The thing is, if the situation ever really got that bad, there would be an overwhelming tide of public opinion to change it. And don't say the fact that such a shift in public opinion thus far shows it will never happen. The current situation is nowhere near as bad as the one you describe. If we ever get to the point where the U-3 unemployment rate hits 25% while the rich are getting even richer, there WILL be movement to change the system.
It hasn't gone to zero, but it has lost 50% of it's value in a decade. The inflation-adjusted value of the dollar is far more stable than the inflation-adjusted value of gold. Not saying that gold is necessarily a bad investment, it has the potential to increase by a large amount, but it would be foolish to ignore the downside risk.
No one is saying that you should keep your retirement account in the stock market if you're retiring tomorrow. Generally accepted practice is to keep your savings in high variance, high return markets (like stocks) while you're young and gradually transition them to more stable holdings as retirement approaches.
Intention to harm is not required. Say it's a late night at a bar, I'm drunk but I decide to drive home anyway. I'm not intending to harm anyone and I may make it home without crashing. But it's still a crime either way.
We can't wean ourselves off oil until we increase our grid capacity to the point that we can shift all of our oil users (mostly motor vehicles) to grid power.
The antitrust laws are written to target monopolies. But their underlying reason for existence (as well as other regulations and statues under which Adobe may target Apple) is to prevent the abuse of market power. There are more ways to acquire market power than simply being a monopoly, and its abuse can be just as detrimental to the public good.
Don't pretend like Apple is some small powerless company. As of right now they are the 3rd most valuable company in the United States. Behind only Exxon-Mobil and Microsoft.
I'm going to have to call BS on this. I love to pile on Microsoft as much as the next guy, but the suggestion that Microsoft should have all these special restrictions just because they are the largest player in the operating system market doesn't have much of a logical basis.
Unless you're a computer gamer, the lock-in to the iPhone is every bit as strong as lock-in to Windows. Hell, it's stronger in a lot of ways because you can't cancel your contract without paying an ETF and even if you do you have to buy an entirely new piece of hardware. And the fact of the matter is, Apple's restrictions on the iPhone are far more draconian than Microsoft's ever were. Even during Microsoft's worse abuses in the 1990's users were fully capable of installing any plugins or browsers they wanted to use.
So you want to drop 20 million people in the middle of the desert without any supplies? Why not just line them up against a wall and shoot them? You'd save a lot on jet fuel and parachutes.
I agree it is vasly preferable for people to enter through the legal mechanisms.
Except that those mechanisms have yearly caps. And demand far exceeds the caps placed. So for many individuals, especially th every poor, the choice is immigrate illegally or not at all.
If you still don't want them to come in, that is your right. But don't pretend that they're coming in illegally because they don't want to fill out some papers, pay their taxes, and wait a couple of months.
To the extent that this happens at all, it's much more due to the fact that large insurance companies essentially come to doctors and say "we'll pay you 50% of your market rate and if you don't like it, all of our patients will go elsewhere." Some places (like the hospital where I am a student) are starting to get around that by giving a blanket uninsured discount rate. I'm not sure how insurance companies will respond to that, or if they'll even care. But to suggest that a profession still made up mostly of practices of less than a dozen physicians is centralized enough to collude in any meaningful manner is completely laughable. Now I agree that there is extreme sketchiness in the amount of power the AMA has to accredit new med schools, and how the specialties get to set the number of new members through their running of residencies. But that's a completely separate issue.
I would mod you up if I hand't posted elsewhere in this thread. The provision requiring large employees to provide health insurance is one of the few (actually pretty much the only), provision I wish weren't in there, for the reasons you just describe. I understand the political necessities of it, but it doesn't' mean I have to like it.
I'm not even convinced that this would bring down total health costs, much less improve the "added health value" we get per healthcare dollar. The problem with covering catastrophic care, but not routine expenses is that you substantially distort health care economic decisions for the consumer.
Consider an individual striving to maximize their utility by adjusting their healthcare purchases as they try to decide whether to go in for a routine physical at the doctor. Now there are two main factors affecting their utility, the monetary cost of something, and the health outcome. In other words, getting advanced cancer is bad both because you get sick and possibly die and because the treatment costs money.
Now, there are good reasons to believe that the dollar value of health increases as one gets richer. After all, it's a lot easier to justify a $50k operation/medicine course if you're just giving up your fifth car than it is if you're giving up four years salary. And this effect should apply to pretty much all health-money trade-offs.
Now back to the matter at hand. For the rich, it probably doesn't really matter if routine medical care is covered, as they are willing to pay a lot of money for a single unit of health, so they will pretty much do more or less whatever gives them optimal health.
The poor make a more interesting case. They will tend to value money much higher relative to health than do the rich. Now in the fully insured case money will not be an issue, so they will behave in the same way as the rich. The fully uninsured case is also fairly uninteresting, they will attempt to maximize their utility for whatever health-money trade-off they have. In the limiting case, they will begin to go in for routine checkups only insofar as it prevents health expenditures later. (We assume here that individuals will do everything in their power to stay alive.)
Now suppose one of these individuals has a policy that covers only catastrophic care. Suddenly, the monetary loss associated with diseases such as cancer disappears (or is reduced depending on the specifics of the policy, it doesn't really matter). The point is that they will reduce their consumption of routine checkups, not only in comparision to the level which is associated with optimal health, but also the level which is associated with the minimum expected expenditure necessary to stay alive. These individuals will actually have increased total health expenditures compared to the fully insured case.
And this isn't just a hypothetical case, doing health screenings at local grocery stores, I've found plenty of people with blood sugars of 600 (meaning they had massively uncontrolled diabetes). Who didn't even know they had it. And these are people who DON'T have catastrophic insurance. If you give them only catastrophic insurance, economic incentives to be in that condition will only increase.
This is a false choice. We are fully capable of providing chemo to the 25 year olds and to grandma. Now yes, there is a cost-years of life ratio beyond which it just doesn't make sense to pay for the treatment. But chemo is, IMHO, squarely on the "worth it" side for just about anyone who would benefit from it. The ONLY possible exception are the $50k/year still on patent biologics. And even then, $50,000 is well worth an additional year of life. So I'm happy to chip in for others in that situation with the understanding that they'll have my back if I ever need it.
Yes, but all statements of that nature were made by YouTube founders/employees prior to Google's purchase. The emails establish that Google was aware of the copyrighted content prior to purchase, but no where is there any proof or even strong evidence that Google encouraged this material in any way after their purchase. The closest they come is some weak email where some Google executive instructs the people in charge of YouTube (now owned by Google) to increase traffic, with a completely unfounded assertion that this included laxness on copyright issues.
Now was it evil for Google to buy Youtube, knowing that their current size was based on copyright infringement? I wouldn't say so, though I suppose an argument could be made. Though, the net effect of the YouTube acquisition was to DECREASE copyright violations.
Really, this is all irrelevant though. YouTube is most likely liable for the copyright infringements due to their policy of willfully ignoring them and such liability was transferred to Google at the time of purchase, which is all Viacom really cares about anyway.
Not only are vaccines not 100% effective, vaccinated children in low vaccine penetration are more likely to contract one of these diseases than vaccinated children in a high vaccine penetration area.
Tolls on highways are actually one of the more economically efficient forms of tax, at least if the highways are crowded and you can do it in a way that doesn't impede traffic too much (which EZpass more or less accomplishes.) This is because when an additional car gets onto a busy road, it imposes an economic cost on every other car on that road by increasing congestion, having to merge onto the highway, etc. A toll set at the proper level can alleviate this effect by ensuring that cars do not enter the highway unless it the value they gain from being on the highway is greater than the cost they impose on the other cars.
So you're saying that Obama somehow managed to run a deficit of 166% of GDP in 2009.
That aside, yes, the deficits have been far higher in 2009 and 2010. Do you know what else has been higher in those years? Unemployment. Also, wages are far down. Without taking legislative action of any kind the deficits would have blown up from increased unemployment payouts and decreased income tax revenue. The stimulus bill that all conservatives love to hate so much is not all that much of a long term contributer to debt because it phases out after 2 years. Hell, at $100 billion/year the Iraq War alone has added as much to the debt already as the stimulus bill ever will.
I'm not so sure about that. These interns were all there specifically for January term. Yeah maybe they wanted a summer job also, but even today it's not all that difficult to find an internship as a CS major from MIT.
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The thing is, if the situation ever really got that bad, there would be an overwhelming tide of public opinion to change it. And don't say the fact that such a shift in public opinion thus far shows it will never happen. The current situation is nowhere near as bad as the one you describe. If we ever get to the point where the U-3 unemployment rate hits 25% while the rich are getting even richer, there WILL be movement to change the system.
Today is one of the days that makes me happy that my mutual fund just tracks the S&P 500.
It hasn't gone to zero, but it has lost 50% of it's value in a decade. The inflation-adjusted value of the dollar is far more stable than the inflation-adjusted value of gold. Not saying that gold is necessarily a bad investment, it has the potential to increase by a large amount, but it would be foolish to ignore the downside risk.
No one is saying that you should keep your retirement account in the stock market if you're retiring tomorrow. Generally accepted practice is to keep your savings in high variance, high return markets (like stocks) while you're young and gradually transition them to more stable holdings as retirement approaches.
Intention to harm is not required. Say it's a late night at a bar, I'm drunk but I decide to drive home anyway. I'm not intending to harm anyone and I may make it home without crashing. But it's still a crime either way.
If I get drunk and decide to take a drive that's still a crime, regardless of whether or not I actually kill anyone.
We can't wean ourselves off oil until we increase our grid capacity to the point that we can shift all of our oil users (mostly motor vehicles) to grid power.
The antitrust laws are written to target monopolies. But their underlying reason for existence (as well as other regulations and statues under which Adobe may target Apple) is to prevent the abuse of market power. There are more ways to acquire market power than simply being a monopoly, and its abuse can be just as detrimental to the public good.
Don't pretend like Apple is some small powerless company. As of right now they are the 3rd most valuable company in the United States. Behind only Exxon-Mobil and Microsoft.
I'm going to have to call BS on this. I love to pile on Microsoft as much as the next guy, but the suggestion that Microsoft should have all these special restrictions just because they are the largest player in the operating system market doesn't have much of a logical basis. Unless you're a computer gamer, the lock-in to the iPhone is every bit as strong as lock-in to Windows. Hell, it's stronger in a lot of ways because you can't cancel your contract without paying an ETF and even if you do you have to buy an entirely new piece of hardware. And the fact of the matter is, Apple's restrictions on the iPhone are far more draconian than Microsoft's ever were. Even during Microsoft's worse abuses in the 1990's users were fully capable of installing any plugins or browsers they wanted to use.
Because the Nexus One is the only Android phone on the planet.
So you want to drop 20 million people in the middle of the desert without any supplies? Why not just line them up against a wall and shoot them? You'd save a lot on jet fuel and parachutes.
Because "might makes right" is such an excellent way to run the world.
I agree it is vasly preferable for people to enter through the legal mechanisms.
Except that those mechanisms have yearly caps. And demand far exceeds the caps placed. So for many individuals, especially th every poor, the choice is immigrate illegally or not at all.
If you still don't want them to come in, that is your right. But don't pretend that they're coming in illegally because they don't want to fill out some papers, pay their taxes, and wait a couple of months.
To the extent that this happens at all, it's much more due to the fact that large insurance companies essentially come to doctors and say "we'll pay you 50% of your market rate and if you don't like it, all of our patients will go elsewhere." Some places (like the hospital where I am a student) are starting to get around that by giving a blanket uninsured discount rate. I'm not sure how insurance companies will respond to that, or if they'll even care. But to suggest that a profession still made up mostly of practices of less than a dozen physicians is centralized enough to collude in any meaningful manner is completely laughable. Now I agree that there is extreme sketchiness in the amount of power the AMA has to accredit new med schools, and how the specialties get to set the number of new members through their running of residencies. But that's a completely separate issue.
I would mod you up if I hand't posted elsewhere in this thread. The provision requiring large employees to provide health insurance is one of the few (actually pretty much the only), provision I wish weren't in there, for the reasons you just describe. I understand the political necessities of it, but it doesn't' mean I have to like it.
I'm not even convinced that this would bring down total health costs, much less improve the "added health value" we get per healthcare dollar. The problem with covering catastrophic care, but not routine expenses is that you substantially distort health care economic decisions for the consumer.
Consider an individual striving to maximize their utility by adjusting their healthcare purchases as they try to decide whether to go in for a routine physical at the doctor. Now there are two main factors affecting their utility, the monetary cost of something, and the health outcome. In other words, getting advanced cancer is bad both because you get sick and possibly die and because the treatment costs money.
Now, there are good reasons to believe that the dollar value of health increases as one gets richer. After all, it's a lot easier to justify a $50k operation/medicine course if you're just giving up your fifth car than it is if you're giving up four years salary. And this effect should apply to pretty much all health-money trade-offs.
Now back to the matter at hand. For the rich, it probably doesn't really matter if routine medical care is covered, as they are willing to pay a lot of money for a single unit of health, so they will pretty much do more or less whatever gives them optimal health.
The poor make a more interesting case. They will tend to value money much higher relative to health than do the rich. Now in the fully insured case money will not be an issue, so they will behave in the same way as the rich. The fully uninsured case is also fairly uninteresting, they will attempt to maximize their utility for whatever health-money trade-off they have. In the limiting case, they will begin to go in for routine checkups only insofar as it prevents health expenditures later. (We assume here that individuals will do everything in their power to stay alive.)
Now suppose one of these individuals has a policy that covers only catastrophic care. Suddenly, the monetary loss associated with diseases such as cancer disappears (or is reduced depending on the specifics of the policy, it doesn't really matter). The point is that they will reduce their consumption of routine checkups, not only in comparision to the level which is associated with optimal health, but also the level which is associated with the minimum expected expenditure necessary to stay alive. These individuals will actually have increased total health expenditures compared to the fully insured case.
And this isn't just a hypothetical case, doing health screenings at local grocery stores, I've found plenty of people with blood sugars of 600 (meaning they had massively uncontrolled diabetes). Who didn't even know they had it. And these are people who DON'T have catastrophic insurance. If you give them only catastrophic insurance, economic incentives to be in that condition will only increase.
This is a false choice. We are fully capable of providing chemo to the 25 year olds and to grandma. Now yes, there is a cost-years of life ratio beyond which it just doesn't make sense to pay for the treatment. But chemo is, IMHO, squarely on the "worth it" side for just about anyone who would benefit from it. The ONLY possible exception are the $50k/year still on patent biologics. And even then, $50,000 is well worth an additional year of life. So I'm happy to chip in for others in that situation with the understanding that they'll have my back if I ever need it.
Yes, but all statements of that nature were made by YouTube founders/employees prior to Google's purchase. The emails establish that Google was aware of the copyrighted content prior to purchase, but no where is there any proof or even strong evidence that Google encouraged this material in any way after their purchase. The closest they come is some weak email where some Google executive instructs the people in charge of YouTube (now owned by Google) to increase traffic, with a completely unfounded assertion that this included laxness on copyright issues. Now was it evil for Google to buy Youtube, knowing that their current size was based on copyright infringement? I wouldn't say so, though I suppose an argument could be made. Though, the net effect of the YouTube acquisition was to DECREASE copyright violations. Really, this is all irrelevant though. YouTube is most likely liable for the copyright infringements due to their policy of willfully ignoring them and such liability was transferred to Google at the time of purchase, which is all Viacom really cares about anyway.
Not only are vaccines not 100% effective, vaccinated children in low vaccine penetration are more likely to contract one of these diseases than vaccinated children in a high vaccine penetration area.
Tolls on highways are actually one of the more economically efficient forms of tax, at least if the highways are crowded and you can do it in a way that doesn't impede traffic too much (which EZpass more or less accomplishes.) This is because when an additional car gets onto a busy road, it imposes an economic cost on every other car on that road by increasing congestion, having to merge onto the highway, etc. A toll set at the proper level can alleviate this effect by ensuring that cars do not enter the highway unless it the value they gain from being on the highway is greater than the cost they impose on the other cars.
It's not like the IRS doesn't get address updates every single year.
So you're saying that Obama somehow managed to run a deficit of 166% of GDP in 2009. That aside, yes, the deficits have been far higher in 2009 and 2010. Do you know what else has been higher in those years? Unemployment. Also, wages are far down. Without taking legislative action of any kind the deficits would have blown up from increased unemployment payouts and decreased income tax revenue. The stimulus bill that all conservatives love to hate so much is not all that much of a long term contributer to debt because it phases out after 2 years. Hell, at $100 billion/year the Iraq War alone has added as much to the debt already as the stimulus bill ever will.
I'm a beaver, you're a beaver, we are beavers all
And when we get together we do the beaver call
I'm not so sure about that. These interns were all there specifically for January term. Yeah maybe they wanted a summer job also, but even today it's not all that difficult to find an internship as a CS major from MIT.