Drugs are a different issue than medical devices. This does not mean that I disagree with the point you made, just that that the issues surrounding medical devices are different and patents are less of an issue than the regulatory hurdles necessary to compete in the medical device market.
Yes, non-profits are such a great way to control costs. That's why college costs in the U.S. are so reasonable and only increase at a fraction of the rate of inflation....wait, no the cost of higher education in the U.S. goes up way faster than the rate of inflation, yet the overwhelming majority of Colleges and Universities are non-profit. So, maybe you should rethink your commitment to non-profits as the solution to medical costs spiraling out of control.
Medical regulations aren't causing the expense of your hearing aids. I don't know where the blame lies, but that almost certainly isn't it.
The reason capitalism isn't necessarily fine with medicine is the number of suppliers is often so limited, there is no real competition.
Government regulations are the primary reason why the number of suppliers is so limited. The regulations governing the manufacture and sale of medical devices are subject to interpretation and the FDA will not necessarily give you the definitive word on what the correct interpretation is.
The problem is that a hearing aid is technically a durable medical device.
That is exactly the problem. Because it is a "medical device" it is subject to a bunch of regulations. One of the things is that the company that manufactures it must meet various FDA regulations for the manufacture of a medical device. Then you have the various state regulations. The overall effect of these regulations is to limit competition.
To attempt to make you understand why regulations favor large companies over small I will attempt one last time to explain. Suppose a new regulation takes 10 hours a week to fill out the paperwork to demonstrate that a company is in compliance with some regulation (and while that number may vary, it takes some amount of time) which company is going to more readily be able to afford that time: one that has two people working 40 hours a week each getting their product into their customers' hands or one that has 50 people working 40 hours a week?
I realize that this effort was wasted since you apparently believe in pixie dust, but I gave it one more try.
Yeah, that's right the $500 million government loan that Solyndra got was in the form of tax cuts. NO, the "vast majority" of the spending was not in the form of tax cuts. According to the Wikipedia article $275 Billion of the "American Recovery and Reinvestment Act" was tax cuts, while $552 Billion of the Senate version and $545 Billion of the House version were spending (I did not see a summary of what the final number was, but spending was not going to go from essentially twice the amount of the tax cuts to less than the tax cuts in the reconciliation process).
Smart regulation, regulation written with the people's interest in mind, does not favor any kind of company.
Yes, and powering our cars with pixie dust doesn't result in any polluton either.
Even if such a regulatory environment were possible, it still favors large companies over small companies. There is a certain amount of expense necessary to demonstrate that one is complying with the regulation. A large company can more readily absorb that cost than a small company.
Yes, the government established rules that favored one company over another allowing that company to become a monopoly. Funny, that still worked after anti-trust laws (AT&T).
So look at anti-discrimination regulations. Insurance companies, for example, are not allowed to price based on race, even if their research shows that race is a predictor of life expectancy. Does this reduce competition among insurance companies? No...
Sorry, yes it does. Not because of the impact on discrimination, but because the companies now have the added cost of documenting that they do not discriminate. This is one more cost that makes it more difficult for a smaller company to survive in the market.
I happen to think that it is not the government's business to enforce anti-discrimination practices on private companies. What people seem to forget is that the segregationist policies that lead to the Civil Rights marches were not a result of lack of government regulation, they were a result of government regulation.
Really? Do you really believe that the Warren Buffets and Bill Gates of the world will pay the increased taxes you are talking about? The fact is that close to half of Americans do not pay income tax. Additionally, a larger share of Federal tax revenues are paid by the top 1% of income earners today than was paid by them before the Bush tax cuts were passed.
It is not an ad hominem attack to allege that Page and Brin are hypocrites for flying to the south pacific to view the eclipse when they say that Man caused Global Warming is a problem that requires reworking our entire economy. An ad hominem attack would be saying that because they are hypocrites, Global Warming is not true.
However, what I said, is that if they expect me to believe what they are saying about Global Warming, they should act as if they believe it. I do not believe that the proposed solutions to Global Warming are the correct approach for many reasons. However, I do not know of any prominent proponent of Anthropogenic Global Warming who acts as if he/she believes it is true.
I, at no time, have argued that there should be no regulation of large corporations. My argument is that there should be less regulation of all kinds than what currently exists.
An Ad Hominem attack is to discredit the argument because of characteristics of the one making the argument. All I am doing is pointing out that Page and Brin are hypocrites. I have not at any time argued that because they are hypocrites that AGW is not true. I have said that I am unlikely to take the arguments of a hypocrite seriously on the subject about which they are being hypocritical.
It would have indeed been a perfect time to double it, THEN slash it when prices go up, and save money, so the overall 10-year budget back to the same it would have been with steady spending, but with double the work done. That's what borrowing is FOR.
The problem is that the government would not have slashed it when prices went up. Politicians would happily double it to "take advantage of lower costs". The problem is that we have some experience with this and we know that that doubled spending level would become the new baseline from which all future spending would be calculated (with some steady increase baked in). For example, in 2009 Obama pushed for a bunch of "emergency" spending. When he introduced his 2012 budget (the one the Democratic controlled Senate rejected 97-0), those funds were used as the baseline from which increased spending was budgeted. This sort of spending is unsustainable. Sooner or later, you get to where we are now, where the government spends close to $1 trillion in "stimulus" spending and the economy slows down.
If the government (at any, but preferably all, level) had cut spending when times were good in the 90s, government stimulus spending now, might work. But it didn't.
The question is not about what we "need". It is about who gets to decide. However, if you are telling that grandma that she shouldn't buy that PC that draws 700W, because she doesn't need it, then you had better not fly off to the south pacific to watch the eclipse, because it is a lot clearer that you don't need to do that than it is that grandma doesn't need that PC.
I love how when a prominent spokesperson who calls for Americans to return to moral values is caught violating those moral values it is used as evidence that all proponents of moral values are morally bankrupt. But when people who call for Western economies to bankrupt themselves to prevent the disaster of Global Warming are caught acting as if it is no big deal, we are supposed to ignore thier actions and just evaluate thier message.
By that same logic, I should stop myself talking about energy responsibility or forego taking my daughter to the park to enjoy a fine day because ZOMG I'm burning dinosaur juices right into the air!!!
If you believe that Global Warming is a problem that justifies massive government intervention into the everyday lives of the majority of people, then the answer is "Yes". There is a difference between talking about energy responsibility and saying that we need to stop building new coal fired electric generating plants and shut down existing ones. Page and Brin are in the latter camp.
I do not have a problem with Page and Brin using thier wealth to fly to the south pacific to view the eclipse. I have a problem with them doing so when they try and tell me that Man caused Gloabal Warming is such an urgent problem that it justifies a vast increase in government power.
Well, then I guess you will express similar thoughts the next time someone condemns a prominent promoter of "family values" (or other conservative position) is caught violating those values?
The reason that Brin and Page have to defend themselves from the charge of hypocrisy is that so many in the statist camp constantly try to claim that only people on the other side are hypocritical.
The reason that Google needs to defend its use of electricity is because Page and Brin are huge proponents of the need to take drastic action to deal with man caused global warming. When you are a big supporter of those running around telling everybody that the government needs to limit how much energy people can use (limiting how much fossil fuels people can use is the same as limiting how much energy they can use, as we do not have the means, at this time, to replace all of the energy we get from fossil fuels with energy from other sources), then people are going to look closely at how much energy you use.
The issue is not how much energy Google uses. The issue is whether or not Page and Brin are hypocrites. The answer is that they are hypocrites. They preach about Global Warming, yet flew off to the south pacific to view an eclipse.
Hoffa did not say he was going to take people out. He called on union members to take people out. He did this while introducing Obama for a speech that Obama was about to give on Labor Day. Obama got up on stage and thanked Hoffa for the introduction. When the White House Press Secretary was asked about when Obama was going to condemn this violent rhetoric, the response was that Obama was not on stage at the time. This was just days before members of another union took security giards hostage while they destroyed property at a shipping depot in Washington state.
Slashdot Mirror
Drugs are a different issue than medical devices. This does not mean that I disagree with the point you made, just that that the issues surrounding medical devices are different and patents are less of an issue than the regulatory hurdles necessary to compete in the medical device market.
Yes, non-profits are such a great way to control costs. That's why college costs in the U.S. are so reasonable and only increase at a fraction of the rate of inflation....wait, no the cost of higher education in the U.S. goes up way faster than the rate of inflation, yet the overwhelming majority of Colleges and Universities are non-profit. So, maybe you should rethink your commitment to non-profits as the solution to medical costs spiraling out of control.
Medical regulations aren't causing the expense of your hearing aids. I don't know where the blame lies, but that almost certainly isn't it. The reason capitalism isn't necessarily fine with medicine is the number of suppliers is often so limited, there is no real competition.
Government regulations are the primary reason why the number of suppliers is so limited. The regulations governing the manufacture and sale of medical devices are subject to interpretation and the FDA will not necessarily give you the definitive word on what the correct interpretation is.
Except that this is not the result of capitalism. This is the result of government regulation.
The problem is that a hearing aid is technically a durable medical device.
That is exactly the problem. Because it is a "medical device" it is subject to a bunch of regulations. One of the things is that the company that manufactures it must meet various FDA regulations for the manufacture of a medical device. Then you have the various state regulations. The overall effect of these regulations is to limit competition.
To attempt to make you understand why regulations favor large companies over small I will attempt one last time to explain. Suppose a new regulation takes 10 hours a week to fill out the paperwork to demonstrate that a company is in compliance with some regulation (and while that number may vary, it takes some amount of time) which company is going to more readily be able to afford that time: one that has two people working 40 hours a week each getting their product into their customers' hands or one that has 50 people working 40 hours a week?
I realize that this effort was wasted since you apparently believe in pixie dust, but I gave it one more try.
Which tells you why they are big supporters of Global Warming, they figure the government policies aren't going to effect them much.
Yeah, that's right the $500 million government loan that Solyndra got was in the form of tax cuts.
NO, the "vast majority" of the spending was not in the form of tax cuts. According to the Wikipedia article $275 Billion of the "American Recovery and Reinvestment Act" was tax cuts, while $552 Billion of the Senate version and $545 Billion of the House version were spending (I did not see a summary of what the final number was, but spending was not going to go from essentially twice the amount of the tax cuts to less than the tax cuts in the reconciliation process).
Yes, you should. It is called freedom of association.
You are correct the Progressives had already corrupted our government before the 1930s.
Smart regulation, regulation written with the people's interest in mind, does not favor any kind of company.
Yes, and powering our cars with pixie dust doesn't result in any polluton either.
Even if such a regulatory environment were possible, it still favors large companies over small companies. There is a certain amount of expense necessary to demonstrate that one is complying with the regulation. A large company can more readily absorb that cost than a small company.
We know what happened before anti-trust
Yes, the government established rules that favored one company over another allowing that company to become a monopoly. Funny, that still worked after anti-trust laws (AT&T).
So look at anti-discrimination regulations. Insurance companies, for example, are not allowed to price based on race, even if their research shows that race is a predictor of life expectancy. Does this reduce competition among insurance companies? No ...
Sorry, yes it does. Not because of the impact on discrimination, but because the companies now have the added cost of documenting that they do not discriminate. This is one more cost that makes it more difficult for a smaller company to survive in the market.
I happen to think that it is not the government's business to enforce anti-discrimination practices on private companies. What people seem to forget is that the segregationist policies that lead to the Civil Rights marches were not a result of lack of government regulation, they were a result of government regulation.
Really? Do you really believe that the Warren Buffets and Bill Gates of the world will pay the increased taxes you are talking about?
The fact is that close to half of Americans do not pay income tax. Additionally, a larger share of Federal tax revenues are paid by the top 1% of income earners today than was paid by them before the Bush tax cuts were passed.
It is not an ad hominem attack to allege that Page and Brin are hypocrites for flying to the south pacific to view the eclipse when they say that Man caused Global Warming is a problem that requires reworking our entire economy. An ad hominem attack would be saying that because they are hypocrites, Global Warming is not true.
However, what I said, is that if they expect me to believe what they are saying about Global Warming, they should act as if they believe it. I do not believe that the proposed solutions to Global Warming are the correct approach for many reasons. However, I do not know of any prominent proponent of Anthropogenic Global Warming who acts as if he/she believes it is true.
I, at no time, have argued that there should be no regulation of large corporations. My argument is that there should be less regulation of all kinds than what currently exists.
An Ad Hominem attack is to discredit the argument because of characteristics of the one making the argument. All I am doing is pointing out that Page and Brin are hypocrites. I have not at any time argued that because they are hypocrites that AGW is not true. I have said that I am unlikely to take the arguments of a hypocrite seriously on the subject about which they are being hypocritical.
Sure, but then I would expect to see the people who were telling me that behaving as if they thought it was true.
It would have indeed been a perfect time to double it, THEN slash it when prices go up, and save money, so the overall 10-year budget back to the same it would have been with steady spending, but with double the work done. That's what borrowing is FOR.
The problem is that the government would not have slashed it when prices went up. Politicians would happily double it to "take advantage of lower costs". The problem is that we have some experience with this and we know that that doubled spending level would become the new baseline from which all future spending would be calculated (with some steady increase baked in). For example, in 2009 Obama pushed for a bunch of "emergency" spending. When he introduced his 2012 budget (the one the Democratic controlled Senate rejected 97-0), those funds were used as the baseline from which increased spending was budgeted. This sort of spending is unsustainable. Sooner or later, you get to where we are now, where the government spends close to $1 trillion in "stimulus" spending and the economy slows down.
If the government (at any, but preferably all, level) had cut spending when times were good in the 90s, government stimulus spending now, might work. But it didn't.
They flew to the south pacific to view the eclipse while telling me that I should cut back on my energy use. That means they are hypocrites.
The question is not about what we "need". It is about who gets to decide. However, if you are telling that grandma that she shouldn't buy that PC that draws 700W, because she doesn't need it, then you had better not fly off to the south pacific to watch the eclipse, because it is a lot clearer that you don't need to do that than it is that grandma doesn't need that PC.
I love how when a prominent spokesperson who calls for Americans to return to moral values is caught violating those moral values it is used as evidence that all proponents of moral values are morally bankrupt. But when people who call for Western economies to bankrupt themselves to prevent the disaster of Global Warming are caught acting as if it is no big deal, we are supposed to ignore thier actions and just evaluate thier message.
By that same logic, I should stop myself talking about energy responsibility or forego taking my daughter to the park to enjoy a fine day because ZOMG I'm burning dinosaur juices right into the air!!!
If you believe that Global Warming is a problem that justifies massive government intervention into the everyday lives of the majority of people, then the answer is "Yes". There is a difference between talking about energy responsibility and saying that we need to stop building new coal fired electric generating plants and shut down existing ones. Page and Brin are in the latter camp.
I do not have a problem with Page and Brin using thier wealth to fly to the south pacific to view the eclipse. I have a problem with them doing so when they try and tell me that Man caused Gloabal Warming is such an urgent problem that it justifies a vast increase in government power.
Well, then I guess you will express similar thoughts the next time someone condemns a prominent promoter of "family values" (or other conservative position) is caught violating those values?
The reason that Brin and Page have to defend themselves from the charge of hypocrisy is that so many in the statist camp constantly try to claim that only people on the other side are hypocritical.
The reason that Google needs to defend its use of electricity is because Page and Brin are huge proponents of the need to take drastic action to deal with man caused global warming. When you are a big supporter of those running around telling everybody that the government needs to limit how much energy people can use (limiting how much fossil fuels people can use is the same as limiting how much energy they can use, as we do not have the means, at this time, to replace all of the energy we get from fossil fuels with energy from other sources), then people are going to look closely at how much energy you use.
The issue is not how much energy Google uses. The issue is whether or not Page and Brin are hypocrites. The answer is that they are hypocrites. They preach about Global Warming, yet flew off to the south pacific to view an eclipse.
Hoffa did not say he was going to take people out. He called on union members to take people out. He did this while introducing Obama for a speech that Obama was about to give on Labor Day. Obama got up on stage and thanked Hoffa for the introduction. When the White House Press Secretary was asked about when Obama was going to condemn this violent rhetoric, the response was that Obama was not on stage at the time. This was just days before members of another union took security giards hostage while they destroyed property at a shipping depot in Washington state.