Slashdot Mirror
Open Source Could Have Saved Ontario Hundreds of Millions
Platinum Dragon writes "Ontario's auditor-general released a blistering report this week detailing how successive governments threw away a billion dollars developing an integrated electronic medical record system. This CBC article highlights an open source system developed at McMaster University that is already used by hundreds of doctors in Ontario. As one of the developers points out, 'we don't have very high-priced executives and consultants,' some of whom cost Ontario taxpayers $2,700 per day."
The McMaster University researchers claim their system could be rolled out for two percent of the billion-dollars-plus already spent on the project. The report itself (PDF) also makes note of the excessive consultation spending: "By 2008, the Ministry’s eHealth Program Branch had fewer than 30 full-time employees but was engaging more than 300 consultants, a number of whom held senior management positions."
Congratulations on your purchase of a brand new nigger! If handled properly, your apeman will give years of valuable, if reluctant, service.
INSTALLING YOUR NIGGER.
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CONFIGURING YOUR NIGGER
Owing to a design error, your nigger comes equipped with a tongue and vocal chords. Most niggers can master only a few basic human phrases with this apparatus - "muh dick" being the most popular. However, others make barking, yelping, yapping noises and appear to be in some pain, so you should probably call a vet and have him remove your nigger's tongue. Once de-tongued your nigger will be a lot happier - at least, you won't hear it complaining anywhere near as much. Niggers have nothing interesting to say, anyway. Many owners also castrate their niggers for health reasons (yours, mine, and that of women, not the nigger's). This is strongly recommended, and frankly, it's a mystery why this is not done on the boat
HOUSING YOUR NIGGER.
Your nigger can be accommodated in cages with stout iron bars. Make sure, however, that the bars are wide enough to push pieces of nigger food through. The rule of thumb is, four niggers per square yard of cage. So a fifteen foot by thirty foot nigger cage can accommodate two hundred niggers. You can site a nigger cage anywhere, even on soft ground. Don't worry about your nigger fashioning makeshift shovels out of odd pieces of wood and digging an escape tunnel under the bars of the cage. Niggers never invented the shovel before and they're not about to now. In any case, your nigger is certainly too lazy to attempt escape. As long as the free food holds out, your nigger is living better than it did in Africa, so it will stay put. Buck niggers and hoe niggers can be safely accommodated in the same cage, as bucks never attempt sex with black hoes.
FEEDING YOUR NIGGER.
Your Nigger likes fried chicken, corn bread, and watermelon. You should therefore give it none of these things because its lazy ass almost certainly doesn't deserve it. Instead, feed it on porridge with salt, and creek water. Your nigger will supplement its diet with whatever it finds in the fields, other niggers, etc. Experienced nigger owners sometimes push watermelon slices through the bars of the nigger cage at the end of the day as a treat, but only if all niggers have worked well and nothing has been stolen that day. Mike of the Old Ranch Plantation reports that this last one is a killer, since all niggers steal something almost every single day of their lives. He reports he doesn't have to spend much on free watermelon for his niggers as a result. You should never allow your nigger meal breaks while at work, since if it stops work for more than ten minutes it will need to be retrained. You would be surprised how long it takes to teach a nigger to pick cotton. You really would. Coffee beans? Don't ask. You have no idea.
MAKING YOUR NIGGER WORK.
Niggers are very, very averse to work of any kind. The nigger's most
Government at its finest!
I worked (through a contract company) at the Ontario Ministry of Health during the Y2K crunch, doing upgrades and support, handling a small team of guys.
It was a decent place to work, but the waste is incredible. We were getting paid 18 to 20 bucks an hour, but the companies handling us were either 2 or 3 deep. And each one took a cut.
One overheard phone call indicated that the top company in the food chain was getting over a hundred dollars an hour for some of us.
And another guy who was getting paid directly was whining on the phone about only making 125 dollars an hour managing the operation... though none of us ever saw him lift a finger to actually manage anything. The managers we reported to were great though.
So the contract companies took way too much money. That was issue number one.
The other was that for the amount of cubicles they had filled, it sure didn't seem like there was enough work to keep everyone busy. And as government employees they get good pay and LOTS of vacation.
And some people were getting paid WAAAY too much for what they were doing at work. Nothing like finding gigabytes of japanese teenagers pissing on things, and bestiality porn on a directors computer.
They must have buried that little discovery because when I Googled him last he was still working there.
Of course, on the plus side, since I was one of the more experienced guys I tended to stick by the phone to manage and support the other team members, and got to read Slashdot all day between phone calls and running down to help when one of the guys ran into trouble.
I wonder if I could get back on there.... :)
It creates jobs, doesn't it?
Who would have taken the politicians and IT management out for steak dinners if they would have used open source? How about the pretty power point presentations for board meetings. Don't forget the political games that had to be played between parties and in the office. Seriously, I've seen time and again when free or open source software has saved money and been a better technical solution. As a high paid consultant myself, I recommend free or open source solutions first, and only move proprietary when I have to. To make a government job work, you have to grease the wheels and pay a little politics (I meant to type play, but this seemed more apt). Any IT job is 80% politics and 20% work, that's why soft skills are so valued in the job market.
Full Disclosure: I work in NEHTA as a contractor.
It is fair enough for a whole lot of Slashdot code cowboys to say "we could code the whole thing in a few months for the price of rent, pizza, internet and beer." but it really isn't as simple as whipping up some sort of web based app that talks to a central repository.
There is a whole lot of clinical systems that need to hooked together at various levels of government and private healthcare and medical records organizations. All these need to have extremely secure and have fine grained access control and to have flexible information formatting so that existing records can be imported, exported and exchanged between different systems. The platform needs to be easily scalable, easily usable, have crystal clear terminology etc. and a lot of those things require expensive consultants from their respective areas, and over the course of the project there might be a need to totally reworked because X organization was not happy with the system. Consultants cost money, and that is on top of normal costs for equipment for the organization and rental of offices in each state.
Developing an eHealth system costs money. End of story. At the end of the day it is better to roll out a eHealth system that is secure, reliable and well integrated than a system that is unreliable, unsecure and convoluted.
I also want to add that you Americans have the weirdest ideals about healthcare. ARE YOU FREAKING CRAZY!!!
...that is just insane. It is no wonder they have issues.
I currently work on and EMR for a health system and I can tell you that they are incredibly complex animals. The workflows in healthcare are complex. Successfully writing interfaces to and from these systems is near impossible (namely pharmacy systems). The best you can do is try to get a central homogenous vendor with good modules which use the same database. You need low turnover to establish and maintain EMR's and while consultants can be handy, that ratio should be flipped.
At any rate I am not dogging the McMaster's work, but there is a huge disparity between products out there. It is a little presumptous to say theirs would have been an alternative to save millions. It really has to do with the mission and the product features.
This seems to me to be just one botched project, or more likely doomed from the start.
This is why I find it amusing when people say that a socialized medical system is inherently more efficient than a US-style system. Sure, in the US you have insurance companies skimming off the top and money being wasted on advertising and lobbyists ... but you don't have bureaucrats wasting billions in order to keep themselves and their buddies rolling in the dough, and billions more being wasted through sheer indifference. Or, at least you wouldn't in a purely capitalist system - I wouldn't be surprised if this type of thing was going on with Medicare on a regular basis.
Consultants that say what must be done is not open source. They could suggest open source products that fits in some or even all of the requirements of the system, but they still have to get paid, that would not be saved (of course, that for every penny won by a consultant some share goes to the one that hired or recommended him is another topic).
But the system could have ended in open source. If they had to develop a new solutions or integrate existing ones, that was done with the money of the taxpayers and could have been done open source.
That I might collapse of a heart attack.
Is there an open source software that does something pretty close to what they spent a pile of money building a custom solution for? Apparently there is.
Is the open source solution close enough to the needs of the Ontario government that, as the article alleges, all you need to do is buy some servers and set it up and there are negligible other costs? I seriously doubt it. I would be willing to bet heavily against it. Anyone who thinks otherwise probably hasn't spent much time developing software for government.
Probably they could have saved money by using the open source software as a starting point for customizations -- but they're going to have to do some, because the business model or set of civic statutes the software is built for aren't the same as what that particular government requires. Who does those customizations? Why, there you're probably back to hiring software consultants again.
I'm currently working on a government project (as a developer consultant) that's very similar to the idealized case laid out in the article, and it's not my first such project; in my estimation, in most cases, if you can repurpose something open source that's very similar to what the government agency in question is asking for, you can save maybe half the money of building a complete solution from scratch. At first you may estimate that you're going to be able to do a lot better than that, but as you get further into the project you find that there's just too many odd requirements unique to any given government entity or municipality that don't exist anywhere else and are completely inflexible because they're a matter of law.
So, yeah. You can save money, and that's a good thing, but you can't save what the dude in the article thinks you can save.
"Consultancy" explained in 7 minutes!
I read the title and got extremely curious. When did closed source kill hundreds of millions of people and why didn't I hear about it?
My advice after interning for a consultant is to not hire consultants. Its no coincidence that Dilbert makes fun of them. Imagine someone who sits on their ass and schemes up things to specialize in, and takes projects they have no experience in (at least not enough that any employer would count as "experienced" when looking for people to hire). Imagine an individual whom picks high priced products just because they get more when they resell it with a 25 - 75% mark-up. Now imagine someone who is honest, and imagine how you could possibly tell the difference.
Oh yeah, and most of their business? From the government.
The only way to counteract the problem is if you get backing at a very high level (from the Premier and his Cabinet). During the late '90s all the ministries had to convert and conform to one accounting standard. The push-back from all levels was incredible. It was only because people were threatened with being fired that the project got enough traction to be implemented.
This is what Open Source software is up against. It's truly brutal. That said, never give up fighting, but it has to be done at the highest levels.
*** Don't be dull.***
... so I'm getting a real kick out of these replies.
Seriously, back in 2002 I was working at HHS, of which McMaster is a part. The pilot project I was on was looking for a solution to push out to relevant departments all over southern Ontario. It was a mess of completely unrelated databases and paper files. I remember looking at Oscar as a possible solution, and I was ooing and aaahing over it. Don't remember the details now, but it was really elegant and did everything it was supposed to be doing. I can only imagine what it looks like now, eight years later. I recommended it heartily to my superiors. Don't know what they did with it, if anything, once my contract ran out.
Good on ya, Mac!
Soylens viridis homines es
The project was a horribly mismanaged flop, and open source wouldn't have saved it. The problem was with the management, not the coding. An open source project with that management would still have lost the same amount of money.
Hell, people were being paid thousands just to stay on call, doing no work. How does open source fix that? It doesn't.
Loved the article's assumed correlation of open source and lower cost though...
Your subject line and comment were too repetitive!
#DeleteChrome
Do not antagonize the crazy Americans. They may send you Celine Dion.
It took us decades to get rid of her.
Signed,
Canada
Open Source Could Have Saved Ontario Hundreds of Millions
it's so easy a caveman could do it.
Fixed it for you.
I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long. --brownkitty
The same mindset that would have allowed for open source would have allowed for other "breaking the government waste" pattern activities.
Why buy and maintain MS-Office licenses when there's a better, free, alternative? Teh "Because ..." mentality.
Stolen from the comments section of the article:
---
Can CBC please do some research on eHealth? This article clearly misleads by confusing an EMR (Electronic Medical Record) with an integrated EHR (Electronic Health Record). OSCAR is an EMR, not an EHR. Apples and oranges as they say.
eHealth Ontario is primarily concerned with developing an iEHR. An EHR is a whole 'nother thing and is a much bigger and way more challenging part of the overall eHealth problem. There are plenty of EMRs around of which OSCAR is only one option.
To put things in perspective, it would be very useful for CBC and others to read this overview from Canada Health Infoway...
http://www2.infoway-inforoute.ca/Documents/Vision_2015_Advancing_Canadas_next_generation_of_healthcare%5B1%5D.pdf
This document will clarify that an integrated EHR infostructure is the problem that eHealth Ontario has been struggling to provide. While EMR is a part of the solution, it really is a much smaller element and a non-issue for Ontario.
Dr Chan should know this but I suppose he is enamoured with his 'baby' and assumes that EMR solves all eHealth problems. Perhaps he disagrees with the Registry-centric iEHR model that Canada Health Infoway has selected over the alternative of an Information Sharing architecture (that favours EMRs). That train, however, has left the station and all provinces are already deeply committed to the CHI approach.
CBC seems more interested in digging up dirt than providing clarity. I suggest a little more integrity and accuracy and a little less innuendo and inflamatory reportng is in order.
--
I've observed first-hand how ridiculous (publicly funded institution) spending is, in Ontario, and this does not surprise me in the least.
I used to work at a certain university in downtown Toronto. Rather than giving this task to their already 100+ employees (who usually had very little to do anyway) with CS or related degrees, they opted to hire 20+ external consultants at a rate of ~ $100,000 CAD / year (for a couple of years at least) to 'integrate' some proprietary 3rd-party product (ahem ... PeopleSoft!).
The alternative was to build a fully-customizable, easily-maintainable, more efficient, user-friendlier product themselves for essentially $0, as all of the employees who would build said project were already on salary.
Why? Liability. Rather than ensuring a product is up-to-snuff by their internal standards, by professionals who are more qualified to set those standards, and quickly writing fixes internally, the management preferred to have someone external to blame in case things went wrong. That way they could spend another $1M on consultants to fix the problem later on ;-)
It really makes you question how your hard-earned tax dollars are being spent.
Also, there are annual licenses that have to be renewed on a per-workstation basis for this software, and it is not cheap.
My last comment was rather negative towards consultants. I do feel that this article is very positive in general - excellent work Mac!
Developing an eHealth system costs money. End of story. At the end of the day it is better to roll out a eHealth system that is secure, reliable and well integrated than a system that is unreliable, unsecure and convoluted.
Here in the UK, the government has been putting billions into the NHS computer systems. From talking to people who work with them, the consultants responsible basically have no clue about PKI, so there goes your security. As for being reliable and well integrated, experience of past (very expensive) government IT projects makes me doubt that this is likely too.
At the end of the day, the government goes to one of the really big 2 or 3 IT companies to develop a system (I'm talking about you, EDS, Capita, etc.), get quoted a crazy amount of money, accept the quote and then watch as the whole thing becomes a disaster and goes many times over budget. Then when the next IT project comes up they go back to exactly the same company. It is true that there are a limited number of huge IT companies to choose from, but many of the IT projects could be done just fine by smaller companies, and wouldn't cost the earth, with the advantage that supporting small businesses is a Good Thing for the economy. However, the government won't use small businesses to do these jobs because doing so is seen as high risk - personally, I don't see how you can get much higher risk than using one of the big companies that seem to have a 100% record of screwing up projects. Hell, for the amount these big companies get paid, you could probably get 4 or 5 small companies doing exactly the same job as each other and then actually roll out the project that looks the most likely to succeed.
http://blog.nexusuk.org
Bilingualism.
That takes a higher priority over technical knowledge. The government has to hire so many consultants to cut costs but also to get around the stupidity of the bilingualism mandate. Anyone who has done the test will tell you that the exam that tests your French understanding is much, much more difficult than the English one. Even for jobs where you are not talking to the public it is required. The best part is outside of Ottawa there is no issue. If you are in Quebec, the language used is French, everywhere else it is English. It is only in Ottawa that they do somersaults to make sure all correspondence, emails, voice mailes, etc is in both languages. Well this is from my experience.
The states found Affirmative Action as being unconsitutional. Problem is up here, it's part of our Constitution.
This is mostly geared at the Federal government, I am not sure about the Provincial side but it wouldn't surprise me there as well.
You are missing the point that a proven open source solution already existed. It was already in use.
This is a _very_ valid comment.
Software by itself does not matter, be it commercial of open source. The waste is in the way such projects are handled - money that could have been spend to achieve something, goes instead to all intermediate companies. Why governement pays that? To shift blame if something goes wrong. They can say "oh, we don't know anything, we asked consultants and THEY told us to do it in this way." Consulting companies are used as a CYA device.
If money spent were private money, owner would make sure that he gets most for it.
Public money is "nobody" money and nobody puts as much attention to making most of it. People in institutions pretend they do, but as it's easy-come-easy-go, they do not care enough. Worst case the taxes will go up to cover for inefficiencies.
Governement projects are cash-cows for everyone, except citizens.
The same mindset that would have allowed for open source would have allowed for other "breaking the government waste" pattern activities.
Why buy and maintain MS-Office licenses when there's a better, free, alternative? Teh "Because ..." mentality.
I'm having exactly this conversation at work right now - and the economic climate means it's a much easier conversation for me than it was 2 years ago. However, it goes something like this:
Me: Yes, could roll out Open Office to everyone. No problem. And it's free.
PHB: Good, so what do we need to consider in terms of compatibility?
Me: You'll see 95-98% MS Office compatibility easily. Of course, if you want 99-100% compatibility with MS Office, it's going to have to be MS Office. This is true for all office suites - hell, it's true between different versions of Office.
PHB: Right, so anyone who deals with outside organisations on a regular basis needs MS Office.
Me: Well, you could exchange PDFs...
PHB: Anyone who deals with outside organisations on a regular basis needs MS Office. Who else?
Me: Okay.... well, you need to consider if less than 100% compatibility with existing files is a problem. Things like spreadsheets, big fancy documents...
PHB: Spreadsheets? OK, so the finance people need MS Office. Any others?
Me: Well, engineering say that having to deal with different formats internally will be a PITA...
PHB: So we get MS Office for the engineers....
Me: Right, you do realise that there's only one license being saved now?
How did _they_ cure it? Every single human being born in the west gets the polio vaccin once maybe twice. And the vaccines are produced by pharmaceutical companies. That may not be a long treatment but they do get to sell it to everyone.
You don't think every company is dying (npi) too find the cure for cancer? That company would be on top. People will alway get cancer, there is no way to prevent it, and with people getting older and older more people will get cancer in their lifetime.
So please, spare me you inside job theories
Open Source is not interesting for a consultancy.
If they code up some wedgeware between an Open Source project and the client, that's the end of project revenue for them. If, instead, they code the whole show from scratch, guess who makes money on the maintenance?
The name of the game is *always* about what makes most money for the consulting company, and how they can hang on to the available budget. Only if the CLIENT specifies what has to be supplied you can get Open Source involved, but if you're capable to spec in such a way that they can't rip you off with change control you might as well use contractors at half the price.
Follow the money.
Insert
You fucked that up, THAT is why the conversation went like that.
If you want 99-100% compatability with MS Office, you have to have
a) The same printers on all machines (buy new ones!)
b) The same OS and patch on all machines (buy new ones!)
c) The same version of MS Office on all machines (buy new ones!)
d) All your customers have to have the same version too (tell them to buy new ones!)
Because, guess what, kid, YOU DO NOT GET 100% MS Office COMPATABILITY ***unless*** you're talking compatibility with your own document created on the machine you're reading them on.
You FAILED BIG TIME the minute you said "MS Office compatibility". And with that you showed that you DO NOT want to move off MS Office.
What version of MS Office are you wanting to be compatible with? The one that comes with MS Works???
Heck, MS Office cannot even be compatible with the MSOOXML standard MS pushed.
Liability. Yep, dealt with that in government before as a contractor for an Ontario ministry. At least I got to do some work, even if it probably wasn't done in the most effective way.
1) Let's hire a consultant to study this for six months and create a report that tells us what I already know I want to do.
2) Let's hire contractors to do any actual work instead of using staff.
Oh, and don't forget 1a... don't actually consult with the internal systems people or the users, since they might point out that the decision you hired a consultant to come to was the wrong choice.
You'd think a executive would be just as afraid of being blamed for hiring an incompetent consultant or contractor, but apparently any issues can be written off when the resources are external and temporary.
God, I hate government employment.
I work in IT for another government in Canada. On a smaller scale, we see this kind of thing too.
Politicians simply don't understand IT. Neither does senior management. They understand stuff like "strategic vision", which roughly means a glossy report full of lots of charts showing amazing things with absolutely no detail about how its going to work.
If the same group of politicians/senior managers have a strong IT staff below them to sort out the truth from the crap, do the integration, and support things afterwards, you can get decent value out of consultants... sometimes. If you have an organization like eHealth, it's just a playground for consultants to do whatever they want and rack up huge bills for no valuable work.
At it's worst, you get someone out to enrich their consultant buddies on the taxpayer dime... like the former eHealth CEO. I wasn't in there, so I don't know if she was completely incompetent or corrupt, but its one of the two.
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
Yup we evil smokers are to blame somehow I am sure, they just need to bleed billions more tax dollars out of us that is all. I avoid doctors and hospitals like the plague (literally). Yet I pay at least $50 in tax per week for a service I never use.
Oh yes, it is all because of smoking.
I assure you that it is like this at private companies, too. The money spent is CYA money, nothing else. And it is quite the doozy.
OOooohhh you Canadians....
Keep it up and we are sending Andy Dick over there.
Signed,
The Crazy Americans
True, an OSS project *with that management* would have still been a disaster. The thing is, if it was an OSS project there would have been a lot less gravy floating around for the consultants, and that in itself would have meant better management.
If you have too much of something, you don't tend to take as much care of it then if you have a little. I waste water all the time - shower, cook, drink - it just comes out of the taps. Except the day the pipes burst and it stopped. Then my water usage was much more carefully managed by me.
An OSS project doesn't have that kind of cash to give out, or, if it does, it doesn't get handed out like it does in traditional projects. The consultancy doesn't get to be as big as part of it, and that's where the waste occurs.
Still, we can only hope the management are all sacked and better ones put in place.
Someone paid these researchers to develop the software. Ignoring that cost is pretty misleading.
I also want to add that you Americans have the weirdest ideals about healthcare. ARE YOU FREAKING CRAZY!!!
Although I am a fellow Australian, I think I can explain this to you. In our country, we have the government taking very good care of us, for example with the new requirement for bakers to put iodised salt in bread. Now it is very unlikely for any Australian to have an iodine deficiency because the government will make sure we get our nutrition, just like a good parent makes their children eat their vegetables.
Strange as it may seem, some people do not want to be locked in a perpetual childhood, nurtured and comforted by the parent figure government. They are prepared to take on the risks and hardships of adulthood and desire to make their own decisions. A great many, though not all, of the people who think this way live in the US.
http://marriedmansexlife.com/
Explain US healthcare vs British healthcare then? Why does the commercial US pay more for less and the british social system less for more?
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
the alternative is free but not better
There's no question that some projects are run poorly and waaaay off expense estimations. $1B is probably about as bad as it gets - but not impossible. Remember Waste Management's suit against SAP?
That said, I'm pretty surprised that people here would so simply assume that just switching to Open Source is a menial decision. From a former PDF (http://mimwiki.med.up.pt/images/0/0a/Osehc-david_chan.pdf), the solution costs entail: cost of server ($1500), cost of installation ($200), cost of training ($500). Even if you're a staff of one or two, with no existing data and are able to start from scratch, this number is completely bogus.
Come on, guys, we're IT. We take data seriously. We need redundancy, backups, documentation and support processes. This was not a question of open source vs. closed source software. It's about proper estimation, requirements gathering and analysis, proper communication with the business owners and stakeholders and appropriate communication. This was a failure on the project management level. No open source would've saved this.
Yup - if I owned a huge company my first rule would be that I would need to personally approve any consultant engagement.
When a manager comes to me and points out that if we don't hire the consultant we could end up losing more through a bad decision, I'd say, "fine - but if it happens I'll make sure you never get another job, unless you admit you're not qualified to do your job and recommend a replacement."
There really are situations where companies probably should engage consultants. The problem is that SO many of them are brought in to do stuff that the company should be able to do in the first place.
I've worked with some fairly competant consultants but even they tend to have knowledge gaps. For example, in the IT world many of these guys are great at deploying systems, but they don't have any idea how to deploy them in a way that makes them cheaper to maintain in the long term. In fact, they have an incentive to make them harder to maintain to get repeat business. When you do it yourself you have incentive to make sure that you won't have to spend six months out of the year recoding stuff that should be configurable...
Why not?
It seems it's unfashionable these days to standardize on file formats and protocols, and let different implementations coexist ...
to open up for clients written to different peoples' tastes and usage patterns.
In the voting case, I should be able to hand over an USB stick with an OpenPGP-signed text file on it, the text file being formatted to be a valid vote. They'd check the signature, check against my ID card, syntax-check the text, and feed it into the database. -- If that design has flaws, keep in mind that I'm not an expert in any of those fields, and only thought about it for a minute.
Now I'm curious as to how confused you really are.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
Honestly I think it's a lack of faith in the in-house IT department more than anything. The way it's set up at my company is that the in-house guys handle immediate issues that come up and are the technical liaisons between Host Company and Product/Services company. They are more or less middle men.
I can only imagine where this came from, probably the following:
-The amount of "LEARN COMPUTERS NOW AND QUADRUPLE YOUR PAY!" certification factories
-General overall incompetence on the part of the IT personnel as a whole. This generally has to do with a company wanting to provide a much lower pay grade
-Management who just doesn't understand IT. Your typical "if shit works, they don't feel like they should be paying you so much $. If shit breaks, then it's your ass." So instead there grew a market of consultants. People who are outside to the company that can come in and bang out a project, but not someone that has to be paid full time, and only on an as-needed basis.
-Companies who recognize the above and so really hype up that "OMFG YOU NEED THIS SERVICE NOW!"
And businesses wonder where all of their money is disappearing to. It's like, if you don't let your in-house IT people do their job, then of course you're going to spend tons of $.
But maybe I'm just living in a fantasy world where I expect my IT peers to be as knowledgeable if not more so than I am.
I have had the opportunity to talk to someone who was rather close to this entire fiasco.
It seems that government just threw money at IT trying to fix problems with health care.
People further down had no direction.... just money.... They hired "experts" left, right and center.... giving them all this money they had.
Besides all the lost public funding.... I just regret that I wasn't getting paid 2700$... money was being thrown anyway.... where was I.
I know of someone getting paid $100/hour who thought he got a good rate... until he figured out his pimp... the guy who got him there is getting $200/hr for him.
This is fiscal negligence or corruption. Those persons in positions as public servants need to be held accountable. Get off your arse and do something about it.
-- Wondering how long until the internet becomes fully corporatist, like television.
That is to say we have a whole lot of nothing. We don't know what they're software can do or what the one they bought could do. We don't know what the doctors who are using it are using it for, or what the hospitals who implemented it wanted to do with it(which can be very very different). We have no idea why they chose the product they did or why they didn't choose this one.
Let me tell, as a guy who's been a technical adviser on more health system purchasing decisions than I care to count, picking health care products is complicated. The ones which are well written and maintained usually don't work for the clinical staff and the ones which do work for the clinical staff are often horribly written and almost impossible to maintain. Add in trying to get one for a country outside the US(health care systems outside the US work very differently so products are often difficult or impossible to use), and it's a gigantic tangled mess.
I've also seen more than my fair share of university developed e-health systems, and most of them are just as crap as the commercial ones and tend to come with all sorts of restrictions on who can host them and who supports them.
eHealth Records are a gigantic money pit which governments all over the world piss tax dollars down. Some of this is government incompetence, some of it is the way clinical staff view their jobs, some of it is crooked vendors. Nearly every government in the world capable of trying it has a failed attempt or two at one of these. Politicians also love to criticize their predecessors, it's how the system works. University researchers always talk up what they do to try and get more funding, it's what they do.
I see nothing convincing in this story to say that this product was any better than any other one, or that the governments in question chose the wrong product. Just because it's open source and cheap doesn't mean it's not crap.
Legitimate markets can have multiple organizations competing for market share. They do not necessarily have to be for excessive profit or could be non-profit even. Some "markets" are monopoly by nature or necessity and so this can not or does not occur. The SOLUTION is an organization that has INTERNAL competition as opposed to external competition.
Monopoly markets are a good place for internal competition since external competition is impossible or impractical.
Democratic government as an organization has its MEMBERS compete for their JOBS because the public is the employer and can fire them-- (they are easier to fire too) and there are TONS of employees waiting to take the job or undermine somebody to get ahead. It has much in common with the inside of a large corporation (except internal fighting can be much more severe.) The basic structure of most corps in an industry is similar; but with different management-- when a party loses power it is similar to changing organizations; since the structure would largely remain the same-- the management team changes and a some workers (the workers often switch between orgs just to get raises in pay already.)
When it does not work-- its OUR FAULT. In the USA, we have lost our power to actually control the organization, the corporate empowered wing of government has taken working control away from the majority stakeholders. It has been hijacked and we have the majority shares but don't organize and exercise our rights. The broken system reflects BAD TOP LEVEL MANAGEMENT and the people are the top management.
People bash and hate government while professing patriotism, democracy, and the rule of law clearly do not understand what they are talking about. I find many of these people are non-intellectual if not anti-intellectual and making them think is exceptionally difficult.
If you believe in democracy, you should believe that government can function when running a monopoly over any "market" the shareholders choose with the competition happening inside the organization. Realistically, we know that too much delegation due to overloading of management, board members, and shareholders causes major problems-- it doesn't scale. Even small governments handle far more issues than most corporations have to deal with. I leave it to somebody else to explain government in corporate terminology so dense people can see the similarities and how conceptually the issues are not all that different. Its not the ideological religion many people make it up to be.
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At the end of the day, the government goes to one of the really big 2 or 3 IT companies to develop a system (I'm talking about you, EDS, Capita, etc.), get quoted a crazy amount of money, accept the quote and then watch as the whole thing becomes a disaster and goes many times over budget. Then when the next IT project comes up they go back to exactly the same company. It is true that there are a limited number of huge IT companies to choose from, but many of the IT projects could be done just fine by smaller companies, and wouldn't cost the earth, with the advantage that supporting small businesses is a Good Thing for the economy. However, the government won't use small businesses to do these jobs because doing so is seen as high risk - personally, I don't see how you can get much higher risk than using one of the big companies that seem to have a 100% record of screwing up projects. Hell, for the amount these big companies get paid, you could probably get 4 or 5 small companies doing exactly the same job as each other and then actually roll out the project that looks the most likely to succeed.
Most likely the real reason is that a small company couldn't afford the bidding process, even without whatever "incentives" get unofficially offered. Are these "huge IT companies" actually IT companies or do they just subcontract random bits of the task in hand to small companies?
The alternative was to build a fully-customizable, easily-maintainable, more efficient, user-friendlier product themselves for essentially $0, as all of the employees who would build said project were already on salary. ;-)
Why? Liability. Rather than ensuring a product is up-to-snuff by their internal standards, by professionals who are more qualified to set those standards, and quickly writing fixes internally, the management preferred to have someone external to blame in case things went wrong. That way they could spend another $1M on consultants to fix the problem later on
Thing is that had they got the on staff people to do it it's in their interest to try and ensure that the software is as robust as possible and as easy to fix as possible in the unlikely event it does break. Since they have to do more work for the same amount of money if it breaks.
However it's in the interests of consultants that the system is fragile and difficult to fix. Since when it breaks they get more money. Maybe some of this is used to keep the management well supplied with drugs...
And the tenth company is Google. At the next economic downturn the other nine companies disappear. Well, OK, that is unless the government bails them out. If it weren't for government interventions, the natural cycle of capitalism would take care of companies managed by stupid, corrupt, and incompetent people.
I've seen this before "Oh, its not mature enough". Bullshit. What that means is there is a company shipping crapware that wants a lot of money. I've seen Open Source software at beta level thats about 50 times as secure and usable as "gold level 3 corporate" software issued by commercial providers. The marketing department of the company yelps 'its not secure, its not stable' and the politicos and bosses, otherwise illiterate and not being able to judge for themselves, listen. Open Source doesn't come with a marketing department, and so the bosses assume the lie is correct. Its a massively common mistake. I've heard the stories about the last stupid consultant they had, billing time for just about any source of information, including surfing the net, talking to someone on the subway, talking to someone in a coffee shop, etc. Clearly they could implement OSCAR as a 'trial run' kind of software to the 8000 doctors, starting with 80, refining as they go (including the implementation), then continuing the process as they test further, rolling out to 800, and finally, complete the 'test software' to all 8000. All for $20 million. Thats 2% of what they have already paid out, and gotten nothing for. Stupid people. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Of course the government isn't interested. The lobbyists can't make money if the government is only paying $20 million.
Obviously the kickbacks from the open source software developers are not competitive with the industry standard.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
People, an EMR is not the same as an EHR. I know because I work on a EHR. The level of complexity and scale is completely different. Yes, the both say "Health Care", but any comparison is at best naive and at worst stupid. Also, eventhough I love Open Source and try to implement as much as possible, I do think that is Open Source is not the panacea for all our woes. This example is the worst of all by suggesting that an Open Source product that does something else would have saved the day. Come on, do not be an idiot, this is the behavior that does more harm than good.
At the end of the day, the government goes to one of the really big 2 or 3 IT companies to develop a system (I'm talking about you, EDS, Capita, etc.), get quoted a crazy amount of money, accept the quote and then watch as the whole thing becomes a disaster and goes many times over budget. Then when the next IT project comes up they go back to exactly the same company. It is true that there are a limited number of huge IT companies to choose from, but many of the IT projects could be done just fine by smaller companies, and wouldn't cost the earth, with the advantage that supporting small businesses is a Good Thing for the economy. However, the government won't use small businesses to do these jobs because doing so is seen as high risk
This is not limited to the government, this happens in business as well. For example we landed a big contract with a private company even though they raised doubts of our size. In practice, it's the 2-3% of the organization in my team that knows anything about it, it might as well have been just us you were hiring. The chances we'd flop and go away is really no smaller or bigger than our company saying "that business area isn't losing us money, let's drop it". But big likes to deal with big, so big IT, big government and big business go hand in hand.
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Actually, there was already an Open Source alternative complete, in production use, and developed in Ontario
Not to b too harsh, but this is not true - nobody complains when I send them a .doc that was created with OO (though I keep the original in .odt format).
Most spreadsheets are not that complicated, and will also work just fine.
The only difference between most .docs produced by Word and by OpenOffice is that the OO one is MUCH smaller.
Nothing like setting off a good conversation and learning a couple of things along the way.
First, I'd like to thank the people who pointed out the difference between EMRs and a full-up EHR system across the province. I hadn't even encountered the terms and differences until commenters here pointed them out (I submitted this during a slow moment from a handheld while waiting for a title to finish ingesting, so doing my own damn research wasn't even in my mind). That said, the Wikipedia entry for electronic health records is currently a bad game of buzzword bingo, and it sounds like a system-wide version of an EMR, only requiring a much larger database(s), fine-grained security, and secure, or at least encrypted, links to transmit data, along with the personnel and infrastructure to maintain and administer the system. Big, but certainly not overwhelming for solutions based upon open source technologies.
I don't think OSCAR would have been the solution out of the box, but an existing EMR could have been a good starting point for developing the client-side interface, and possibly even the central databases. I wonder if some combination of central databases for things like basic patient info could be tied with peer-to-peer storage for things like results gathered at, and procedures performed by, particular institutions, so that the storage load is spread out. Then again, the problems presented by centralized data storage and maintenance would be replaced by the problems presented by distributed data storage and maintenance. Do you want your problems in a few data centres, or in every office around the province... flip a coin and decide how complicated/insane you'd like to make your considerations. I wonder if something could have even been built on the side of, or to replace, the existing OHIP billing system. I wonder, I wonder, I wonder...
As a few other commenters pointed out, much of the trouble was due to completely incompetent/corrupt management and contractors riding the gravy train, though one person made what I think is also an important point - a management culture capable of accepting open source solutions as a starting point would probably have been a culture actually interested in getting something done, instead of impressing itself with its magnificence and getting nothing done. Another person pointed out that Ontario is hamstrung by the specifications developed by another committee, though I'm still not clear on why this would have excluded things like OSCAR as a starting point for something bigger. This may simply be a result of my ignorance; I'm a bit more bogged down in smashing my brain against buggy "professional" video/film editing software to dive into the morass of buzzwords and legalese surrounding development specs at this point in time. However, this boondoggle makes me wonder if I should get a bit more interested...
Finally, to those using this to launch an assault on the idea of socialized medicine -- don't bother. My family wouldn't have been able to stay above the poverty line had we lived in the US due to surgery I required as a toddler, and I'm currently having a model experience in the Ontario health system. I've already paid for it through gobs of taxes, and in exchange I can worry more about getting medical advice and assistance while remaining a productive member of the community instead of sweating over how I'm going to pay the bills and keep a roof over my head. I'm not going to dive into the gory sociopolitical details and arguments right now, but there are certain things where laissez-faire policies do more harm than good -- and in medicine, "do no harm" is supposed to be the first commandment.
And to think, this mess started during the "Common Sense Revolution"... thanks Mike and Ernie, and up yours Dalton; your government only started caring when the opposition started poking around and asking questions. Oh well, could be worse; I could be battling an insurance provider for coverage of the surgery I have coming up...
Someday, you're going to die. Get over it.
I've seen this before. "We have to spend billions". No. We have to pend a few hundred thousand, well. Spending billions gets us to the moon. We can spend billions in a very sloppy, stupid fashion, and get what Ontario got, nothing. They got nothing. There was in all, about 1 dozen reports, none of which were more than 30 pages, from the result of an 18 month employed consultant. For 1 billion dollars Canadian (Hey!, thats only at the current rate of exchange 915 million US). The reports were all superficial. Not one bit of the information in them was accurate, nor even useful. A total of 360 pages of basically nothing. Some of the pages were intentionally left blank. Thats 2.77 million Canadian dollars per page (some of which were intentionally left blank). Here you go on and say 'oh we need to spend billions'. No. You, YOU are an absolute idiot. Total and complete. If the OSCAR solution is bad, we could try rolling it out for 20 million, see what the problems are, fix them for perhaps a few million, maybe even a hundred million, and then we would have something, SOMETHING! instead of NOTHING, and be $900,000,000.00 further ahead. I KNOW what systems cost. I implemented a 911 emergency dispatch system. I saw the "Professional" software. I saw how crappy it was. I saw how secure it was (the week after I left, it got hammered by a virus, no, I wasn't any part of it), and they went without while it got cleaned up, and I also saw how fudged it was. The data was locked up in a proprietary format. Mentally retarded. You can babble about integrating to other systems, but until you've seen this kind of system, you have NO idea. Linking to the phone company, the city traffic light system, fire and ambulance halls, the police, radio systems, gps systems, the electronic map and GIS systems showing where every fire truck and ambulance was in real time, routing of fire trucks and ambulances around construction/closed streets, links to hospitals (along with control of traffic lights), alarm monitoring companies, weather data. Until you've done that, you have no clue. NONE! I've seen open systems. Open systems integrate with everyone. Nothing locked up in version 2.54 and inaccessable to version 2.55 or God forbid, other vendors and their fscking proprietary systems. I've seen proprietary systems rely on crappy commercial operating systems, with versions of the network time protocol (NTP) that basically were shit, and didn't work. Now sparky, couple a shitty/non-working version of NTP, with the commercial OS vendor telling you to use something 3rd party, and a system (911 emergency) that insists (FREAKING INSISTS) that time stamps be recorded accurately (so when someone feels they didn't get emergency service fast enough, and died or half died, and gets the team of lawyers subpoenaing emergency records, only to find crappy NTP stamps all over the God damned map, go ahead and tell me commercial and locked up and unfixable is always better. If I see you in the alley, you will get a severe beating! I will even call 911 on your behalf later on. Hope the commercial software dispatches help soon! The Open Source system *IS* mature enough. The only immature ones are clueless, overpaid consultants, beating their gums too much, and working far far too little.
Not to b too harsh, but this is not true - nobody complains when I send them a .doc that was created with OO (though I keep the original in .odt format).
Which is why when it became clear that we were going to get so many seemingly-reasonable requests for MS office there was no point in limiting it, my suggestion was to not license MS Office at all for anyone unless and until they regularly found themselves meeting interoperability issues.
Er, uh... so you've got a PHB concerned with getting staff the software needed to do their job? Hey, I'm using Ubuntu -- I'm drinking the koolaid. I just saying that PHB doesn't sound like a complete idiot.
And that's exactly why using OpenOffice isn't an option in many business environments . Very often time and money wasted on fighting various problems with documents is worth much more than the money spend on MS licences.
Most likely the real reason is that a small company couldn't afford the bidding process, even without whatever "incentives" get unofficially offered.
Sad, but unfortunately probably true.
Are these "huge IT companies" actually IT companies or do they just subcontract random bits of the task in hand to small companies?
As far as I know they mostly handle it in-house. Or maybe "mishandle" is a better term. :)
http://blog.nexusuk.org
This is not limited to the government, this happens in business as well.
Not to the same extent - no private business can afford to spend £40 billion on a computer system (which is the last estimate I heard for the NHS computer system - I believe the original quote was about £6 billion, so still outrageous).
Private business is governed by competition in the market - if the costs of contracting some work out is going to push the cost of their products up too high then they simply can't do it since it would seriously harm their business. Government, on the other hand, is not constrained so much - if a project turns out really expensive then they can just put up taxes to compensate; the public can only lose.
For example we landed a big contract with a private company even though they raised doubts of our size. In practice, it's the 2-3% of the organization in my team that knows anything about it, it might as well have been just us you were hiring. The chances we'd flop and go away is really no smaller or bigger than our company saying "that business area isn't losing us money, let's drop it".
You can't just drop a project that you're under contract to produce (unless your contract allows you to do that, and the person contracting you would be an idiot to allow such a clause). On the other hand, if the company goes out of business mid-project then everyone's screwed. Small businesses do generally have a higher chance of going out of business. However, my personal opinion is that small businesses usually provide a much higher quality of service and better value, probably because they can't afford to lose any customers if they can help it, and usually have far less worthless bureaucracy getting in the way of the job. There is a risk/reward payoff when choosing the size of company to deal with - IMHO the reward of dealing with a small company far outweighs the risk in most cases.
http://blog.nexusuk.org
Strange as it may seem, some people do not want to be locked in a perpetual childhood, nurtured and comforted by the parent figure government. They are prepared to take on the risks and hardships of adulthood and desire to make their own decisions. A great many, though not all, of the people who think this way live in the US.
You sound like the kind of person who would never understand until they've been bankrupted by a serious illness, or seen someone suffer through an illness because they couldn't afford payment.
Luckily for you, you're an Australian, so you don't actually have to worry about that happening.
Universal Healthcare isn't about the Government being your surrogate parent, it's about a whole bunch of people who have decided to share the cost of keeping each other healthy, because they understand that this means their whole culture is better off because of it. Just like they share the cost of all those other trappings of civilised society, like police, firemen, transport, education, and the like.
You sound like the kind of person who would never understand until they've been bankrupted by a serious illness, or seen someone suffer through an illness because they couldn't afford payment.
Luckily for you, you're an Australian, so you don't actually have to worry about that happening.
I wouldn't count on that. Our social security and health care will be unlikely to survive the next two decades. The baby boomers will soon all retire and our ratio of workers to full time social security recipients is likely to be close to 1:1. The practice of consumerism, spending money on frivolities thinking that makes us prosperous, instead of frugality is going to bite us on our big socialist collective arse. Socialism in Australia may look ok to you now but it isn't going to last. When it collapses we will have a population that is totally unprepared to look after themselves.
In any case, how different do you think Australian health care (or any other socialist health care) would look without the drugs and equipment developed by that evil American system? Or if our defence spending had to be adequate to actually defend our country because we didn't have US military bases here? Australian socialism as it exists is absolutely dependent on our relationship with the US, it is foolishness to hold us up as an example of doing it better. It will be interesting to say the least to see what happens if we swap out that relationship in preference of China.
Universal Healthcare isn't about the Government being your surrogate parent, it's about a whole bunch of people who have decided to share the cost of keeping each other healthy, because they understand that this means their whole culture is better off because of it.
Done voluntarily, that's called insurance and I agree. What is the preoccupation with the use of government force? If it was really about "a whole bunch of people who have decided" as you claim, it wouldn't need to be compulsory.
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Agreed that the problem is usually management, especially high-level executives or even the CEO. They will give the business to their contacts, who charge top dollar. Open source never comes into it. They ignore advice from front-line and mid-level management who actually have some technical expertise, and who have been briefed by actual IT staff who know what they're talking about.
When it collapses we will have a population that is totally unprepared to look after themselves.
Oh, bullshit. There is a vast gulf of difference between sleeping easier at night because you know a personal disaster won't have you out in the streets begging for scraps, and being "unprepared to look after yourself".
Further, you make the erroneous assumption that the only people who would otherwise suffer are those who aren't prepared to look after themselves. All the preparation in the world won't help you when you're on a low wage and your child gets diagnosed with some illness that requires more money to treat than you'll make in twenty years.
"When it collapses" we won't be screwed because we have people who are unprepared to look after themselves, we'll be screwed because we won't be *able* to look after anyone.
In any case, how different do you think Australian health care (or any other socialist health care) would look without the drugs and equipment developed by that evil American system?
Not very. The vast, vast bulk of health care is mundane, and the biggest benefit from a universal system comes from preventative care and early diagnosis, not the "treatment" of erectile dysfunction and prolonging the life of 95 year old terminal patients for another 6 months.
Or if our defence spending had to be adequate to actually defend our country because we didn't have US military bases here?
But we don't, because we buy in their protection with favourable trade arrangements.
Note that most of the US's "defence spending" today is not spent on "defence". Of them, us, or anyone else.
Australian socialism as it exists is absolutely dependent on our relationship with the US, it is foolishness to hold us up as an example of doing it better.
But we are, in pretty much every metric you care to measure. Education, health, economics, etc.
Done voluntarily, that's called insurance and I agree. What is the preoccupation with the use of government force?
Same "preoccupation" that exists with all things society has decided are basic rights - protection from others, workplace safety, non-discrimination, etc. The reason you can't opt out of health care is the same reason you can't sell yourself into slavery.
If it was really about "a whole bunch of people who have decided" as you claim, it wouldn't need to be compulsory.
Of course it would, because there's always some small group of selfish pricks who want all the rights and none of the responsibility, or the much larger group who think it will never happen to them, or the folks who just don't give a shit.
As a society, Australia has decided certain things will be law. If you don't like them, you have two choices - convince enough people you're right so you can change the law, or go somewhere else. I wish you luck convincing lots of Australians that being some combination of poor, unlucky and sick should ruin a person's life, and the lives of anyone who depends on them. You'll need it.
There is a vast gulf of difference between sleeping easier at night because you know a personal disaster won't have you out in the streets begging for scraps, and being "unprepared to look after yourself".
Further, you make the erroneous assumption that the only people who would otherwise suffer are those who aren't prepared to look after themselves. All the preparation in the world won't help you when you're on a low wage and your child gets diagnosed with some illness that requires more money to treat than you'll make in twenty years.
By unprepared I mean "not able", not unwilling. Australians don't have to save money because if you lose your job we'll give you the dole indefinitely, your retirement plan will be worked out between the government and your boss, your health insurance by the government, your education by the government. As I have mentioned in my previous posts, the government will even make sure you get your vitamins. I'm not talking about the lowest wage earners only it's the majority who simply do not develop the habits and mentality of self-reliance necessary to a free people. You think the government and the company are really going to look after you? I'm ok with having that as a backup plan but to make it the mainstay of our daily habits is insane.
It's very admirable to want to make sure people aren't left to fend for themselves in the face of disaster but in the process we've created a culture of dependency that is very dangerous. We don't just look after people in times of disaster, we have the government meddling in our every day lives and that meddling is constantly advancing.
But we don't, because we buy in their protection with favourable trade arrangements.
Note that most of the US's "defence spending" today is not spent on "defence". Of them, us, or anyone else.
I doubt our trade agreements go close to paying for our military shortfall. In any case, I'd prefer not to have the agreements and look after ourselves, for the US military to stay in the US and for ours to not follow them into their various wars.
But we are, in pretty much every metric you care to measure. Education, health, economics, etc.
Except for that bit about being dependent on them. I wouldn't be boasting about economics though. In real terms we've had a massive reduction in living standards over my lifetime. All you have to do is include housing in your inflation figures. Don't be fooled by the relatively mild effects we've had from the financial collapse. Young people starting out now have incredible financial obstacles to overcome compared to 10 years ago. The financial collapse wasn't the disaster, the housing boom was. The fact that not many people seem to understand that doesn't speak much for the education system either. How can young people afford to pay for others healthcare, education, baby payments, social security, etc, etc, when they can barely afford a place to live? Your desire to make sure people don't get hammered by disaster is making it so that people are being overwhelmed by daily necessity.
Same "preoccupation" that exists with all things society has decided are basic rights - protection from others, workplace safety, non-discrimination, etc. The reason you can't opt out of health care is the same reason you can't sell yourself into slavery.
Well, I disagree that health care is a basic right. It is a product of other people's labour and has to be paid for, unlike things such as the right to be secure in your person and property (protection from others, workplace safety, non-discrimination). For the product of another person's labour is a basic right of mine, then somebody has to become my slave. In our case we spread the slavery out by taking a portion of people's income but the principle is there. You say I can't sell myself as
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But Celine Dion isn't our fault. Out of all the stupid things we've done to you, you couldn't pick one? Or are you trying to pass Quebec off on us?
By unprepared I mean "not able", not unwilling.
Which is an even sillier way to put it. The Government isn't in your house cooking you dinner and turning down your sheets.
Australian are amongst the longest-working and most productive individuals on the planet. Australian ex-pats tend to be very highly thought of in foreign countries because of their work ethic. In what way are they "not able" ?
Australians don't have to save money because if you lose your job we'll give you the dole indefinitely, your retirement plan will be worked out between the government and your boss, your health insurance by the government, your education by the government.
I guess that explains why every Australia doesn't work, retires at exactly 65 and lives in the lap of luxury, never uses private healthcare and spends most of their life at school or in Univerisity.
Oh, wait, none of those things are even remotely true.
As I have mentioned in my previous posts, the government will even make sure you get your vitamins. I'm not talking about the lowest wage earners only it's the majority who simply do not develop the habits and mentality of self-reliance necessary to a free people. You think the government and the company are really going to look after you? I'm ok with having that as a backup plan but to make it the mainstay of our daily habits is insane.
You will need to work long and hard to convince me that's how the "majority" of people think. Indeed, from the travelling I've done, Australians are only second (behind the Americans) for being skeptical of the Government's ability to provide anything. Indeed, about the only major difference between Australian and American attitudes towards Government is that Australians expect the Government to screw up out of incompetence, whereas Americans expect them to simply be flat-out corrupt.
It's very admirable to want to make sure people aren't left to fend for themselves in the face of disaster but in the process we've created a culture of dependency that is very dangerous. We don't just look after people in times of disaster, we have the government meddling in our every day lives and that meddling is constantly advancing.
There's certain more meddling than there should be. However, I strongly disagree that there's any "culture of dependency".
I doubt our trade agreements go close to paying for our military shortfall. In any case, I'd prefer not to have the agreements and look after ourselves, for the US military to stay in the US and for ours to not follow them into their various wars.
It's not like Australia is surrounded by an enclave of aggressive countries.
Except for that bit about being dependent on them. I wouldn't be boasting about economics though. In real terms we've had a massive reduction in living standards over my lifetime.
Funny. My parents and pretty much everyone else older than me says the opposite. Heck, they were over here visiting us only a few months ago, and my father made the point that their flights to Europe cost the same in unadjusted dollars as they did twenty years earlier. The difference is that today (well, five years ago - he's retired now) he had to work about a quarter as much to earn that amount.
Which "living standards", exactly, have been "massively reduced" and how are you measuring it ?
All you have to do is include housing in your inflation figures. Don't be fooled by the relatively mild effects we've had from the financial collapse. Young people starting out now have incredible financial obstacles to overcome compared to 10 years ago. The financial collapse wasn't the disaster, the housing boom was. The fact that not many people seem to understand that doesn't speak much for the education system either. How can young people afford to pay for others healthcare, education, baby payments, social security, etc, etc, when they can barely afford a place to live?
The problem is there is mo
You will need to work long and hard to convince me that's how the "majority" of people think. Indeed, from the travelling I've done, Australians are only second (behind the Americans) for being skeptical of the Government's ability to provide anything. Indeed, about the only major difference between Australian and American attitudes towards Government is that Australians expect the Government to screw up out of incompetence, whereas Americans expect them to simply be flat-out corrupt.
To the extent that's true, they agree with me and reject the nanny state. What's your argument again?
If you want to look at it like that, feel free. It's grotesquely intellectually dishonest, however.
You say that but you offer no argument to refute it. The product of someone else's labour can never be a basic right to others without implementing in some degree a slave state. If your "basic right" obliges me to work without reward in order to pay for your right (income tax), in what significant way does that differ from me being enslaved by you? Police aren't free but they are a convenience. In the absence of police you are responsible for your own self defence. In the absence of a hospital can you perform your own heart surgery?
The problem is there is mostly that "young people" want to move straight into a mansion rather than work their way up like their parents did.
Don't you think you're saying something about our education system here?
Which "living standards", exactly, have been "massively reduced" and how are you measuring it?
A house, the one major expense for most people, used to cost about 2.5 years of an average wages in my area, now it's about 7. That's in the space of 10 years. Families used to be able to get by on one wage, now most people can't.
In any event, the housing bubble in Australia, as it was in the US, was driven by ludicrously and irresponsibly cheap credit.
Irresponsibly cheap credit made possible by our GOVERNMENT OWNED reserve bank, and no deposit loans made possible by the first home owners grant. Think, dammit! If people begin to realise the culpability our governments have had in this they wouldn't fall for the "it was caused by a lack of regulation" propaganda.
Somehow I bet that explanation doesn't include "because a whole bunch of people got in when banks were handing out credit like candy and drove prices up", or "because you fritter away your cash on meaningless toys like iPhones and trendy clothes"
How much is your bet? You obviously haven't been reading my posts. I'll make some money on this!
Or the biggest reason: "because you desire to live beyond your means after being brainwashed by the media into thinking you can".
You are correct, but remember it was our government that told everyone that buying consumer goods with the stimulus was the thing we needed. We have a government actively promoting financial stupidity (all major parties).
There's certain more meddling than there should be. However, I strongly disagree that there's any "culture of dependency".
Australian's resist that culture of dependency but it is being implemented incrementally. Perhaps I'm looking more negatively at what the government's doing while you're looking more positively at people's resistance to it? I don't have time for this right now, but I do think you should consider that this nation was built on voluntary co-operation between the people and recalcitrance towards the government. I think we ought to shift the balance way over towards recalcitrance from where it is now. One last thing though:
I guess that explains why every Australia doesn't work, retires at exactly 65 and lives in the lap of luxury, never uses private healthcare and spends most of their life at school or in Univerisity.
Straw man much?
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I mean seriously, if you work in IT, 5 days a week, at least 7.5 hours a day, you probably wouldn't want to look at code for the other 10 hours you're awake. If you have the time, and you're not doing household chores (cooking/cleaning) or looking after kids, you'd probably prefer to play games or do something else. Programmers do have other geek-ish hobbies you know. :)
Those who consider IT people who don't program in their spare time as not being serious about their career are not very flexible minded. It's all about life style balance.
Of course, programming as a hobby does add credit when finding a job, but being realistic, there's a lot more to life than just programming. There's like some stereotype thing that programmers spend all their time behind computers. Realistically, that's probably only if they're young or single...
Other than that, I think the only time a programmer would feel the urge to program outside of work is if their work isn't satisfying enough.
To the extent that's true, they agree with me and reject the nanny state. What's your argument again?
No, your position is to pretty much reject the state entirely.
My argument is that government funded healthcare is no more a "nanny state" issue than government-funded policemen, firemen, the army, public transport, or most any of the other things already mentioned.
You say that but you offer no argument to refute it. The product of someone else's labour can never be a basic right to others without implementing in some degree a slave state.
Which makes, by definition, every state (or at least every functioning state) a "slave state". Ergo, the intellectual dishonesty of the argument.
If your "basic right" obliges me to work without reward in order to pay for your right (income tax), in what significant way does that differ from me being enslaved by you?
Firstly, you do get a "reward". It's living in a civilised society and not some third-world hellhole.
Secondly, and most importantly, it differs from you being "enslaved" because you can leave, or act to try and change the situation.
Police aren't free but they are a convenience. In the absence of police you are responsible for your own self defence. In the absence of a hospital can you perform your own heart surgery?
No. Nor, unlike you, do I hold any illusions about being about to provide my own self defence - outside of mostly trivial physical threats - or pursue criminals after the fact.
Don't you think you're saying something about our education system here?
Not really, no. Their parents, corporate advertising and banks, on the other hand...
A house, the one major expense for most people, used to cost about 2.5 years of an average wages in my area, now it's about 7.
And will probably drop further. The bubble's not finished deflating yet.
That's in the space of 10 years. Families used to be able to get by on one wage, now most people can't.
I'm sure most of them could get by on one wage if they shopped at K-Mart and Target, had a single 5-10 year old car and made their own coffee and dinner - like their parents and grandparents used to.
There is a significant cultural fixation on home ownership in Australia (and similarly in the USA and UK), but it is ultimately a relatively small aspect of qualify of life. Actually shelter at all, being able to eat, work, clothe yourself and have leisure time are all vastly more significant.
Irresponsibly cheap credit made possible by our GOVERNMENT OWNED reserve bank, and no deposit loans made possible by the first home owners grant.
Rubbish. All the first homeowners grant did was push up house prices by $7-14k. No-deposit loans were already possible (or near as damnit to it if the $7k swung the balance), and *no-one* except the privately owned banks is responsible for their lending standards.
Let's also not forget all those banks convincing people that interest rates would stay low forever, or that they could afford a loan even when they couldn't, or handing out credit cards like candy. Certainly, the problem was nowhere near as bad in Australia as it was in the US or the UK, but that doesn't mean the blame lies anywhere else except the banks themselves.
Think, dammit! If people begin to realise the culpability our governments have had in this they wouldn't fall for the "it was caused by a lack of regulation" propaganda.
Yet the evidence shows that countries higher levels of regulation have fared better.
How different do you think the situation would have been if a 20% cash deposit and 12 months of steady income at least 5x higher than the minimum repayment was legally required before a mortgage could be issued ? How about if you couldn't get a credit card with a limit greater than a month's salary without a 3-year history of reliable payment with the lender issuing it ?
How much is your b
Corporations - yes, as they do not have an owner. People who hold stock are too dispersed to make much influence. CEO and others cannot be effectively controlled unless there is someone who has interest in company doings, and enough power (=stocks, or other instrument) to enforce it. I fully agree that CYA, consultants etc. are present there as well.
In "true" private companies, where there is a single owner, it is usually different. Company has to be small enough so the owner can still grasp what is going on.
No, your position is to pretty much reject the state entirely.
Yes, because it would be impossible to have a state without income tax. Good one, Sherlock. Your assertion that my argument is intellectually dishonest rests solely on that falsehood. However I'm prepared to accept the possibility that you're ignorant rather than dishonest.
Nor, unlike you, do I hold any illusions about being about to provide my own self defence
Not a historical reality. Having grown up on a farm I assure you we provided our own self-defence. Police would never have got to us in time. I would suggest that if you are incapable of self-defence it is because you are not armed. If you believe you are inherently incapable, then what do you think is the difference between the police and you that makes them capable? It isn't a genetic dysfunction in you, it's the gun. That being so, it is government that has made you dependent on government.
You have declared yourself to be part of the culture of dependency, despite denying that it exists.
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Yes, because it would be impossible to have a state without income tax. Good one, Sherlock. Your assertion that my argument is intellectually dishonest rests solely on that falsehood. However I'm prepared to accept the possibility that you're ignorant rather than dishonest.
If you can think of a way for a government to reliably and consistently provide services without some form of taxation, feel free.
However, that is but one of the reasons I think you reject the idea of the state entirely. Calling the police a "convenience" is another dead giveaway of your type.
Not a historical reality. Having grown up on a farm I assure you we provided our own self-defence.
Something you might not be aware of: most people don't live isolated from each other on farms. They live cheek to cheek in large cities.
How useful do you think your "self defence" would have been if the owners of the four farms around yours decided they wanted it ? How useful do you think a gun is going to be to some 20-year old woman living alone when a dozen guys kick down her door at 2am looking for a good time ?
Police would never have got to us in time. I would suggest that if you are incapable of self-defence it is because you are not armed.
Whether or not I'm armed is basically irrelevant. Being armed will, as I already said, help protect from a minority of threats, but it certainly won't protect from all of them, nor help with any events before and after a particular type of physical attack.
If you believe you are inherently incapable, then what do you think is the difference between the police and you that makes them capable?
*Vastly* more resources, experience and time.
It isn't a genetic dysfunction in you, it's the gun. That being so, it is government that has made you dependent on government.
A gun won't magically make you self sufficient. It *might* help you "defend yourself" from a small number of attackers. It certainly won't protect you from a large number of them, or dissuade them from attacking in the first place. It won't give you the ability to pursue your attacker after he has bonked you on the head, raped your wife and stolen everything in your house. It won't help protect other people from that same person by catching him. It won't protect you from non-physical threats, like slander, libel and other false accusations. It won't protect you from sexual harassment at work, wrongful dismissal or being hurt due to your employer's negligence.
You might long for the glory days of the Wild West. I have good news for you - you can go and relive them in Somalia, or any of several other African countries with little to no government (and the predictable results thereof). Personally, I like the safety and convenience of modern, civilised society and I'm fairly confident most people agree with me.
So, tell me,
- Who does the province call when the system doesn't work ... or they need something that the OSS doesn't do... (Consultants)
- What happens if the lead developers, or the backing company for the OSS project goes belly up? Or decides to start charging money...
- What if Hospital X uses Meditech and wants to exchange data with this OSS system? What if Hospital Y uses McKesson? (Consultants)
The problem from my experience with the Health Care industry isn't a software problem, it is the home-grown software / interoperability problem. Sure, the entire province could just put a word document into the sky on an SVN server with all your health data, problem solved right? Nope, there are lots of issues with Health Care that make it unique:
- Codification, what one doctor calls a broken leg another may describe differently, how can this data be codified and translated?
- Data mining, the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) needs to mine data from a system, this means data integrity and codification are very important
- Cross Domain Patient resolution, how do we make sure that patient 123 from EMR A really is patient 345 in EMR B.
- Consent, do you want your recent stay at the mental hospital publicly viewable to any health professional? What about your recent HIV diagnosis?
and the list literally goes on...
On the surface these problems seems very simple to fix, but when you really start to think about the problem, you'll see it isn't just a software problem.
Cheers
If you can think of a way for a government to reliably and consistently provide services without some form of taxation, feel free.
I didn't object to all forms of taxation, I objected to income tax. You are not even making a minimal attempt to understand what I'm saying, you seem to prefer to answer with straw man arguments.
Something you might not be aware of: most people don't live isolated from each other on farms. They live cheek to cheek in large cities.
Another straw man. I didn't say most people live on farms.
How useful do you think a gun is going to be to some 20-year old woman living alone when a dozen guys kick down her door at 2am looking for a good time ?
That depends if any are willing to be the first to die. Since that's unlikely, very useful. I doubt there are many people willing to sacrifice their lives so their friends can rape someone. It's another dishonest argument anyway, since you know full well that the police will not defend her in that circumstance anyway, unless you plan to station them in people's homes.
You obviously have no intention of having an honest discussion about this. I doubt there is anything short of government agents tucking us in for sleep and singing us lullabies that would cause you to admit we have a nanny state.
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I didn't object to all forms of taxation, I objected to income tax. You are not even making a minimal attempt to understand what I'm saying, you seem to prefer to answer with straw man arguments.
That's because any distinction you make will be specious. Your argument is against the government taking your money, not the semantics of how they do it.
Another straw man. I didn't say most people live on farms.
You are trying to extrapolate your ability to "defend yourself" to everyone else and use that to support your argument of why the police are a "convenience". Ergo, the fact that you were on a farm but 99% of the population is not, is relevant.
That depends if any are willing to be the first to die.
Probability would be low. Even most gun nutters don't sleep with a loaded pistol underneath their pillow, the ability to think and act coherently after waking up is greatly diminished, and that's assuming she'd even have the conviction to pull the trigger. Add in some intoxication on behalf of the perpetrators, some "go on mate", and there you go.
Fruther, that's the likely chain of events in the relatively uncommon situation where a gun might actually have a chance at being useful. A more stealthy attack, or one like the gang rapes in Sydney a few years back, and the gun would be less than useless.
Since that's unlikely, very useful. I doubt there are many people willing to sacrifice their lives so their friends can rape someone. It's another dishonest argument anyway, since you know full well that the police will not defend her in that circumstance anyway, unless you plan to station them in people's homes.
Indeed, they would not. They would, however, be able to bring the weight of the police department to bear on locating the perpetrators and locking them up so they didn't attack anyone else. That - apart from dramatically increasing the probability of success - adds a far, far greater level of deterrence.
You obviously have no intention of having an honest discussion about this.
Heh. Says the bloke ignoring pretty much all of my points.
Heh. Says the bloke ignoring pretty much all of my points.
Tell me then, what would have to be implemented for you to agree it's a nanny state? You don't have a point. Your position is that you want a nanny state, but you can't bring yourself to admit it. So you pretend we don't have one.
Even Kevin Rudd has as good as admitted the government caused the economic collapse. To claim a stimulus plan of giving us back our tax money solves the problem is a tacit acknowledgement that excessive taxation was a significant contributor to the problem. That taxation is necessary for your beloved nanny state though. Unless we acknowledge it for what it is and start to dismantle it things will only get worse.
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Tell me then, what would have to be implemented for you to agree it's a nanny state? You don't have a point. Your position is that you want a nanny state, but you can't bring yourself to admit it. So you pretend we don't have one.
Now *that's* a straw man.
Firstly, the term "nanny-state" is a worthless soundbite. It's a phrase so inexact and subjective, that even attempting to use it in any sort of meaningful way is laughable.
Secondly, the reasonable inference from your comments thus far is that you consider even the police to be an indication of a "nanny state", so it's a reasonable conclusion from that you consider pretty much the mere existence of any state to be "nannying".
Thirdly, my position is that government-funded health care is no more evidence of a "nanny state" than state-funded police, firemen or other services essential to a lawful, civilised, safe and productive society. Your counter-argument to this has been that since the police wouldn't even be necessary, if only we had more guns, then health care is no more an essential service than they are (ie: it isn't). Thus leading again to the logical inference that you consider essentially any state, to be a "nanny state".
Even Kevin Rudd has as good as admitted the government caused the economic collapse. To claim a stimulus plan of giving us back our tax money solves the problem is a tacit acknowledgement that excessive taxation was a significant contributor to the problem.
But of course. In your world, all problems are caused by excessive taxation. Irresponsible - if not outright fraudulent - behaviour by banks and other financial institutions was a relatively minor factor, and only happened at all because of Government meddling.
That taxation is necessary for your beloved nanny state though. Unless we acknowledge it for what it is and start to dismantle it things will only get worse.
Like I said, if you want to see what happens when the "nanny state" is dismantled, cast your eyes towards Africa.
the reasonable inference from your comments thus far is that you consider even the police to be an indication of a "nanny state"
Using slightly irregular definitions of "reasonable".
In your world, all problems are caused by excessive taxation. Irresponsible - if not outright fraudulent - behaviour by banks and other financial institutions was a relatively minor factor, and only happened at all because of Government meddling.
I don't excuse the behaviour of banks. I would agree that they are fraudulent. However that is (so far) government sanctioned fraud that is specifically enabled by banking regulations. Banks tell all depositors their money is available, yet in reality they do not have everyone's deposit available for withdrawal, they depend on most people not withdrawing their money. This has long been banking practice and would be illegal in any other industry. It is a practice that bears some similarity to bait and switch advertising, for example, because they are claiming availability of something when they have no intention of honouring that claim. Pretty much every aspect of our banking system is fraudulent and legally sanctioned, something the increased regulation proposed will do nothing at all to resolve. Forcing the banks to play by the rules of real free market enterprises would require repealing legislation, not increased regulation to try to prop up their dishonest business practices and make them stable.
Increasing regulation on banks to prevent harm to the economy while leaving their basic structure intact is like making rules for the crocodile in your backyard to keep your children safe. What you really need to do is not keep crocodiles in your backyard.
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Using slightly irregular definitions of "reasonable".
You refer to them as a "convenience", thus indicating they are not an essential service. Is the provision of non-essential services not an indication of the "nanny state", in your opinion ?
I don't excuse the behaviour of banks. I would agree that they are fraudulent. However that is (so far) government sanctioned fraud that is specifically enabled by banking regulations. Banks tell all depositors their money is available, yet in reality they do not have everyone's deposit available for withdrawal, they depend on most people not withdrawing their money. This has long been banking practice and would be illegal in any other industry. It is a practice that bears some similarity to bait and switch advertising, for example, because they are claiming availability of something when they have no intention of honouring that claim. Pretty much every aspect of our banking system is fraudulent and legally sanctioned, something the increased regulation proposed will do nothing at all to resolve. Forcing the banks to play by the rules of real free market enterprises would require repealing legislation, not increased regulation to try to prop up their dishonest business practices and make them stable.
Ah, let me guess. You're a get-back-to-the-gold-standard person as well ?
You refer to them as a "convenience", thus indicating they are not an essential service. Is the provision of non-essential services not an indication of the "nanny state", in your opinion?
No, I mean it's a convenience to have them do it rather than do it ourselves. Not everybody, myself included, wants to live in a fortress. The point came up in regard to whether you have a basic right to the services of others. It is more convenient for us to operate together and pay for a specialist police force than to arrange that ourselves. Self-defence is a basic right, ie: you could never be rationally understood to have given up the right to it, no matter the system of government in place. The justice system functions of the police are more appropriately considered social contract rights, not basic rights, ie: we give up our right to personal revenge in return for a police and court system. Medical services can only be considered as a contractual right, either by private contract between you and the provider or as part of the social contract. You tend towards wanting it as part of the social contract, I by private contract, a worthy subject of debate. Trying to claim it as a basic right is an attempt to shut down the debate. It also has the effect of claiming the effort of someone else as your natural right. I personally believe that only the results of your own effort are your natural right. Everything else is a form of contract or an acquisition by force.
Ah, let me guess. You're a get-back-to-the-gold-standard person as well ?
Not necessarily, but I'm certainly not in favour of the hybrid government/banking currency supply system we have. Given a fiat currency I would like the supply controlled solely by the government (ie: no more money supply created as loans and through shady banking practices). Have the money printed or created electronically by the government be the total money supply in other words. To the extent that a private organisation can create money, they ought to have to make a real product like everyone else, not just enter numbers into an account because the government says they can. When banks have been given that power it is ludicrous to blame their actions on the free market.
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No, I mean it's a convenience to have them do it rather than do it ourselves.
But individuals can't do what the police do "themselves", outside of a few situations. It's not a "convenience", it's a necessity for society.
Not everybody, myself included, wants to live in a fortress. The point came up in regard to whether you have a basic right to the services of others. It is more convenient for us to operate together and pay for a specialist police force than to arrange that ourselves. Self-defence is a basic right, ie: you could never be rationally understood to have given up the right to it, no matter the system of government in place. The justice system functions of the police are more appropriately considered social contract rights, not basic rights, ie: we give up our right to personal revenge in return for a police and court system. Medical services can only be considered as a contractual right, either by private contract between you and the provider or as part of the social contract. You tend towards wanting it as part of the social contract, I by private contract, a worthy subject of debate. Trying to claim it as a basic right is an attempt to shut down the debate. It also has the effect of claiming the effort of someone else as your natural right. I personally believe that only the results of your own effort are your natural right. Everything else is a form of contract or an acquisition by force.
You have not justified why the services provided by the police (let alone other obvious things like the fire department) are different from the services provided by healthcare. Trying to hand-wave with "self-defence is a basic right" doesn't cut it - firstly because the level of "self-defence" you can have without the police is minimal, and secondly because you haven't demonstrated why "good health" is any less of a right that "self defence".
Further, trying to make a distinction between "basic rights" and "social rights" is disingenuous. All "rights" are - ultimately and practically - determined by the society you live in. No amount of heart-stirring speeches can change the fact that if you're not on the side with the biggest sticks, you either do what they say, or leave.
No amount of heart-stirring speeches can change the fact that if you're not on the side with the biggest sticks, you either do what they say, or leave.
Unusual for a nanny stater to be so blunt about their true belief. You aren't interested in a government based on a logical philosophy but on forcing your preferred solution on everyone. Of what value is it to debate with you when if I accept your view it would be a more profitable use of my time to obtain a big stick.
I thought I might have been talking to someone interested in reason, my mistake, I won't bother you further.
and secondly because you haven't demonstrated why "good health" is any less of a right that "self defence".
So long as you produce it yourself or obtain it by voluntary exchange it is. It just isn't a right that justifies the use of force against others in order to pay for it. You haven't justified your position that your "right to good health" trumps my right to the product of my labour. If you wish to take my money, surely the onus is on you to provide justification. Oh, that's right, the big stick is the only justification you acknowledge.
firstly because the level of "self-defence" you can have without the police is minimal
Tell it to this woman: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTAADW9wNvk&feature=youtube_gdata
Not everyone accepts the role of helpless victim in need of protection. You seem to think that being pathetic gives your arguments moral force. It doesn't. Go ahead, post last.
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> To the extent that a private organisation can create money, they ought to have to make a real product like everyone else, not just enter numbers into an account because the government says they can.
This comment indicates that you don't want a banking industry at all. If a bank is required to "make good" on the idea that all depositors can take all of their money at any time, then they'd need to hold every cent deposited, in cash, against that possibility. Given that, they wouldn't be able to loan out any of it, and so there's no way for a bank to make money. So why would anyone open a bank? Given that nobody would be able to turn a profit on opening a bank, the only people who could loan money are those who already have enough to loan out. History have proven that there are simply not enough rich people to support the demand for credit, which is why the banking industry appeared in the first place. If the only money supply was what the government could create, then the vast majority of people wouldn't be able to afford credit at all, which is exactly how things went until less than a hundred years ago. It's easy to say that society would be better off without people using credit, but a lack of credit stalls an economy pretty severely, as we've just seen recently, and stifles businesses, which we've also seen, which in turn leads to business failures, which again we've seen.
> When banks have been given that power it is ludicrous to blame their actions on the free market.
Sorry, but this doesn't ken. The reason the banking industry is so strongly regulated is because people demanded banking services, and without central regulation each bank ended up creating its own money supply, which made the whole system fragile. The banks were given that power by borrowers, not the government, and the regulation came because the borrowers (and depositors) demanded the control to limit the damage that fraud or mismanagement could do to the system.
Virg
Unusual for a nanny stater to be so blunt about their true belief. You aren't interested in a government based on a logical philosophy but on forcing your preferred solution on everyone.
Errr, no. Quite the opposite, in fact. (That would have to be the biggest non-sequitur you've pulled out so far.)
Of what value is it to debate with you when if I accept your view it would be a more profitable use of my time to obtain a big stick.
Ignoring for a second that's not what I said at all, of what value is it to debate with you when you don't even believe the police are anything more than a convenience ? Your position is so detached from reality it's laughable.
I thought I might have been talking to someone interested in reason, my mistake, I won't bother you further.
Well, when you're prepared to "reason" with the criticisms I've already made, I'll still be here.
So long as you produce it yourself or obtain it by voluntary exchange it is.
So, basically, if you're poor you have no rights other than the charity of others ?
It just isn't a right that justifies the use of force against others in order to pay for it. You haven't justified your position that your "right to good health" trumps my right to the product of my labour. If you wish to take my money, surely the onus is on you to provide justification. Oh, that's right, the big stick is the only justification you acknowledge.
The justification is you getting to live in a safe, healthy, educated, wealthy, civilised society.
Tell it to this woman:
Your propaganda video is irrelevant. It neither supports any of your arguments, nor refutes any of mine.
Not everyone accepts the role of helpless victim in need of protection.
When that woman's gun protects her from identify theft, fraud, wrongful dismissal, vandalism, defamation, or any of the other 99% of situations the police and justice system are there for, let me know.
You seem to think that being pathetic gives your arguments moral force.
Not in the slightest. It's my arguments having some connection to how the real world operates that gives them moral force. You seem to think that so long as everyone gets a gun and pays no taxes, everything will be hunky-dory.
then they'd need to hold every cent deposited, in cash, against that possibility.
No, they'd just need to admit that it isn't simultaneously available to the borrower and the lender (depositor). Term deposits meet this criteria for example.
the only people who could loan money are those who already have enough to loan out.
You and I are in that position right now. We can only loan things we have accumulated. I like to call that "reality".
History have proven that there are simply not enough rich people to support the demand for credit, which is why the banking industry appeared in the first place.
Demand for lots of things outstrips supply. Every other industry responds to this first by raising prices which then provides incentive for others to enter the market and increase supply which then in turn lowers the price so that an equilibrium is reached between supply and demand that allows for a normal profit margin. The idea that the proper response to increased demand is to simply declare the demanded good to exist is in essence the same as creationism, but with the bank or government in place of god. On the third day, the government said "Let there be money" and there was money, and the government saw the money, that it was good. Except the government isn't very good at creationism because from time to time the money disappears again and we have a crash. In a market economy, increased demand for money that wasn't met by increased production would result in the value of money relative to other goods increasing (deflation or lowering prices) which is a good thing, provided you don't create your money supply through loans. You only get deflationary spirals because of fractional reserve lending, except for that deflation increases the value of savings, increasing the size of the middle class.
Production creates value. The demand for capital can only be truly met by production. If we pretend we've met that demand by magic we'll get the results of magic, the magician leaves the stage at the end of the show and everyone else is left wondering what happened. That's fine for entertainment, not as the basis of well being of a country. Consider the financial collapse: everything of real tangible value still existed, all the gold and silver, all the factories, roads, railroads, planes and ships, all the farms and machinery, all the workers and their skills were all still there. So what happened? The magically created "money" disappeared, some entries on the books of the banks, and for that reason millions of people became poorer.
The reason the banking industry is so strongly regulated is because people demanded banking services, and without central regulation each bank ended up creating its own money supply, which made the whole system fragile. The banks were given that power by borrowers, not the government
No, when that bank created money supply can be used to pay taxes and the courts enforce it's acceptance in the payment of debts it is a government created power. Without that, no-one who understood the banking system would accept their funny money, they would only be able to operate by deception.
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then they'd need to hold every cent deposited, in cash, against that possibility.
No, they'd just need to admit that it isn't simultaneously available to the borrower and the lender (depositor). Term deposits meet this criteria for example.
Sure, they could do it that way, and then you'd have exactly what happened with most early banks, which is that they couldn't attract enough depositors to operate because most depositors don't want term deposits, they want to put their money in accounts that can give it back essentially on demand. History says that this isn't a workable banking model, which is why it got pushed out in favor of reserve.
the only people who could loan money are those who already have enough to loan out.
You and I are in that position right now. We can only loan things we have accumulated. I like to call that "reality".
Sure, it's "reality", but it also proved insufficient to borrowing, and economies without access to banks get stunted against economies that have that access.
Demand for lots of things outstrips supply. Every other industry responds to this first by raising prices which then provides incentive for others to enter the market and increase supply which then in turn lowers the price so that an equilibrium is reached between supply and demand that allows for a normal profit margin.
In an industry that can't create more supply, this model is nonsensical, and your posit is that the banking industry (and the government) shouldn't be able to increase supply. So, what happens (and what did happen historically) is that most businesses and people simply couldn't afford to get credit at all, which made for an extremely lopsided business landscape that served only those who already had access to the money, while the middle class found themselves unable to afford housing and finance businesses.
The idea that the proper response to increased demand is to simply declare the demanded good to exist is in essence the same as creationism, but with the bank or government in place of god.
That would be a great analogy if the money is being created from nowhere, which is your argument but it's not reality. The reality is that the money is created from the differences in risk aversion that different people have. Essentially, it's the value that people will assign to a gamble, and that's a very real thing, as evidenced by lottery ticket sales and, incidentally, the banking industry. Just because risk aversion (or the lack of it) isn't a tangible good doesn't mean that it's valueless any more than an electrician's training, which is also intangible but has value.
Except the government isn't very good at creationism because from time to time the money disappears again and we have a crash.
This is a function of how people react to world events by changing their level of risk aversion. The government plays a part in how this change affects the industry, but to blame the government for its existence is too big a stretch.
Production creates value. The demand for capital can only be truly met by production. If we pretend we've met that demand by magic we'll get the results of magic, the magician leaves the stage at the end of the show and everyone else is left wondering what happened. That's fine for entertainment, not as the basis of well being of a country.
Wait, I've heard this line somewhere. I think it was one of the Marx brothers, or something. As I said above, managing risk aversion isn't magic. There are plenty of investors who will give you money with no guarantee that it will grow, as long as they're comfortable with the likelihood that it will. Say what you will about market crashes, but if you take a good look at the actual history of the market, even including the crashes, it's been a steady upward climb for the last century
The problem is that, in the absence of the government oversight, there wasn't any real way to run a bank profitably
Yet the banking failures are being blamed on free market economics. If the system is only sustainable through such spin, it's a fraud and ought to be exposed as such. What is the reason that nobody wants to admit that it's a government system, not a real free market enterprise? You say most people want that, but it seems to require ongoing deception of those people to keep them wanting it.
People didn't want to deposit their money in a bank that couldn't guarantee they'd get it back
And yet they'll accept the current inflationary system, guaranteeing that their money will lose value. Again, they've been deceived.
The problem isn't that the money disappeared, it was that the faith in the market started cycling down
So it's a confidence scam?
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The problem is that, in the absence of the government oversight, there wasn't any real way to run a bank profitably
Yet the banking failures are being blamed on free market economics.
I'm not sure where you plan to go with this. Banking failures aren't being blamed on free market economics, they're being blamed on greed and mismanagement, fueled by people who failed to learn yet again that the market never goes up like a rocket forever.
If the system is only sustainable through such spin, it's a fraud and ought to be exposed as such. What is the reason that nobody wants to admit that it's a government system, not a real free market enterprise? You say most people want that, but it seems to require ongoing deception of those people to keep them wanting it.
It's not a deception, it's a gamble. Just like homeowner's insurance is a gamble, the banking industry and its supporting insurance is a gamble. The problem is that some of the banks started gambling against the odds, and came up with methods to hide that risk from insurers, and then when the economy cycled just as it always does, those banks tanked, and then the insurance companies that were backing them up got pulled under. This isn't a problem with the setup as a whole, it's a problem where some people purposely deceived investors and depositors to make more money. Graft could wipe out a bank even without any government control whatsoever (and graft did ruin many private banks and lending companies in the past, before the FDIC). Creating money supply didn't cause these failures, disguising risky debt as good debt did.
The simple answer is that the need for small depositor protection is because the risk to reward for most people is too high without a guarantee. Most depositors who keep less than $10,000 in the bank would lose their house if their bank account disappeared if the bank failed, so they'd just keep their money at home in a box (which is what they did in the past). That's a vast amount of capital that's useless to driving the economy, and insurers couldn't afford to insure those funds because in aggregate, it's too much risk to afford (as I said above). So, the government established the FDIC to reduce the risk to small depositors, by giving them a guarantee that their bank account won't vaporize due to mismanagement or a bank CEO that decides to cook the books and make off with the money. That draws in small depositor funds.
People didn't want to deposit their money in a bank that couldn't guarantee they'd get it back
And yet they'll accept the current inflationary system, guaranteeing that their money will lose value. Again, they've been deceived.
You can pretend that it's deception if you like, but it's not deception unless the banking industry tries to hide the concept of inflation from depositors, which they don't. In fact, many bank instruments compare their gains to inflation to show real value growth, so it's not only not deceptive, it's right there in the ad copy.
The problem isn't that the money disappeared, it was that the faith in the market started cycling down
So it's a confidence scam?
Nice try at using an entirely difference definition of "confidence" to make a point, but it's not a scam against confidence, which means someone convincing you of something detrimental. The economy cycles up and down, and the money market is sensitive to that. As the housing bubble grew, more people jumped on to ride it up. As it grew even more, driven by all of those new entrants, some people start saying to themselves, "this is going too far to last" and they start pulling out. That slows the growth, causing more people to bail out, and so on. The same thing happens at the other end, where value losses start to convince people that the market has "hit bottom" and there's money to be made. Those investors slow the fall, whi
Banking failures aren't being blamed on free market economics
Well all I can say is you haven't been reading the papers in Australia.
It's not a deception, it's a gamble.
Yes, it works just like a casino. The casino always makes money, the punters are the losers.
Creating money supply didn't cause these failures, disguising risky debt as good debt did.
Which is what happened when those deposits got "guaranteed", it's all risky debt propped up only by government intervention.
In fact, many bank instruments compare their gains to inflation to show real value growth, so it's not only not deceptive, it's right there in the ad copy.
Official inflation figures are deceptive. They don't include house prices for example, which affect everyone, borrower or renter.
it's not a scam against confidence, which means someone convincing you of something detrimental.
I disagree. They've devalued the US dollar by about 96% since the creation of the Fed, Australian currency by about the same proportion, which is undoubtedly detrimental, yet they've convinced you and many others that it's a good system.
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Banking failures aren't being blamed on free market economics
Well all I can say is you haven't been reading the papers in Australia.
You have me on that. I haven't been following Australian media.
It's not a deception, it's a gamble.
Yes, it works just like a casino. The casino always makes money, the punters are the losers.
Well, no, it doesn't work like a casino. This analogy fits so badly that I'm not even going to bother with it, because I'd be all day just taking apart the "punters always lose" part alone.
Creating money supply didn't cause these failures, disguising risky debt as good debt did.
Which is what happened when those deposits got "guaranteed", it's all risky debt propped up only by government intervention.
This is wordsmithing. All investment is "risky debt" by this definition, so it's useless to this discussion. The question is the level of risk that the government takes on versus the benefit to society at large, which has been demonstrably massive. Without the FDIC, small depositors got wiped out often enough that the banking industry fell apart for lack of deposits. With the FDIC, the banking industry works. I've already covered what would happen in a society that can't support a banking industry.
In fact, many bank instruments compare their gains to inflation to show real value growth, so it's not only not deceptive, it's right there in the ad copy.
Official inflation figures are deceptive. They don't include house prices for example, which affect everyone, borrower or renter.
So? There are many segments of society that don't directly figure into inflation figures, because (in some cases) it's unnecessary to include them because we have enough data to figure it out, or (in the case of segments like housing) they're too affected by local issues to figure into things. None of that has to do with the banking industry ties to inflation, which are running returns versus inflation at large and which show that they're turning more growth than inflation is taking away. Besides which, the housing market (with some float) has followed inflation very closely over the last hundred years. Why assume that it's magically not a good barometer now?
it's not a scam against confidence, which means someone convincing you of something detrimental.
I disagree. They've devalued the US dollar by about 96% since the creation of the Fed, Australian currency by about the same proportion, which is undoubtedly detrimental, yet they've convinced you and many others that it's a good system.
If that devaluation is outstripped by economic growth, then it's not a bad thing. You can say that my money is worth a lot less than it was, but that's meaningless if my purchasing power is better than it would have been without the banking industry. Because of that industry I have a house on mortgage that I could never have afforded to buy flat out with cash, and back in 1900 I would never have qualified for the credit to buy it. That's a net gain in my financial well-being. I didn't get hoodwinked into knowing that.
Virg
This is wordsmithing. All investment is "risky debt" by this definition, so it's useless to this discussion.
No, I've got investments in capital that don't require the government to make any guarantees. That's capitalism. When you have the government guaranteeing deposits or investments because they aren't good investments it doesn't turn them into good investments it just spreads the loss, through the government, to the whole population. They are still bad investments.
I've already covered what would happen in a society that can't support a banking industry.
Inflated currency has been part of the downfall of many an empire. It's a temporary boost only. What happens in societies that can't inflate their currency at will (the basic purpose of banking) is that they can't afford continual war to expand their empires and ever increasing welfare programs.
You can say that my money is worth a lot less than it was, but that's meaningless if my purchasing power is better than it would have been without the banking industry. Because of that industry I have a house on mortgage that I could never have afforded to buy flat out with cash, and back in 1900 I would never have qualified for the credit to buy it. That's a net gain in my financial well-being. I didn't get hoodwinked into knowing that.
Yet at this stage there is significant risk of the US going into hyperinflation. Hopefully that won't happen but your big house won't do you much good if it does, although you'll be on the right side of the debt, especially if you have a fixed interest rate, so it could still turn out well for you. If it does happen I wonder if you will associate the cause accurately. It's interesting to have a look at http://www.rome.info/history/empire/fall/ which lists nine contributing causes to the fall of the Roman empire. I'd say at least five of those are in action right now in the US and in Australia right now (although Australia we don't have an empire, what do we fall from?), arguably more. Inflation is one of them.
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This is wordsmithing. All investment is "risky debt" by this definition, so it's useless to this discussion.
No, I've got investments in capital that don't require the government to make any guarantees. That's capitalism. When you have the government guaranteeing deposits or investments because they aren't good investments it doesn't turn them into good investments it just spreads the loss, through the government, to the whole population. They are still bad investments.
The problem isn't that a bank account is a bad investment. The problem is that it's subject to issues that the average person can't afford to take a chance on, that have nothing to do with the investment. One of the big reasons for bank failure before the FDIC was graft, where people within the bank skimmed off money or faked the books until the bank died. Government invervention makes perfect sense to prevent that, and in fact it's very likely that government protection covers the investments you tout above, by protecting you from the effects of criminality on the part of those you're invested with.
I've already covered what would happen in a society that can't support a banking industry.
Inflated currency has been part of the downfall of many an empire. It's a temporary boost only. What happens in societies that can't inflate their currency at will (the basic purpose of banking) is that they can't afford continual war to expand their empires and ever increasing welfare programs.
Neither the U.S. nor Australia is an empire, and neither of these countries have driven their economies through conquest expansion in more than a century.
You can say that my money is worth a lot less than it was, but that's meaningless if my purchasing power is better than it would have been without the banking industry. Because of that industry I have a house on mortgage that I could never have afforded to buy flat out with cash, and back in 1900 I would never have qualified for the credit to buy it. That's a net gain in my financial well-being. I didn't get hoodwinked into knowing that.
Yet at this stage there is significant risk of the US going into hyperinflation. Hopefully that won't happen but your big house won't do you much good if it does, although you'll be on the right side of the debt, especially if you have a fixed interest rate, so it could still turn out well for you. If it does happen I wonder if you will associate the cause accurately. It's interesting to have a look at http://www.rome.info/history/empire/fall/ which lists nine contributing causes to the fall of the Roman empire. I'd say at least five of those are in action right now in the US and in Australia right now (although Australia we don't have an empire, what do we fall from?), arguably more. Inflation is one of them.
You'll have to cite some reasonable sources for the imminent hyperinflation, since inflation hasn't reached that level in the U.S., well, ever, and even in the '70s it didn't break 20 percent.
As to your cite for the fall of Rome, you must be joking. It sounds like it was written by a priest, and it only addresses Rome itself, not the Roman Empire, which was quite a bit bigger. There's little mention of the explosive expansion of the empire causing problems, there's no mention of uneven taxation (taxation, by the way, doesn't cause inflation as your article states), there's no mention of the slave/freeman imbalance, there's no mention of east/west ideological splits. It doesn't cover most of the issues that real scholars discuss when discussing the fall of Rome, so you'll have to pardon my discounting its comments on inflation, even if I thought that the economics of Rome and the U.S. could be reasonably compared (which I don't). "Decline of morals and values"?!? Please.
Virg
The problem isn't that a bank account is a bad investment.
So too many people were losing their money but it wasn't a bad investment. Whatever, you and I obviously have very different ideas of what constitutes a good or bad investment.
One of the big reasons for bank failure before the FDIC was graft, where people within the bank skimmed off money or faked the books until the bank died.
Thankfully that doesn't happen any more. Oh wait ...
government protection covers the investments you tout above, by protecting you from the effects of criminality on the part of those you're invested with.
Which is entirely different to having the industry exist only by government edict, such as is the case with banking.
You'll have to cite some reasonable sources for the imminent hyperinflation
Your governments finances are propped up by borrowing and inflating the currency supply. Other countries are less likely to be willing to lend to you as your currency loses value and ceases to be the reserve currency of the world, that leaves inflation or massive cutbacks in government spending. Cutbacks in government spending do not seem to be on the agenda. It's only one possible scenario but it is possible. Given that those who couldn't foresee the GFC are still in control of your financial system it's hard to have much confidence in them.
As to your cite for the fall of Rome, you must be joking.
It's a tourism site, but it isn't the only one out there that links inflation to the fall of the roman empire. http://www.google.com/#hl=en&q=inflation+fall+of+rome http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decline_of_the_Roman_Empire
There's little mention of the explosive expansion of the empire causing problems, there's no mention of uneven taxation (taxation, by the way, doesn't cause inflation as your article states), there's no mention of the slave/freeman imbalance
There's little mention of anything, it's a summary on a tourism site. Increases in taxation ARE price inflation of one of the single biggest costs most people have. It mentions the effect of slavery on unemployment. You aren't willing to even take the effort to google for it and you won't see what you don't want to see when it's put in front of you. There doesn't seem to be much point to this conversation. As for "Decline of morals and values"?!? Please. I haven't done any sort of study on how this affected Rome, but the mention of gladiators as entertainment is also linked to the spread of disease, if there was an increase in prostitution with primitive medical care and no condoms it would likewise be linked to the spread of disease, increases in public drunkenness would be likely to result in more accidents, more crime and less productivity. You don't have to be a priest to see that could be a significant problem for a society.
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The problem isn't that a bank account is a bad investment.
So too many people were losing their money but it wasn't a bad investment. Whatever, you and I obviously have very different ideas of what constitutes a good or bad investment.
Um, it wasn't a problem with too many people losing their money. It was a problem that too many people were afraid of losing their money, even though it wasn't happening in most cases, because when it did it was devastating to the few who did lose their money. It runs very much like people who would rather drive somewhere than fly because they're afraid of planes, when statistics show that you're more likely to die in a car crash. the governmental surety allowed them to invest without fear that they'd be wiped out, and the fact that it isn't a risky investment is why the government isn't ending up getting wiped out by the losses.
One of the big reasons for bank failure before the FDIC was graft, where people within the bank skimmed off money or faked the books until the bank died.
...
Thankfully that doesn't happen any more. Oh wait
Sure, it happens today, but graft is less likely to wipe out a bank, and when it does the bank's closure doesn't wipe out all of the depositors. That's why the surety is in place.
government protection covers the investments you tout above, by protecting you from the effects of criminality on the part of those you're invested with.
Which is entirely different to having the industry exist only by government edict, such as is the case with banking.
Sorry, but banking doesn't exist by government edict. However, it's much more effective in driving economic growth with the FDIC than it would be without it.
You'll have to cite some reasonable sources for the imminent hyperinflation
Your governments finances are propped up by borrowing and inflating the currency supply. Other countries are less likely to be willing to lend to you as your currency loses value and ceases to be the reserve currency of the world, that leaves inflation or massive cutbacks in government spending. Cutbacks in government spending do not seem to be on the agenda. It's only one possible scenario but it is possible. Given that those who couldn't foresee the GFC are still in control of your financial system it's hard to have much confidence in them.
Our government was running surplus eight years ago. I hesitate to blame the Bush administration entirely, but that administration did drive up the deficit quite a bit. But, as was proven by the Clinton administration, it's possible to get it controlled, and so I disagree that spending cuts are not to be seen. Frankly, I see significant reductions in military expenditure over the next few years, but we'll see how that goes.
As to your cite for the fall of Rome, you must be joking.
It's a tourism site, but it isn't the only one out there that links inflation to the fall of the roman empire. http://www.google.com/#hl=en&q=inflation+fall+of+rome http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decline_of_the_Roman_Empire
I reviewed a number of the links listed, and inflation does represent a problem, but not in the way you seem to want to present. I'll never argue that severe inflation isn't damaging, but I will (and have) argued that the banking industry is not causing severe inflation. Deficit spending (and the government creating money from nowhere) isn't the banking industry's fault, so it's not very relevant to the discussion we're having here.
There's little mention of the explosive expansion of the empire causing problems, there's no mention of uneven taxation (taxation, by the
the fact that it isn't a risky investment is why the government isn't ending up getting wiped out by the losses.
No need for the government to get wiped out, just print more money! Hy-Brasil is NOT sinking. Repeat, NOT sinking.
Sorry, but banking doesn't exist by government edict.
Funny, you already acknowledged in the absence of the government oversight, there wasn't any real way to run a bank profitably AKA the banks can't exist except by government edict. Government oversight happens by edict, ie command.
Increase in taxation isn't inflation, full stop. An increase in taxation is a reduction of spending power, and inflation causes a reduction in spending power, but they're not the same thing at all.
Well your comments on this and other aspects of the fall of Rome mean several wikipedia edits are required, I'll leave it to you. Your self-contradiction on the banks existing by government and your comment on the government not getting wiped out (in the light of the borrowing enabled bailouts) makes me uninterested in reading another post of yours on this topic. You may be suffering from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_syndrome
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the fact that it isn't a risky investment is why the government isn't ending up getting wiped out by the losses.
No need for the government to get wiped out, just print more money! Hy-Brasil is NOT sinking. Repeat, NOT sinking.
You just love jumping the border on this one, don't you? Just like this isn't ancient Rome, it's not Brazil either. We'd have to maintain our current rate of inflation for several thousand years to reach the levels that Brazil suffers.
Sorry, but banking doesn't exist by government edict.
Funny, you already acknowledged in the absence of the government oversight, there wasn't any real way to run a bank profitably AKA the banks can't exist except by government edict. Government oversight happens by edict, ie command.
I'll admit to wording it too generally. My statement should have been that in the absence of oversight, running a bank profitably would make credit so expensive that the vast majority of the population couldn't afford it, effectively shorting economic growth to much lower levels than it can achieve with the surety. Oh, wait, I did say it that way, but now it's explicit. I humbly apologize for wording it badly.
Increase in taxation isn't inflation, full stop. An increase in taxation is a reduction of spending power, and inflation causes a reduction in spending power, but they're not the same thing at all.
Well your comments on this and other aspects of the fall of Rome mean several wikipedia edits are required, I'll leave it to you. Your self-contradiction on the banks existing by government and your comment on the government not getting wiped out (in the light of the borrowing enabled bailouts) makes me uninterested in reading another post of yours on this topic. You may be suffering from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_syndrome
Get over yourself. I could resort to name-calling and accusing you of mental illness as well, but I find it to be poor form in a debate. The borrowing-enabled bailouts happened because of a flaw in the oversight that allowed some companies to roll subprime debt into financial vehicles that they then advertised as low risk. Since you love Wiki so much, here's my citation for that. This is simply cheating on the risk level of the debt to make money before it collapses because of the cheating. I suppose that vaporizing the FDIC and the current banking system would solve that problem, but I find that to be equivalent to using a shotgun to kill a mosquito. I confess to being appalled that more people involved in this didn't end up in prison, but that's more a political problem than a monetary one so I'll leave it for another discussion. The upshot of this (and it pains me to say it) is that this problem would have been fixed before it happened by more oversight, not less. One would have hoped that disguising the risk level of an investment would have been forbidden in the beginning, but that's more of a legal problem than a monetary on, so I'll leave that one too. Oh, and before you say that the FDIC is disguising the risk level of a bank account, I'll short-sircuit that by saying it's not disguising, it's insuring, which is different in that the surety is actually there (where it wasn't in the case of the rerolled investments).
Virg