Even in the US, medicare is far more efficient than private insurers, with overhead less than 1/10th the private sector average (despite medicare serving an older population).
Social Security has overhead of less than 1/000th of 1%, while no private pension system can ever come close.
Even the overburdened VA hospitals continue to rank well above the private sector in quality of care and cost.
The Government consistently operates with far lower overhead than their private sector counterparts, especially for cookie-cutter projects that take advantage of scale.
Except that in many cases good doctors lose money by seeing Medicare patients, VA hospitals (ie Walter Reed) are in scandalous condition, and the whole entitlements system, accounting for about 60% of the federal budget is the single biggest factor in our constant budget deficits.
You could do away with the NSF, NASA, and the DoD (the Iraq war accounts for less than 1% of the federal budget) and still have crazy high taxes and an insolvent government.
They do, and they can get loans without the CRA. The illegal aliens without jobs who get mortgages on $400k McMansions? Not so much.
But wait, those were fly-by-night operations, you say. BUZZ. WRONG. It was all backed up by Fannie/Freddy aka the Feds through various roundabout channels. Remember, when they failed, Fannie and Freddie held 1/2 the country's mortgage assets, whether by direct lending or by buying up these fly-by-night deals with the defacto full faith and credit of the federal government. That policy made it profitable to operate fly-by-night operations, contributing overwhelmingly to the credit bubble.
Pardon the interjection into this dialog, but making sure everyone's internet is 512kbps and not 128kbps is a very far cry from protecting us from wolves and collecting our trash.
Heinlein once wrote that "the greatest tyrrany is to force a man to do something just because *you* think it would be good for him" [emphasis added]. Your freedom to impose your idea of what a good society should be on me ends where it impedes on my freedom not to participate in your Worker's Paradise.
Sorry BitHive. No straw men allowed. Blaming government for creating loopholes that encourage irresponsible behavior in the name of minority rights is not racism, nor is it bigotry. It is healthy cynicism.
Do you believe that any criticism of government policy that is promulgated "to help minorities" or "to prevent discrimination", or, everybody's favorite "it's for the children" is sacrosanct and beyond scrutiny or reproach? If so, I'm not going to continue this discussion, because you've already decided that government is flawless whenever it declares itself to be, and there's no point in arguing with the propaganda machine.
Government threatens to sue private business unless they lend irresponsibly to people who won't repay their loads (See Community Reinvestment Act, Jimmy Carter's Democrat Congress). Then the government starts giving out its own irresponsible loans (Freddie/Fannie), inflates their value, sells them all over the world, and prints up $700bn from nowhere to prevent the sky from falling while cursing the tophat-wearing capitalists for their greed to cover up the cause and source of the problem. Being a good Commie, well-versed in doublethink, I conclude that I want them to control my internet too, because private business is corrupt.
Digital phased arrays don't work too well with high power. What it does is it modulates an analog circuit that introduces a phase delay in the signal. And not without some loss. The phase shifting hardware to operate on a very high power signal is big and lossy. Technology has advanced to fast that managers and politicians often expect magic when they throw out buzzwords, without realizing the limitations of existing technology and appreciating the fact that the phrase "it's just an engineering problem at this point" in now way means that it's easy, fast, or cheap.
But you are perfectly happy to gravy-train off the Internet I not only paid for, but actually built? Nice hypocrisy there, you should join the Ayn Rand fan club.
No, *you* should join the Ayn Rand fan club. Maybe you'll learn something.
Slashdot Mirror
It's not just Europe.
Even in the US, medicare is far more efficient than private insurers, with overhead less than 1/10th the private sector average (despite medicare serving an older population).
Social Security has overhead of less than 1/000th of 1%, while no private pension system can ever come close.
Even the overburdened VA hospitals continue to rank well above the private sector in quality of care and cost.
The Government consistently operates with far lower overhead than their private sector counterparts, especially for cookie-cutter projects that take advantage of scale.
Except that in many cases good doctors lose money by seeing Medicare patients, VA hospitals (ie Walter Reed) are in scandalous condition, and the whole entitlements system, accounting for about 60% of the federal budget is the single biggest factor in our constant budget deficits.
You could do away with the NSF, NASA, and the DoD (the Iraq war accounts for less than 1% of the federal budget) and still have crazy high taxes and an insolvent government.
They do, and they can get loans without the CRA. The illegal aliens without jobs who get mortgages on $400k McMansions? Not so much. But wait, those were fly-by-night operations, you say. BUZZ. WRONG. It was all backed up by Fannie/Freddy aka the Feds through various roundabout channels. Remember, when they failed, Fannie and Freddie held 1/2 the country's mortgage assets, whether by direct lending or by buying up these fly-by-night deals with the defacto full faith and credit of the federal government. That policy made it profitable to operate fly-by-night operations, contributing overwhelmingly to the credit bubble.
Pardon the interjection into this dialog, but making sure everyone's internet is 512kbps and not 128kbps is a very far cry from protecting us from wolves and collecting our trash. Heinlein once wrote that "the greatest tyrrany is to force a man to do something just because *you* think it would be good for him" [emphasis added]. Your freedom to impose your idea of what a good society should be on me ends where it impedes on my freedom not to participate in your Worker's Paradise.
Sorry BitHive. No straw men allowed. Blaming government for creating loopholes that encourage irresponsible behavior in the name of minority rights is not racism, nor is it bigotry. It is healthy cynicism. Do you believe that any criticism of government policy that is promulgated "to help minorities" or "to prevent discrimination", or, everybody's favorite "it's for the children" is sacrosanct and beyond scrutiny or reproach? If so, I'm not going to continue this discussion, because you've already decided that government is flawless whenever it declares itself to be, and there's no point in arguing with the propaganda machine.
Government threatens to sue private business unless they lend irresponsibly to people who won't repay their loads (See Community Reinvestment Act, Jimmy Carter's Democrat Congress). Then the government starts giving out its own irresponsible loans (Freddie/Fannie), inflates their value, sells them all over the world, and prints up $700bn from nowhere to prevent the sky from falling while cursing the tophat-wearing capitalists for their greed to cover up the cause and source of the problem. Being a good Commie, well-versed in doublethink, I conclude that I want them to control my internet too, because private business is corrupt.
Digital phased arrays don't work too well with high power. What it does is it modulates an analog circuit that introduces a phase delay in the signal. And not without some loss. The phase shifting hardware to operate on a very high power signal is big and lossy. Technology has advanced to fast that managers and politicians often expect magic when they throw out buzzwords, without realizing the limitations of existing technology and appreciating the fact that the phrase "it's just an engineering problem at this point" in now way means that it's easy, fast, or cheap.
Uh oh. That's dangerous thinking. I'm pleased to inform you that you'll be first against the wall in an Obama administration.
No, *you* should join the Ayn Rand fan club. Maybe you'll learn something.