Well, you were talking about a utopia as well, where non-profits are acting for the best interest of society rather than the interests of those running the non-profit. You use the example of the BP oil spill where people are calling for more government regulation to prevent the next time, even though the regulations already in place weren't enforced in this case and probably would have prevented it from happening if they had been.
You are wrong in thinking that corporations are required to not give a damn about what is good for society. A corporation is supposed to look out for the fiduciary interests of their shareholders with respect to the money invested in the corporation. In the long run a corporation will be more profitable the healthier society is. Therefore it is in the fiduciary interest of the shareholders if the corporation successfully promotes what is best for society.
"A few months ago, I approved a proposal to consider new, limited offshore drilling under the assurance that it would be absolutely safe"
LOL, tool.
The best part is that that was right about the time BP started telling the Administration they were having a problem at this very oil platform, the type of problem that most experts believe led to the explosion that caused this problem, in February (about a month before Obama said that he had been assured that it would be "absolutely safe".
So, we had a environmental catastrophe drilling for oil in deep water, obviously the answer is to leave all future drilling in deep water to those who have a proven record on the environment, like the Chinese.
Well, now I understand, you are under the mistaken belief that economics is a zero sum game. If you believe that economics is a zero sum game, why don't you grow your own food and make your own clothes?
Why do you think that a public non-profit is less influential or more moral than a publicly traded corporation of similar revenue?
You do realize that many non-profits control quite a bit of wealth as well, don't you?
Many left wingers fail to realize that both corporations and non-profits are run by people and that people are deeply flawed and often seek their own interests at the expense of others. The people who run non-profits are no more inherently good than the people who run corporations.
So, your answer is that you would rather groups have power to control your life than have power to make money. I'm pretty sure that there are few people who believe that it is more moral to have the power to control others lives than to have the power to make money.
Most people pirate movies and music to get it conveniently and inexpensively. According to the article some of these sites allow unlimited downloads for $5 a month. The Entertainment industry has these problems because they keep trying to charge the same amount they did when copying and distributing their products was expensive (relatively) and difficult.
So, groups dedicated to gaining power to dictate the behavior of others (political power) are more moral than groups dedicated to acquiring greater wealth (economic power)?
Reuters was caught a few years ago editing photographs of a site that the Israeli Air Force had bombed in order to make it look worse than it was. When Reuters released pictures from the Israeli assault on the "peace flotilla", they edited out the weapons in the hands of the "peaceful" members of the flotilla and the wounded Israeli soldiers. There have been several other incidents of Reuters doing similar things, but I would have to work harder to track those stories down than I feel like at this time.
I fully expect that some major national ISPs are already looking into what it would take to force this upon their customer base at some point.
I can see why they would like to do this. However, I cannot see the benefit of doing this exceeding the liability. If a major ISP were to do this, it would get discovered and broadcast far and wide. Additionally, by doing this the ISP (and many of its employees) gains access to all kinds of information (credit card numbers, bank account info, business secrets of other companies) that has significant risk of being abused. If the ISP gives itself access to that kind of information, it can count on being sued, especially when that information is used to bring harm to the rightful owner of the info (which will happen, probably sooner rather than later).
As to the question asked in the summary, if you are using someone else's equipment (your employer, your school, whomever), they have the right to inspect what you are doing with it as long as they inform you that they may do so.
The article you linked did not give the overall prognosis for someone diagnosed with cancer in various countries, but it listed that "the U.S., Japan, and France recorded the highest survival rates among 31 nations for four types of cancer." Therefore it comes closer to supporting my argument than it does yours. BTW it also shows one of the problems with comparing the U.S. as a whole to other nations. Individual states (which are more closely comparable to most other nations in terms of population) vary widely in health care delivery.
As others have pointed out, one of the reasons that the U.S. ranks so low in infant mortality rates is the way that the U.S. counts such deaths. Another factor is the much greater ethnic and cultural diversity in the U.S. versus other nations.
TW both overestimated and didn't understand the value of AOL, nor of the Internet at all. It looked good on a balance sheet, but didn't work well in real life.
AOL bought Time-Warner, not the other way around. AOL bought TW when AOL was on the top of its game, but everybody could see the writing on the wall. At the time, TW was struggling, it was heavily invested in print media, where revenues were falling precipitously. AOL thought they could use TW's content to save themselves. It is not clear to me if AOL failed to obtain sufficient control over TW with the purchase to execute its plan, or if AOL just didn't have a clear plan in the first place. However, even though the purchase failed to save the AOL side, it was a great move because AOL shareholders became TW shareholders at a time when TW was looking ready to fail (and probably would have without the cash infusion from AOL).
While I make very little use of the content that NBC provides, I am a Comcast customer. I really do not like that Comcast is both a service provider and a content provider. I am not happy that the precedent was set with Time-Warner. I would like to see the roles of content provider and service provider separated. Unfortunately, I have little confidence in government regulation accomplishing that in a way that is consumer friendly.
In those countries, every study I have seen indicates that the prognosis for those diagnosed with serious illness is worse than for someone diagnosed with the same illness in the U.S..
It goes back longer than the 1990s, Social Security has been collecting more than it paid out since its inception and putting the rest into T-bills. The problem is that Congress doesn't count the T-bills held by the SSA as part of the deficit, so the deficit is much worse than it appears (that by the way is how Bill Clinton "balanced the budget" while the national debt continued to increase).
You do know that right now, if you are collecting a paycheck, you are paying for Medicare for those who it covers, don't you? Your solution to Medicare is to basically take more money from those who work. I'm confused how covering more people would lower total costs. The cost per person covered might go down under your plan, but since you are not increasing the number of people actually paying for the system, while increasing the number of people covered, I'm not sure why you think it will improve anything.
The population of all of the Nordic countries combined is about 25 million. Additionally, compared to the U.S. each of the Nordic countries is fairly ethnically, culturally and economically homogenous. So, comparing results of anything from the Nordic countries to anything in the U.S. as a whole is like comparing apples to orange trees.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, you were talking about a utopia as well, where non-profits are acting for the best interest of society rather than the interests of those running the non-profit. You use the example of the BP oil spill where people are calling for more government regulation to prevent the next time, even though the regulations already in place weren't enforced in this case and probably would have prevented it from happening if they had been.
You are wrong in thinking that corporations are required to not give a damn about what is good for society. A corporation is supposed to look out for the fiduciary interests of their shareholders with respect to the money invested in the corporation. In the long run a corporation will be more profitable the healthier society is. Therefore it is in the fiduciary interest of the shareholders if the corporation successfully promotes what is best for society.
"A few months ago, I approved a proposal to consider new, limited offshore drilling under the assurance that it would be absolutely safe"
LOL, tool.
The best part is that that was right about the time BP started telling the Administration they were having a problem at this very oil platform, the type of problem that most experts believe led to the explosion that caused this problem, in February (about a month before Obama said that he had been assured that it would be "absolutely safe".
So, we had a environmental catastrophe drilling for oil in deep water, obviously the answer is to leave all future drilling in deep water to those who have a proven record on the environment, like the Chinese.
Well, now I understand, you are under the mistaken belief that economics is a zero sum game. If you believe that economics is a zero sum game, why don't you grow your own food and make your own clothes?
What if there is real debate as to whether the non-profit's stated goal will not improve society but will actually harm society?
Why do you think that a public non-profit is less influential or more moral than a publicly traded corporation of similar revenue?
You do realize that many non-profits control quite a bit of wealth as well, don't you?
Many left wingers fail to realize that both corporations and non-profits are run by people and that people are deeply flawed and often seek their own interests at the expense of others. The people who run non-profits are no more inherently good than the people who run corporations.
So, again, why should the one operate under a different set of rules than the other?
So, if a company makes its stated purpose to improve society, they should be given special privileges over other companies?
So, your answer is that you would rather groups have power to control your life than have power to make money. I'm pretty sure that there are few people who believe that it is more moral to have the power to control others lives than to have the power to make money.
Most people pirate movies and music to get it conveniently and inexpensively. According to the article some of these sites allow unlimited downloads for $5 a month. The Entertainment industry has these problems because they keep trying to charge the same amount they did when copying and distributing their products was expensive (relatively) and difficult.
So, groups dedicated to gaining power to dictate the behavior of others (political power) are more moral than groups dedicated to acquiring greater wealth (economic power)?
Primarily because it is trivial for anyone who wants to do a simple Google search. Reuters photoshop scandal ( http://www.google.com/#hl=en&source=hp&q=reuters+photoshop+scandal&aq=1&aqi=g2&aql=&oq=reuters+photoshop&gs_rfai=CyzduCeggTLLHBYvkgATD6M3hDQAAAKoEBU_QExI0&fp=bff9aea6fcd663ae ). But since you will assume they are perfectly fine despite what people tell you without doing a search for yourself here's the link. Someone else provided a link to the Reuters editing of the flotilla photos.
Reuters was caught a few years ago editing photographs of a site that the Israeli Air Force had bombed in order to make it look worse than it was. When Reuters released pictures from the Israeli assault on the "peace flotilla", they edited out the weapons in the hands of the "peaceful" members of the flotilla and the wounded Israeli soldiers. There have been several other incidents of Reuters doing similar things, but I would have to work harder to track those stories down than I feel like at this time.
I fully expect that some major national ISPs are already looking into what it would take to force this upon their customer base at some point.
I can see why they would like to do this. However, I cannot see the benefit of doing this exceeding the liability. If a major ISP were to do this, it would get discovered and broadcast far and wide. Additionally, by doing this the ISP (and many of its employees) gains access to all kinds of information (credit card numbers, bank account info, business secrets of other companies) that has significant risk of being abused. If the ISP gives itself access to that kind of information, it can count on being sued, especially when that information is used to bring harm to the rightful owner of the info (which will happen, probably sooner rather than later).
As to the question asked in the summary, if you are using someone else's equipment (your employer, your school, whomever), they have the right to inspect what you are doing with it as long as they inform you that they may do so.
Feel free. Just remember, twits tweet on Twitter.
I would put it this way, twits generally don't become engineers.
The article you linked did not give the overall prognosis for someone diagnosed with cancer in various countries, but it listed that "the U.S., Japan, and France recorded the highest survival rates among 31 nations for four types of cancer." Therefore it comes closer to supporting my argument than it does yours. BTW it also shows one of the problems with comparing the U.S. as a whole to other nations. Individual states (which are more closely comparable to most other nations in terms of population) vary widely in health care delivery.
As others have pointed out, one of the reasons that the U.S. ranks so low in infant mortality rates is the way that the U.S. counts such deaths. Another factor is the much greater ethnic and cultural diversity in the U.S. versus other nations.
TW both overestimated and didn't understand the value of AOL, nor of the Internet at all. It looked good on a balance sheet, but didn't work well in real life.
AOL bought Time-Warner, not the other way around. AOL bought TW when AOL was on the top of its game, but everybody could see the writing on the wall. At the time, TW was struggling, it was heavily invested in print media, where revenues were falling precipitously. AOL thought they could use TW's content to save themselves. It is not clear to me if AOL failed to obtain sufficient control over TW with the purchase to execute its plan, or if AOL just didn't have a clear plan in the first place. However, even though the purchase failed to save the AOL side, it was a great move because AOL shareholders became TW shareholders at a time when TW was looking ready to fail (and probably would have without the cash infusion from AOL).
While I make very little use of the content that NBC provides, I am a Comcast customer. I really do not like that Comcast is both a service provider and a content provider. I am not happy that the precedent was set with Time-Warner. I would like to see the roles of content provider and service provider separated. Unfortunately, I have little confidence in government regulation accomplishing that in a way that is consumer friendly.
In those countries, every study I have seen indicates that the prognosis for those diagnosed with serious illness is worse than for someone diagnosed with the same illness in the U.S..
You obviously haven't been paying attention if you think the Massachusetts system is working. Costs have been exponentially higher than predicted.
It goes back longer than the 1990s, Social Security has been collecting more than it paid out since its inception and putting the rest into T-bills. The problem is that Congress doesn't count the T-bills held by the SSA as part of the deficit, so the deficit is much worse than it appears (that by the way is how Bill Clinton "balanced the budget" while the national debt continued to increase).
You do know that right now, if you are collecting a paycheck, you are paying for Medicare for those who it covers, don't you? Your solution to Medicare is to basically take more money from those who work. I'm confused how covering more people would lower total costs. The cost per person covered might go down under your plan, but since you are not increasing the number of people actually paying for the system, while increasing the number of people covered, I'm not sure why you think it will improve anything.
The population of all of the Nordic countries combined is about 25 million. Additionally, compared to the U.S. each of the Nordic countries is fairly ethnically, culturally and economically homogenous. So, comparing results of anything from the Nordic countries to anything in the U.S. as a whole is like comparing apples to orange trees.