Seriously, why aren't people angry that they're constantly being threatened with economic disaster every time we do anything to upset our corporate overlords? Do we like being pushed around and told what to do?
Like I said on another thread, we didn't put up with this shit when the Mafia did it, why are we doing it now?
why aren't people more angry at the constant threat of total economic devastation from mega corporations? When the Mafia did this shit we called in Eliot Ness and sorted their sorry asses out....
in the Union. Always has been. Not because of taxes, but because people want to live there. The weather's fantastic. They get little or no natural disasters (occasional fire or mud slide, nothing like east coast gets). Great beaches. Lots of parks. And you've got tons and tons of amenities (great sports teams, Disney Land, fantastic schools, etc, etc).
We've had 40 years of offshoring and outsourcing. If the companies could leave they would have done so already. It's high time we Americans called their bluff. Wanna leave? Fine. Go. Door's right there. Don't let it hit you where the dog shoulda bit you. You can go home, but you can't take the ball. If you try, we'll eminent domain your ass. This is our country, and we're through letting you threaten us.
not pre-med. She's got plenty of friends in other, less demanding majors who are going to spend a year as "ronin" trying to get into their classes. All with high GPAs (she's a bit of a nerd, so are her friends).
I suppose you might be right about Communications majors, she doesn't know any of those. None of her friends were dumb enough to spend $160k on a degree that earns $40k/yr tops. But isn't that what us/.ers want? We seem to really have it in for the humanities around here. Even more so than jocks. I wonder who put that idea in our heads? It wasn't us, that's for sure. Could it be somebody (like Koch media) has spent the last 30 years on a concentrated anti-education campaign. Naw. Couldn't be that.
showing that you're wrong. Starting in the 90s the State & Federal gov't pulled their funding. That's what made the cost of college sky rocket.
If you had kids in college (or were there yourself) you'd know this, because you'd know that for every 1 spot in the 300 and 400 level classes there's at least 2 qualified students. And by "qualified" I mean a GPA of 3.8 or higher. My kid just manged to squeak in. She was rocking a 4.0 and even that wasn't necessarily enough. She did a special prep program on top of that.
Now, if the reason for skyrocketing tuition was inflationary you'd expect the price to be much, much higher. Since in a capitalist system if you have more demand than supply and can't increase supply you raise prices. But that's not what's happened because teachers like to teach and they are desperately trying to. Even while folks like yourself sit on the sidelines and deride them...
but voting is stressful, exhausting and in many states just plain hard (thanks to Voter Suppression).
Things like this are designed to counter act that stress and exhaustion. They're good things. These people aren't any less informed than the useful idiots that the American Aristocracy has deemed allowed to vote. If anything they're _more_ informed. That's the problem. When you know how well and truly fucked the worlds is it's easy to get discouraged.
Greed did. Greedy aristocrats plunging us into pointless wars to retail their every growing power and wealth.
Folks aren't nearly as stupid as you think they are. But they _are_ beaten down. If it takes a singer to get them out of bed and to the polls, so be it. Folks know what's what. But America isn't a functioning Democracy. Gerrymandering and Voter suppression have wrecked it more than the occasional moron every will. These things were done by the very wealthy as part of a long, 40+ year campaign to shut down democracy, worker's rights and better pay for workers.
Like I said, Folks in general know this, but it's exhausting to face it head on. Whatever floats your boat to face reality is OK by me.
Can we just have vote by mail in all 50 states already? It's 2018. I shouldn't have to go to the polls. If somebody's trying to force you to the polls it's because they don't want you to vote.
maybe I don't. See, that's how healthcare works. You don't know you're going to need it until you do. So it makes sense to have a large risk pool. Otherwise when you, Kohath, get lung cancer from genetics and poor air quality in your city then your company runs out of money before you're cured and you get to die. They find a way to stop paying.
If all else fails they hassle the doctor until he gives up and stops prescribing you your meds. It's called the "Wallet Biopsy", your doc will silently (perhaps unconsciously) withhold treatment options because he knows your insurance won't pay and he can't afford to treat you for free. His practice will fail. If he has to he'll tell himself it's for the best, since if he goes under he can't treat anyone.
We know the solution: get the biggest risk pool possible. And what's the biggest risk pool possible? Everyone. aka Medicare for All.
Or you can just keep praying you don't get lung cancer. Or a heart murmer. Or legionnaires disease. Or any one of the dozens of horrible but treatable illnesses. Treatable with enough money that is. Sleep well tonight.
the prosecution gets to pick jurors too. Also, you're probably not going to get peers unless you're in your 50s since most people who work have to beg and plead to get out of it thanks to that joke of a per diem.
Plus, think of it this way, do you really want to be judged by a panel of folks too dumb to get out of jury duty?
We cannot allow our feelings to sway us when making this decision and we need to get this guy off the streets
Didn't even pause between those non-sequitur. Sure as hell didn't see the irony. Since then I've been opposed to Juries. The possibility of jury nullification saving me is dwarfed by the chances that somebody would send me up the river because they don't like the cut of my jib; especially since I'm a nerd.
depending on how you run the numbers and if you consider $1000 in the bank paycheck to paycheck (I certainly do).
They can't afford to take 1-3 weeks off from work making $12/day. Some would lose their cars or homes. Very few companies pay you while you're on Jury duty.
when the phony baloney plans went away the kitchen sink approach was there to shore up profits from the insurance companies being forced to cover everyone, even the really sick.
See, insurance is wildly profitable when you don't have to insure high risk customers. And with modern big data you know exactly who's high risk. Plus with all that sweet, sweet data you can always find some "pre existing" condition (my personal fav is skin cancer. Ever had acne medication? Congrats, you've had treatment for cancerous skin lesions, no more cancer meds for you, pre-existing).
The actual solution is to expand the risk pool to the largest possible: everyone. In otherwords, medicare for all. But we've had our heads stuffed full of insurance industry propaganda. They spent billions making sure you think the way you do because if you ever figure out the truth they and their blood sucking parasitic business model are through. They're fighting for their lives, so they're gonna be real nasty about it.
if you had a catastrophe you'd quickly find out they covered nothing. They were riddled with loop holes. If all else failed they'd declare it a pre-existing condition.
The plans were that cheap because they didn't work. Their purpose was to soak up money from rubes and (more often) divorced guys with a court order to have insurance. Reading the fine print they weren't worth the paper it was printed on.
And I know a couple mechanical engineers doing the same because they couldn't get jobs in their field (unless you count $15/hr in a machine shop as " in your field" after a tough 4 year degree program). There's plenty of talent, but they're not gonna pay for it. They'll have folks on work Visas running the factory in a year or two. Gave it Wisconsin, you got played. Now what are you gonna do about it? Nothing, I bet. Just keep voting the same bums in. Year after year...
to distract from the issue. We can't easily make those deaths go away. We could make those 45,000 death stop tomorrow. Just like Canada did. And the UK. And France. The Netherlands. Sweden. Germany. The list goes on. We are choosing to let these people die. And you could be next. Get sick, lose your job, lose your healthcare. Die. It happens 45,000 times every year. Every 11 minutes.
with help of the Blue Dogs. The law was supposed to have a Public Option to put pressure on the insurance companies. It didn't. Meanwhile the law made phony plans with no coverage illegal. So people who were paying $50+/mo for basically nothing suddenly had to have insurance for pay the fine.
The GOP plays to win. They don't care what the outcome is for America. They just want to win. The means when Obama compromised he was being tricked. He's smart. He knew this. But people where dying, and he did the best he could. I'm not so naive to think I could have done better. Maybe Bernie could have if we'd voted for him instead of that Orange jerk. We may never know.
they started climbing again when Trump pulled funding and generally sabotaged the exchanges. If you put somebody who is deeply opposed to a law in charge of implementing that law then the law fails, who knew?
This isn't to say Obamacare is a "good" law. It's terrible. It was terrible when the right wing Heritage Foundation created it. But it was the best we could get with a House and Senate full of right wing Blue Dog Dems and a milk toast right of center president.
We know what the solution is, it's Medicare for All. But the insurance companies spent $500 million killing a public option. They'll spend twice that killing Medicare for all. Even with all that 70% of Americans want it. But we need to make it a no-go issue. If a politician opposes it they don't get in office. That's how the British got the NHS. Winston Churchill himself didn't want it and the Brits told him, thanks for wining the war Winston but take a flying leap on that. That's the level we need.
the only one I ever hear is making it harder to sue for malpractice. I'm not sure if that's a good idea or not, and I mean that. It's a complicated topic. OTOH I'd love to be able to buy drugs from Canada (since they've got single payer they pay less) and have the Gov't negotiate lower drug prices for Medicare.
Speaking of which what I really want is to expand Medicare to everyone. It's got over 95% efficiency and similar programs work in every country they've been tried. Not like our insurance industries will allow that.
Slashdot Mirror
but it was extortion.
Seriously, why aren't people angry that they're constantly being threatened with economic disaster every time we do anything to upset our corporate overlords? Do we like being pushed around and told what to do?
Like I said on another thread, we didn't put up with this shit when the Mafia did it, why are we doing it now?
why aren't people more angry at the constant threat of total economic devastation from mega corporations? When the Mafia did this shit we called in Eliot Ness and sorted their sorry asses out....
in the Union. Always has been. Not because of taxes, but because people want to live there. The weather's fantastic. They get little or no natural disasters (occasional fire or mud slide, nothing like east coast gets). Great beaches. Lots of parks. And you've got tons and tons of amenities (great sports teams, Disney Land, fantastic schools, etc, etc).
We've had 40 years of offshoring and outsourcing. If the companies could leave they would have done so already. It's high time we Americans called their bluff. Wanna leave? Fine. Go. Door's right there. Don't let it hit you where the dog shoulda bit you. You can go home, but you can't take the ball. If you try, we'll eminent domain your ass. This is our country, and we're through letting you threaten us.
not pre-med. She's got plenty of friends in other, less demanding majors who are going to spend a year as "ronin" trying to get into their classes. All with high GPAs (she's a bit of a nerd, so are her friends).
/.ers want? We seem to really have it in for the humanities around here. Even more so than jocks. I wonder who put that idea in our heads? It wasn't us, that's for sure. Could it be somebody (like Koch media) has spent the last 30 years on a concentrated anti-education campaign. Naw. Couldn't be that.
I suppose you might be right about Communications majors, she doesn't know any of those. None of her friends were dumb enough to spend $160k on a degree that earns $40k/yr tops. But isn't that what us
showing that you're wrong. Starting in the 90s the State & Federal gov't pulled their funding. That's what made the cost of college sky rocket.
If you had kids in college (or were there yourself) you'd know this, because you'd know that for every 1 spot in the 300 and 400 level classes there's at least 2 qualified students. And by "qualified" I mean a GPA of 3.8 or higher. My kid just manged to squeak in. She was rocking a 4.0 and even that wasn't necessarily enough. She did a special prep program on top of that.
Now, if the reason for skyrocketing tuition was inflationary you'd expect the price to be much, much higher. Since in a capitalist system if you have more demand than supply and can't increase supply you raise prices. But that's not what's happened because teachers like to teach and they are desperately trying to. Even while folks like yourself sit on the sidelines and deride them...
they already do that. It's not as easy to lie to your spouse as you think. And I am way, way more concerned with this kind of coercion.
but voting is stressful, exhausting and in many states just plain hard (thanks to Voter Suppression).
Things like this are designed to counter act that stress and exhaustion. They're good things. These people aren't any less informed than the useful idiots that the American Aristocracy has deemed allowed to vote. If anything they're _more_ informed. That's the problem. When you know how well and truly fucked the worlds is it's easy to get discouraged.
Greed did. Greedy aristocrats plunging us into pointless wars to retail their every growing power and wealth.
Folks aren't nearly as stupid as you think they are. But they _are_ beaten down. If it takes a singer to get them out of bed and to the polls, so be it. Folks know what's what. But America isn't a functioning Democracy. Gerrymandering and Voter suppression have wrecked it more than the occasional moron every will. These things were done by the very wealthy as part of a long, 40+ year campaign to shut down democracy, worker's rights and better pay for workers.
Like I said, Folks in general know this, but it's exhausting to face it head on. Whatever floats your boat to face reality is OK by me.
right here
Can we just have vote by mail in all 50 states already? It's 2018. I shouldn't have to go to the polls. If somebody's trying to force you to the polls it's because they don't want you to vote.
too much paper work, too easy to add loop holes. Just give people medical care already. Like every other civilized nation.
maybe I don't. See, that's how healthcare works. You don't know you're going to need it until you do. So it makes sense to have a large risk pool. Otherwise when you, Kohath, get lung cancer from genetics and poor air quality in your city then your company runs out of money before you're cured and you get to die. They find a way to stop paying.
If all else fails they hassle the doctor until he gives up and stops prescribing you your meds. It's called the "Wallet Biopsy", your doc will silently (perhaps unconsciously) withhold treatment options because he knows your insurance won't pay and he can't afford to treat you for free. His practice will fail. If he has to he'll tell himself it's for the best, since if he goes under he can't treat anyone.
We know the solution: get the biggest risk pool possible. And what's the biggest risk pool possible? Everyone. aka Medicare for All.
Or you can just keep praying you don't get lung cancer. Or a heart murmer. Or legionnaires disease. Or any one of the dozens of horrible but treatable illnesses. Treatable with enough money that is. Sleep well tonight.
the prosecution gets to pick jurors too. Also, you're probably not going to get peers unless you're in your 50s since most people who work have to beg and plead to get out of it thanks to that joke of a per diem.
Plus, think of it this way, do you really want to be judged by a panel of folks too dumb to get out of jury duty?
Didn't even pause between those non-sequitur. Sure as hell didn't see the irony. Since then I've been opposed to Juries. The possibility of jury nullification saving me is dwarfed by the chances that somebody would send me up the river because they don't like the cut of my jib; especially since I'm a nerd.
depending on how you run the numbers and if you consider $1000 in the bank paycheck to paycheck (I certainly do).
They can't afford to take 1-3 weeks off from work making $12/day. Some would lose their cars or homes. Very few companies pay you while you're on Jury duty.
to my college days seeing the plans on offer when I worked at a Jack in the Box. Yep, like that. Absolute bullshit.
when the phony baloney plans went away the kitchen sink approach was there to shore up profits from the insurance companies being forced to cover everyone, even the really sick.
See, insurance is wildly profitable when you don't have to insure high risk customers. And with modern big data you know exactly who's high risk. Plus with all that sweet, sweet data you can always find some "pre existing" condition (my personal fav is skin cancer. Ever had acne medication? Congrats, you've had treatment for cancerous skin lesions, no more cancer meds for you, pre-existing).
The actual solution is to expand the risk pool to the largest possible: everyone. In otherwords, medicare for all. But we've had our heads stuffed full of insurance industry propaganda. They spent billions making sure you think the way you do because if you ever figure out the truth they and their blood sucking parasitic business model are through. They're fighting for their lives, so they're gonna be real nasty about it.
if you had a catastrophe you'd quickly find out they covered nothing. They were riddled with loop holes. If all else failed they'd declare it a pre-existing condition.
The plans were that cheap because they didn't work. Their purpose was to soak up money from rubes and (more often) divorced guys with a court order to have insurance. Reading the fine print they weren't worth the paper it was printed on.
And I know a couple mechanical engineers doing the same because they couldn't get jobs in their field (unless you count $15/hr in a machine shop as " in your field" after a tough 4 year degree program). There's plenty of talent, but they're not gonna pay for it. They'll have folks on work Visas running the factory in a year or two. Gave it Wisconsin, you got played. Now what are you gonna do about it? Nothing, I bet. Just keep voting the same bums in. Year after year...
to distract from the issue. We can't easily make those deaths go away. We could make those 45,000 death stop tomorrow. Just like Canada did. And the UK. And France. The Netherlands. Sweden. Germany. The list goes on. We are choosing to let these people die. And you could be next. Get sick, lose your job, lose your healthcare. Die. It happens 45,000 times every year. Every 11 minutes.
with help of the Blue Dogs. The law was supposed to have a Public Option to put pressure on the insurance companies. It didn't. Meanwhile the law made phony plans with no coverage illegal. So people who were paying $50+/mo for basically nothing suddenly had to have insurance for pay the fine.
The GOP plays to win. They don't care what the outcome is for America. They just want to win. The means when Obama compromised he was being tricked. He's smart. He knew this. But people where dying, and he did the best he could. I'm not so naive to think I could have done better. Maybe Bernie could have if we'd voted for him instead of that Orange jerk. We may never know.
they started climbing again when Trump pulled funding and generally sabotaged the exchanges. If you put somebody who is deeply opposed to a law in charge of implementing that law then the law fails, who knew?
This isn't to say Obamacare is a "good" law. It's terrible. It was terrible when the right wing Heritage Foundation created it. But it was the best we could get with a House and Senate full of right wing Blue Dog Dems and a milk toast right of center president.
We know what the solution is, it's Medicare for All. But the insurance companies spent $500 million killing a public option. They'll spend twice that killing Medicare for all. Even with all that 70% of Americans want it. But we need to make it a no-go issue. If a politician opposes it they don't get in office. That's how the British got the NHS. Winston Churchill himself didn't want it and the Brits told him, thanks for wining the war Winston but take a flying leap on that. That's the level we need.
we've been cutting State & Federal funding to colleges since the 90s. See here
If you want nice things you've got to pay for them. Well, unless you're rich. Then you just get the taxpayer to pay for it.
the only one I ever hear is making it harder to sue for malpractice. I'm not sure if that's a good idea or not, and I mean that. It's a complicated topic. OTOH I'd love to be able to buy drugs from Canada (since they've got single payer they pay less) and have the Gov't negotiate lower drug prices for Medicare.
Speaking of which what I really want is to expand Medicare to everyone. It's got over 95% efficiency and similar programs work in every country they've been tried. Not like our insurance industries will allow that.
I'm in a state with vote by mail, so I did it weeks ago.
Still can't get my friends to vote. They're convinced it gets you jury duty
by State & Federal Governments. Now we've got 100% out of pocket for students.