I spent 20 years in Silicon Valley and I've lived in Scottsdale for the last five. It's the regulation and lack of competition that is driving up the cost of health insurance. My health insurance in Arizona is 50% of the cost of a policy in California and I have a lower deductible.
Why is this? It's because of the mandates imposed by California (state level regulation) and the fact that a Californian can't buy health insurance from out of state (federal level regulation).
When I first left college I needed health insurance because I was working for myself. Back then I could buy catastrophic coverage and there was a lot of competition. I only wanted catastrophic coverage because I was only concerned about being in an accident and any costs related to some awful, long-term illness. I was delighted with choice - I had my own health insurance at the level I desired.
That market disappeared when we decided that it's "cheaper" to have preventative care and catch diseases early. California took it much further - in California your insurance company has to provide the same level for addiction related mental health services as is provided for any other medical issue such as cancer. California has something on the order of 50 mandates included in their health insurance regulations and the new Affordable Care Act adds a bunch more. You are paying for those whether or not you want to, whether or not they will ever apply to you and whether or not you agree with their need. You may argue that that's a good thing because it spreads the costs of everyone's healthcare amongst everyone. You're entitled to believe that. I prefer to have wider choice and more options and don't want to have pay for unlimited mental health services for addiction issues or any of the other 50 mandates that California imposes.
Give me choice. The regulations introduced over the last thirty to forty years have been designed to eliminate choice and availability and have, as a result, increased costs.
On your final paragraph, Johnny, I get stopped everytime I drive through New Mexico and Texas and have to demonstrate to a Border Patrol Agent that I'm a U.S. citizen or else show papers that I'm here legally. I also get the pleasure of having a drug detecting dog sniff around my car.
Everyone gets stopped in many places around this country by the feds for the sole purpose of a citizenship and drug check - merely for having the temerity to be driving down the road in the U.S.
These programs have expanded under the current administration and now feature face-recognition cameras as well as the "papers please" stops.
I suggest just a little more research before you go off about racist cops and people being asked for their papers for no apparent reason.
People who are just walking around are not being stopped and were not being stopped.
The majority of stops are due to driving infractions. If the driver doesn't have a license then the LEO will start questioning why and develop probable cause that the person is in the country illegally. Someone in the country illegally can not get a driver's license.
So, how should this be handled - cop pulls someone over for speeding. Driver doesn't have a driver's license and, probably, no insurance - the two issues are often related. The person is already in enough trouble for speeding, driving without a license and driving without insurance. If the person speaks English as a second language then maybe, just maybe, the cop is justified in finding out if the person is in the country legally. It is the combination - stopped for a traffic infraction and lacking a driver's license that starts the ball rolling by giving some reasonably articulable suspicion that the person may not be here legally.
I grew up near D.C., spent twenty years in Silicon Valley and I've spent the last five in Scottsdale.
When I first moved from D.C. to Silicon Valley I was impressed with how laid back the culture was compared to D.C. When I first moved here I was impressed with how much friendlier it is here than in Silicon Valley.
If you don't want to move here then don't. But don't convince yourself that the crap you hear on the news has any basis in reality about how things work here. What makes the news is what's different from the "local" culture. Arizona is different from your local culture and the "local" culture of the national media. Fact is, Arizona is currently considered a toss-up state in the presidential election. I would argue that that indicates a more balanced approach to life than a locked-in state like California.
There is a stronger sense of law-and-order here as well as a stronger sense of personal responsibility and accountability here than there is in the larger population centers in California. Some of us like it that way and that's why we moved here. Some of you don't like it and prefer the warmth and comfort you get from a more involved government entity.
Rising like healthcare is an interesting comparison. In both markets we are missing a significant consumer component that I believe encourages pricing levels unrelated to the cost of production. When massive third-party funding sources are not only available but widely encouraged and expected we tend to reduce our willingness to perform basic consumer due-diligence related to pricing.
I've bargained heavily for every car I've purchased but never really have a chance to bargain over medical or tuition costs. On the other hand, non-subsidized health care services such as lasik and cosmetic surgery often have price-points as one of the determining factors for provider selection.
There are many incentives other than profit: increased research budgets, increased salaries, increased opportunities for sabbaticals. Increased tuition at state institutions allows for decreased budget allocations to the universities.
O.K., how many crimes have been solved because of gun registration or serial numbers?
Serial numbers aid in returning stolen and lost property. Unless you're suggesting that criminals legally purchase a gun, live in a state which requires registration, use it in a crime and then discard it at the crime scene.
I'm not opposed to serial numbers any more than I'm against any other type of personally identifying property in case it's stolen and then recovered.
Other than the usual feel-good emotions what do these requirements do to lower the rate of crime or increase the solution rate of crimes? And if they can be shown to solve either problem at what cost? Canada's gun registration costs approached $2 billion without aiding in the solution of a single crime.
The real purpose of these laws appears to be to create onerous processes in the manufacture, sale and possession of guns.
NDAs are like most legal tools - quite useful when utilized correctly and completely useless when placed in the hands of an amateur.
The real issue with NDAs it how ubiquitous they've become and, as a result, most people requesting them and most signing them really have no idea how to use them. I ran a fairly large business (approximately $200 million) within a much larger software company. We had NDAs but only used them when absolutely necessary because they're just too hard to properly manage.
A good NDA will specify that any information subject to the NDA will be so identified, e.g. CONFIDENTIAL or some other identifying mark. In my interactions with "outsiders" I always tried to keep information requiring an NDA at an absolute minimum. If it was really confidential enough to require a contract to prevent further dissemination then I had to really think about releasing it to anyone.
Blanket NDAs have become popular as a check-mark item to be accomplished before any meeting with outsiders. Some even think that having an NDA adds a certain cachet to the meeting and that the people attending will then feel as if they've been let in to the inner chambers. The folks who rely on such gimmicks generally have little substantial to offer. It's this amateurish approach to business interactions that drives the adoption of the NDA process, ultimately cheapening it in the process.
I had a hard-and-fast rule that I wouldn't sign an NDA without having my attorney look at it. This eliminated close to 100% of the requests for me to sign one. The worst I saw was at a chip manufacturer who's visitor log required a signature that was attached to an NDA at the top of the visitor log. I told them I wouldn't sign their visitor log without negotiating the terms but would be happy to meet them in the lobby. They replied that my signature wouldn't be necessary and I could come in for the scheduled meeting.
These checkpoints represent the epitome of the slippery slope.
I travel on this section of I-10 quite frequently driving from Scottsdale, Arizona to Baton Rouge, Louisiana. There are two permanent checkpoints on this stretch of I-10: just west of Las Cruces, New Mexico and east of El Paso (about 100 miles east). The U.S. Supreme Court held in U.S. v. Martinez-Fuerte that these permanent checkpoints were constitutionally reasonable seizures because they were minimal in scope and time. When stopped, the border patrol agent will ask if everyone in the car is a U.S. citizen.
Then the slippery slope began and the border patrol started deploying drug detection dogs at the checkpoints. The dogs aren't generally used to do a walk-around of each vehicle. Instead, the handler and the dog are stationed down-wind of the vehicle. If the dog alerts while the occupants of the car are being asked about their citizenship then the handler and the dog will approach the car and attempt to do a more thorough check and/or search.
Checkpoints to check for illegal drugs have already been ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. This type of hybrid check has not been challenged at that level yet.
This is a classic example of a slippery slope where the government justifies an action for one reason and then starts piggybacking on top of that action.
If any of the Supreme Court justices had actually driven through one of these checkpoints they would probably not have concluded that the stop was minimally invasive.
It is outrageous to me that anyone driving down the highway in this country can be stopped, interrogated and searched.
A side note: On my last drive through the checkpoint near Sierra Blanca, Texas on I-10 the car in front of me was released after answering the citizenship question. The drug dog and handler were next to my car, about 30 feet behind the car being checked, and the dog alerted. The border patrol called to the car to stop and the handler and dog approached the car. The dog immediately took a left turn and stuck his nose up the tailpipe of a border patrol pickup truck and either refused or couldn't extricate his nose. We had to wait a few minutes while they got the dog free from the pickup truck.
When I started programming I needed to learn, so, without networking available, I used to go in for a 1/2 day on Saturday to code and explore. A co-worker came to me one day and said I was making him look bad because I came in on Saturdays. I invited him to join me and he said he didn't want too. I said, no problem and continued to go in on Saturdays. I didn't care how he looked and I wasn't going to slow down because of how someone else felt about my effort.
The issue is that many who want to get ahead and those who love what they do will work harder than others and, I would argue, everything else being equal, deserve more - this is what the market is about.
Twenty years after starting I ran organizations of 200 or so people. I never held anything against anyone who took their vacation. I didn't reward anyone who worked more hours than others simply because they worked more hours. I rewarded those who contributed the most to the mission. Often, those were the people who worked more hours but this wasn't always the case. Some of the people who took the most time off were top contributors to the mission. I never had the time to pay attention to who was working what hours because I was too busy paying attention to our deliverables. If I managed my organizations based on how many hours people worked I would not have lasted in my position.
The only time I worried about hours worked was for non-exempt people who were racking up overtime without any increased output - but out of 200 people I only had two or three who were paid by the hour.
In the early '80s I was using a 3290 when programming on an IBM S/370 running MVS. I had it configured for 4 terminals and used them all. (And, yes it was uphill in the snow both ways.)
The need for multiple screens has nothing to do with modern development. I've always craved additional screen real estate because moving my eyes was always quicker than moving windows.
Those 3290s were very expensive and I remember there were only 2 of us who could justify getting one on our desks.
Today, I use two 30" monitors at 2560x1600 each and typically use all the space available when doing development. I find it excruciating having to do much development on my laptop screen at 1920x1080 but, of course, can survive and be productive. I'm personally just a lot more productive with a lot of screen real estate.
My family needed to be armed during Katrina. My brother-in-law's house was destroyed by a tornado. It took them days to be able to get back to the house and it involved many tools (axes, chainsaws, pry-bars, chains, 4x4 vehicles, etc.). There were no government entities even capable of helping them and the situation required rugged individualism. If you had been there then you too would have probably felt the need to be armed. If you had heard what was happening to the red cross volunteers you probably would have felt the need to be armed as well. It's not paranoia, it's planning.
My family has been trained and are members of CERT (Community Emergency Response Team). The goal of CERT is to train average people to handle disaster situations until first responders can arrive. We've seen multiple instances in recent memory in the U.S. where this can take days or weeks.
I keep a lot of things in case of disaster (in California): A 40-gallon sealed trash can kept outside with pry tools, hydraulic jacks, first-aid kits, hand cranked radios, food, water, 2-way radios with GPS, axes, etc. Fire extinguishers A fueled, portable generator Inside I have multiple CERT bags and quick-grab bags with essentials I have firearms for personal protection and I've had appropriate training Fire insurance Earthquake insurance Automobile insurance Health insurance Long-term care insurance
I am prepared and I don't expect to use any of the items on this list. However, I have had to use many of the items on this list and I was prepared and able to handle each one of them when the time came.
By your logic, if you need any of the items on this list then you are paranoid. By mine, if you have fewer than this list of items then you are unprepared.
I know that I'm the only one on my street with an earthquake survival and rescue kit. I also know that I would use that kit without hesitation to rescue anyone who was trapped. I would not wait for the "government" to help me. Who will rescue you?
With MC there's an on-line form: http://www.mastercard.us/support/merchant-violations.html.
With Visa one needs to complain to the issuing bank.
The first few times it was a pain figuring out how to do it but then it just becomes routine.
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The issue IS regulation.
I spent 20 years in Silicon Valley and I've lived in Scottsdale for the last five. It's the regulation and lack of competition that is driving up the cost of health insurance. My health insurance in Arizona is 50% of the cost of a policy in California and I have a lower deductible.
Why is this? It's because of the mandates imposed by California (state level regulation) and the fact that a Californian can't buy health insurance from out of state (federal level regulation).
When I first left college I needed health insurance because I was working for myself. Back then I could buy catastrophic coverage and there was a lot of competition. I only wanted catastrophic coverage because I was only concerned about being in an accident and any costs related to some awful, long-term illness. I was delighted with choice - I had my own health insurance at the level I desired.
That market disappeared when we decided that it's "cheaper" to have preventative care and catch diseases early. California took it much further - in California your insurance company has to provide the same level for addiction related mental health services as is provided for any other medical issue such as cancer. California has something on the order of 50 mandates included in their health insurance regulations and the new Affordable Care Act adds a bunch more. You are paying for those whether or not you want to, whether or not they will ever apply to you and whether or not you agree with their need. You may argue that that's a good thing because it spreads the costs of everyone's healthcare amongst everyone. You're entitled to believe that. I prefer to have wider choice and more options and don't want to have pay for unlimited mental health services for addiction issues or any of the other 50 mandates that California imposes.
Give me choice. The regulations introduced over the last thirty to forty years have been designed to eliminate choice and availability and have, as a result, increased costs.
On your final paragraph, Johnny, I get stopped everytime I drive through New Mexico and Texas and have to demonstrate to a Border Patrol Agent that I'm a U.S. citizen or else show papers that I'm here legally. I also get the pleasure of having a drug detecting dog sniff around my car.
Everyone gets stopped in many places around this country by the feds for the sole purpose of a citizenship and drug check - merely for having the temerity to be driving down the road in the U.S.
These programs have expanded under the current administration and now feature face-recognition cameras as well as the "papers please" stops.
I suggest just a little more research before you go off about racist cops and people being asked for their papers for no apparent reason.
OK, this nonsense has gone on far enough.
People who are just walking around are not being stopped and were not being stopped.
The majority of stops are due to driving infractions. If the driver doesn't have a license then the LEO will start questioning why and develop probable cause that the person is in the country illegally. Someone in the country illegally can not get a driver's license.
So, how should this be handled - cop pulls someone over for speeding. Driver doesn't have a driver's license and, probably, no insurance - the two issues are often related. The person is already in enough trouble for speeding, driving without a license and driving without insurance. If the person speaks English as a second language then maybe, just maybe, the cop is justified in finding out if the person is in the country legally. It is the combination - stopped for a traffic infraction and lacking a driver's license that starts the ball rolling by giving some reasonably articulable suspicion that the person may not be here legally.
I grew up near D.C., spent twenty years in Silicon Valley and I've spent the last five in Scottsdale.
When I first moved from D.C. to Silicon Valley I was impressed with how laid back the culture was compared to D.C. When I first moved here I was impressed with how much friendlier it is here than in Silicon Valley.
If you don't want to move here then don't. But don't convince yourself that the crap you hear on the news has any basis in reality about how things work here. What makes the news is what's different from the "local" culture. Arizona is different from your local culture and the "local" culture of the national media. Fact is, Arizona is currently considered a toss-up state in the presidential election. I would argue that that indicates a more balanced approach to life than a locked-in state like California.
There is a stronger sense of law-and-order here as well as a stronger sense of personal responsibility and accountability here than there is in the larger population centers in California. Some of us like it that way and that's why we moved here. Some of you don't like it and prefer the warmth and comfort you get from a more involved government entity.
Rising like healthcare is an interesting comparison. In both markets we are missing a significant consumer component that I believe encourages pricing levels unrelated to the cost of production. When massive third-party funding sources are not only available but widely encouraged and expected we tend to reduce our willingness to perform basic consumer due-diligence related to pricing.
I've bargained heavily for every car I've purchased but never really have a chance to bargain over medical or tuition costs. On the other hand, non-subsidized health care services such as lasik and cosmetic surgery often have price-points as one of the determining factors for provider selection.
There are many incentives other than profit: increased research budgets, increased salaries, increased opportunities for sabbaticals. Increased tuition at state institutions allows for decreased budget allocations to the universities.
O.K., how many crimes have been solved because of gun registration or serial numbers?
Serial numbers aid in returning stolen and lost property. Unless you're suggesting that criminals legally purchase a gun, live in a state which requires registration, use it in a crime and then discard it at the crime scene.
I'm not opposed to serial numbers any more than I'm against any other type of personally identifying property in case it's stolen and then recovered.
Other than the usual feel-good emotions what do these requirements do to lower the rate of crime or increase the solution rate of crimes? And if they can be shown to solve either problem at what cost? Canada's gun registration costs approached $2 billion without aiding in the solution of a single crime.
The real purpose of these laws appears to be to create onerous processes in the manufacture, sale and possession of guns.
NDAs are like most legal tools - quite useful when utilized correctly and completely useless when placed in the hands of an amateur.
The real issue with NDAs it how ubiquitous they've become and, as a result, most people requesting them and most signing them really have no idea how to use them. I ran a fairly large business (approximately $200 million) within a much larger software company. We had NDAs but only used them when absolutely necessary because they're just too hard to properly manage.
A good NDA will specify that any information subject to the NDA will be so identified, e.g. CONFIDENTIAL or some other identifying mark. In my interactions with "outsiders" I always tried to keep information requiring an NDA at an absolute minimum. If it was really confidential enough to require a contract to prevent further dissemination then I had to really think about releasing it to anyone.
Blanket NDAs have become popular as a check-mark item to be accomplished before any meeting with outsiders. Some even think that having an NDA adds a certain cachet to the meeting and that the people attending will then feel as if they've been let in to the inner chambers. The folks who rely on such gimmicks generally have little substantial to offer. It's this amateurish approach to business interactions that drives the adoption of the NDA process, ultimately cheapening it in the process.
I had a hard-and-fast rule that I wouldn't sign an NDA without having my attorney look at it. This eliminated close to 100% of the requests for me to sign one. The worst I saw was at a chip manufacturer who's visitor log required a signature that was attached to an NDA at the top of the visitor log. I told them I wouldn't sign their visitor log without negotiating the terms but would be happy to meet them in the lobby. They replied that my signature wouldn't be necessary and I could come in for the scheduled meeting.
These checkpoints represent the epitome of the slippery slope.
I travel on this section of I-10 quite frequently driving from Scottsdale, Arizona to Baton Rouge, Louisiana. There are two permanent checkpoints on this stretch of I-10: just west of Las Cruces, New Mexico and east of El Paso (about 100 miles east). The U.S. Supreme Court held in U.S. v. Martinez-Fuerte that these permanent checkpoints were constitutionally reasonable seizures because they were minimal in scope and time. When stopped, the border patrol agent will ask if everyone in the car is a U.S. citizen.
Then the slippery slope began and the border patrol started deploying drug detection dogs at the checkpoints. The dogs aren't generally used to do a walk-around of each vehicle. Instead, the handler and the dog are stationed down-wind of the vehicle. If the dog alerts while the occupants of the car are being asked about their citizenship then the handler and the dog will approach the car and attempt to do a more thorough check and/or search.
Checkpoints to check for illegal drugs have already been ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. This type of hybrid check has not been challenged at that level yet.
This is a classic example of a slippery slope where the government justifies an action for one reason and then starts piggybacking on top of that action.
If any of the Supreme Court justices had actually driven through one of these checkpoints they would probably not have concluded that the stop was minimally invasive.
It is outrageous to me that anyone driving down the highway in this country can be stopped, interrogated and searched.
A side note: On my last drive through the checkpoint near Sierra Blanca, Texas on I-10 the car in front of me was released after answering the citizenship question. The drug dog and handler were next to my car, about 30 feet behind the car being checked, and the dog alerted. The border patrol called to the car to stop and the handler and dog approached the car. The dog immediately took a left turn and stuck his nose up the tailpipe of a border patrol pickup truck and either refused or couldn't extricate his nose. We had to wait a few minutes while they got the dog free from the pickup truck.
When I started programming I needed to learn, so, without networking available, I used to go in for a 1/2 day on Saturday to code and explore. A co-worker came to me one day and said I was making him look bad because I came in on Saturdays. I invited him to join me and he said he didn't want too. I said, no problem and continued to go in on Saturdays. I didn't care how he looked and I wasn't going to slow down because of how someone else felt about my effort.
The issue is that many who want to get ahead and those who love what they do will work harder than others and, I would argue, everything else being equal, deserve more - this is what the market is about.
Twenty years after starting I ran organizations of 200 or so people. I never held anything against anyone who took their vacation. I didn't reward anyone who worked more hours than others simply because they worked more hours. I rewarded those who contributed the most to the mission. Often, those were the people who worked more hours but this wasn't always the case. Some of the people who took the most time off were top contributors to the mission. I never had the time to pay attention to who was working what hours because I was too busy paying attention to our deliverables. If I managed my organizations based on how many hours people worked I would not have lasted in my position.
The only time I worried about hours worked was for non-exempt people who were racking up overtime without any increased output - but out of 200 people I only had two or three who were paid by the hour.
In the early '80s I was using a 3290 when programming on an IBM S/370 running MVS. I had it configured for 4 terminals and used them all. (And, yes it was uphill in the snow both ways.)
The need for multiple screens has nothing to do with modern development. I've always craved additional screen real estate because moving my eyes was always quicker than moving windows.
Those 3290s were very expensive and I remember there were only 2 of us who could justify getting one on our desks.
Today, I use two 30" monitors at 2560x1600 each and typically use all the space available when doing development. I find it excruciating having to do much development on my laptop screen at 1920x1080 but, of course, can survive and be productive. I'm personally just a lot more productive with a lot of screen real estate.
My family needed to be armed during Katrina. My brother-in-law's house was destroyed by a tornado. It took them days to be able to get back to the house and it involved many tools (axes, chainsaws, pry-bars, chains, 4x4 vehicles, etc.). There were no government entities even capable of helping them and the situation required rugged individualism. If you had been there then you too would have probably felt the need to be armed. If you had heard what was happening to the red cross volunteers you probably would have felt the need to be armed as well. It's not paranoia, it's planning.
My family has been trained and are members of CERT (Community Emergency Response Team). The goal of CERT is to train average people to handle disaster situations until first responders can arrive. We've seen multiple instances in recent memory in the U.S. where this can take days or weeks.
I keep a lot of things in case of disaster (in California):
A 40-gallon sealed trash can kept outside with pry tools, hydraulic jacks, first-aid kits, hand cranked radios, food, water, 2-way radios with GPS, axes, etc.
Fire extinguishers
A fueled, portable generator
Inside I have multiple CERT bags and quick-grab bags with essentials
I have firearms for personal protection and I've had appropriate training
Fire insurance
Earthquake insurance
Automobile insurance
Health insurance
Long-term care insurance
I am prepared and I don't expect to use any of the items on this list. However, I have had to use many of the items on this list and I was prepared and able to handle each one of them when the time came.
By your logic, if you need any of the items on this list then you are paranoid. By mine, if you have fewer than this list of items then you are unprepared.
I know that I'm the only one on my street with an earthquake survival and rescue kit. I also know that I would use that kit without hesitation to rescue anyone who was trapped. I would not wait for the "government" to help me. Who will rescue you?
With MC there's an on-line form: http://www.mastercard.us/support/merchant-violations.html. With Visa one needs to complain to the issuing bank. The first few times it was a pain figuring out how to do it but then it just becomes routine.