Oh, and as to patents. Yes, it's your problem if somebody can undercut you. You have the advantage of being the first to market in any case.
You have the advantage of being able to have private information, trade secrets, as to how you do whatever it is you do. Your trade secrets mean that whoever wants to copy and sell similar items, they would have to figure out how to do what you do in the same way or in a similar way, which only benefits the society further, because maybe they'll find a competitive way of doing the same thing better, faster, cheaper, that's all the society cares about.
The government shouldn't be in any position to protect any special interests, including your ability to prevent people from making similar things in the market cheaper, better, faster, prettier, whatever. The losers in this protection scheme are all the customers, all the consumers and also by the way, all the competitors.
The winners are the monopolists that get to enjoy these special protections and artificial monopolies.
I like how people argue that the free market doesn't work because it creates monopolies, they are completely backwards. All monopolies are created by government intervention, free market doesn't create monopolies, it allows for very competitive economies of scale that produce exactly what the customers want and if that economy of scale stops producing what the customers wants, it fails and competitors step in. Large companies fail all the time for these very reason, it's a very healthy way to reallocate the scarce resources to more efficient uses that market approves of with profits.
So, if you pitch a screen play, I as the producer should be able to say no, and then take your idea and do my own screen play based on your work without you being compensated?
- of-course. The government shouldn't have a role in this, so if this business model ends up not workable, then you wouldn't be pitching screen plays to producers just like that.
By the way, there is still a contract that you can use, who says that you cannot have a private NDA or contract with the producer that would specify what you are pitching and that the producer cannot use it without your permission?
Why should this be a moral hazard created by government rather than you, yourself having to find a workable solution? Who are you to tell the society that it must for some reason protect your so called 'Intellectual Property'? It's up to you to protect your IP, the society doesn't win anything by giving up individual liberties and creating entire government structures that would protect your business model.
Clearly you should be able to figure out a way how to handle this situation, this is no different from tens of thousands of other types of businesses that do not get such special government protections.
Because they are a tool for capitalism, that's why.
- what does capitalism have to do with it? This is merging of the government power with corporate interests, it's done in a way that benefits the politicians as well as some corporate interests.
OTOH it hurts other corporate interests (it hurts competition) and it hurts the consumer.
This is not about capitalism, this is simply corruption. Corruption is government stealing individual liberties from people and selling them to SOME people with money.
- can you point out the specific people that the government represents by handing out copyright and patent protections? Because it's not the majority of the people, it's not the consumers for example. Consumers would be served best with the most choices, not with limited choices provided by the artificial monopolies created by these laws.
So who are these people? Seems to me you are implying that the government is there to represent the people like RIAA, MPAA, various businesses. Are businesses the only people that should be represented by the government?
Isn't that exactly what I always object to - have government stealing the freedoms from the individuals so that these freedoms can be then sold to the highest bidders? Wouldn't the government represent the people better if it did not in fact create monopolies with laws like this?
As to theft, again, who is represented? Are the people that are being stolen from really represented in court really when the thieves are placed into jail to be the ward of the public? Why are the thieves not just forced to return the stolen goods and / or work to repay the damages and interest, why are the victims forced to care for them with public financing instead?
Oh yeah, why is the FBI involved in these cases then? What happened to Kim Dot Com, a civil hearing or was he struck with the heavy boot of FBI and other police agencies?
I think the government's responsibility is to enforce laws.
- right, I said that government shouldn't be involved in this, what I mean obviously is that there shouldn't be government laws on things like copyright or actually theft if it doesn't concern the government itself.
1. Copyright infringement is not theft. It's a crime under the law, but it is not defined as theft, otherwise it wouldn't be a separate thing, called copyright infringement.
2. Why is it a criminal offence to steal? Why is the government involved in judging people criminally for theft? Why shouldn't it be a completely private matter between the 2 private sides? OK, when it is stolen from government or when government is doing the stealing, then it would make sense, but government being involved in theft cases? It's a private matter, it should be left up to the private security and civil courts to deal with. Do you really want a thief being locked up in government prison rather than being forced to just return the goods and/or repay the damages (plus a large fine, maybe a 3 times value of the stolen goods?) What does it matter to you if a thief is in jail - you are still out of property, and now you are going to pay taxes to keep him in jail.
Yeah, but that is not the argument in this story, the argument is not that there are no planets there, the argument is that there are no Earth size (or larger) planets are not found within the 'habitable zone'.
This doesn't mean there are no planets, there are no planetoids, there are no comets, there is nothing there. It means there are no planets like this one or bigger within the 'habitable range', which is another thing that we make various assumptions about.
So to us 'habitable' means some range of temperatures for example, so that water would be in a liquid form. But this does not even mean at all, that there is no planet there, where there is water in liquid form that is not within the 'habitable range' from the star. Can't water be in liquid form due to other conditions, for example because a planet is too hot due to radioactivity and there is liquid water underground?
They ruled out Earth type planets within 'habitable range' that's all.
I don't understand why can't people think about exploring interplanetary space, not planets, but just looking at what a foreign solar system looks like. Sure, it's nice to have planets to land upon, but it's not necessary if you only care about exploration.
Now, if people wanted to 'spread the seed' so to speak (and as a pro-choice person, I don't necessarily endorse the idea), then yeah, it's a loss, but just to explore you don't need Earth type planets.
How about the Earth sized moons in this solar system? Titan?
Those who benefit the most from society owes society the most.
- I agree. That's why the poor and generally those who do NOT run businesses should pay higher taxes than those, who do run their own businesses.
Who do you think benefits from the society more, the people who run their own businesses or the people who buy products created by the people who run their own businesses?
The man made a mistake, I think it was an honest mistake.
Instead of saying 'legitimate' he should have said 'violent'. Just like with murder, there are degrees of murder (premeditated, second degree), there is homicide, then there is self defence.
Same with rape. Are there different types of rape? Obama said: rape is rape is rape. Well, if murder isn't murder isn't murder, then rape isn't rape isn't rape.
How about statutory rape, when a 18 y.o. gets a 15 y.o. pregnant? In the modern US doubleplusgoodspeak statutory rape is then the same thing as a guy, who kidnaps a woman, beats her, rapes her by holding a blade to her throat?
Obviously the Senator meant the later, not the former, because he said that he thought that woman's body would 'shut-down' somehow and pregnancy would be a less likely result of that.
Well, that clearly doesn't make sense in case when 2 teenagers are having consensual sex.
This is also different from a drunk woman, who in the morning decides she was raped. If she didn't protest during the act, then she wouldn't be in that type of stress that the Senator believes would have a woman's body shut down.
Now, as to the Republicans and other pro-lifers (I am pro-choice up to the 101st trimester), the ones that are calling for the Senator to resign, they are ridiculous.
Why? Because if you are pro-life and you make concessions that there are exceptions (and Romney said it himself, he doesn't think a rape victim must be forced to carry the baby of the rapist to term, though later he changed his tune, I think), then you cannot say that rape is rape is rape and that's it, all rape is equal.
If you say that, if you believe that, while not having a problem with a woman getting abortion if she is raped, then you are pro-choice, because women will say that they were raped if that's what it takes to get an abortion. They wouldn't have to disclose the information about the rapist, I imagine, that would be counter-productive, what if they are uncomfortable or afraid? Basically it would hurt the real rape victims if that was that requirement.
So a woman would get an abortion by just claiming that she was raped if there was no difference between different degrees of rape. A violent rape victim does have a legitimate claim to an abortion (from POV of a pro-lifer who grants that women shouldn't be forced to carry rapist's kids), but if the girl was not violently raped? If there was no proof of violence against the woman, would they still then allow her to get an abortion? If yes, then all women will get abortions based on that loophole, so a pro-lifer cannot NOT differentiate between different types of rape.
---
The Senator is being attacked this way for making a poor choice of words.
Just so we're clear here, what you're arguing here is that a US Treasury bond is not an asset.
Let's see, do you have a billion dollars in a bank account?
What changes in your financial situation if you write yourself a check for a billion dollars from a bank account where you do not have a billion dollars? It goes on both sides of your accounting statement, it's both an asset and a liability, it negates itself, it means nothing, it's 0 net.
Now put your thinking hat on (really, do), I am going to hit you with a little bit of thinking type of material.
When government taxes people and says those taxes are for SS or for Medicare but instead of using that money to make some type of an investment into a business or a property or even just into some commodity (maybe a few tons of gold, silver or platinum, whatever), then what happens is that the money that was taxed for is now gone.
So understand this: the money that was taxed is gone. What is in that so called 'fund' when the money is gone? It's that check that one would write to himself or herself saying: billion dollars. But they don't have a billion dollars in a bank, it goes on both sides of the accounting statement, it is both, a liability and an asset, it's 0.
It is 0.
What does government need to do to pay to people who THINK that they have an asset stored in some form by the government? The government must sell bonds or raise more taxes, which is the same thing.
Selling bonds is not a substitute for raising taxes, it's just a way to push raising of the taxes into the future, and then more taxes have to be raised to pay back the value of the bond but also the interest.
So understand what just happened. The money that is taken in taxes is spent. Now the government must either raise more taxes or sell some debt instruments.
In order to repay for the debt instrument, the government must raise taxes. Why? Because the government doesn't have anything, its only source of income (except for license and permit fees and such) is taxes.
Government raises taxes first, tells you that it is storing your money as SS or Medicare fund, supposedly so that you will have a better chance of having your future medical and retirement expenses financed, because supposedly you are an idiot, and you can't save for your own retirement with that same money and you can't for some reason save for your own medical expenses.
But that money is spent and then government MUST collect taxes AGAIN to pay for what is spent.
So how is that an asset? Did you put your thinking hat on? Understood?
--
Oh, and by the way, I made it clear in all my other comments that US debt cannot be repaid, it will be defaulted upon. US dollar was defaulted upon back in 1971, now it's the rest of it, the bonds, the paper dollar, all of it, it's coming to a head. The way it's going to be done will be by inflation most likely, because neither the politicians nor the voters are capable of understanding the truth.
Look at the moderation and replies I get for my comments? You think anybody wants to hear the truth? I haven't lied yet and all I get is ridicule. This will come to pass that US dollar and bonds will be defaulted upon and I consider money printing (inflation) to be a default, but a worse kind of default, the kind that destroys the economy with it, not just credit, the actual economy.
So your 'solution' includes destroys freedoms of doctors to do business as they see fit (put them on salary, whatever).
How about an actual solution - get rid of government in health care completely, abolish Medicare and SS, means test the current beneficiaries, transfer those, who can't afford to live without this on welfare, because that's all SS and Medicare are - these are welfare program.
You never pay into SS or Medicare, because there is no fund with any assets there, it's all IOUs, gov't bonds. Medicare and SS spend more money than they take in, so to finance these pyramid schemes the gov't sells bonds.
Whether there are bonds in the 'fund' or there are no bonds in the fund, the financing of these payments would be exactly the same as the financing is now - sell bonds. These are pyramid schemes and if it were the private sector running them, the gig would have been up and over by now, but because it's gov't, you can't escape it without actually escaping the country.
By the way, all this borrowing will blow up in the faces of the people who rely on the government to finance these pyramid schemes once the interest rates go up, because the only thing the gov't will do as the response is more inflation, more money printing.
There is no choice in cutting SS or Medicare. You can either cut them now legislatively and transfer those, who really need those programs and cannot survive on their own to welfare, or you can wait for the completely inevitable collapse of the US bonds and the dollar and then your SS and Medicare benefits would disappear anyway simply due to inflation.
Your choice. With the legislative approach you can still save the dollar (maybe). With the inflation approach you can't.
By the way, what's funny about the current crop of the Republicans is that they are just as Socialist in nature as the Democrats. Romney and Ryan will absolutely not cut Medicare and SS under any circumstances, they talk about it, about cutting it 10 years and more into the future....
as if anybody is going to do anything 10 years and more into the future. There are no 10 years, there is no future.
Ryan had his mother and talked about her on SS and Medicare, the guy makes what, 5 million a year? Why can't HE take care of HIS mother? Sell out, socialist pig dog shit.
I do everything I can to avoid being forced (no quotes around that word) to pay income taxes. Unfortunately it's impossible not to pay property taxes, but income taxes can be mitigated.
I absolutely get private fire brigade, private health care, unfortunately I have no choice but to pay for government police though.
After a brief period of instability, we'd be forced to switch to a more sustainable technological model based on renewable energies, reduce pollution, and save the planet.
- except that this 'brief period of instability' would include hunger, disease and death of probably over 50% of the population on this planet (and I am not only talking about Exxon, I see it as just one of the providers of oil and oil products).
Your food - it stops existing if there is no oil. Same with food distribution. Same with some of the clean water and sanitation, isn't USA using oil products to generate most of its electricity? Plenty of medical equipment and medicine will no longer be possible, distributing it also will not be possible.
Basically if oil industry was shut down without a very very long transition period that would rely on real working alternatives in everything we do, then we are really fucked.
Apple has obligations to the investors, if they make money then they are successful, everything else, including how and who and where and why they hire is completely incidental to that. Apple provides you (or whoever their customers are) with the product that they (possibly you) want, that's the extent of their obligation to the larger society, and this obligation is not a moral one, just an economic one.
I sure hope most of your money is in bonds right now because this next one is going to hurt even more than the last one.
- you better hope nobody takes your advice and doesn't end up suing you once the bond bubble bursts, because the next one is going to hurt like hell, except the next one is the bond bubble bursting.
Of-course if you were a certified broker you would know better and wouldn't say things like that on/. or anywhere, where it would be possible for the regulators to pin this back to you. The regulations now are such that if you are a certified broker any advice that can be linked to you, whether you are giving it, or anybody who works for you is giving it, even if it is not an advice given directly to somebody, you are going to be liable if they end up losing any money.
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SS takes in more than they make, you fucking moron. Which is where as these IOUs come from...the rest of the government borrows from them.
- hey, fucking moron, that's how it used to be, not anymore, dumb fucking piece of human excrement.
Jesus Christ on pogo stick, it's completely astonishing how many people are complete and total idiots.
- my thoughts exactly. That is YOU - total and unyielding idiot.
I hope it's not calling home and driving at the same time, it can get a ticket.
Oh, and as to patents. Yes, it's your problem if somebody can undercut you. You have the advantage of being the first to market in any case.
You have the advantage of being able to have private information, trade secrets, as to how you do whatever it is you do. Your trade secrets mean that whoever wants to copy and sell similar items, they would have to figure out how to do what you do in the same way or in a similar way, which only benefits the society further, because maybe they'll find a competitive way of doing the same thing better, faster, cheaper, that's all the society cares about.
The government shouldn't be in any position to protect any special interests, including your ability to prevent people from making similar things in the market cheaper, better, faster, prettier, whatever. The losers in this protection scheme are all the customers, all the consumers and also by the way, all the competitors.
The winners are the monopolists that get to enjoy these special protections and artificial monopolies.
I like how people argue that the free market doesn't work because it creates monopolies, they are completely backwards. All monopolies are created by government intervention, free market doesn't create monopolies, it allows for very competitive economies of scale that produce exactly what the customers want and if that economy of scale stops producing what the customers wants, it fails and competitors step in. Large companies fail all the time for these very reason, it's a very healthy way to reallocate the scarce resources to more efficient uses that market approves of with profits.
So, if you pitch a screen play, I as the producer should be able to say no, and then take your idea and do my own screen play based on your work without you being compensated?
- of-course. The government shouldn't have a role in this, so if this business model ends up not workable, then you wouldn't be pitching screen plays to producers just like that.
By the way, there is still a contract that you can use, who says that you cannot have a private NDA or contract with the producer that would specify what you are pitching and that the producer cannot use it without your permission?
Why should this be a moral hazard created by government rather than you, yourself having to find a workable solution? Who are you to tell the society that it must for some reason protect your so called 'Intellectual Property'? It's up to you to protect your IP, the society doesn't win anything by giving up individual liberties and creating entire government structures that would protect your business model.
Clearly you should be able to figure out a way how to handle this situation, this is no different from tens of thousands of other types of businesses that do not get such special government protections.
Because they are a tool for capitalism, that's why.
- what does capitalism have to do with it? This is merging of the government power with corporate interests, it's done in a way that benefits the politicians as well as some corporate interests.
OTOH it hurts other corporate interests (it hurts competition) and it hurts the consumer.
This is not about capitalism, this is simply corruption. Corruption is government stealing individual liberties from people and selling them to SOME people with money.
Given that the government represents the people
- can you point out the specific people that the government represents by handing out copyright and patent protections? Because it's not the majority of the people, it's not the consumers for example. Consumers would be served best with the most choices, not with limited choices provided by the artificial monopolies created by these laws.
So who are these people? Seems to me you are implying that the government is there to represent the people like RIAA, MPAA, various businesses. Are businesses the only people that should be represented by the government?
Isn't that exactly what I always object to - have government stealing the freedoms from the individuals so that these freedoms can be then sold to the highest bidders? Wouldn't the government represent the people better if it did not in fact create monopolies with laws like this?
As to theft, again, who is represented? Are the people that are being stolen from really represented in court really when the thieves are placed into jail to be the ward of the public? Why are the thieves not just forced to return the stolen goods and / or work to repay the damages and interest, why are the victims forced to care for them with public financing instead?
Again, who is truly represented here?
Oh yeah, why is the FBI involved in these cases then? What happened to Kim Dot Com, a civil hearing or was he struck with the heavy boot of FBI and other police agencies?
I think the government's responsibility is to enforce laws.
- right, I said that government shouldn't be involved in this, what I mean obviously is that there shouldn't be government laws on things like copyright or actually theft if it doesn't concern the government itself.
1. Copyright infringement is not theft. It's a crime under the law, but it is not defined as theft, otherwise it wouldn't be a separate thing, called copyright infringement.
2. Why is it a criminal offence to steal? Why is the government involved in judging people criminally for theft? Why shouldn't it be a completely private matter between the 2 private sides? OK, when it is stolen from government or when government is doing the stealing, then it would make sense, but government being involved in theft cases? It's a private matter, it should be left up to the private security and civil courts to deal with. Do you really want a thief being locked up in government prison rather than being forced to just return the goods and/or repay the damages (plus a large fine, maybe a 3 times value of the stolen goods?) What does it matter to you if a thief is in jail - you are still out of property, and now you are going to pay taxes to keep him in jail.
Think about it, the copyright and patent law make something that is supposed to be just a way to protect a business model into a criminal offence.
Really? You think this is what government should be doing?
You mean nobody was fucking on a counter-top right next to the employees snorting meth off a toaster oven?
Here is what it would look like
John Jackson: "It's time someone had the courage to stand up and say: I'm against those things that everybody hates."
Jack Johnson: "Now, I respect my opponent. I think he's a good man. But quite frankly, I agree with everything he just said."
John Jackson: "I say your three cent titanium tax goes too far."
Jack Johnson: "And I say your three cent titanium tax doesn't go too far enough."
Yeah, but that is not the argument in this story, the argument is not that there are no planets there, the argument is that there are no Earth size (or larger) planets are not found within the 'habitable zone'.
This doesn't mean there are no planets, there are no planetoids, there are no comets, there is nothing there. It means there are no planets like this one or bigger within the 'habitable range', which is another thing that we make various assumptions about.
So to us 'habitable' means some range of temperatures for example, so that water would be in a liquid form. But this does not even mean at all, that there is no planet there, where there is water in liquid form that is not within the 'habitable range' from the star. Can't water be in liquid form due to other conditions, for example because a planet is too hot due to radioactivity and there is liquid water underground?
They ruled out Earth type planets within 'habitable range' that's all.
I don't understand why can't people think about exploring interplanetary space, not planets, but just looking at what a foreign solar system looks like. Sure, it's nice to have planets to land upon, but it's not necessary if you only care about exploration.
Now, if people wanted to 'spread the seed' so to speak (and as a pro-choice person, I don't necessarily endorse the idea), then yeah, it's a loss, but just to explore you don't need Earth type planets.
How about the Earth sized moons in this solar system? Titan?
The gluttony. The vanity. The greed. The envy. The fear. The partying. The debauchery. The sex. The humanity.
We have it all.
Apple geniuses.
---
How is that for a commercial?
Those who benefit the most from society owes society the most.
- I agree. That's why the poor and generally those who do NOT run businesses should pay higher taxes than those, who do run their own businesses.
Who do you think benefits from the society more, the people who run their own businesses or the people who buy products created by the people who run their own businesses?
You are not the 'only one' coming to 'his defence' I think he chose his words poorly and was uninformed, but not malicious.
The man made a mistake, I think it was an honest mistake.
Instead of saying 'legitimate' he should have said 'violent'. Just like with murder, there are degrees of murder (premeditated, second degree), there is homicide, then there is self defence.
Same with rape. Are there different types of rape? Obama said: rape is rape is rape. Well, if murder isn't murder isn't murder, then rape isn't rape isn't rape.
How about statutory rape, when a 18 y.o. gets a 15 y.o. pregnant? In the modern US doubleplusgoodspeak statutory rape is then the same thing as a guy, who kidnaps a woman, beats her, rapes her by holding a blade to her throat?
Obviously the Senator meant the later, not the former, because he said that he thought that woman's body would 'shut-down' somehow and pregnancy would be a less likely result of that.
Well, that clearly doesn't make sense in case when 2 teenagers are having consensual sex.
This is also different from a drunk woman, who in the morning decides she was raped. If she didn't protest during the act, then she wouldn't be in that type of stress that the Senator believes would have a woman's body shut down.
Now, as to the Republicans and other pro-lifers (I am pro-choice up to the 101st trimester), the ones that are calling for the Senator to resign, they are ridiculous.
Why? Because if you are pro-life and you make concessions that there are exceptions (and Romney said it himself, he doesn't think a rape victim must be forced to carry the baby of the rapist to term, though later he changed his tune, I think), then you cannot say that rape is rape is rape and that's it, all rape is equal.
If you say that, if you believe that, while not having a problem with a woman getting abortion if she is raped, then you are pro-choice, because women will say that they were raped if that's what it takes to get an abortion. They wouldn't have to disclose the information about the rapist, I imagine, that would be counter-productive, what if they are uncomfortable or afraid? Basically it would hurt the real rape victims if that was that requirement.
So a woman would get an abortion by just claiming that she was raped if there was no difference between different degrees of rape. A violent rape victim does have a legitimate claim to an abortion (from POV of a pro-lifer who grants that women shouldn't be forced to carry rapist's kids), but if the girl was not violently raped? If there was no proof of violence against the woman, would they still then allow her to get an abortion? If yes, then all women will get abortions based on that loophole, so a pro-lifer cannot NOT differentiate between different types of rape.
---
The Senator is being attacked this way for making a poor choice of words.
Just so we're clear here, what you're arguing here is that a US Treasury bond is not an asset.
Let's see, do you have a billion dollars in a bank account?
What changes in your financial situation if you write yourself a check for a billion dollars from a bank account where you do not have a billion dollars? It goes on both sides of your accounting statement, it's both an asset and a liability, it negates itself, it means nothing, it's 0 net.
Now put your thinking hat on (really, do), I am going to hit you with a little bit of thinking type of material.
When government taxes people and says those taxes are for SS or for Medicare but instead of using that money to make some type of an investment into a business or a property or even just into some commodity (maybe a few tons of gold, silver or platinum, whatever), then what happens is that the money that was taxed for is now gone.
So understand this: the money that was taxed is gone. What is in that so called 'fund' when the money is gone? It's that check that one would write to himself or herself saying: billion dollars. But they don't have a billion dollars in a bank, it goes on both sides of the accounting statement, it is both, a liability and an asset, it's 0.
It is 0.
What does government need to do to pay to people who THINK that they have an asset stored in some form by the government? The government must sell bonds or raise more taxes, which is the same thing.
Selling bonds is not a substitute for raising taxes, it's just a way to push raising of the taxes into the future, and then more taxes have to be raised to pay back the value of the bond but also the interest.
So understand what just happened. The money that is taken in taxes is spent. Now the government must either raise more taxes or sell some debt instruments.
In order to repay for the debt instrument, the government must raise taxes. Why? Because the government doesn't have anything, its only source of income (except for license and permit fees and such) is taxes.
Government raises taxes first, tells you that it is storing your money as SS or Medicare fund, supposedly so that you will have a better chance of having your future medical and retirement expenses financed, because supposedly you are an idiot, and you can't save for your own retirement with that same money and you can't for some reason save for your own medical expenses.
But that money is spent and then government MUST collect taxes AGAIN to pay for what is spent.
So how is that an asset? Did you put your thinking hat on? Understood?
--
Oh, and by the way, I made it clear in all my other comments that US debt cannot be repaid, it will be defaulted upon. US dollar was defaulted upon back in 1971, now it's the rest of it, the bonds, the paper dollar, all of it, it's coming to a head. The way it's going to be done will be by inflation most likely, because neither the politicians nor the voters are capable of understanding the truth.
Look at the moderation and replies I get for my comments? You think anybody wants to hear the truth? I haven't lied yet and all I get is ridicule. This will come to pass that US dollar and bonds will be defaulted upon and I consider money printing (inflation) to be a default, but a worse kind of default, the kind that destroys the economy with it, not just credit, the actual economy.
So your 'solution' includes destroys freedoms of doctors to do business as they see fit (put them on salary, whatever).
How about an actual solution - get rid of government in health care completely, abolish Medicare and SS, means test the current beneficiaries, transfer those, who can't afford to live without this on welfare, because that's all SS and Medicare are - these are welfare program.
You never pay into SS or Medicare, because there is no fund with any assets there, it's all IOUs, gov't bonds. Medicare and SS spend more money than they take in, so to finance these pyramid schemes the gov't sells bonds.
Whether there are bonds in the 'fund' or there are no bonds in the fund, the financing of these payments would be exactly the same as the financing is now - sell bonds. These are pyramid schemes and if it were the private sector running them, the gig would have been up and over by now, but because it's gov't, you can't escape it without actually escaping the country.
By the way, all this borrowing will blow up in the faces of the people who rely on the government to finance these pyramid schemes once the interest rates go up, because the only thing the gov't will do as the response is more inflation, more money printing.
There is no choice in cutting SS or Medicare. You can either cut them now legislatively and transfer those, who really need those programs and cannot survive on their own to welfare, or you can wait for the completely inevitable collapse of the US bonds and the dollar and then your SS and Medicare benefits would disappear anyway simply due to inflation.
Your choice. With the legislative approach you can still save the dollar (maybe). With the inflation approach you can't.
By the way, what's funny about the current crop of the Republicans is that they are just as Socialist in nature as the Democrats. Romney and Ryan will absolutely not cut Medicare and SS under any circumstances, they talk about it, about cutting it 10 years and more into the future....
as if anybody is going to do anything 10 years and more into the future. There are no 10 years, there is no future.
Ryan had his mother and talked about her on SS and Medicare, the guy makes what, 5 million a year? Why can't HE take care of HIS mother? Sell out, socialist pig dog shit.
Absolutely.
I do everything I can to avoid being forced (no quotes around that word) to pay income taxes. Unfortunately it's impossible not to pay property taxes, but income taxes can be mitigated.
I absolutely get private fire brigade, private health care, unfortunately I have no choice but to pay for government police though.
There is no such case where supply and demand do not apply. The only question is - is there enough supply available to meet your price point?
55% of health care in Mexico is done privately.
After a brief period of instability, we'd be forced to switch to a more sustainable technological model based on renewable energies, reduce pollution, and save the planet.
- except that this 'brief period of instability' would include hunger, disease and death of probably over 50% of the population on this planet (and I am not only talking about Exxon, I see it as just one of the providers of oil and oil products).
Your food - it stops existing if there is no oil. Same with food distribution. Same with some of the clean water and sanitation, isn't USA using oil products to generate most of its electricity? Plenty of medical equipment and medicine will no longer be possible, distributing it also will not be possible.
Basically if oil industry was shut down without a very very long transition period that would rely on real working alternatives in everything we do, then we are really fucked.
Apple has obligations to the investors, if they make money then they are successful, everything else, including how and who and where and why they hire is completely incidental to that. Apple provides you (or whoever their customers are) with the product that they (possibly you) want, that's the extent of their obligation to the larger society, and this obligation is not a moral one, just an economic one.
I sure hope most of your money is in bonds right now because this next one is going to hurt even more than the last one.
- you better hope nobody takes your advice and doesn't end up suing you once the bond bubble bursts, because the next one is going to hurt like hell, except the next one is the bond bubble bursting.
Of-course if you were a certified broker you would know better and wouldn't say things like that on /. or anywhere, where it would be possible for the regulators to pin this back to you. The regulations now are such that if you are a certified broker any advice that can be linked to you, whether you are giving it, or anybody who works for you is giving it, even if it is not an advice given directly to somebody, you are going to be liable if they end up losing any money.