since I pay the copyright tax, I really haven't bought that many CD's. However, the movie industry still makes a killing off my kids
It doesn't stop with the cited sources either, this proposal has an extremely wide scope. From TFA:
SOCAN's proposal does not stop with music download services. The new Tariff 22 also calls for a tariff of 15 percent of gross revenues from both audio webcast sites that feature content similar to conventional radio stations as well as from established radio stations that webcast their signal. Moreover, gaming sites that communicate musical works as part of their games face a potential tariff of ten percent of gross revenues. In fact, to ensure that no one escapes Tariff 22, SOCAN envisions a tariff of ten percent of gross revenues for all other sites that communicate music.
Ultimately, this is all a bunch of legal poppycock. It's a proposal, and I'd argue that it's a damn stupid, untenable proposal. We need to let the Canadian government know that its a stupid proposal, but I have a feeling that they'll see it for what it is. After all, they've ruled positively in downloading cases before - what with our tariff on blank media.
"There's no success like failure, and failure's no success at all."
- Bob Dylan
When combined with other tariff proposals, it would appear that Canada's collectives want to the kill the download industry, demanding at least 40% of everything iTunes, Napster, and other new services earn."
I can't see it killing these globally, just in Canada.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
But thats 25% Canadian so its less than 25% American.
as long as they can still upload for free, I'm not worried.
This is a manifestation of one fear I have about publicly owned internet access monopolies (municipal WiFi). Some activist city council somewhere could decide that these sorts of taxes are just the thing needs to fund libraries, kiddie daycare, free everything, etc. Or, perhaps, activist city councils could decide to ban access to politically incorrect activities on the internet (e.g. cigarette purchasing).
There are dangers to collectivist centralization. Give me the hell of high stakes competition and unclear standards.
Since it's on-topic, I'll repost a link from a recent Slashdot story about the petition for User's Rights:
http://www.digital-copyright.ca/petition/
Wow! What is wrong with these Socialists? How in the world can they say to themselves, "OK, our citizens are LEGALLY paying for music, however, they are all theives, so we might as well tack on another 25%!".
If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land,
it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. -James Madison
They should tax the illegal downloaders. Then again 25% of 0 is... um... uh... get back to me.
Are they gonna start driving across the border for cds then? Maybe we can get an exchange going!
Zoeith
In France all blank writable media is subject to a special tax. The proceeds of this tax are distributed to the various copyright agencies. The idea is that since they are going to be used to rip music or videos anyway, the copyright holders should get some compensation. Uterly silly, but it has been effective since the first blank audio cassettes arrived on the market....
It says clearly in the synopsis on the main page that this tariff is on music downloaded from vendors like the iTunes music store.
Will this produce a negative impact on any Canadian artists such as k.d. lang, barenaked ladies, Celine Dion, Avril Lavigne, etc., etc.?
Take the place where downloading illegally is probably more safe than most other places, and then charge extra to download legally.
riiiight....
"When the atomic bomb goes off there's devastation...but when the atomic bong goes off there's celebraaaaation!"
I can see SOCAN handing Bryan Adams a big fat check; monies accrued from the greedy hordes of music downloaders at iTunes. Yeah right.
Question is, if they were able to levy these tariffs, where would this money really go? Back to the artists? Into a legal fund? I doubt the artist would benefit one ioda from these taxes (much like Employment Insurance in Canada which is a huge ripoff taxgrab from the middle class worker).
SEO Copywriter. Just Say ON
Border Guard: "Howdy sir, welcome to canada, you wouldn't happen to have any fruits, vegetables or blank media in your car, eh?"
So if I am paying for them with a tarriff does that mean I can download anything I want now and not pay a cent. Since technically I just already paid for it?
I mean, honestly. I don't know a single person who's ever BOUGHT a song online. Absolutely everyone I know has a ridiculously huge music collection that's come from napster, bittorrent, kazaa, morpheus, winmx, you name it. Anything but an officially sanctioned music site.
There's no incentive for us. We already pay a tax on our blank media, and downloading and uploading music are perfectly legal in Canada. Somehow I don't think that the online music companies are going to be shaking in their boots at all.
I was worried that successful legitimate services like iTunes would hinder the flow of free P2P music. Let's praise the Canadian government for helping to stamp out legitimate online music!
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
All I can say is, screw that, I'll just go back to getting my music for free...
Choose yer poison: Prophets or Profits
Quebec will never be a Country. Go dream about something more realistic like sleeping on a pack of flapjacks.
How does relate to a tax on online music stores and others? Maybe a tax on hard drives or the internet would be more analogous.
My first reaction from reading the blurb, was "Oh crap, a 40% price increase on iTMS?"
After reading the article and re-reading the summary, the key point here is that these groups want up to 40% of the gross revenue. Unfortunately I'm not 100% certain as to the definition of "gross revenue," but if as I suspect, that means "whatever is left in the bank after paying the related expenses" then this would be 40% of Apple's cut. If they (or the runners of other music download services, for that matter) only get to see 5% of my $0.99, and assuming they raise their price to cover this tarriff, then that would only be a 2% increase.
Of course, I may be wrong in my understanding. IANALOA (lawyer or accountant).
Duct tape is like the Force. It has a light side, a dark side, and it holds the universe together.
did non-gov't organizations get the ability to tax people or even suggest a tax? Hell, I'd love to start a company and propose they tax the hell out of everyone and collect it. Considering that those "collectives" do not represent everyone, it seems quite unfair. I'd say boot them out just for thinking about it.
Don't bothe reading any newspaper article with "may" in the title, or whose title is a question.... which also seems appropriate here (:-))
davecb@spamcop.net
I don't see why anyone would think this tax would be a good idea. After all, if a compagny thinks that music downloaded from online store are going to get rip, why don't they just raise the price? Plus, how do you distribute fairly the amount of money raised by the tax? IMHO, the song that get downloaded the most get the largest piece of the pie. From my point of view, it seems the same as raising the price tag for a song.
Votator.com implements a fair voting scheme (free
From the article:
"...The SODRAC/CMRRA proposals demand the greater of either 15 percent of gross revenues or ten cents per permanent download..." Emphasis mine.
If by "permanent download", they mean non-DRM encumbered file that I may have unlimited personal use in perpetuity, then to me, that is a fair tradeoff for a small tarriff. The 25% figure quoted on the front page would be way too high, but if I can legally download an mp3/flac/ogg/whatever and burn it as many times, put it on as many portable players, and stream it from as many computers as I want for my own personal use, without some retarded DRM app phoning home to ask for permission, then that might be worth a small surcharge.
If they insist or crippling it with DRM or if (download price + tarrif) > (price I'm willing to pay), then guess what? They've just outsmarted themselves out of potential revenue (though we know who they'll want to blame for that...)
True, legimate buyers end up covering the costs of the thieves, but the same goes for any other industry (retail, insurance, etc). I think it's more important for both sides to compromise a bit to keep the system usable for the vast majority of legitimate users, then to screw everyone in sight.
Canadians wouldn't retaliate in this way against U.S. companies, the Byrd proposal is in direct violation of Nafta which was a pretty damn big deal and Canadians were largely against.
That out of the way I have faith in Canadian regulators to find public methods of stimulating Canadians arts into which to dump the money so it won't benefit corperations (like it would in the states)...
The main reason, well if the RIC (or whatever is pushing it) then it's simply because they don't want to negotiate with apple which is silly because we have the same large music corperations (Sony etc.) but who knows maybe they're bitter.
The main thing that Canadians have and many other countries also have is regulations requiring media distributers to distribute a certain level of Canadian content (it's not bad maybe 15% or 25% but it's well regulated and has to be in prime time etc.) This leads to strange effects where artists become huge in Canada without any international acclaim.
Anyway this tarriff could be used to replace this clause, since we're getting RIC lawsuits anyway (Despite the fact that our laws will rule against them) it seems the only possible reason.
It's nice to be able to trust our government to have the interest of the citizens and artists at heart rather than industry, they do get a trifle misguided sometimes though I'll admit.
Sharing is WRONG!!
Starsucks
they simply want to be the only ones that can do it. The simplest way to do that is to have the government tax any competition out of existence, and then make any such competition illegal. iTunes is certainly competition (even though it has to pay royalties for every song it sells). And, sure as Hell's a mantrap, you can bet that there will "exceptions" to any such tax regulations that exempt the big boys from forking over a penny. It stinks, any way you look at it.
... well, I certainly won't shed many tears for them.
Where it got written (in either Canadian or U.S. law) that monopolies are entitled to maintenance and protection by either of our respective governments is beyond me. It's ridiculous. I'm sorry, I like music as much as the next man, but I don't consider the studios to be such an important national treasure that they can't be allowed to stand a little competition. And, if that competition proves to be a little too stiff and the music cartels just happen to go under
I believe they are the "evil entities" that both Captain Kirk and Captain Picard referred to in a number of episodes.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
You have to put it in its proper perspective.
25% Canadian is only 20% American, after all.
And that's before converting from metric to Imperial.
A reasonable tariff is zero. By your logic, they should go ahead and put me in prison for owning a gun "capable" of killing someone.
I said 'reasonable" meaning "not onerous" - it adds pennies to the price of a blank CD. Your example is way over the top.
Why does your country accept this idea of punishing everyone evenly for possible illegal use of something that is generally used for legal things?
It's not punishment. Its trying to be fair to everyone.
How come copiers aren't taxed? And who gets that tariff money?
Copiers aren't taxed since they don't affect the business models of book publishers to any great degree. The tariff money is supposed to be evenly divided amongst copyright holders.
Soko
"Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm." - Anonymous
The WTO was the successor to the GATT, both were created by the UN, not the USA.
"Canadians May Face 25% Download Tariff"
:-)
Canadians are not facing ANYTHING. The governing party is in the midst of the biggest political scandal in 50 years. In addition, they are a minority government. They were only able to pass the budget because the conservatives were not ready for an election and allowed it to pass. By all the indication of the polls the next government will be a Conservative minority. That government won't be able to pass a bill against murder let alone something as complex as copyright. Canadians, for the forseeble future, have a government that is for all intent and purposes, nuttered; Just as it should be
Why a 40% tax for piracy on something that can't be pirated?
Somehow, I still think AssHol^H^H^H^H^hcroft and his band of merry goons would object. (SIGH).
...the government is looking for a sugar daddy to cover for all the wasted sponsorship money and what-not. .65 - .70 last summer.
:)
All I see is increases in taxes here, prices going psycho there. I just saw gas go over a fucking dollar/litre! ONE FUCKING DOLLAR! This jumping from about
I know I'm kind of off-topic, but c'mon. In London, the city recently chipped in a substantial amount of money to pay for The John Labatt Centre. They wanted to raise taxes in order to cover the expense. There was no vote, I didn't agree to this. People will have to fight this. I don't want to sound sensationalist, but this is just fucking ridiculous. We got them to just raise ticket prices instead of taxes.
I'm a signature virus. Please copy me to your signature so I can replicate.
AC is right.
$0.99 isn't enough, how about $0 biotches!
Have you ever danced with the devil by the pale moon light?
They say the first thing to go is your penis. Well, it's either that or your brain. I forget which...
Can you download copyrighted music without fear of RIAA ramming their lawyers down your throat?
... that makes it legal, right?
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
How come copiers aren't taxed?
Actually, there is a tariff on photocopiers and toner in Canada, with the proceeds going to rightsholders. And libraries have to keep complete logs send in part of their copy machine income to CanCopy as well.
I don't think the tariffs are high enough. There's no "punishment", and you don't help your argument by using such loaded language.
www.kitchengeek.com -- Nosh for
Well, it looks like BitTorrent is still free for Canada...
When you buy a song from iTunes, who gets the money? Apple gets a cut, and the rest goes to the owner of the rights to the music. It sounds like the copyright holders want to get paid twice for each song that gets sold.
"If it's real, then it gets more interesting the closer you examine it. If it's not real, just the opposite is true." -
I just got to thinking that the only type of legal decision that would ever stop this satanic greed by the music industry would be a judge with the wisdom of King Solomon in the bible.
The story goes that two women pitch up at King Solomon's court, both claiming that a baby they have with them is theirs. King Solomon, realising that he doesn't have his DNA testing kit handy, deals out a judgement that both women have a right to the baby and that the baby should be cut in half with swords and each woman should get a half a baby. One woman then shrieks that the other woman should have the baby, and wise old Sol knows then that that is the true mother, gives the baby to her and sues the other woman for bad parenting or something like that.
Now, if a judge were to lay out a legal decision that ALL music, downloadable, online, on CD, or even over the radio should cost $10 per song minimum, that would be a fantastic decision. And it would be a fantastic decision because it would kill the music industry overnight as no one, literally no one, would buy music any more, and then the music industry would be reduced to rags and selling heroin and coke on dark streets and other shady crap like they did before the music business became a way to legally rape the entire population of the western world.
I say respect the sovereignty of America and of the rest of the world and only violate someone's sovereignty when our country is CLEARLY threatened.
Shame the rest of America doesn't feel that way.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
I'm a signature virus. Please copy me to your signature so I can replicate.
I'll bite. What the hell does this have to do with the Conservative party? Isn't it just an appeal in federal court?
free speach
Did you mean: free speech
Using a little quote from SouthPark... Blame Canada!! Blame Canada!! =P
João Pinheiro
Keep up with the news man. It already is legal to download music in Canada. You just can't upload anything. So just make sure to download your stuff off of foreign servers and you're in the clear.
I'm a signature virus. Please copy me to your signature so I can replicate.
A reasonable tariff is zero. By your logic, they should go ahead and put me in prison for owning a gun "capable" of killing someone. Why does your country accept this idea of punishing everyone evenly for possible illegal use of something that is generally used for legal things? How come copiers aren't taxed? And who gets that tariff money?
We agree. If your gun is designed for killing people, handguns for example, you'll go to jail for owning it. Better stick to hunting rifles and shotguns.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
Funny thing is the NAFTA tribunals have as many americans on it as canadians and they have consistently ruled against US trade actions. Frankly the US has shown itself time and time again to bargain in bad faith.
Free to retaliate, anyone is free to retaliate. I wonder how the US would like to see a 25 per cent surtax on energy exports to the US. Before you laugh, see how much of the US engery requirements are imported from Canada in terms of electricty, natural gas and oil.
I think the scope of that includes anything that isn't music either. And you could download off of local servers too. You wouldn't be breaking the law, although they would.
I'm a signature virus. Please copy me to your signature so I can replicate.
How odd, I think they keep forgetting the fact that us Canadians already pay over 20% taxation on blank media.
... You can download, but not upload. It makes a world of difference if the RIAA ever comes after you.
I'm a signature virus. Please copy me to your signature so I can replicate.
Official Conservative Party policy is to eliminate the levy on blank recording materials. Since they are about to win the next election to be held (most likely) in June, this particular problem is solved.
He's saying that because of the minority government, unpopular bills won't be forced down our throats. Then he's going off on a rant about the conservatives and how he'd rather leave the country than live under their rule.
I actually agree with him on the rant part. But it's still not relevant.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
Title says it all. This is a proposal from SOCAN, which represents some Canadian musicians. It's just a proposal. As long as the government is still collecting the tariff on blank media, there's no way this would ever actually happen, because organisations like SOCAN are *already* receiving funds as anti-pirating compensation.
The government's already decided that the blank media tax more than pays for lost revenue from the artists, and I doubt very much that SOCAN et al. will ever be willing to give that up.
If you believe everything you read, you'd better not read. - Japanese proverb
Since a tarif is, by definition, a tax on imported goods, couldn't Apple just ship the servers to a Canadian based subsidiary that only ships profits back to the US, thereby avoiding the issue of revenue crossing the border?
Unlike the Bretton Woods insitutions, the WTO was neither created by nor is it governed by the United Nations. The WTO has in recent years been working with the UN Coference on Trade and Development and the UN Development Programme, however.
English is easier said than done.
If the price increases, demand decreases, more people give up on it and start pirating music, then the industry puts on their "so many people pirate! we're losing so much money!" show so they can have more impressive statistics when they sue people for piracy.
Perhaps I'm a bit paranoid, but it struck me as odd when the record industry in America first raised the price of CDs to compensate for "lost sales," thereby reducing the demand for them. I can't think of any reason for that kind of behavior except the above idea. Any other ideas?
Esoteric reference.
I mean yes there is piracy, but there always was. Before P2P, there was FM radio and tapes. When I was in college CD's were still kinda new, and people swapped CD's all the time. Little known fact is that a hifi-vcr will record audio at CD quality in an analog medium.
All this MP3 stuff is compressed and less than CD quality. Frankly things have gotten better for the music industry. They are just looking for reason for why people don't want to buy the crappy music they keep trying to shove down our throats today.
Think Deeply.
Greater than zero is onerous.
It's not punishment. Its trying to be fair to everyone.
It's not fair to anyone who's not pirating!
Copiers aren't taxed since they don't affect the business models of book publishers to any great degree. The tariff money is supposed to be evenly divided amongst copyright holders.
Man, talk about corporate welfare! And what does "evenly divided" mean? And does any of that get to artists? Which ones?
Fine. Substitute "car" and "driving drunk."
Karma gets you doesn't it?
Greed at least partly drove the music industry to digital format. Let's face it CDs should be cheaper than Vinyl records were but mysteriously they aren't.
Now that all of our music is nicely digitized it's entirely portable and 100% copyable.
Now they are scrambling for legislation to fix their dilemma.
Of course further stupidity like that mentioned in this article will not kill downloading, just LEGAL downloading. Someone in the industry needs a clue. Steve Jobs tried to give them a clue and they want to tax his service at 25% as a "thankyou".
It seems only fitting. If we can drive over the boarder to get cheap percription drugs, they should be able to come over our boarder for tax free tunes.
Fantastic! You guys really have that corporate welfare thing kicking up there. I still want to know who divides the cash. I mean, don't get me wrong, we have our corporate handouts here in the states. But I like the refreshingly overt take you guys have on it, taxing everyone instead of the guilty.
I don't think the tariffs are high enough.
Um, why? Are you a publishing house? Do you like handing over your money to a goverment/business consortium? Do you have a masochistic streak? Do you overpay your income taxes as well just to stay on the safe side?
There's no "punishment"
That tax is a punishment. You're not paying the copyright industry because they're nice guys. You're paying them (nominally) to compensate them for illegal behavior on the behalf of other people. I call that a punishment.
and you don't help your argument by using such loaded language.
I call it like I see it. Call it a punishment, a penalty, whatever. It amounts to the same thing. You're penalizing the innocent. Here in the states, we at least make sure the RIAA penalizes the "guilty," and we don't much like that either.
Fire up a 2nd-generation onion-router, called TOR.
Nothing will stop this baby.
If you got Gentoo, simply do "emerge tor"
Enjoy all your P2P, bittorrent, and everything with perfect forward-secrecy.
You guys really have that corporate welfare thing kicking up there
CanCopy doesn't represent corporate interests. It represents individual authors.
Tell you what: you get informed, and then we can talk. Until then, you're just another jerk with a Canuck-bashing agenda. You can "call it like you see it" all you like, but you see it wrong and I'd rather not waste my time with you.
www.kitchengeek.com -- Nosh for
As an Ontario Cannuk, I thank god you and your kind have moved to Arizon too.
:)
Now if we can get the memebers of the Alberta Conservatives to leave, we'd be OK.
Never by hatred has hatred been appeased, only by kindness - the Buddha
I methodically computed how much of his taxes were allocated for health care expenditures in the various annual budgets, and what the cost of the surgery would be. Surprise! He had paid for it over ten times over in the course of his earning years. From a purely financial perspective, he was defrauded of the means to save his own life.
My experience with health care in the U.S. has been far,far better.
Google for "Canadian Healthcare" sometime.
You could've hired me.
Actually, whenever I knew I was going to be making a trip to Canada I would make a list of all the CD's I wanted to buy. CD's in Canada would be around $12 CDN, which back when the US dollar was a little stronger meant they were about $8 US. Now, the savings isn't so dramaitic, if at all.
Oh well, at least we can still import music from allofmp3.com.
There are a lot of flames going around as to how this is very bad, but it's the way things have worked above the border for a LONG time. We pay a tad more for MP3 players and blank CDs, and in exchange legally download and burn.
So why should online be treated differently from regular purchases in this case? This money then gets sent off to the music industry.
-M
when you see the word 'Linux', drink!
If the recording giants are pushing to cut into the shares of Apple, Napster and others then the music download services should get into the recording industry and beat them at their own game -- offer cheaper studio time, market through iTunes and on store shelves. Apple has enough money. I'm sure that would throw a scare into the industry, maybe even make them back off. Of course this is overly simplistic. It's obvious I don't understand the industry, but it sure sounds good.
Copyright infringement is potential lost revenue.
When your stuff starts costing lots more, you will.
There's no more national economic sovereignity--hasn't been in decades.
Quebec is actually better than a lot of places in Canada these days, notably BC and Ontario.
And finally I probably *would* find some (possibly illegal) way to pay for surgery if the government wouldn't support it.
Not in Canada, you can't. At least, not if your a citizen and the surgery is covered by government health care -- the argument is that it's "unfair" for you to get "ahead" of those that can't pay. (This, even though you've paid your "fair share" of taxes for the universal system already. But, you'd have to be quite wealthy to have enough left over for all but the most minor surgery.) It's questionable whether you can even go outside Canada legally. You could theoretically be arrested upon your return for illegally procuring health services (though that would no doubt spark an outrage -- nah, Canadians really are that meek).
I guess at the end of the day, it's a choice between what I perceive as the lesser of two evils for me: 1) a system where everybody fights each other and the top dogs are able to afford first class treatment (America), and 2) a system where you're taxed so heavily that fighting becomes meaningless, and drunken bums might get preferential treatment due to wrinkles or just unfairness in what is supposed to be a fair system (Canada).
The system in the U.S. is far more effective at delivering quality care to the most people: if you work, you generally have subsidized health insurance. Those that don't generally chose to "opt out" to save a few dollars a month. A 5% unemployment rate is considered an economic disaster, whereas it would be a panacea in Canada. Of course, in a population of 300 million people, the number of uninsured is significant.
It might seam "dog eat dog", but it actually works surprisingly well. You'd also find incredible levels of private charity that are unheard of in Canada, where people are far more stingy, because (a) they're taxed so heavily, and (b) the perception is that the government will provide. Americans, however, generally don't tolerate habitual free-loaders for very long.
The reality of Canadian healthcare is that it is an unmitigated disasterous failure, even among socialist countries.
I dunno. I think if there were less greedy people trying to fuck with the system, Canada's government would work a lot more smoothly. The whole sounds-good-in-theory bit, y'know. But then when I look to the south, I realize I'm sure glad I'm not down there, and find myself willing to put up with whatever screwball bureaucracy we may have, because on the whole Canada seems to be a more sane place to live.
At what expense? I do not wish to become so impoverished tax-wise that I can not provide for my, and my family's basic health care needs. I'm particularly affected because my wife does not work: where we can file a joint tax return in the U.S., I am effectively taxed as a single supporting three dependents in Canada (the non-refundable credit for my spouse is a joke). The societal pendulum swings wildly in the U.S., but it does return from extreme positions. It's amazing that a nation so powerful is not even more corrupt. Something must be right.
I'd just prefer not to be labelled a murderer because I have leftist views (same as I wouldn't label you a murderer because you don't).
Unless you are active in government the term I used was "accessory to murder." And, I stick by it: if your views cause even one person to die, who otherwise would not, regardless of how many others you might save, that is murder. Those views being popular does not mitigate the consequences of their exercise.
The U.S., despite appearing to be a dog eat dog world, works surprisingly well. I had reservations when I first came here in 1997. But, after a brief return to Canada in 2003-early 2004, I could not stand it. I had not planned to return to the U.S. -- my wife and kids were tired of moving and we'd just purchased a house in Ontario. But, when the job offer came, we were all in agreement and eager to leave what we percieved as utter hell. It is very true that "you can't go home again."
You could've hired me.
Hey, I'm all in favour of us charging more for oil etc. However, I will point out a few things as I have travelled extensively in the states and have friends there. First, they pay for everything. A number of thing we take for granted in other countries that are provided through a collective use of tax dollars, they don't get.
All the places you mention for example and in Canada, ensure that all citizens get health care. You fall down a set of stairs, you will hurt, you will spend time in rehab, but it won't break you financially. There, a medical disaster can also spell financial ruin. Plus, if they have insurance, they don't get to pick their doctor, some faceless corporate insurance HMO bureaucrat does that.
There is more, but the difference comes down to this which is what I have observed to be the basis of the american social contract: One man's dollar is equal to another man's dollar. Everything seems to spiral out from that. Anything that stands in the way of that is un-american.
He doesn't agree with you, so he's wrong, "eh"?
No, you're wrong because your information is wrong, you fucking coward.
www.kitchengeek.com -- Nosh for
I wouldn't laugh. Neither would the rest of the world, which exports chiefly to the US and which would suffer if US consumers were forced to cut back on spending due to higher energy prices.
:)
BTW thanks for the info on the WTO
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
Your greed and short-sightedness could be your industry's undoing. We Canadians are doing just fine without the hockey league and we could do just fine without purchasing any music whatsoever.
Think before you act or you could spell your own economic doom. Individuals such as myself are respecting copyrights. This proposed tariff is a slap in the face and tantamount to legalised racketeering.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
I make more than $50K a year and I pay ~35% (including CPP and EI).
Reality is that the taxes in Canada are anything but bad, and btw, the highest tax bracket start at CAN$115,739.
If you want to e-mail me, use my PGP Key.
Funny you should mention that... I added up the benefits I received vs. the taxes I paid in Canda (I have copies of all my tax returns since I started filing at the age of 14). After all, I wanted to know if I was getting a "good deal". I was not initally eager to leave for the "unknowns of the dog-eat-dog U.S." Even taking into account some subsidy for the poor (most faiths suggest 10% of gross income), I found I was getting really shafted: I paid over half a million dollars in taxes over my working life in Canada and had little to show for it: perhaps CA$100k in an RRSP.
So, not only did I "repay" the 50-75k in spades, I also repaid it on behalf of my wife and daughter.
I suppose it just natural selection then if someone is too poor to afford hospital and dies.
Yes.
Tragic, perhaps, but it is no one's fault.
But, when you take from others, and they suffer and die as a result you are responsible for their death, regardless of whatever good may have been brought about.
It is one thing to encourage charity and compassion. But, to wrap theft and murder in those words is utterly disgusting.
You realize that there are thousands of people that are alive because of our health care system. The ends do not justify the means. Eventually, the medical knowledge gained by Nazis via their grotesque experiments on Jews will, no doubt, save many more lives than were lost. But, I submit that nothing justifies the taking of even one life.
I don't know what happened to your Dad, but I can tell you, he is the exception not the rule.
You really should Google for "Canadian Healthcare" and see how it has decayed recently.
To spend less money to try to save a person's life than was taken from them by force for their health care, is fraud at best, and murder at worst.
You could've hired me.
I've grown up in Germany, lived in the US, Netherlands and Switzerland and currently in Canada, and guess what: I have had the same experiences in all the countries. Only difference? In the US the first thing they did was take my Credit Card.
Wait times? Not that much worse in Canada than in other places. Granted, in the US I could have just gone and paid, but when I needed an MRI I would have to pay $700 in the US, I got it "free" in Canada. Wait time? 1 month.
If you want to e-mail me, use my PGP Key.
The thing is, most of the rulings that are ignored are cannibalistic. Example, the US forestry companies lobby the government to put a tariff on canadian lumber. Direct result, the price of a house, and other products using softwood in the US goes up by that amount. Other examples can be found, but usually this seems to be more of one industry pitting itself against another. While it is true, a lot of companies would suffer if the US consumer cut back, the US is only 250 million people on a planet of a couple of billion. While most of those are not huge consumers, the rest of the world is starting to catch up. Frankly, in the end I don't know what will hurt the US consumer more, increasing energy costs (which are going to happen regardless), or the incredible growth of consumer indebtedness (which is another topic entirely).
Simple solution. STOP BUYING!
Imagine the chagrin of the Industry if it suddenly became hip and cool to not buy or listen to or watch anything they produce.
Its not like its any good anyway, and its time to cut the pigs out of the middle of the equation. Buy direct only from non-label artists and producers of content.
As for Canada, a 40% tarrif is just what I would expect from aging socialists.
>
God forbid both things happen simultaneously.
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
over $35,595 up to $56,070: 38.37%
over $56,070 up to $71,190: 42.37%
And yes, that includes the 16.5% abatement.
Ontario is a little better, with a tax rate over 40% at around CA$70k.
So, my numbers were a bit off for Ontario, but about right for Quebec.
That's insane.
I earned a little over US$100k from all sources in 2005, and paid Uncle Sam about US$7k in tax, filing jointly, taking exemptions for my spouse and kids, deducting the home mortgage, and maxing my 401(k) (like an RRSP). I also paid CA$7k on CA$40k of that income (much of it at a reduced capital gains rate) to Canada (which gave rise to an FEIE, and so wasn't taxed at all in the U.S.). My health insurance is paid completely by my employer and I have no copay or annual deductable. It's worth about another US$15k.
In Canada, doing the same work, the best I could earn was CA$76k a year.
Worse, Canadian law requires me to provide for my spouse "in the manner to which she has become accustomed". That being impossible, I was in serious danger of being jailed for not earning enough ("If you can earn US$100k in the U.S., why can'y you earn CA$12k here?").
You could've hired me.
How bout this... why don't you just stay in the states, drive drunk and shoot ppl with your handguns? We don't need those sorts of ppl here... so you just stay where you're happy.
This whole socialism thing you're going on about? I think it's a better way to live, and so do most of the other ppl here. If I'm going to pay my taxes towards funding the operation of a society and live within it, I'd like one that is structured to support the people who live here. I'd rather see the ignorant educated, the homeless given food and shelter, the criminals given social treatment and so on. I think investing in improving the lot of everyone is good for the every individual involved in addition to being good for the society.
I like living in a place where people care about each other to put their money where there mouth is rather than spouting rhetoric, cutting government programs, shifting responsibility for education and health care to the individuals who can afford it least when they need it most and looking for another country to bomb into submission and exploit.
I want to see this trend progress further along Socialist lines, a la the Nordic countries, rather than becoming more like the US. I consider your country to be a prime example of how badly things go when people don't give a shit about anyone but themselves. Fortunately for me, most of my countrymen seem to agree.
Rest assured though... if I become bitter and selfish and decide I want to live in a place where the social structure is set up to make it easy for me to exploit my fellow man, I'll be sure to pay your country a visit.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
Who gets the tarrif in the end? Is it designed to pay the artists? If so...are the artists not being paid already when the user BUYS the product to begin with?
The tarrifs on blank media is to get the artists paid when someone copies their work...this is ridiculous.
The American health care system routinely denies patients coverage. This is usually after the fact, so people survive the immediate problem, but go into a debt spiral. A Harvard study indicated that 50% of bankruptcies in the US are either directly or indirectly caused by health issues. The stress of dealing with financial issues causes quite a bit of health problems, although they are usually absorbed by businesses in terms of loss productivity.
The assumption belying your statements is that the privately run American healthcare system offers good coverage. This is not true. The first problem is co-pays. If you have any sort of chronic illness, these can really take you down. Usually you aren't getting income because you can't work, and secondly you are seeing specialists at at least $25 each doctor visit (plus anything the insurance company doesn't cover, which is SUBSTANTIAL - the best coverage you can get is 90%). Meanwhile you aren't getting short term disability coverage because those companies routinely deny chronically ill people coverage, so now you are going into debt. This scenario happens to people making a good middle class wage too. I personally know someone who was making over $40k/year and yet fell into debt because of the 'almost-but-not-quite' coverage of even the best corporate sponsored health plans! Some non-corporately sponsored plans don't cover so-called 'pre-existing conditions'. Yep, your child who has had asthma may never get covered under non-governmental or corporate healthcare sponsored plans.
Healthcare costs can take down people who are making well over $100k a year no problem.
For the record, I am a Canadian who has been living in the US for over 3 years. I have seen both systems, and seen the faults of both, but I still think universal coverage is the right thing to do.
I invoke Godwin's law. You have lost this online discussion.
Thanks for the lack of civility.
-ryan
And the rate of banruptcy, overall, is...?
You're raising a red herring.
Besides, bankruptcy, isn't fatal. Failed universal healthcare is.
You could've hired me.
I have 100% coverage with no annual deductable and no copays.
Of course, it costs around US$15k a year for the family, but it's part of my total remuneration.
You could've hired me.
This God damn socialist tax guise is a real fucking piss off. We already pay at least 20% of our gross annual revenue to the government, plus 14% (15% in Ontario, but I live in Manitoba now) to the provincial and federal governments whenever we spend what is left over from what they already plundered.
Sure we have "better" health care than the US, and a "better" education system (my ass -- education in Manitoba is severely disabled, and the Ontario government also managed to fuck theirs up over the past decade too). If that's the case, then why would my mother, who works with nurses all day, tell me that if I get sick we're going to the states to pay for real health care? Why would my girlfriend, who is a nurse here in Canada, agree with her?
This new tariff idea is one more reason to say "fuck off" to corporations altogether and download your shit for free (somewhat legal here in Canada anyway). Sorry Apple, I'm really happy with my iPod, and I'm really happy with the iTunes Music Store as well, but if they impose this tariff I'm gone.
putfwd.com - 1GB Free file storage with a twist
I present a reducto ad absurdum proof that they do not because they justify heinous acts.
You could've hired me.
A month wait?
Heck, I had three when I was deathly ill in intensive care in a Chicago hospital in 1998. I would have surely died in Canada.
You could've hired me.
Municipalities do not have taxation powers in Canada; they can only collect school and property taxes (depending on province). I know in the U.S. the situation is completely different and must vary from state to state.
Oh, cities and municipal districts in Canada really, really want those powers, but no sane provincal government would grant them.
You make it sound like there are no exeptions from the taxes you pay.
You still have exeption, all your RRSP contributions go off of your yearly earnings, the first 8+K are free (plus whatever the province gives you) etc. etc.
I have lived in Canada now for 5 years and so far I have never paid more than 35%, and I am by far not a "tax wiz", in fact most of these years I had H&R do my taxes.
If you want to e-mail me, use my PGP Key.
Yes.
Tragic, perhaps, but it is no one's fault.
The term for this is barbarism. And it is society's fault. As in failure to help most of its individuals so that some born into priviledge assholes can shower themselves in absolute power and luxury. Amongst many of its modern renditions, the most streamlined version is called fascism. Since that has acquired some "undesirable" connotations, some newer versions appeared, the most popular of which are variants of Libertarianism of which you appear to be subsrciber.
I for one will be exceedingly glad when you and your fascist ass are out of the country. I hate to foist such a vicious, selfish, sociopathic moron on anyone, but it seems you would fit in the US these days nicely. Dont let the door hit you on your way out, fucker.
Oh, by the way, do not forget to sign up for the US army so that you can go spread your ideals of vicious dog-eats-dog thuggery throughout the planet. Just do not be back or you might find out that the rest of us Canadians can use guns too.
P.S. Anyone reading this should note this telling bit: "To spend less money to try to save a person's life than was taken from them by force for their health care, is fraud at best, and murder at worst.". The main objection being that the doctors were unable to find a cure and realized that sad truth before $25 million was spent on futile but profitable procedures ala US. The poster is simply refusing to accept that his father's moneygrubbing proved impotent in the face biological failure. People like him live in the US of course too and they account for a significant portion of your insurance expense since they are the ones suing all the doctors in sight when a loved one dies. After all he has a lot of money to spend on the cure and so if it fails, it must be someone's fault for money always wins, right?
Remember also that Ch.11 of NAFTA states that any Foreign Corporation (say Apple) can defeat any domestic Law, if found to inhibit " property, ownership, the right to market and sell a product, and the right to earn a profit" by the foreign corporation.
.25 levy... well Apple gets to sue, especially if this law makes it unprofitable to sell (or unpopular).
So considering that Apple makes $.01-.02 cents a track, and now they want to charge
Apple will probably win, far more nefarious businesses have usurped popular Environmental law, so expect Apple to have a hay-day with this law.
Nope, the Canadian government is weak, so any unpopular laws are out, and even if it passed, I would expect Apple to sue under Ch.11 to have this law reversed.
As an aside, Ch 11 (IMHO) has largely been terrible for Canadians, so using it for our benefit would be nice. [Please don't cloud the issue with *DRM is good for you FUD*]
Bad spellers of the world untie!
Futhermore, to get health care in Ontario after moving there, one has to sign a form agreeing to live there permanently. (And yes, they mean "forever", not some minimum time -- I asked.)
I just about had a crown prosecutor (rather like a district attorney in the U.S.) ready to levy charges against me for spousal neglect for not providing health care on demand for my wife that she had grown accustomed to in Texas, despite it being illegal to even try to pay for it (not that I could afford to in Canada, with the taxes I paid)! It was "my tough" that the law required me to do something that was illegal, never mind financially impossible. "You shouldn'tve left and lived better!" was the growl over the phone.
Canada is very close to closing the borders, IMHO, to those that have the means to leave.
You could've hired me.
What about the people who make less than $15k a year?
I guess there is really 2 ways of looking at things:
- how can we provide the best for the best?
- how can we provide for everyone?
Much was learned by Nazi experiments to determine the body's tolerance to extremes of heat and cold. That does not justify what was done, though it would be equally criminal to ignore the knowledge gained at such a high price.
Similarly, taxing one to the point of their not being able to spend their money to save their own life is not justified regardless of how many other lives can be saved by application of the monies stolen.
You could've hired me.
God forbid indeed, but that is actually likely the most likely scenario. Right now the US has a huge accounts deficit, very high consumer debt and a persistently high per barrel price of oil which I don't see ever dropping back below 48 dollars a barrel.
The oil price in fact is going to likely rise mainly from the market pressure brought by emerging economies. The US and Canada have enough oil to last 1000 years. Unfortunately it is mainly in shale and oil sands which is presently brutally expensive to extract.
Most of the present consumer debt has been due to a run of many years of cheap credit, if interest rates take off which I could easily see happening if oil prices keep rising, look out. Double those chances if banks continue to merge.
Pretty much the same applies to the US and Canada equally, the only saving grace for Canada being that it is still a net producer of energy. If I were an american, I would especially be pissed at the new bankruptcy laws that protect the credit card companies. It's now wonder that master card and visa each made more money than microsoft last year.
Neither. I am here on a Workpermit, I do pay the same taxes as Canadiasn (including CPP and EI, the latter of which I cannot claim) and overall I get the same services.
And I was not "deadly ill" there was a possiblity that I may be carrying around a brain tumor and this was about confirming it.
As for "deadly ill" I have read several reports on the state of Canadian healthcare and the average waiting time seems to be the same as it is for most other socialist (yes yes, dirty word) countries.
Fact is: The US is great if you have a lot of money and if you don't mind to walk over the majority of people. So far my conscience and ethics don't let me do this, maybe one day I can be as self centered as you.
If you want to e-mail me, use my PGP Key.
Your ad hominem comparision of libertarianism to fascism is telling. Typical of a liberal to resort to ranting instead of reasoned debate.
I was not born into privelege. My father was, surprisingly, but was robbed of his wealth by Soviet communists post-WWII. He indeed started over from scratch, with nothing more than the chothes on his back and a willingness to work hard. Fortunately, despite being born to modest affluence, such labour was not beneath him, and he managed to survive, though he never suceeded in owning a home other than a shack in rural Quebec. He was very much a middle-class worker.
But, your critisism is telling. You presume that even people of modest means are "privileged assholes". This is typical of the thief.
FWIW, the procedure to save his life would cost about US$30k. He paid far, far, more than that in Canadian income taxes over a 31 year working career.
In any case, no more monies should be spent to save a live than were taken from that person for that possible purpose. So, your $25M argument is specious.
While I am to old to register with the U.S. millitary, my son, an American citizen, is too young, but I expect that one day he will, as he will be required to by law.
You could've hired me.
I prefer the tragedy of indifference to murder by theft.
You could've hired me.
Once again the RIA and government fails to grasp the bigger picture on how to USE file sharing rather than fight it. Essentially all this tarrif will accomplish will be to encourage those people who do download music legitimately via such systems as Napster to seek other methods. Essentially people are left with two options: 1) Accept an increase in cost-per-download to help companies like Apple cover the 40% charge. 2) Download these programs illegally because the price has become too excessive for a per-song download
Also, the first 8+K (and the similar spousal credit) are not "free". These are non-refundable tax credits: you add up the ones you have (generally 8k for yourself and 7.5k for your spouse, if you have one with no income), and then compute the lowest tax rate on them, currently around 16.5%. That becomes a credit against the income tax you owe which is computed from the first dollar of income. About a CA$2500 credit. Peanuts.
Constrast deductions and exceptions in the U.S. These are taken right off the top and are the equivlent of non-refundable tax credits at your marginal tax rate.
Marrieds in the U.S. can file jointly: add their incomes (even if one is zero), and get double the standard deduction and all the tax brackets start at double the single rates. Marrieds can't file jointly in Canada (and any attempt to split income with one's spouse is attributed back to the source -- trying to hide it is tax evasion), and that's what was the real killer: my wife does not work.
You could've hired me.
Thank you for your post. I'm glad there is some reason on this forum.
Your ignorance is infinitely greater than you realize.
So you've obviously found the place you want, where you don''t really pay any taxes, and can pay for all the services for yourself.
Out of curiosity though: What will happen if you get disabled and cannot work any longer?
If you want to e-mail me, use my PGP Key.
If such societies were formed by the voluntary cooperative efforts of their members, this might be true. However, so-called democracies are a thin veil around mob rule.
Truely voluntary communities function the way you describe, and represent greater security for their members than what they can provide for themselves. The Amish and Mennonites know this very well.
However, the situation in Canada is not voluntary: one can not "opt out" and go it alone, with no help "from the group". The group becomes a mob and the mob, or rather it's leaders, seeing a net gain from the fruits of the labours of those who would seek to remain outside the group employ force to make them participate. Of course, all democracies work this way, to some degree or other, but Canada is, in my experience, far more heinous in this regard than is the U.S.
Worse, it isn't even a qustion of a mob exerting its will on outsiders. Its a cabal of criminals who have, through effective propaganda, convinced the population that "the mob" is the "one, true, best way," even in the face of mounting evidence that it is not working very well.
If things were so rosy, one would not have to use force to ensure participation: the value proposition would stand on it's own. But, it fails miserably, even when compared to other socialist nations that have at least accepted two tier health care, even if it offends some idealistic notion of fairness.
You could've hired me.
Too much /. hysteria is generated over these kind of dramatic proposals that are likely bargaining positions.
That's gotta fit into your schema somewhere
I am not entirely opposed to some such assistance in practice, even as I oppose it in principle. But, the situation in Canada is horrendous.
You could've hired me.
Explain to me how this makes the US a "nice guy"? Where I come from, we call that "ripping everyone off".
I'll take a stab at this. Domestic demand in Europe and Japan is stagnating, Japan has been in and our of deflation for over a decade, Germany is toying with it. Germany is facing 12.6% unemployment right now the highest numbers since the thirties. Europe can't escape the massive future liabilities the government has amassed due to its low birth rates, and therefore has to import as much labour as it can simply to keep going. The threat of low-cost labour from the rest of the EU, and the curtailing of benefits that have come to be seen as a right threaten to harm the social structures of Europe in irreperable ways.
You've been paying attention only to people who say what you want if you really believe that there has ever been any chance of the Euro becoming a reserve currency in the world economy. Ireland even began issuing some of it's sovereign debt in USD a few weeks ago! Extrapolating this assertion and saying this was the reason for the Iraq war borders on voluntary lunacy. The US trade deficit has been nearly the only thing that has kept Europe and Asia from operating in a severe recession over the last few years.
Basically America's consumer, partially aided by the Fed's policy of low interest rates, has been supporting the world's economy. Economists have been wringing thier hands for years over how the world economy is running on only one engine. Part of the hope was that during this period Europe (really talking about Germany here, the largest economy in Europe by far) and Japan would reform thier labour laws, and banking system respectively, creating domestic growth and genuine domestic demand, and start to buy stuff not only from themselves, supporting thier own economies, but also from America.
Aside from the fact that the social structures of Japan and Germany, as well as the government leaders have pretty much failed to address the structural problems that have brought their domestic economies to thier knees while they had a chance. The consequences of this so far have been a falling US dollar, but could easily be protectionism, which is really unfortunate.
But that's just what I've grokked over the last few years. I could be wrong. But I doubt I'm more wrong than you in this case.
Kalin
Metamuscle.com - News in the Iro
I have disability insurance. I have significant life insurance to provide for my family in the even of my demise.
It may surprise you, but I also contribute significant amounts to charity to help the truely unfortunate and destitute. I could neve afford to do so to the degree that I do in Canada.
You could've hired me.
My comparison is not only not ad hominem (although I did call you with quite deserved epitetes later) but merely stated the obvious.
I was not born into privelege.
So you were not but the only people who would benefit from private health-care are those who did and a small group of "self-made" millionaires many of whom are business crooks. Why are you shilling for them then?
You presume that even people of modest means are "privileged assholes"
No I do not. But you appear not to realise that these very same people are the subject of massive health-related financial failures in the US. Over 40% of personal bankruptcies in the US are in just such families and are caused by medical bills after their insurance coverage proves inadequate. Yes, Virginia, they all did have insurance. Most people of "modest means" do not have $30k lying around, not to mention that it would likely have been only one of many such expenses to cover. You should inquire about average family's (parital) medical coverage insurance rates and compare those to the medical portion of Canadian taxes. Some American doctors recently made a ruckus in Congress about this little bit... something about 30% higher administrative costs... 250% higher drug costs etc. etc. In other words the poeple of "modest means" are served far, far better by the Canadian system then that of the USA.
FWIW, the procedure to save his life would cost about US$30k. He paid far, far, more than that in Canadian income taxes over a 31 year working career.
... and it was the opinion of the doctors that it would have been a waste of time and money since they already knew what the result would have been. You are objecting to them being unwilling to spend $30k on a 0.001% (or some such) chance of success. While true, the US system would let you get a second mortage to pay for this and many other increasingly more desparate and futile procedures, the end result would have been the same. But if I am wrong about this, then it has nothing to do with socialized medical care but with simple malpractice. As in the doctors making an error in judgment. In which case sue, I see no problem with citizens doing so in such cases.
In any case, no more monies should be spent to save a live than were taken from that person for that possible purpose. So, your $25M argument is specious.
I see you do not believe in the concept of insurance! As in taking small amounts from all to cover huge expenses in case of the unlucky few. In which case I am afraid that your cash-only experience with the US for-profit system will likely be even more abysmal than most (some procedures cost over $500k, hospital stay $2k per day etc.).
While I am to old to register with the U.S. millitary, my son, an American citizen, is too young, but I expect that one day he will, as he will be required to by law.
Have fun in Iran!
What the fuck are you talking about? I have an HMO and I got to pick my own doctor. And what's wrong with not hiding the costs of one's lifestyle?
Marxism is the opiate of dumbasses
Because I benefit from a free enterprise system. The fact that some benefit far more does not bother me. It is bothersome that one can use wealth to purchase law that benefits the wealthy exclusively, but that is no reason to decry wealth alone. Decry fraud and other crimes.
Some American doctors recently made a ruckus in Congress about this little bit... something about 30% higher administrative costs... 250% higher drug costs etc. etc. In other words the poeple of "modest means" are served far, far better
This has not been my experience, and recent reports suggest that the Canadian health care system is getting worse at an accelerating rate. For refusing to "cave in" to a two-tier system, Canada has the greatest per-capita costs of any country with a national health care system. While the U.S. has problems with administrative inefficiencies and legal expenses, these are trivial to correct, by comparison. You are comparing apples to oranges and stating that rotten apples are more appealing than expensive oranges.
I see you do not believe in the concept of insurance! As in taking small amounts from all to cover huge expenses in case of the unlucky few. In which case I am afraid that your cash-only experience with the US for-profit system will likely be even more abysmal than most (some procedures cost over $500k, hospital stay $2k per day etc.).
No, I fully understand insurance. I have adequate health, disability, and life insurance. But no sane person would purchase a health insurance policy that would not at least provide up to the amount of premiums paid to save their life for covered procedures. To force such a policy on one and not permit them to purchase another is criminal.
If my house burns down, I get my house replaced. My premiums might go up, but so long as the loss (i.e. health problem) is covered, the insurer pays.
You could've hired me.
The chance of success was estimated at 70%.
You could've hired me.
Someone has to expose the crimes, though.
Sooner or later, the collective noise will be too loud to ignore.
I wonder how ugly it will turn when people realize just how badly they've been robbed. This is the stuff of which bloody revolutions are made. I do not think Canadans' general compacency will stave off such a revolution. I think it will merely delay it, and when it comes, it will be all the more bloddy for the delay.
You could've hired me.
You really think having the population of Japan and Germany ripping resources out of the ground, turning them into useful goods and sending them to the US in exchange for pieces of paper that are never redeemed is doing those countries good?
I think you're a little too close to the problem to see the big picture there mate. The people of Japan and every other nation would be a lot better off spending their time and resources to improve their own lot in life rather than improving yours.
And your dismissal of the Euro as a global currency are totally unconvincing and not based on fact. Countries hoard US dollars and swap them around as a global currency instead of redeeming them because other countries won't accept them, particularly where oil is concerned. If you can't see that having a huge source of oil like Iraq accepting Euros and removing that necessity to hoard US Dollars would have changed things, then there's not a lot I can say to enlighten you. It's an obvious chain of events. It was just swept under the table at the time... I mean, they were really there to get all those WMDs, right?
And that motive carries over to Britian, their major ally in that war. They were fighting very hard to put the breaks on the Euro at the time.
The current weakness of the currency that makes you so disparaging of the possibility is a
result of the invasion of Iraq. It would be a great deal stronger now if that war hadn't occurred.
The US are looking out for themselves. It's been an accepted fact among the ruling class there that their standard of living depends on exploiting other nations for decades, and that those exploitive power structures must be preserved.
Think I'm wrong all you like... but do even a little research and the pieces all fall into place. The changes that brutal dictator would have brought to pass would have gone a long way towards breaking the US stranglehold on the global economy and making the world a better place to live in. Too late now though.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
Ironically the people who suffer the most in the US are those making between like $15-$40k/yr, especially families. Medicaid doesn't cover people who make too much, and insurance is not affordable for all.
The other trend is the discontinuation of medical insurance programs by various companies. Fewer employees get insurance, and those who do get it pay more than ever before. Benefits may be reduced even. Furthermore with the disappearance of the manufacturing sector, many people are getting jobs at much lower pay scales than before. That is someone who used to make $60,000 as a Boeing employee is now making $11.43/hr as a private security guard. These situations are becoming more and more common.
Of course you got yours, congrats. That was always the motto in the 80s, right? I got mine, you get yours too? Of course the big deal was that the economy wasn't a 0 sum game. In the end the economy isnt entirely a 0 sum game, but there isn't as much slack as we all hoped and thought, no?
Of course considering the average wage in the US is not that high, I think like $45k (you're only making 2.2x the average, so your experience is not really typical is it?). For an alternative explanation see this.
And it is society's fault.
Who do you think "society" is, moron? It's *you*. You're to blame. Don't think you can foist your responsibility off on others by conjuring up the magic word "society" as a form of leftie CYA.
As in failure to help most of its individuals so that some born into priviledge assholes can shower themselves in absolute power and luxury.
Yeah, having money makes you evil, by default. Extremist looneytoon.
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
I live in the most expensive part of the U.S. A $100k income is considered "middle class" here, and typical homes go for US $400k.
So, while my situation might be atypical, it is still very much "middle class" for where we live.
I think we're still seeing the shakeout from the 'net bubble bust. Eventually it will put enough pressure on non-cost-of-sales health care expenses to result in an adjustment there: administrative overhead and tort reform are areas for attack to bring costs down.
FWIW, I've been quite poor, struggling to make ends meet, so most of my income is going to save for the inevitable rainy day, when it comes.
You could've hired me.
And any of this has to do with you wanting to make health-care unaffordable for most how precisely?
For refusing to "cave in" to a two-tier system, Canada has the greatest per-capita costs of any country with a national health care system
You are sorely mistaken. The highest per-capita medical expense by far is that of the USA.. Note the $5,775 (USA) vs $982 (Canada) per capita 2003 expense. That same article explains the breakdown of administrative costs, profits etc.
While the U.S. has problems with administrative inefficiencies and legal expenses, these are trivial to correct, by comparison. You are comparing apples to oranges and stating that rotten apples are more appealing than expensive oranges.
Yes, so trivial indeed that it is taking 200 years to "correct" ... and when they are finally done correcting they will end up with a ... "single-payer" Canadian style system, as that American report explains.
No, I fully understand insurance. I have adequate health, disability, and life insurance. But no sane person would purchase a health insurance policy that would not at least provide up to the amount of premiums paid to save their life for covered procedures. To force such a policy on one and not permit them to purchase another is criminal. If my house burns down, I get my house replaced. My premiums might go up, but so long as the loss (i.e. health problem) is covered, the insurer pays.
You might be suprised to learn then that no insurance company guarantees a penny to be paid out, never you mind "up to the amount of premiums paid". That is the whole point of insurance: the insurance company can and will deny any expenses they consider "frivolous" or "unnecessary". I.e. they can decide your house was not properly fire-proofed or that the bush fire constituted an exceptional condition of some sort. I am sure you can Google for one of the million stories describing this process in the USA. Furthermore, while the Canadian doctors only concern was that the procedure would have been a waste of effort, thus they only concerned themselves with the medical side of the equation, in the USA the insurance company will decide on purely financial grounds what is it "worth" to them to pay, vs. potential lawsuit expense. You of course did not realize that the Canadian system is merely a form of insurance, the "single-payer" medical insurance system to be exact and its rules of payment are far more relaxed then that of the USA, i.e. more procedures are administrered in less likely success scenarios then in the USA. But there will be always some poeple complaining that the Canadian doctors refused to authorize the One And Only Patented Emu Dung and Hollistic-Spiritual-Hypnotic Therapy With Fire Ants for someone in the final, inoperable stages of cancer for a mere $100k in a Church "clinic" somewhere in Brazil.
And that compares to a covered, routine AAA-repair surgery with a 70% chance of success at a cost of 1/20th of the premiums paid by the patient, how?
Ah, yes, abdominal aortic aneurysms are not repaired in that primitive medical backwater known as Canada. The government says they cover that surgery, but, surprisingly, they can not provide the surgeons to perform it.
Do you realize that there are some 9000 relatively routine medical procedures not available in Canada for lack of skill? And these aren't the medical equivalent of rocket science, either.
You could've hired me.
humans are not animals
Of course humans are animals. Order Primate, Class Mammalia. Not a whole lot different than chimps or mountain gorillas; only a few hundred genes different from common field mice.
Within societies, humans naturally take care of the group before they take care of themselves.
Family first, that's the general rule. The group is a distant, distant second. And for many good reasons, genetic and otherwise. This is basic biology.
No one in their right mind would dispute someone favoring their own family over 'the group'. They may not like it if the outcome is something they disapprove of, but any normal, rational human being will definitely understand it.
Thus, agressively taking care of oneself or one's immediate family members with detriment to the group is interfering with the natural course of events.
That's a complete crock of shit. Perhaps when you get to college you might think about taking some basic biology and anthropology. It'll put the lie to your statement in the first week of classes, this I guarantee.
Honestly, that's how I see it. If we carry this discussion further, it will boil down to the question, "Are humans fundamentally good or evil?"
Strawman. Favoring your family over 'the group' doesn't make one evil. Favoring 'the group' over family doesn't make one good, although I'd make a strong case for 'mentally disturbed'.
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
What are you smoking to make you belive that Canadians are somehow less corruptable than Americans?
There is plenty of evidence that shows persons of noted political or social stature "buy" thier way up the list for surgery in a manner that bears not relationship with the urgency of their need.
I will grant, however, that Canadians sure are gullible when it comes to how well their government "takes care of them".
You could've hired me.
I like living in a place where people care about each other to put their money where there mouth is rather than spouting rhetoric
Seems to me they're putting *other peoples money* where their mouth is. If Canadians are so much more damned righteous than Americans are you wouldn't need government taxation; y'all would contribute as much as is necessary for your programs out of the 'goodness of your heart'. I see, however, that you aren't quite *that* enlightened.
And explain to me if we Americans are such fucking stingy pricks why is it that as a percentage of disposal income we contribute at least as much to charity as you do? Which, by the way, is more absolute dollars per individual since we tend to make more money and keep more of it after taxes.
I love Canada. I think it's a damned fine nation. But all this anti-American bullshit serves only one purpose: to tell me that you're just as likely to be nasty little pricks as we are given the opportunity.
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
Repeat after me: Indymedia is not a source of respectable economic research.
Your arguments are big on grand sweeping statements but short on details and evidence. I'm afraid you're playing your hand as someone who has not looked deeply into competing explanations for what is going on. Seriously, can you point to any large-scale flight to safety from US treasuries to other currencies or assets? It just isn't realistically happening. Do you really think that some scheme cooked up by Chirac and Hussein to sell Iraqs meager oil output in Euros would have been likely? Do you honestly think that this fairly insignificant move would cause the trillions of dollars in treasuries held as a reserve currency to be liquidated in favor of Euros? Do you have any idea how momentous that move would be, and how massive events that have triggered a change in global reserve currency have been in the past? Are you actually suggesting that Saddam Hussein had a great beneficient financial program for the world?
Occam's Razor my friend, look into it.
Some sort of Baran-Wallerstein type theory of global immiserization is not "an accepted fact" as you claim, but actually widely discredited. Because post-war Germany and Japan, South Korea, Canada, all the greatest trading partners of the US are not 'exploited'. I'm sorry, you lose, move away from the table.
Look, I can tell that you're not going to be convinced by anything anyone says about this that doesn't fit your world-view, but I'm going to give a simple analogy for anyone who might stumble across this discussion. If you buy stuff from me, I prosper more than if you don't. If I am Germany, and I have stuff for sale then I am better off if people buy my stuff. If no one offers to buy it, then I have less money to spend on things I need. It would hurt me, as Germany a great deal if suddenly the US started trading with me less. OK, that's not too hard to understand.
Yes it would be good if Japan was also buying more Japanese goods and services and Germany more German goods and services. It would also be nice if Japan's banks weren't supporting billions upon billions of bad debt, and if German firms weren't regulated out of hiring new employees in defference to those who already have jobs. Having high exports, built on the back of American sovereign and consumer debt hasn't made these problems worse, but it may have forestalled their domestic resolution. It certainly isn't good for the long-term in America to have such high debt and low savings, but that's the price you've got to pay when you're basically supporting the world's economy. The alternative of allwoing Japan and Germany to sink into depression is too harsh for everyone.
BTW, I don't live in the US, not that I see what difference that makes, I thought we were discussing ideas here.
Metamuscle.com - News in the Iro
and the right to earn a profit
WFT??? No company has a 'right' to earn a profit. While I don't know shit about the Canadian constitution I do know mine, and I can state unequivocably that no such right exists in the U.S. of A. Nor can a treaty put such a right in place (the 9th and 10th Amendments don't allow that).
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
I am not sure what are you getting at. Are you saying that the procedure that was denied was a "routine" one, with 70% chance of success? If so sue because then it would have been a medical malpractice to not perform it. Socialized medical care or not.
Ah, yes, abdominal aortic aneurysms are not repaired in that primitive medical backwater known as Canada. The government says they cover that surgery, but, surprisingly, they can not provide the surgeons to perform it.
I find this exceedingly incredulous. Provinces will send people even to the USA if they cannot offer critical services themselves (much to the chargin of the nuts on Free Republic). If the aneurysm was not detected prior to it bursting, which I assume is what happened (as the onus is on the patient to get checkups) then no medical system would be able to do anything about it. Even the most overpaid doctors can't do miracles.
Do you realize that there are some 9000 relatively routine medical procedures not available in Canada for lack of skill? And these aren't the medical equivalent of rocket science, either.
Err ... any credible sources for this? Lack of 9000 "routine" procedures would reduce all the hospitals to dispensing coffee or Advanced Brain Surgery, since the number is so high as to cover most "routine" procedures. I wonder where you get such nutty statistics...
The very rich simply pay 100% of the cost of their care in the US. They are of no concern to the rest of us as long as they do not want to screw the system for us. Your notion of "buying" their way in the socialized care is laughable since the very rich are, like you, vehemently oposed to and condescending of the system. They would not be caught dead in the same hospital as the peons.
I have never heard of a critical procedure with 70% chance of success to be denied because it costs money.
The only way it could have happened is that the doctors did not believe the chances were this high. If you have evidence to the contrary, then it is simply a case of malpractice and it has nothing to do with the socialized system. So sue.
There is not much point discussing it with someone who believes that if a child gets born with a medical condition it is his/her fault. Or if circumstances beyond one's control produce a severe injury or loss of income or what not. Dimiwts like you who believe that they can depend only on themselves and are immune from external circumstance are the source of most problems in the very societies I spoke of. As to my responsibility? I happily pay my taxes. And I find it a source of pride if other people get better thanks to those payments.
Yeah, having money makes you evil, by default. Extremist looneytoon.
No having money does not by default make you evil. Using it to enslave and subjegate others does. When you pull your head out of your ass (thats gonna be some pop) and look around at the state of Corporate America you might notice some decidedly anti-social (and in fact anti-capitalist) happenings on a large scale. Same things are happening in the Canadian corporate world.
I am however in this discussion only concerned with efforts of some of these people to make vast sums of money on health care while at the same time hurting most Canadians.
Also on a phillosophical note, according to tenents of Capitalism, individual wealth is supposed to be tied to the benefit to society (as judged by an educated consumer in a free market) that very person is providing... I will be a happy camper and stop complaining as soon that becomes the case.
Quite possibly the dumest idea since someone decided to glue the bits of sliced bread back together again to make an unsliced loaf.
Coding Monkey.org - Spanging the heavy spade of truth into t
Indymedia is not a source of respectable economic research.
What is Indymedia? Never heard of it.
Seriously, can you point to any large-scale flight to safety from US treasuries to other currencies or assets? It just isn't realistically happening.
No it's not. The logical chain of events that would precede that goes as follows:
1) Countries start accepting an alternative currency for oil, such as the euro. 2) Other countries start purchasing oil in those currencies where it's appropriate 3) Those countries no longer need to keep a reserve of USD, so they maintain it less as they become more comfortable in the new business relationship 4) As time progresses, more countries become a party to the new trading relationship and thus also become less motivated to trade for USD 5) As the number hoarding USD becomes less and less, there are fewer places to spend that currency. 6) The US dollars start coming home like so many bad cheques.
The last country that tried to accept non US currency for oil got bombed and invaded, so no, we're not seeing that happening.
Do you really think that some scheme cooked up by Chirac and Hussein to sell Iraqs meager oil output in Euros would have been likely?
Yes. If the US hadn't invaded, I would say it's pretty much a certainty that Iraq would take Euros instead of food, and that many european nations would take oil for Euros. Are you seriously suggesting that this wouldn't have occurred?
Are you actually suggesting that Saddam Hussein had a great beneficient financial program for the world?
No, I didn't attribute any altruistic motives to him at all.. I believe I referred to him as a brutal dictator. His motives aren't relevant.
Some sort of Baran-Wallerstein type theory of global immiserization is not "an accepted fact" as you claim, but actually widely discredited. Because post-war Germany and Japan, South Korea, Canada, all the greatest trading partners of the US are not 'exploited'. I'm sorry, you lose, move away from the table.
I disagree with that statement. And I don't see anything from you that backs it up. I know that up here in Canada we're contemplating how to effectively retaliate against the US for their crooked dealings across a multitude of industries ranging from lumber to cattle to power to water. This isn't something I pulled out of my ass, or Indymedia for that matter (whatever Indymedia is)
Look, I can tell that you're not going to be convinced by anything anyone says about this that doesn't fit your world-view, but I'm going to give a simple analogy for anyone who might stumble across this discussion. If you buy stuff from me, I prosper more than if you don't. If I am Germany, and I have stuff for sale then I am better off if people buy my stuff. If no one offers to buy it, then I have less money to spend on things I need. It would hurt me, as Germany a great deal if suddenly the US started trading with me less. OK, that's not too hard to understand.
Your analogy only holds true if the germans lack the capacity to repurpose their production. If you're making more cars than you have people to drive them, then yes, you need a trading partner or your screwed. But if you're an intelligent human being, you'll stop making more cars than you can sell and find something more useful to do. And considering that the US is operating at such a huge trade deficit, it follows that you're getting back much less from selling your cars than you're giving, so you're likely to see more returns by either finding another trading partner or keeping the fruit of your production within your own country. Given the choice between selling the fruits of my labour at a very low return and hopefully being able to buy the things I need or investing in my capacity to make those things myself, I know which I see greater value in.
Yes it would be good if Japan was also buying more Japanese goods and services and Germa
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
Quebec...free? Those two words don't seem to go together.
Are Quebecers FREE to publish something in a language other than french, without a french edition? Are they FREE to put non-french signs on their store fronts? Are they FREE to express themselves in a language other than french?
Quebec seems quite oppressive to me.
Didn't you know...the rich don't pay taxes. Especially not in Canada.
For example, Paul Martin the current Prime Minister and former Minister of Finance of Canada owns a large shipping company that's registered offshore. Ok, so he gave his company to his son when he became PM...but let's get real...he still owns it. What reason could he possibly have to register his company offshore other than to avoid taxes?
What is Indymedia? Never heard of it.
I find that hard to believe, but I apologize for what some might consider an ad hominem attack. All attempts at humor aside.
No it's not. The logical chain of events that would precede that goes as follows:
1) Countries start accepting an alternative currency for oil, such as the euro. 2) Other countries start purchasing oil in those currencies where it's appropriate 3) Those countries no longer need to keep a reserve of USD, so they maintain it less as they become more comfortable in the new business relationship 4) As time progresses, more countries become a party to the new trading relationship and thus also become less motivated to trade for USD 5) As the number hoarding USD becomes less and less, there are fewer places to spend that currency. 6) The US dollars start coming home like so many bad cheques.
You're assuming that capital markets see the Euro as a safe currency to store capital in. I believe that many of the points I made earlier show why it's not, and why private capital markets and independent nations choose to purchase US treasuries at ridiculously low rates of return in preference to other sovereigns. It's one thing to focus on the currency that is used to purchase a certain commodity, but ignoring the massive preference for US treasuries is not good for your argument.
Basically your argument depends on a viable alternative currency. Not just among oil exporting nations (there isn't), but in global capital markets. The sad fact of the matter is that the euro area is not strong enough to offer an alternative currency. Save for Britain, northern Europe, and the nations that are liberalizing their economies in the east (the non-euro countries), Europe hasn't been doing so hot lately. The latest polls show France looks set to reject the EU constitution. The ECB has led Germany's economy to near ruin through it's inflexible policy of focussing on inflation targets and ignoring general economic growth and unemployment. The center-price economic policy of the euro-zone , the stability and growth pact, has all but been abandoned after several years of France and Germany completely violating it.
Hey, Europe is trying some interesting things, and no doubt, the whole continent has benefitted enormously from the EU's trade liberalization, harmonization of regulation, privatization, and anti-trust legislation. But you have to realize that we are in the very very early stages of this experiment. It hasn't proven its stability. Sovereign governments do not bet on a horizon of a few years when making investments in reserve currency, they bet on several decades. The euro has existed for 3 years. I really do hope that the world will develop more than one reliable currency some day, but there won't be any serious flight away from the dollar for a while. The plans of a brutal dictator notwithstanding.
The last country that tried to accept non US currency for oil got bombed and invaded, so no, we're not seeing that happening.
I'm not going to touch this other than to say that there are a lot of good, moral reasons, and legitimately humanitarian reasons for why the war was supported. You don't have to agree that those reasons were enough to cause a way, but it's disingenuous to pretend that there was a single point of causality in such a complex event.
Yes. If the US hadn't invaded, I would say it's pretty much a certainty that Iraq would take Euros instead of food, and that many european nations would take oil for Euros. Are you seriously suggesting that this wouldn't have occurred?
No, I didn't attribute any altruistic motives to him at all.. I believe I referred to him as a brutal dictator. His motives aren't relevant.
I wonder if you would have held your nose in disgust at the beneficiaries of this scheme if things had played out this way. You're suggesting that France (I'll single them out as the largest importer of Iraq oil, largest military s
Metamuscle.com - News in the Iro
A quick note to apologize for all the typos in the above post. It's late here.
> The center-price economic policy
Should be center-piece
There's a pile of other typos and gramaical errors. Sorry folks, not my best ofrm, hope you can ignore that and go for the meat.
Metamuscle.com - News in the Iro
In the above post I erroneously say that France was the largest military supplier to Iraq. The USSR actually was the leader in total sales between 1973 and 1990. France was the second overall, and shares the top 5 with former Warsaw Pact countries. France's total arms sales to Iraq were most vigorous in the eighties.
Reference: here!
I apologize for this error.
Metamuscle.com - News in the Iro
cross-border traffic in pirated hardcopies of dvds, pr0n, music, and games increases a hundredfold after downloading in canada is stifled by a 25% downloading tariff.
THAT will teach those assholes who try to do things legally! Fucking useless customers! Go get 'em, MediaCorp!
Eagerly looking forward to the music industry's year-end report, showcasing an increase in piracy and the conclusion that legitimate download services have no value....
I think you are not fully taking the total interdependence of the global economic system into consideration. It is not to America's benefit in any way to see the economies of other nations collapse. Yes, it is in America's benefit to maintain it's leadership in innovation and wealth creation, but America is stronger, and in fact we all are stronger if there is more than one geo-economic center that is capable of taking up the slack when an economic slow down occurs.
Absolutely.
This is why the idea that we invaded Iraq to steal the oil (and sundry variations on this theme) is so absurd. We stand to make far more money by buying Iraqi oil than by just walking in and taking it.
With Iraq free, and prosperity growing, the Iraqis will do the work of pumping the oil. They sell it to us. We give them money. They spend the money. They buy Fords and Chevys and Dells and Levis and iPods. And we buy more oil. And they build factories, and start selling us denim and tyres and hard disk drives. And we sell them X-Box 2's and Caterpillar bulldozers and The Incredibles DVDs and Boeing 777's.
And round and round it goes. The whole point is, it's not a zero-sum game. Wealth isn't a pie you have to divide up among the people at the table. Wealth is a pie factory. The more effort you put in, the more pie there is to go around.
Mmm, pie.
n/t
Constitutionally Correct
My buddy had to pick his doctor from a slate of HMO aproved doctors. I've heard this is common. Also, we don't hide the cost of our lifestyle, we share the burden of certain aspects of it. It's not the same.
I agree totally. Putting people in prison for owning guns when that are effective at killing people (auto and most semi-auto) is commonplace where I come from. And it keeps gun violence down very nicely.
If you did that in America, it would have the added advantage of discoraging crime among African Americans. Since jail would be full of gun totin', rhetoric throwin' good ol' boys like you, it would be too scary for a black man to even think of committing a crime.
When Argumentum ad Hominem falls short, try Argumentum ad Matrem
Hasn't been passed yet - nor has C-38. (Legalisation of gay marriage recognising the decisions of most of the Provincial Courts)
Ironic that the Libs may need separatists to keep them alive.
Ahh, but the interesting thing that I would like to see litigated, is that the levy would apply to digitaly downloaded copies of music, BUT no such levy exists for CDs...
Not blank CDs (we have a levy on those), but iTunes downloads are *supposed* to be copies of what is on CD, so they add a levy that doesn't apply to physical copies, and Apple may have a case to litigate under Ch 11... it would depend on what the *product* being sold is defined as.
Bad spellers of the world untie!
So let me get this straight, your Dad, who lived and worked in Canada all his life and happily used the healthcare and other systems got sick. He died of some un-specified disease that, according to you, is not covered under the Canada Health Act (I'd be quite curious to know the details of THAT, since I know there are precious few things like that). Therefore, our universal healthcare system is to blame for 'murdering' your father and I, as a supporter of said system, am an accomplice to this 'murder'. Oh and everyone who has ever used said universal healthcare system is not only an accessory to 'murder' but also a thief for 'stealing' your father's money.
So despite the fact that it saves thousands of lives every year and has made Canadians very healthy, reduced infant mortality and the spread of disease, because in your view it is responsible for your father's death, the whole system is horrid and needs to be done away with. Sounds like you have a few un resloved issues around your father's death and are trying to blame the health care system for his death.
Do you realize that the recent degradation in our healthcare system, which may have contributed to that system NOT paying for the $30k operation you claim, is the result of the slashing of the funding by various Conservative governments at botht eh federal and various provincial governments? You know the old trick: cut the funding, create a crisis, then ride in like a white knight with the "privatization solution" to "improve service". The added benefit would be that all those business cronies and friends of the Conservatives get to be the ones to make profits off this new healthcare system. Why don't you blame them for your father's death? They are the ones who cut the funding which likely lead to the delisiting of that operation.
Do you think that your Dad would have gotten better treatment from an HMO in the US? Or and insurance company? Not bloody likely.
Don't paint yourself as some kind of idealistic crusader for libertarianism, your not. Your a sad, sad man who seems to blame and entire governemtn and system for his foather's death. I honestly think you have serious mental health issues and you should really seek some help.
I'm not joking about that. Your viceral hatred is quite pathological.
Never by hatred has hatred been appeased, only by kindness - the Buddha
So, tell us the condition and the place and time of this diagnosis. If what you say is true, then this should come out in our rapidly approaching election.
Please, provide the details. I can find out more information as I can access them up here.
If what you say is true it is an outrage that needs to be dealt with. I would hardly call it common in our system, though.
Of course, if you choose not to provide the details of the condition and what the operations was, then this will have to stop right here. Without those details, I have no way of knowing if what you say is even true. Many of your posts seem to indicate a pathological hatred and I cannot be sure your anre not delusional on this account unless your tell us more.
Otherwise all your posts are the ravings of an unbalanced programmer with a chip on his shoulder in Richardson Texas.
Never by hatred has hatred been appeased, only by kindness - the Buddha
We give them money. They spend the money. They buy Fords and Chevys and Dells and Levis and iPods. And we buy more oil.
Like Saudi Arabia? The we give them money and they spend it argument doesn't really hold much water because if you look at every OTHER country in the region that produces oil, you see the same thing over and over - rich oil barrons who run everything, and everyone else is stuck where they've always been. Perhaps with a democratic republic they can turn things around, but it's hard to say that it's going to turn out that way when everything points in the other direction.
Oh, ok I've got it now. The surgery was covered but there was no doctor available to do the surgery or your dad died waiting for the operation to come up on the schedule of one of the doctors that did do it (this could have been months or minutes). So, if a doctor was availble, our socialized healthcare system would have paid. And even if you could have purchased that operation in a private clinic in Canada, it wouldn't have mattered because there was still no doctors to perform it. Yet it's the fault of the public health insurance system?
So why isn't there a doctor to do it? Oh, because the various Conservative provincial governments and the Liberals in the Federal government have slashed funding for our healthcare system for more than 15 years. Do you think if the likes of Mike Harris or Ralph Klein decided not to piligage healthcare to give the wealthiest members of their provinces tax cuts throughout the '90s, that maybe there would be enough money to employ those specialists?
If what you say is true, your Dad died because the Conservatives, in their ideological drive to have private, American style healthcare in Canada (so their cronies can make money off it), underfunded the system to the point that there were not enough doctors to perform services, nurses to assist them, hospital beds and surgery time. Why don't you blame them? Why don't you blame specialists who earn their degrees in Canadian medical schools and then go to the States to practice?
In other words, if the system was not under attack by the very Conservative, right wing, libertarian forces and ideals you espouse, your dad would be alive today, because there would have been proper funding levels in the system.
But hey, Alberta is debt free and Ontario was "open for business". I'm sure that should make you feel better.
Buddy, get some psychological help. Really.
Never by hatred has hatred been appeased, only by kindness - the Buddha
The last few years have yielded some tremendous Canadian talent:
...proud to be a Canadian music fan for the first time in years.
The Unicorns, The Junior Boys, Death From Above 1979, Feist, The New Pornographers, Stars, Caribou (formerly Manitoba), Russian Futurists, AC Newman, Broken Social Scene, Do Make Say Think, The Constantines, Raising The Fawn, The Arcade Fire etc. etc.
If you could be anything you want, I'll bet you'd be disappointed.
You're arguing with someone who sees the world as a zero sum game - a critical and deadly mistake in their understanding of world economics. When someone has such a flawed foundation, it's inevitable that they perceive the US' wealth as being at the cost of others.
Hi, I am a concerned Canadian citizen.
I don't listen to your shit. Fuck off.
Love,
mrseigen
P.S. Enclosed is a bill for using the Internet to download a copy of my software. What's that, you didn't download my software? That's okay, I didn't download your shit either.
People will be pissed off if this forces iTunes to close down or raise prices by 25%. They supposedly aren't even making a profit and now these bastards want to skim even more money from them.
"Seriously, can you point to any large-scale flight to safety from US treasuries to other currencies or assets? It just isn't realistically happening."
.gov hits).
I think that your argument represents a realistic potential interpretation of current economic indicators (I'm not sure I'm on board with you, but its hard to know anything about the 'now'). Anyway, in terms of the quoted statement, there is realistic evidence that dollar prices are causing currency flight. Not just in statements by Asian central banks, but in Fed Flow of Funds data. Check out the Z1 release for 2004... you'll see significant declines in growth of foreign ownership of dollar denominated debt. (just google for "fed funds Z1", and enjoy the
Without an inflection point, the data could lead us into trouble in 2005.
Pax -- Ob
My comparison is not only not ad hominem (although I did call you with quite deserved epitetes later) but merely stated the obvious.
Okay, let's compare the two.
Fascism: A governmental system in which the State, usually under the direction of one or a small group of individuals, holds absolute power, usually over political decisions, and often over the economic means of production and distribution as well.
Libertarianism: A governmental system in which the State is reduced to its basic functions of protecting the people under its oversight from other people, and enforcing contracts.
How, exactly, are these two comparable again?
Many Bothans died to bring you this sig.
See,
that's something I have found, if there is no social net people have to rely purely on the goodwill of others.
Call me a cynic, but I don't think that most people are alturistic, maybe 10% of the population as a whole. So "forcing" people to help (through taxes) I think is a good compromise. Not ideal, but a compromise.
If you want to e-mail me, use my PGP Key.
A company has as much of a right to earn a profit to the extent of it's ability to give payola to politicians. The constitution doesn't have to give that right - all that has to be done is create a regular domestic law.
The constitution doesn't mean anything if it can be changed or dissolved. As soon as the wrong party gets into power, they can do whatever they want - wax treaties, convert government into a despotism, ban political dissent, etc. (Although this should be rare nowadays.)
Let's see.
rogers (the cable company here in toronto), just announced a 60GB data cap per month (should probably be a story to submit).
that works out to 100 cds, uncompressed. at a price of, say $5 average (we just want to cut out the actual brick and mortar store), this means that i am obviously downloading at least $500 worth of music per month.
i am not running any servers (no telnet, sshd, mail service, nntp, chat service or web pages) because that is against the agreement i have with rogers.
i can't be downloading movies, because, well, that would be illegal.
i only get a few megabytes of email every month. and my web browsing? if i get 10mb of data in a month, that's sure a lot of reading (mostly slashdot, thank you).
so, i must be using almost all of the 60gb of music, right?
so, my internet connection should be $540 per month.
glad that's settled.
ratboy
Just another "Cubible(sic) Joe" 2 17 3061
There is no such thing as "perfect forward-secrecy". While TOR is good at obfuscating the source/destination of traffic, someone who is determined enough can still pull a few tricks to track you down.
----
All of whose base are belong to the what-now?
Your analysis is right on the money. I will add this to my assortment of clubs to beat the nutcases with.
Please note however that even with the shortage of staff our medical system will still try to help. Something like 1800 Ontarians were sent abroad in 2000 for advanced cancer therapy procedures. This is why I find it highly suspicious that this "routine" procedure of his was somehow maliciously denied ... and if I sense the vibe he is sending correctly ... by some sneering members of a vast left-wing conspiracy who wore Che Guevarra and Lenin pins while at it.
John Marshall, U.S. Supreme Court justice, had this to say about taxation:
Little did he know that it would be taxen out of context and applied everywhere. Score one for the embarrassing soundbite from a government employee!"This quote is a product of the Frobozz Magic Quote Company."
That is not the definition of fascism. Fascism is a system characterized by collusion of wealth (particularly coprorate wealth) and the State while coupled with authoritarian government and personality cult of the Leader. All of which results in a supreme, unchecked power of a clique of a financial elite (although, ironically, in most known fascisct societies the control soon spiralled out of the hands of the industrialist manipulators and into the hands of increasingly insane Leader). The critical point to remember: contrary to its name ("national socialist workers party") the sytem was a concotion by the very rich for the benefit of the very rich, granting them nearly absolute powers over everyone else.
A governmental system in which the State is reduced to its basic functions of protecting the people under its oversight from other people, and enforcing contracts.
The con is in the term "basic" function, just as the con is in the term "socialist" in fascism. According to most advocates of Libertarianism I run into, roads and police are not included (as they believe in 0% taxation). Subsequently I can only imagine a set of private armies defending holdings of tax-free warlords.
How, exactly, are these two comparable again?
In both there is no effort to protect those at the bottom of the society from the ones at the top. Both are attempts to enable the very wealthy to acquire near absolute power under the disguise of some ideology, "socialism" in the case of fascism and "freedom from taxation" in the case of Libertarianism.
Yeah, I snsed that vide too early on...that's why I recommended therapy (which is covered by OHIP ;). As a former mental health worker, he is exhibiting classic symptoms of mild paranoid schizophrenia - extreme views, delusions of persecution and almost religious fervor in his "cause". I wouldn't be surprised, considering his posting history, that he already IS under "supervision".
;-)
Now, where did that hammer and sickle pin get to?
Never by hatred has hatred been appeased, only by kindness - the Buddha
I know, but every now and then you've got to put the effort in for the sake of the innocent.
Metamuscle.com - News in the Iro
Actually not quite. In places like USSR, Poland, Chechoslovakia etc, the disparity was that of a 2-room apartament of a citizen versus a small house in the woods of the top party official. One glance at the mansions and holdings of some of the Russian CEO's today and the still 2-room apartament of the average worker should dispell that ludicrous notion. The evil in the USSR's rendition of Communism was not disparity of wealth but disparity of power, and abuse of thereof.
Yes, fascism is a form of socialism, and therefore, exhibits much of the same inequities that we saw under communism.
No. In Fascism the word "socialism" is a misnomer. The definition of fascism is a collusion of big business and state.
Oh, I see. You are somehow equating relative freedom with "fascism".
Libertarianism has just as much "freedom" in it for the average, not super-wealthy person in it as fascism has "socialism".
From yesterday's USAToday:
Metamuscle.com - News in the Iro
I most certainly enjoyed the read, they didn't get that indepth in ECON200/201 in college.
Blessed be he who reads this post, Cursed be he who tells my boss.
Sure, that is why Krupp and others never sponsored and supported Hitler.. oh wait.
The only "financial elite" was the State, as all industry was required to be subservient to the State.
And the "state" was defined as ... the elite with the Leader and his merry crew at the helm. All large non-Jewish German corporations were granted unprecedented powers over their workers ... and their owners and the Leader formed a mutual-admiration society. You can produce as many abstract "definitions" as you wish, the fact remains that is what occured. No to mention the profits they all raked in during the Nazi militarization program.
This is beyond mental retardation.
I couldn't describe your delusions any better myself.
This is a real definition of fascism that was not invented by some communist lunatic:
Then google some more, you will find that this is just one of many complimentary definitions, this particular one focuses only one one aspect of the system (i.e. the authority and control). Next you are going to tell me that because fascists universally claimed to be "socialist" they granted powers to the workers...
This is why the idea that we invaded Iraq to steal the oil (and sundry variations on this theme) is so absurd. We stand to make far more money by buying Iraqi oil than by just walking in and taking it.
Yeah exactly. It goes deeper than that though. If the US and Britian really had no moral compunction about doing anything for oil, why wouldn't they have simply cut a deal with Saddam, locking in long-term contracts at high prices (for the early naughts) of around $30 a barrel?
Iraq's oil is being traded on the open market now, it's not like the US is in control of where it goes. Though I'll give my original interlocutor credit for having a more nuanced argument than that the "no blood for oil" folks, flawed though still it be.
Wealth is a pie factory.
That's gold by the way.
Metamuscle.com - News in the Iro
It burst four years later.
He was refused treatment because "there is no doctor in Canada that can do this" and "it is too expensive to send you to the U.S."
I suppose if he tried to "pull strings" he might have gotten treatment. But, he was not one to challenge authority.
He certainly didn't have the financial resources to sue.
Apparently, his situation is becoming increasingly common. The fact remains that if he could purchase health insurance on a free market, there would be no issue of getting treatment.
You could've hired me.
You'd probably enjoy this radio show
http://www.kwaves.com/roger_archives.htm
Though you really have to listen to a couple of months worth of shows to get into the swing of things, and sometimes it takes that long to develop an argument.
Metamuscle.com - News in the Iro
This is just us canadians doing what we do best: hating americans.
It's likely just a political publicity stunt to snap back at all the crap the US government has been imposing on us these past few years, such at the beef embargo, canadian dollar boycotting and other asinine movements. It's like our MP's are saying "You can keep your hand up my ass, as long as you pay me!"
-Billco, Fnarg.com
There's a lot of favoratism that goes on with those that are stuck on the dreaded "list".
You could've hired me.
Some hernia surgery is considered elective world-wide. Canadian system covers the emergent inguinal hernia repair (i.e. non-elective one).
He was refused treatment because "there is no doctor in Canada that can do this" and "it is too expensive to send you to the U.S."
I call bullshit. The hernia procedure, being elective might have been not covered, but even if the private clinic fucked up (mortality of hernia repair is quite high at the old age your father must have been) the medicare would have and should have covered subsequent life-threatening complications. Specially over a period of four years. There is not a waiting line that long in Canada for any procedure (save perheaps transplants which are dependent on donors).
He certainly didn't have the financial resources to sue.
I hear we have "loser pays court costs" system here.. maybe that had something to do with it.
Apparently, his situation is becoming increasingly common.
Says you.
The fact remains that if he could purchase health insurance on a free market, there would be no issue of getting treatment.
Riiight. A US HMO would spring for elective and risky procedures happily and cheerfully!
It was speculated that the AAA began some 30 years earlier when he underwent surgery to remove kidney stones: the tugging on the renal artery weakening the wall of the aorta.
You could've hired me.
As soon as you produce any evidence of it, it will be on the front pages of any paper in Canada. Oh wait, you do not have any shred of evidence for it.... other then the "commies (and now apparently the affluent too) are out to get me!" paranoia of yours.
So you are trying to tell me that the evil doctors conspired not to perform the surgery by putting your father on a waiting list four years long? There never was a list that long for any "routine" procedure in the whole country. The most notorious, non-critical, elective hip replacements and the like take 3 months.
I call royal, stinking, heap of sanctimonious, ulterior motive, ideological bullshit. Your fabrications are getting beyond incredulous and into the realm of insulting people's intelligence.
It was speculated that the AAA began some 30 years earlier when he underwent surgery to remove kidney stones: the tugging on the renal artery weakening the wall of the aorta.
Right. So your father had other surgeries earlier and took advantage of the system throughout his life. There goes the "argument" of yours about not getting back what he paid in. In fact this makes you nothing but the troll some others on this thread already pointed out based on your past history of fabrications and mis-statements.
And now they can do all this and on top of that they own all of the country's natural resources outright. Except that now they live in palaces and the "dachas" grew to be private islands. While true, the average citizen's shopping abilities did improve immensly, his abysmal purchasing power makes that nearly irrelevant. You should read up some on the current state of the economies of the countries of the former Eastern block. An aye opener that is.
Compare the way the planes run in capitalist nations with the way planes run in communist nations. In capitalist places, planes run on schedules, and anyone can fly. In communist nations, the planes function as taxis at the whim of the nomenclature, unavailable to non party members.
Riiight. That is why Areoflot and Polish Arlines only trasported party officials and had no scheduled flights, right? I have no clue where do you get such nonsense.
Russia is still a substantially socialist nation, but without the terror and mass-murder. That people are still in shoddy 2-room concrete block apartments reflects badly on socialism, not capitalism.
Really? So that is why various private industrialists own most of its oil and gas reserves and industry. Some socialism. The term you are groping for is "crony capitalism".
Wrong.
Oh, how enlightening and comprehensively detailed rebuttals you are capable of! By all means, be some more arrogantly dismissive!
Wrong. "Big business" is subservient to the State, with nominally private ownership in the means of production being only a formality.
Sigh. You are insane. If any of this drivel were true, Krupp and others great German industrialists would not be such staunch supporters of Hitler. But they were.
You are mad
No I am merely, unlike you, a memeber of the reality based crowd. Which I can understand, from your position must seem quite surreal and incomprehensible.
No. He was never put on any list. The surgery was denied because it was not done in Canada. The position was that it did not exist, despute being available in the U.S. as relatively common, if risky. And, currently, the wait is 80 weeks for a tonsillectomy in Canada. My son was examined on a Thursday, and had the surgery the next Tuesday as an outpatient. Last I heard about hip replacements, the wait was seven years, though that may have changed, and it varies from province to province. My father in law is on an 18 month waiting list for a hammer toe in New Brunswick.
Right. So your father had other surgeries earlier and took advantage of the system throughout his life. There goes the "argument" of yours about not getting back what he paid in. In fact this makes you nothing but the troll some others on this thread already pointed out based on your past history of fabrications and mis-statements
At the time, there was no nationalized health care. He had private health insurance through his employer, RCA Victor. As I recall, the bill came to around CA$25,000, a significant sum at the time (1961), completely covered by his private insurance.
You could've hired me.
Do you realize how often this article has been reivised, and how outdated it is again?
Given the lack of WMD in Iraq, the lack of evidence tying Saddam to the September 11th attacks, and the lack of any proof that Saddam had worked with the Al Qaeda terrorist organization, the Bush administration is trying to switch the rational of the Iraq war to "spreading democracy." Again, the facts on the ground do not support this assertion. In June 2003 Paul Bremer unilaterally canceled the request from the Iraqis to hold local elections. [59] Not surprisingly, this administration has also discussed disbanding the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA). In the harsh reality of oil and geostrategy, the US probably does not want a real democracy in Iraq for the same reasons that the CIA and British overthrew Iran's fledgling democracy in 1953. In order to understand why the U.S. does not promote democracies in the oil producing states of the Persian Gulf, I recommend that others read All the Shah's Men by Stephen Kinzer. [60] There are lessons to learn from what happened in Iran fifty years ago.
The elections happened. The 23 autocratic governments of the Arab league are now only 22. If things play out well in Lebanon it will be 21 in a few months. This is a historical event of enormous proportions. Seriously, review the election in Iraq, you can't maintain the same level of cynicism before and after that event.
Metamuscle.com - News in the Iro
No, the position was that it was not possible as there were no doctors in Canada skilled in performing the surgery. There was no list to wait on.
So, if a doctor was availble, our socialized healthcare system would have paid.
Plenty of doctors were available in the world. At a cost far less than what he had paid over the years to support a fraudulent healthcare system. If he was not forced to participate in that system he could have purchased adequate insurance on the open market. Hell, he could have self-insured and had enough funds in his retirement to pay for it.
Canada promises health care, and does not deliver. Furthermore, it forces participation in a broken system. You will see how it deteriorates further.
And even if you could have purchased that operation in a private clinic in Canada, it wouldn't have mattered because there was still no doctors to perform it. Yet it's the fault of the public health insurance system?
Yes. What make you think that Canada is the world? There are plenty of places and thousands of competent surgeons to perform it in the U.S. If I examine the proprortion of taxes paid to provide for health care, much better coverage could have been obtained on the open market in the U.S. He did not recieve value for his money. Hell, never mind insurance. He could have self-insured with the taxes he paid to cover the cost of the surgery.
So why isn't there a doctor to do it? Oh, because the various Conservative provincial governments and the Liberals in the Federal government have slashed funding for our healthcare system for more than 15 years.
No. I can speculate why. Doctors in Canada are paid on a "per procedure" basis, with an annual cap on the number of procedures permitted. There is no distinction between the skilled and the mediocre, so the skilled leave for the U.S. where they can earn more money. If they were permitted to tend to those who can afford private health care in Canada, they would stay, and shorten the lines in the public system. Every other socialised country has accepted, perhaps grudgingly, a two-tier health care system.
Do you think if the likes of Mike Harris or Ralph Klein decided not to piligage healthcare to give the wealthiest members of their provinces tax cuts throughout the '90s, that maybe there would be enough money to employ those specialists?
If they were allowed to practice in a free market, there would be plenty of money. The socialists drove them off.
You could've hired me.
Well Mr. Hollan, you are a liar. Thanks the the AC above who graciously posted a link to the incident of your father's death, in your own words, it appears that your father died suddenly of an undiagnosed medical condition . He died of this condition even after taking advantage of the Canadian healthcare system to sucessfully fight cancer.
In other words, it would not have mattered if this condition struck your father in Canada, the US or any Libertarian Utopia you care to dream up - there was simply nothing that could have been done to save him. It was too late when the doctors found out what had happened to him. Your father's death was unavoidable and not the fault of any particular healthcare delivery system in place in Canada.
I am very sorry to read of the way in which your father died. It was painful and it was a tragedy. I feel for you and your family, especially your mother. I can see from your posts that this grief has torn you up, and destroyed you to the point that you are lashing out at the very system that actually saved your father from cancer only a few short years earlier.
Mr. Hollan, get some help. The bitter bile you spew will not bring your father back and not destroy the people you believe killed your father, it will only destroy you. Please seek counselling before it is too late.
Never by hatred has hatred been appeased, only by kindness - the Buddha
I've got angry enough, that it might be worth doing some digging. I suspected that the formal medical records are not available to me for privacy reasons. I remember trying to get receipts for medical services I purchased at a Whitby, ON ER, for my wife (outpatient I/V antibiotics for a tooth abcess) and was denied, with "privacy reasons" cited. But, as next of kin, it might be worth trying, at least from the private hernia-repair hospital he visited.
Please, provide the details. I can find out more information as I can access them up here.
If what you say is true it is an outrage that needs to be dealt with. I would hardly call it common in our system, though.
Of course, if you choose not to provide the details of the condition and what the operations was, then this will have to stop right here. Without those details, I have no way of knowing if what you say is even true. Many of your posts seem to indicate a pathological hatred and I cannot be sure your anre not delusional on this account unless your tell us more.
Fair enough. You've irked me enough to strive to get more substantial proof than the heresay of my father's testimony to me. I'll start by striving to get his medical records from the private centers he visited -- they did not appear to be guilty of any malpractice as they specialized in herna repair.
You could've hired me.
Well, the hernia repair hospital appears willing to disclose medical records to next of kin of a deceased former patient. So, that's a start.
You could've hired me.
Actually, I don't see why I'm not flogging the blog too. It would be cool to break double-digit readership.
http://newworldman.org/
Metamuscle.com - News in the Iro
they have not been able to get the government to just tax us because we are all just "criminals" stealing thier "IP".
I hope you're sitting down, because you're in for quite a shock. (Note that this was passed into law in 1994.)
So, umm... what was it you were saying about the "Socialist government that would even consider this"?
Your lies and bullshit are beginning to annoy me. Even hernia repair is covered as an elective procedure and performed frequently at the Jean-Talon Hospital in Montreal for example (I checked with the Québec Health Insurance, you fucking liar). Go spin your crap somewhere else.
And, currently, the wait is 80 weeks for a tonsillectomy in Canada.
Another elective procedure an no its 60 days at most. Your delusions are getting really grand now, 80 weeks is 1 and 1/2 years. I wonder if you find many Libertarians to con with this outlandish drivel. What a stupid, brazen liar you are.
Last I heard about hip replacements, the wait was seven years, though that may have changed, and it varies from province to province. My father in law is on an 18 month waiting list for a hammer toe in New Brunswick.
Oh yea! And the waiting list for a broken toe is 125 years and 32 weeks. And it was your sister's nephew's second cousin twice removed that had that self-combusting pinkie they refused to cover too!
You are a pathetic, obsessive, habitual liar. Stop inventing incredible and oh-so-uncovered by Canada and so-miraculously-cured-in-a-flash-in-the-USA aliments for your imaginary family members and go get mental help.
At the time, there was no nationalized health care ... 1961
Yes, yes, how convenient, just before the Unviversal Medicare was enacted! Who would have guessed?! Given all your other baldfaced lies, this timing of your imaginary events it is no suprise.
You credibility at this point is zero and I am no longer going to humour your mental disorder. Get help and stop bothering people with this nonsense.
Repeat after me: Indymedia is not a source of respectable economic research.
Do you mind if i steal that for my sig?
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
Go for it!
Metamuscle.com - News in the Iro
How does that make sense?
Ask the Bundesrat.
The labor market in Germany is currently structured in such a way so as to discourage employers from hiring workers. The value of the amount of labor they can get by adding an employee in many cases is much smaller than the cost of doing so, especially given the long-term risk, since it's very difficult to legally lay off employees if a firm goes south. The problem is a big one that may persist for some time as the country re-organizes its social structures, but it is being felt heavily in the short term.
The long-term problem is that Germany needs to, over the long term, bring in foreign workers to maintain it's population, to continue to fund the very expensive social programs and government pensions. It shouldn't surprise you that Germany has a severe baby boomer problem as a result of WWII. But the effects of the demographic bulge have been made much worse as the German birthrate has sunk. Check out this animation
It's a tough bind. Obviously a weak labour market does not take well to high net immigration of largely lower skilled workers, not to even get into the difficulty Germany has had integrating immigrants into mainstream German culture (a faily serious problem in many continental European nations). But, slowing down immigration is a death wish, even if the German people were accepting of a drastic cut in pension benefits and an older retirement age.
You're right, something is very wrong with this picture. Reform should have been taken up seriously a very long time ago. The demographics have been trending this way for decades.
Metamuscle.com - News in the Iro
Also check out this chart from a 1998 (!) economist article.
Those were fairly good years for the German economy. Can you see the structural problems between the lines?
Metamuscle.com - News in the Iro
From another 1998 article in the Economist.
Metamuscle.com - News in the Iro
Why dont you link straight to the Free Republic? Same lies but at least amusingly told and sprinkled with a generous dose of spittle from the foaming mouths. For your information: the fact that some idiot on some wingnut site posts a number pulled out of some other (Canadian) wingnut's ass does not make it true. Fraser Institute, give me a break, why dont you ask the shareholders in insurance companies directly for their ideas how to make more profit, instead of their proxy? There is no queue 80 weeks long in Canada for any procedure save transplants. If you want to prove otherwise, link to the Canadian Health Institute or some other sane and professional group without an outrageous, greed motivated agenda. Then I will concede.
Your ad-hominem attacks are typical of most modern liberals.
Pereheaps we just got fed up with modern wingnuts who can be trusted to tell lies, only lies and nothing but lies as soon as their yappers are opened.
You just can't bear the truth.
No I just cant bear idiotic trolls. Be gone.
There is good Canadian music?
I would never have known that based on what I hear in Australia. Please export some of the good stuff.
This sig is intentionally blank
Thank you.
When the state takes from an individual, it has a responsibility to render the individual whole. Thus, when it takes to provide univeral health care, it should provide at least what the individual could obtain for themselves. This is particularly true when the state promises to do just that! Presumably, economies of scale either let the state provide better service, or subsidize service for those that can not otherwise afford the premium.
However, when the state fails at this, and provides less service than the individual could have obtained on their own, they are guilty of (a) fraud (for not keeping their promise of care); (b) murder, if the individual dies as a result, where there is a good chance that they would not.
Note how an AAA repair was perverted into an "unspecified illness" (hardly). Canada's decline into a third millenium dark age of socialism means that they lack surgeons to perform a surgery that is available in other parts of the workd -- all the good ones left, sick of being exploited.
I quoted a survival rate of 70%, and someone noted (in a side thread) that that might be true if it was treated before rupture, otherwise it was a death sentence. In fact, that 70% figure applies to cases treated post-rupture (at typical 911 response rates), in a typical American hospital, and is as low as it is because not all hospitals have sufficiently skilled surgeons, and rapid intervention is of the essence. Contrary to popular belief, the aorta generally does not explode, but rather "rips", allowing up to 30 minutes to save the life. The general treatment involves allowing the aneurysm to grow to 10 cm (which it invariably will), and intervene surgically to resect and reinforce the artery: at this point the risk of surgery balances the risk of doing nothing. Survival rates in those circumstances exceed 90%.
Of course, few Canadians can imagine such a techologically advanced society.
I've been sloppy at citing some of the figures I mentioned - 80 weeks wait for a tonsillectomy, for example (Sask., Canada, 2002). In this Google age, I figure interested people can search for themselves to see if my claims hold merit, and question them if they can't find corraborative evidence.
But, even here, the ever-thieving liberal will demand proof, and when presented with it, denounce the source (i.e. Fraser Institute) as propagating lies, rather like I have been accused of doing. There's no satisfying some people. Provide your own evidence. Perhaps the Sask. figure of 80 weeks was atypical, or the worst case for all of Canada. Provide evidence to refute it, then.
But no: the liberal is reduced to foaming-at-the-mouth ad hominem attacks, and calls of "liar", or "paranoid schizophrenic".
This thread is, on the surface, off-topic, in a discussion about copyright and taxes on copyright material downloads. However, the underlying problem is the whole notion of "tax the world". I mearly demonstrate where this can lead, in the world of socialized health care, and ask the question: "Is this a scenario Americans might want in exchange for the 'promise' of universal healthcare?" Or, would they rather take their chances?
Clearly, despite being born in Canada, and steeped in it's doctrinaire socialism, I somehow grew up a "freak" and found "the American way" more to my liking (despite being far from perfect). I chalk it up to a not overly remarkable three-digit I.Q., apparently otherwise rare in Canada.
Let the liberals foam and froth at the mouth! It makes for amusing entertainment (Just please, wear a bib).
You could've hired me.
Karl, is that you?
You could've hired me.
For example, capitalism will be denounced because of the present climate of corporatism in the U.S. (i.e. monied corporations effectively purchasing law).
The astute libertarian will note that the corporate fiction arises precisely because the corrupt state engineers a "mutual admiration society" by providing "rights" to successful enterprises, turning them into corporations, rendering their shareholders devoid of responsibility for the actions of the company. How convenient: the power of an aggregation of money with none of the responsibilities, the red herring of directors liability being just that.
The result of economic freedom so perverted then becomes the justification for curtailing all such freedoms. Make no mistake, the economic "liberal" is nothing more than a rebranded thief. Would it be acceptable for me to "liberate" some cute underage girl from the confines of her underwear? Hmm, methinks not. Yet, that is the context in which the economic liberal operates: to liberate money from the honest worker who has exchanged his labour for it.
Thief! I cry. Thief, and murderer! when the inevitable consequences of such theft come about.
Small government is, perhaps ineffective, to the point of being impotent. But, isn't that exactly the objective?
You could've hired me.
Thank you. I intuatively *know* I am sane and correct in my reasoning (though perhaps a bit bold and exaggerating with my rhetoric), but agreement helps.
The scary thing is that the grandparent is typical of Canadian society. I don't know if this is because of some collective mental defect or the effects of socialist government propaganda. It's noble to encourage charity, but there seams to be a perversion of "Help others when you can," to "Help... or else!" taught in the schools.
At the risk of suffering the wrath of Godwin's law, I'm reminded of the point in Hitler's "Mein Kamph," where he rambles on about "the bigger the lie, the better". For, such a thing must be true because of the degree to which it would otherwise be preposterous, and no reasonable person would even thing to attempt to present such a falsehood at the truth. Goebels ate that mantra up, and how many millions died as a result? Adolph Hitler is the father of modern propaganda, and Goebels was his protoge.
If extreme untruths can be accepted to lead to genocide, it stands to reason that less extreme distortions of reality can be easily accepted by the voting masses.
FWIW, I did not become bitter following the death of my father. I had my suspicions long before, and they drove me to leave Canada, with my family, to work legally in the U.S. under NAFTA, the lack of "universal" healthcare no longer being feared, though I'd be without insurance, and have to leave the country if I lost my job. Ah well, nothing ventured, nothing gained. I carefully analyzed the circumstances of his death from an economic standpoint, comparing the service he got under Canada's socialized health care plan with the insurance he could have gotten on the free market, and came to the conclusion that, in his case, he got a very bad deal. Perhaps this was indicative of a general problem. Recent evidence of the decline of health service delivery in Canada bears that out.
It might have been possible, for example, that the economies of scale and statistical law of large numbers for a single payer insurer could (a) provide better service than multiple segregated insurers and/or (b) provide similar service but subsidise the very poor, who could not otherwise afford any health insurance.
But, that has not been borne out.
So, I denounce what I see as thinly veiled murder. And, I will continue to do so. I expect that we will see further decay in the system.
Socialism leads to societal decay, regardless with what one sugar-coats it. Capitalism may indeed be "cruel" to the weak, but, in the long term, it is far better: a rising tide lifts all boats in the end.
You could've hired me.
You mean like coverage of the Liberal government "Sponsorship Scandal"? Riiiight.
Geez, just Google for "Canadian Healthcare", and see for yourself. But, I already know that, regardless of how much evidence is provided, you will denounce it all as lies.
You could've hired me.
At the time I posted that, I was unaware that he knew of, and tried to get treatment for, the AAA.
You could've hired me.
To be fair, there are drugs available in Canada that the FDA does not permit to be made available in the U.S. And, there are generally no waiting lists for medication in Canada (though it is not covered by universal healthcare). However, one probably has to wait to get the prescription for them.
You could've hired me.
His brief cancer treatment at the hands of the socialist system resulted in radiation burns from overexposure from unmaintined equipment.
You could've hired me.
The attitude that if one accepts even the slighest social service then one is indebted for life is so prevelent that when we returned to Canada from the U.S. in 2003 for 16 months, I made a point to not apply for the "child tax benefit" even though we were entitled to about $20 a month.
In principle, I refuse to accept government "paybacks" even though I paid more in taxes -- it isn't my money that is being returned -- it's money stolen from all of us poor working slobs to support the liberal thieves.
Surprisingly, I was forced to apply for OHIP coverage by my employer, despite wanting to self-insure: OHIP coverage requires an agreement to live in the province of Ontario permanently. In the end I grudgingly applied, but supplied my own form where the permanent residence agreement was replaced by one that specified the minimum residency required by law. (This is common in Canada: the law establishes something reasonable, but the application forms have much more onweous requirements to which the unsuspecting unwittingly agree, thence being bound by contract).
For the 16 hellish months we were "back", we paid for medical services out of pocket, lest we be accused of "robbing society".
You could've hired me.
Actually, I am so disgusted with Canada, that I am seriously considering renouncing my citizenship when I become a citizen of another country. While I currently travel on a Canadian passport, it is with shame, and because I have no other.
An aside: when I returned to Canada following the telecom bust in the U.S., I was routinely rebuffed for being "too stupid to live in the U.S. illegally, like so many smart Canadians." Geez, that was eye opening.
My family and I have been treated far better as foreigners in the U.S. than we were ever treated as citizens in Canada (well, my son happens to be an American citizen, so he doesn't "count" in that regard).
You could've hired me.
I wish more of "us" would make a noise and denounce the "Canadian lie". I'd seam as less of a lunatic, then. (Well, maybe a little less :-)) I try to do my part :-) It wouldn't be proper for, say, an American, to say "fucking Canadian idiots", but as one native-born, well... I take that somewhat self-deprecating liberty. Don't take it too personally (unless, of course, the shoe fits).
It's sad, really. I was born in Montreal, in 1961, and grew up in a vibrant, respected, city, province (PQ rule excepted), and country. But, socialism (thank you not, Pierre Trudeau), took its toll, and over the next 35 years I saw the country as a whole fall into decay. To be sure, Trudeau wasn't the first "big government socialist" but he sure put things into high gear.
In 1975, my mother had to go back to work -- the increases in income taxes meant that my father could no longer support us on one income. Because Canadians can't file joint tax returns, single-income families suffer great tax discrimination. I always thought this was intentional, and lobbied for by the child daycare industry which appeared to spring up almost overnight, but, of course, I have no proof of that.
One could argue that I should stay in Canada, and fight the system. I became active in the Libertarian Party of Canada, editing it's newsletter for a while, and serving as an elected member of its Ethics Committee. I served as an offical agent for a Libertarian candidate in a federal election (damn, keeping the records for seven years is a royal pain), and wrote my share of scathing Letters to the Editor, getting a surprisingly large fraction published in the Financial Post and other papers.
However, the Libertarian Party of Canada is largely a joke, all 12 of us, as I like to say (with some sadness). I quickly learned that my efforts to "fight the system" were largely ceremonial, but not effective. The best thing I could do is hit the thieves in the pocket book: become a non-resident taxwise. This was surprisingly difficult to do, in 1997 (somewhat easier now): one had to break all ties to Canada (well, not all of them, but the Government wouldn't tell you how many, so it's a case of "more is better"). That meant credit cards, bank accounts, property, obviously health insurance cards and drivers' licenses, etc. I kept an RRSP and passport, and that was it. I could still contribute to Canadian charities if I was so inclined, but even that was risky.
I quickly realised that staying in Canada was not doing my family any good, and we made the bold decision to try our hand at life in the U.S. in 1997, first under a NAFTA visa, and then an H1B. Right now, I'm being sponsored for a green card. We've had very good times and a few bad times, forcing our temporary return to Canada in 2003-2004.
Canadians need to wake up. They are a wonderful people in a great country (as I've found to be generally true about anyone from anywhere). But, they have been fed the worst of socialist lies, and need to set things right. If the only thing I can do is escape so as to improve my economic situation to be able to support the fight to set things right, when it comes, then so be it. Right now, I find that, with diminishing social services, with continued high taxes, many are reduced to acting like rats: those social services exist "for them", but not their fellow neighbours. The supposed "dog eat dog" mentality of a capitalist society has, ironicaly, become the mantra of survival in Toronto, and other places.
P.S. The Conservatives are little better than the Liberals. You wanna see a conservative? Look at an American Republican :-) (Though, the party line on social freedoms is frightening, which is largely why I am libertarian).
You could've hired me.
So please, have a talk with your doctor, or learn the rudiments of logic before returning. Maybe both. Determining where exactly your thinking is messed up is beyond my level of expertise. I recommend Robert H. Thoules' _Straight_and_Crooked_Thinking_. It covers the basics thouroughly and briefly. It'll get you up to speed so that you can talk with the sentients at the watering hole in no time. It's also much cheaper than a university class, but if you've got the money and schedule, a course in formal logic is not a waste of time. Judging from your seriously out of date resume, you'd be able to deal with the course material.
If opportunity came disguised as temptation, one knock would be enough.
3^2 * 67^1 * 977^1
Since you brought it up... I function quite well, in a challenging environment, among people far better qualified, through interaction with me, to evaluate my sanity, than your self. That, or we're all crazy. Since many of them are Americans, you might actually accept that hypothesis.
As part of routine pre-employemt screening (though not for my current position), I have sometimes been the subject of psychological evaluations which have revealed nothing out of the spectrum of normalcy. I am more suspicious and less trusting than many, but not to the degree of clinical paranoia. This means, for example, that I am more comfortable in Texas, where I have the legal right to shoot and kill an adult treaspasser at night, than I would be somewhere where that is not legal, though I have no desire to have the "thrill" of doing that, nor am I particularly axious living in a place where I can't, legally. I have been made well aware of my quirks (most notably, a preoccupation with technical precision and the letter rather than the "spirit" of a contract or other agreement, taking things perhaps more literally than most -- interpreting "never" as just that, for example). You would likely cry a diagnosis of Asperger's, but no evidence of that was found (I considered this as a possibility at one time). The telling charactersitic is, that when I find a conclusion I reach absurd (such as interpreting "never" literally), I check if that is indeed what is meant. My quest for precision annoys many (though I tend to be informally sloppy in this forum), but has not been found to be pathological to the degree of any illness in DSM IV. In short, I am somehwat eccentric and vocal. I'd accept an accusation of arrogant.
You, sir (or madam), are treading dangerously close to defamation of character, in a public forum.
No doubt you perceive a cultural clash (I think not being able to spend one's own money to purchase health services the state promises but does not deliver is a heinous crime -- many Americans I meet agree; many Canadians find that "crazy") as a mental defect.
Perhaps it is you that needs to do a reality check.
You could've hired me.