Well it's obvious you went to the Keynesien school of economics.
Every dollar that goverment spends is one less dollar that the individual spends. In fact, the return on government spending is LESS than individual spending (I'm trying to dig up those numbers now).
You cannot spend your way out of a recession. That money is best left in the hands of the individuals to spend as they will. Will some people resort to the hoarder mentality? Yep but it's not an absolute.
I don't know the situation in WA but it's not like they're not in the same boat as every other state in the country - reduced revenues and all.
There really needs to be, in all states, a line by line audit of where the states are spending money and where they can cut that spending or eliminate it entirely.
Reason did an amazing series with Drew Carey about "saving Cleveland". It had some awesome ideas that have been shown to be successful in other parts of the country. They admit that what works one place may not work in another but honestly when you're faced with a $300m shortfall, maybe you should try something new?
There is no such thing as a "fair tax". The actual FairTax is about the closest I've seen in a while.
People need to put the screws to government. Citizens of a state need to decide exactly what public services they want the government to provide. States need to stop doing stupid shit like building arenas and halls of fame and golf courses and bowing to the the "we'll leave if you don't subsidize our sports franchise" bullshit.
Yes, state revenues will contract but so will the needs of the state. No personal income tax + low corporate taxes + limited government = prosperity.
For the same reason some of us were saying "Maybe we should find out why Al Quaeda attacked us on 9/11" as opposed to yelling about "They hate our freedoms" and "You just want to blame America". If you never get at the root cause of a problem, you'll never truly solve it.
Bin Laden had some valid reasons for hating the US that has nothing to do with our "way of life" and more with our farcical nation building policy. That doesn't mean he was right or that it was entirely our fault. However, unless we understand ALL the factors, we'll be in the same boat again.
Similarly while I, in no uncertain terms, despise what Andrew Stack did, his REASONS for doing it were valid at some level. Does it take a broken person to finally resort to his actions? Yes, but what he said about the sheer fucked-upness of our current tax "code" has merit. He was unstable but is it possible that having to deal with the shit that he did with our government pushed him over a tipping point? Absolutely.
Andrew Stack wasn't some Ted Kazynski/David Koresh whack-job. He was an unstable person who got fucked by his own government. He's not to be lauded or praised for what he did but there's a lesson to be learned in how our current system is broken.
For too long people have been absolved of any personal responsibility in their lives. I'm not trying to be hyperbolic. I really do see that as the root cause.
We have a strange generation of people who think they are entitled to any and everything and if they can't have it then someone should give it to them.
Would I be in a bad way if my family had some sort of medical catastrophe? Probably but I cannot in good conscience expect the government to force someone to bail me out of that situation. I would do the best I could to continue to provide for my wife and kids. I would make sacrifices. I would use whatever savings I had and pull out of whatever retirement fund I could and deal with the tax penalties later. It could take years to recover but I wouldn't have done something so "immoral" as to steal from someone else to do it.
So yes, I do think that the root problem is that people have been "shielded" from having to deal with the true cost of health care. As I said earlier (maybe it was a different post) tying insurance to employment was a monumentally bad idea.
Look, people die. It sucks. I'm going to die some day and it will be a pretty bad day in my book. I hope that when I do, what I've been able to leave for my family hasn't been taxed to the ground.
Pragprog has an AWESOME book coming out that I can't wait to see reviewed called "SQL Antipatterns". Check out the sample chapter on selecting a random row from the database. Freaking brilliant stuff.
And to some degree, while Rails is the poster child for the power of Ruby it's also an albatross around its neck. It sucks in that regard and I love Ruby.
The root problem is that personal responsibility has not only been hidden or removed from the debate overall but now becomes nigh impossible.
Having health insurance tied to employment is the stupidest idea on the planet. It's an outdated idea from a time when people actually stayed with a particular company for life.
Ignoring that though, it's not even possible to affordably buy health insurance for yourself and be personally responsible for your own health. You can't shop around (don't like any of the plans in your state, tough shit). You can't get the same benefits as your employer (i.e. tax-free).
But in the end, it's all a moot point because what you and everyone else who supports this abortive piece of legislation is saying is that you think it's okay for you to force the government to take from me to provide for you. That's the antithesis of what this country was founded on and is directly opposed to the concept of freedom.
"Starting in 2013, flexible spending accounts, which allow users to escape taxes on many medical expenses now, will be limited. There will be a $2,500 maximum on accounts that typically carry $4,000 or $5,000 limits now, and you will no longer be able to use the accounts for over-the-counter medicines."
Hey guess what? My wife has an aunt who has diabetes and it's totally under control without medication. Diet and exercise only.
I'm sorry you have cancer but does that give you the right to force me, at the point of a gun, to pay for your care?
Because that's the point that people seem to want to gloss over. They don't want to think of it that way but that's the cold hard truth. You want the government to take my hard earned money from ME and give it to you. There's simply no other way to look at it.
But you kindly neglected to look over my original point. Is it possible that you could have saved up enough money to cover your expenses? Maybe. Maybe not. How much money DID you have saved up for emergencies? I'll wager not a goddamn penny.
This is the point I'm trying to make. It is simply impossible for an individual to provide for their own health care in this country. We've somehow grown accustomed to the fact that it's the responsibility of our employer, and now our government, to take care of us from cradle to grave.
You know what kind of legislation would have made sense?
- Remove the tax on personal medical plans like your company has had forever. - Allow you to buy insurance across state lines. - Allow you to have a tax-free savings account with no ceiling and no forfeiture
Medical costs are artificially inflated because the insurance companies have no competition in a given state (because only the biggest can afford to operate) and because of government pricing intervention.
Unless you're cursed by the gods, all three of those things haven't been going on all your life.
I'm sorry about your situation, I truly am but even with all of these hurdles nothing was preventing you from saving money for a catastrophic event. Regardless of that, you're still asking the people with the guns to take from me because you think you need it more. Forgive my lack of compassion.
No fault of their own? It's entirely their fault. That's the root of the problem, people are not only unwilling but they are actively discouraged from taking responsibility for their own actions. Yes, it's sounds callous but individual freedom and liberty is exactly that - individual.
It's impossible for me to shop for health insurance as an individual. The best I can do is start a savings account but THAT gets taxed to hell. I could enroll in an MSA but that has a cap on contributions AND assuming I have a particularly healthy year, I LOSE THE FUCKING MONEY if I don't spend it.
Greed is subjective and absolutely should not even be a part of the discussion. Businesses are amoral entities. Greed doesn't factor into the equation.
SCOTUS upheld Social Security only after the threat of Court packing. Is that bit of history something you really want to hold up as a paragon of our republic in action?
You do realize that auto insurance isn't mandatory right? I can't believe people still try to use this specious comparison.
1) I don't have to have auto insurance if I don't drive a car on public roadways. 2) In some states, you don't even HAVE to have auto insurance 3) I can opt out of auto insurance by choosing not to drive on public roads or by not having a car 4) Auto insurance is legislated at the state level
I have no such option with this new mandate. This is an unprecedented bit of legislation.
You should do a little more research. One reason that other countries have such lower health-care costs is because they don't have the associated R&D costs associated with it. Essentially we spend so much on health care because we also shoulder the burden of new medicine and treatment research. When was the last time something revolutionary in medicine came out of anywhere but the U.S.?
The biggest problem in this country with medicine is the tying of health care to employment. Just like we have no impetus to develop alternate fuel standards. Gas in this country is heavily subsidized in this country. No one EVER pays the real cost of gas. With health care, you don't have any other option.
As an individual, you can't shop around. You can't buy health insurance across state lines. Look at BC/BS (blue cross/blue shield). Imagine if your company had to essentially operate 50 different companies, one for each state? The administrative costs ALONE would kill you.
Re:I hope it's rushed through
on
Health Care Reform
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Other people have said it but essentially, a very LOOSE intepretation of allows for this kind of thing:
1) Wrap it up in tax code 2) Commerce Clause 3) General Welfare Clause
Do you remember when Sonia Sotomayor was being grilled during her confirmation hearings? It was either Diane Fienstien or some other person explicity asked about how loosely she interpreted the Commerce Clause because they use it as the basis for so many laws and that overly strict interpretation would make their job harder or somesuch nonsense.
Androidguys has an awesome series about android development. Ignoring the version issue for a moment, the other aspect that can cause "issues" is being a responsible multitasked process and screensize. They have articles on those specifically:
But back to the version information, 1.5 is the base version on any device out today but pretty much everything out there will be getting upgraded to at least 2.0. 2.1 is almost a feature set upgrade for 2.0 as opposed to a different release. I think a good rule is if you're developing something simple and "stupid" like a fart app, go 1.5. Gaming? Go 2.0+ (and look at using the NDK for that matter). Productivity I'd go 1.5 to reach the widest audience.
I wish that Google would get EVERYBODY on the same version. I am tired of waiting for Samsung to update my phone to 2.0 or 2.1. It is just silly that Motorola released two phones in the same time frame and one has 1.5 and one has 2.0! or that Verizon released two Android phones on the same day and one had 1.5 and one has 2.0. Or that T-Mobile has phones with 1.5, 1.6 and now 2.1! This fragmentation on such a new platform is just insane.
Google has realized that the fragmentation has been killing development. Combine that with UI changes and it can be a nightmare for developers.
However I'm of the opinion that you should only develop for stock Android of a given release. I just want to slap people who post stupid fucking comments on the app store that "X" doesn't work with Cyanogen mod Foo. The risk of running unsupported firmware is that it doesn't work. You knew that going into it. Why should people cowtow to you?
The point is that the HOPEFULLY with the google store for Android powered phones, they can drive the market to stick as close to stock Android as possible. I would hope that Sense UI and Motoblur devices would be kept off the official Google store or at least come with a disclaimer that this is a customization and that not all apps will work with it.
Additionally, Google needs to implement some sort of automated app scanner that determines if the app is making 1.6,2.0 or 2.1 compliant system calls and version the apps presented in the store to each device as supporting that release.
I have no idea what to do about the screen issue though but I think it's going to come down to two differentiators - Android Powered (Sense UI, Motoblur, whatever Sony is calling their version) and Android Experience (stock - DROID and Nexus 2). Maybe "Android Experience" dictates a fixed screensize or some basic level of specification.
Well I would consider camera and mic to be media related. Sorry if that wasn't clear. Additionally, I would have assumed internet access was a given..what with being flash and all.
My point is that with the default android settings (no root access, no installable apk files unless from the market) and a very solid sandbox system, there really ISN'T much that a flash "virus" could do. The android garbage collector would kill it so no background process running. Again, the sandbox permissions would prevent it from getting into any sensitive data.
We'll just have to see how well flash is sandboxed but the mental exercise is fun.
I'm not suggesting that enterprises disable "Allow Unsupported Devices" but my understanding of Touchdown is that it DOES implement ActiveSync properly. What's really annoying about the whole argument is that all it takes is for the security to be bypassed is for the activesync client to lie about capabilities.
The attack vector for mobile flash on android is going to be insanely hard to get around. The browser is already sandboxed. It's quite likely that the flash plugin will be a separate sandboxed application as well. The ONLY android permissions that flash needs are media related and MAYBE MAYBE MAYBE geolocation information.
While the default Exchange integration on Android 2.0 doesn't support all of the Exchange security features, Touchdown ( http://www.nitrodesk.com/dk_touchdownFeatures.aspx ) DOES. I used it initially on my DROID and am currently testing the native stuff now that Motorola released a corporate directory app on the app store. Remote wipe *IS* supported by the native android ActiveSync implementation but not PIN security IIRC.
There are actually perfectly good reasons for per-application streams. Imagine listening to a podcast via a headset that has a mic. A phone call comes in over Skype. I want the podcast volume to drop but not Skype. It's pretty common in gaming as well - Game volume is X (via the headset) but voice chat volume is Y (via the same headset).
I had to put it down. Maybe I went in with a different expectation but it was SUCH a hard slog the first part of the book. I'll probably restart it over the holidays and get through it. It's good to know that it gets better.
I love his work in general. Snow Crash is one of my all time favorite books. I had no problem absolutely devouring the System of the World series yet Anathem just felt "hard" to get in to.
Slashdot Mirror
Well it's obvious you went to the Keynesien school of economics.
Every dollar that goverment spends is one less dollar that the individual spends. In fact, the return on government spending is LESS than individual spending (I'm trying to dig up those numbers now).
You cannot spend your way out of a recession. That money is best left in the hands of the individuals to spend as they will. Will some people resort to the hoarder mentality? Yep but it's not an absolute.
I don't know the situation in WA but it's not like they're not in the same boat as every other state in the country - reduced revenues and all.
There really needs to be, in all states, a line by line audit of where the states are spending money and where they can cut that spending or eliminate it entirely.
Reason did an amazing series with Drew Carey about "saving Cleveland". It had some awesome ideas that have been shown to be successful in other parts of the country. They admit that what works one place may not work in another but honestly when you're faced with a $300m shortfall, maybe you should try something new?
http://reason.com/blog/2010/02/25/save-the-week-reason-saves-cle
There is no such thing as a "fair tax". The actual FairTax is about the closest I've seen in a while.
People need to put the screws to government. Citizens of a state need to decide exactly what public services they want the government to provide. States need to stop doing stupid shit like building arenas and halls of fame and golf courses and bowing to the the "we'll leave if you don't subsidize our sports franchise" bullshit.
Yes, state revenues will contract but so will the needs of the state. No personal income tax + low corporate taxes + limited government = prosperity.
For the same reason some of us were saying "Maybe we should find out why Al Quaeda attacked us on 9/11" as opposed to yelling about "They hate our freedoms" and "You just want to blame America". If you never get at the root cause of a problem, you'll never truly solve it.
Bin Laden had some valid reasons for hating the US that has nothing to do with our "way of life" and more with our farcical nation building policy. That doesn't mean he was right or that it was entirely our fault. However, unless we understand ALL the factors, we'll be in the same boat again.
Similarly while I, in no uncertain terms, despise what Andrew Stack did, his REASONS for doing it were valid at some level. Does it take a broken person to finally resort to his actions? Yes, but what he said about the sheer fucked-upness of our current tax "code" has merit. He was unstable but is it possible that having to deal with the shit that he did with our government pushed him over a tipping point? Absolutely.
Andrew Stack wasn't some Ted Kazynski/David Koresh whack-job. He was an unstable person who got fucked by his own government. He's not to be lauded or praised for what he did but there's a lesson to be learned in how our current system is broken.
So then let's define greed. Who decides what greed is?
I'm going to have to just agree to disagree.
For too long people have been absolved of any personal responsibility in their lives. I'm not trying to be hyperbolic. I really do see that as the root cause.
We have a strange generation of people who think they are entitled to any and everything and if they can't have it then someone should give it to them.
Would I be in a bad way if my family had some sort of medical catastrophe? Probably but I cannot in good conscience expect the government to force someone to bail me out of that situation. I would do the best I could to continue to provide for my wife and kids. I would make sacrifices. I would use whatever savings I had and pull out of whatever retirement fund I could and deal with the tax penalties later. It could take years to recover but I wouldn't have done something so "immoral" as to steal from someone else to do it.
So yes, I do think that the root problem is that people have been "shielded" from having to deal with the true cost of health care. As I said earlier (maybe it was a different post) tying insurance to employment was a monumentally bad idea.
Look, people die. It sucks. I'm going to die some day and it will be a pretty bad day in my book. I hope that when I do, what I've been able to leave for my family hasn't been taxed to the ground.
Pragprog has an AWESOME book coming out that I can't wait to see reviewed called "SQL Antipatterns". Check out the sample chapter on selecting a random row from the database. Freaking brilliant stuff.
And to some degree, while Rails is the poster child for the power of Ruby it's also an albatross around its neck. It sucks in that regard and I love Ruby.
Again, the rest of my post is entirely ignored.
The root problem is that personal responsibility has not only been hidden or removed from the debate overall but now becomes nigh impossible.
Having health insurance tied to employment is the stupidest idea on the planet. It's an outdated idea from a time when people actually stayed with a particular company for life.
Ignoring that though, it's not even possible to affordably buy health insurance for yourself and be personally responsible for your own health. You can't shop around (don't like any of the plans in your state, tough shit). You can't get the same benefits as your employer (i.e. tax-free).
But in the end, it's all a moot point because what you and everyone else who supports this abortive piece of legislation is saying is that you think it's okay for you to force the government to take from me to provide for you. That's the antithesis of what this country was founded on and is directly opposed to the concept of freedom.
I'd have to go back and look but it's moot at this point because HSA/MSA accounts are being eviscerated under the new bill:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/03/21/us/health-care-reform.html
"Starting in 2013, flexible spending accounts, which allow users to escape taxes on many medical expenses now, will be limited. There will be a $2,500 maximum on accounts that typically carry $4,000 or $5,000 limits now, and you will no longer be able to use the accounts for over-the-counter medicines."
Hey guess what? My wife has an aunt who has diabetes and it's totally under control without medication. Diet and exercise only.
I'm sorry you have cancer but does that give you the right to force me, at the point of a gun, to pay for your care?
Because that's the point that people seem to want to gloss over. They don't want to think of it that way but that's the cold hard truth. You want the government to take my hard earned money from ME and give it to you. There's simply no other way to look at it.
But you kindly neglected to look over my original point. Is it possible that you could have saved up enough money to cover your expenses? Maybe. Maybe not. How much money DID you have saved up for emergencies? I'll wager not a goddamn penny.
This is the point I'm trying to make. It is simply impossible for an individual to provide for their own health care in this country. We've somehow grown accustomed to the fact that it's the responsibility of our employer, and now our government, to take care of us from cradle to grave.
You know what kind of legislation would have made sense?
- Remove the tax on personal medical plans like your company has had forever.
- Allow you to buy insurance across state lines.
- Allow you to have a tax-free savings account with no ceiling and no forfeiture
Medical costs are artificially inflated because the insurance companies have no competition in a given state (because only the biggest can afford to operate) and because of government pricing intervention.
Unless you're cursed by the gods, all three of those things haven't been going on all your life.
I'm sorry about your situation, I truly am but even with all of these hurdles nothing was preventing you from saving money for a catastrophic event. Regardless of that, you're still asking the people with the guns to take from me because you think you need it more. Forgive my lack of compassion.
No fault of their own? It's entirely their fault. That's the root of the problem, people are not only unwilling but they are actively discouraged from taking responsibility for their own actions. Yes, it's sounds callous but individual freedom and liberty is exactly that - individual.
It's impossible for me to shop for health insurance as an individual. The best I can do is start a savings account but THAT gets taxed to hell. I could enroll in an MSA but that has a cap on contributions AND assuming I have a particularly healthy year, I LOSE THE FUCKING MONEY if I don't spend it.
Define greed.
Greed is subjective and absolutely should not even be a part of the discussion. Businesses are amoral entities. Greed doesn't factor into the equation.
SCOTUS upheld Social Security only after the threat of Court packing. Is that bit of history something you really want to hold up as a paragon of our republic in action?
You do realize that auto insurance isn't mandatory right? I can't believe people still try to use this specious comparison.
1) I don't have to have auto insurance if I don't drive a car on public roadways.
2) In some states, you don't even HAVE to have auto insurance
3) I can opt out of auto insurance by choosing not to drive on public roads or by not having a car
4) Auto insurance is legislated at the state level
I have no such option with this new mandate. This is an unprecedented bit of legislation.
You should do a little more research. One reason that other countries have such lower health-care costs is because they don't have the associated R&D costs associated with it. Essentially we spend so much on health care because we also shoulder the burden of new medicine and treatment research. When was the last time something revolutionary in medicine came out of anywhere but the U.S.?
The biggest problem in this country with medicine is the tying of health care to employment. Just like we have no impetus to develop alternate fuel standards. Gas in this country is heavily subsidized in this country. No one EVER pays the real cost of gas. With health care, you don't have any other option.
As an individual, you can't shop around. You can't buy health insurance across state lines. Look at BC/BS (blue cross/blue shield). Imagine if your company had to essentially operate 50 different companies, one for each state? The administrative costs ALONE would kill you.
Other people have said it but essentially, a very LOOSE intepretation of allows for this kind of thing:
1) Wrap it up in tax code
2) Commerce Clause
3) General Welfare Clause
Do you remember when Sonia Sotomayor was being grilled during her confirmation hearings? It was either Diane Fienstien or some other person explicity asked about how loosely she interpreted the Commerce Clause because they use it as the basis for so many laws and that overly strict interpretation would make their job harder or somesuch nonsense.
Androidguys has an awesome series about android development. Ignoring the version issue for a moment, the other aspect that can cause "issues" is being a responsible multitasked process and screensize. They have articles on those specifically:
http://www.androidguys.com/category/ag-originals/building-droids/
But back to the version information, 1.5 is the base version on any device out today but pretty much everything out there will be getting upgraded to at least 2.0. 2.1 is almost a feature set upgrade for 2.0 as opposed to a different release. I think a good rule is if you're developing something simple and "stupid" like a fart app, go 1.5. Gaming? Go 2.0+ (and look at using the NDK for that matter). Productivity I'd go 1.5 to reach the widest audience.
I wish that Google would get EVERYBODY on the same version. I am tired of waiting for Samsung to update my phone to 2.0 or 2.1. It is just silly that Motorola released two phones in the same time frame and one has 1.5 and one has 2.0! or that Verizon released two Android phones on the same day and one had 1.5 and one has 2.0. Or that T-Mobile has phones with 1.5, 1.6 and now 2.1!
This fragmentation on such a new platform is just insane.
That's the whole point of http://google.com/phone
Google has realized that the fragmentation has been killing development. Combine that with UI changes and it can be a nightmare for developers.
However I'm of the opinion that you should only develop for stock Android of a given release. I just want to slap people who post stupid fucking comments on the app store that "X" doesn't work with Cyanogen mod Foo. The risk of running unsupported firmware is that it doesn't work. You knew that going into it. Why should people cowtow to you?
The point is that the HOPEFULLY with the google store for Android powered phones, they can drive the market to stick as close to stock Android as possible. I would hope that Sense UI and Motoblur devices would be kept off the official Google store or at least come with a disclaimer that this is a customization and that not all apps will work with it.
Additionally, Google needs to implement some sort of automated app scanner that determines if the app is making 1.6,2.0 or 2.1 compliant system calls and version the apps presented in the store to each device as supporting that release.
I have no idea what to do about the screen issue though but I think it's going to come down to two differentiators - Android Powered (Sense UI, Motoblur, whatever Sony is calling their version) and Android Experience (stock - DROID and Nexus 2). Maybe "Android Experience" dictates a fixed screensize or some basic level of specification.
Well I would consider camera and mic to be media related. Sorry if that wasn't clear. Additionally, I would have assumed internet access was a given..what with being flash and all.
My point is that with the default android settings (no root access, no installable apk files unless from the market) and a very solid sandbox system, there really ISN'T much that a flash "virus" could do. The android garbage collector would kill it so no background process running. Again, the sandbox permissions would prevent it from getting into any sensitive data.
We'll just have to see how well flash is sandboxed but the mental exercise is fun.
I'm not suggesting that enterprises disable "Allow Unsupported Devices" but my understanding of Touchdown is that it DOES implement ActiveSync properly. What's really annoying about the whole argument is that all it takes is for the security to be bypassed is for the activesync client to lie about capabilities.
The attack vector for mobile flash on android is going to be insanely hard to get around. The browser is already sandboxed. It's quite likely that the flash plugin will be a separate sandboxed application as well. The ONLY android permissions that flash needs are media related and MAYBE MAYBE MAYBE geolocation information.
While the default Exchange integration on Android 2.0 doesn't support all of the Exchange security features, Touchdown ( http://www.nitrodesk.com/dk_touchdownFeatures.aspx ) DOES. I used it initially on my DROID and am currently testing the native stuff now that Motorola released a corporate directory app on the app store. Remote wipe *IS* supported by the native android ActiveSync implementation but not PIN security IIRC.
There are actually perfectly good reasons for per-application streams. Imagine listening to a podcast via a headset that has a mic. A phone call comes in over Skype. I want the podcast volume to drop but not Skype. It's pretty common in gaming as well - Game volume is X (via the headset) but voice chat volume is Y (via the same headset).
They need to get out of the news print business. I was JUST playing pundit about this the other day:
http://lusislog.blogspot.com/2009/11/saving-newspaper-industry.html
You are NOT going to be able to compete with instant information via print that I can see.
I had to put it down. Maybe I went in with a different expectation but it was SUCH a hard slog the first part of the book. I'll probably restart it over the holidays and get through it. It's good to know that it gets better.
I love his work in general. Snow Crash is one of my all time favorite books. I had no problem absolutely devouring the System of the World series yet Anathem just felt "hard" to get in to.