Government intervention in education and health care produces results in literally every other developed country, frequently results better than ours. Are you claiming that the US can't be made great?
Most people work for other people as employees, and normally the employer has a lot more negotiating leverage. Providing something like universal basic income and decent health care would even the scales a lot, and lead to better allocation of national resources.
Got a source for that 60%? I'd be interested in following up.
She said that she lost money on Medicare patients because she still had to pay her employees and pay for supplies and such. She said that she wanted to treat them, and she wasn't that concerned about her making money on them, but that the reimbursement was less than her cost of doing business. This wasn't opportunity cost, this was actually losing money.
Assuming you pay US Federal income tax, you are subsidizing the most expensive way to give health care to the people who can't afford regular health care. This is part of the US health care system that pretty much nobody likes, but not enough people can agree on how to fix it so we're stuck with it for now.
If I don't buy an album, the artist doesn't get paid. It doesn't matter why I don't buy it. I may not have the money, or I might not want to spend the money on an album I haven't listened to. The question the industry should be asking is how they can induce me to buy, not how to prevent me from listening if I don't buy. The answers to these questions are normally different. Many people pirate far more than they could afford, so after a certain amount of piracy the artists weren't going to get paid anyway. Many people pirate to see if they like something before they buy, and would spend less on music if they couldn't pirate, and so stopping piracy may reduce the number of albums purchased.
As far as the rationale goes, here's one: Music is worth something, so more copies of music is worth more than fewer. It's possible to increase the planetary wealth very slightly by making more copies of music. If the pirate wasn't going to pay for the music anyway, for whatever reason, there's no effect on the legitimate economy because of the piracy or lack of same. Therefore, it's good to pirate music you want if you wouldn't have paid for it anyway.
Children have less to learn in many cases. Even in the backward US, weights and measures are a lot simpler than they used to be. Being able to write by hand quickly and readably (I managed the quickly) was vital when I was a kid, but now dropping cursive looks like a better and better idea.
We do have more history now (partly because we've been learning more about already existing history), and more science. We don't have to teach all of it. If kids used to wind up knowing 2% of science and now know 1.5%, but still get the general idea, we're fine. Becoming better thinkers and problem solvers is useful, and class instruction can be useful there, but you need to give kids free time to practice those skills.
In the meantime, we're still working with humans, and humans have limits. We need to work within those limits, and adding additional school time will work only up to a point, and I suspect we're already there.
I think part of the reasoning was that Dungeons & Dragons players were covert Satanists, who'd need to sacrifice [rolls dice] five children every [rolls dice] fifteen months.
Just part of the desire to ban teenager activity that isn't sex and drugs.
By rationing health care by cost, you're ensuring that poor people will have a great deal of difficulty getting even basic health care, and that any significant health problem will wipe them out financially and has a good chance of leaving them to die. Many people find this unacceptable.
Many countries have a certain level of health care provided for free, and allow people to purchase increased levels of care. It's not an either-or situation.
Nobody's suggesting a system where "unworthy" people get health care and "worthy" people don't. Those of us who want a first-world health care system here want everyone covered. As far as people who want to be sure that nobody else is getting something that might be undeserved, screw 'em. They cause enough problems already, and swell welfare costs.
It isn't always clear whether a kid has a cold or something serious, and given the state of US healthcare a lot of people can't afford more cost-effective care. Moreover, poor people basically don't pay their emergency room bills, because they can't, so it doesn't matter how much the ER charges.
A friend of mine once complained to me that treating Medicare patients cost her money, given the costs she had to pay for supplies, nurses, etc., not even counting money for her. She may not have been operating a cost-efficient practice (I have much more confidence in her as a surgeon than her as a businessperson), but I doubt she was way far out of line.
Yup. There's much to be said for allowing pharma companies to make a lot of money on what they devise for several years, and drug patents tend to be relatively short in effect. The expense of getting an FDA approval is much more dangerous, since it can keep something tied up forever. The barrier to entry can be sufficiently high that company A won't want to get a replacement for company B's drug or device approved, lest B drop the price enough to make A lose money overall.
Yup. The FDA needs to become more flexible in approving drugs and devices licensed in other countries, or we need to be legally able to import them personally.
One really big problem is that there's too much money in drug lobbies who are absolutely against the government doing anything to contain the costs, by allowing more imports of stuff found to be safe and effective elsewhere, or by using its purchasing power to negotiate.
I think you'll find that Clinton is viewed more favorably by people of other countries, where the hate machine is at least less active, and there have been European candidates for high office (e.g., Berlusconi) who don't deserve to be there.
I await an explanation as to how a lack of government intervention guarantees everyone access to quality education and health care, and why the disposable worker concept promotes family stability.
You also seem to assume that someone who is hard working will normally achieve a middle-class income, which is dubious at best.
You were claiming that there's a significant difference between someone who can write gcode and someone who has to manipulate things manually, and I don't see it. Milling is complicated, and even if you understand the gcode you won't necessarily understand what's going to happen inside the mill. If someone can operate a mill manually, they can almost certainly write down what they're doing in gcode with a little training. Obviously knowing how to cook and knowing how to use a CNC mill are very different skill sets.
Your list of jobs that may require programming isn't all that long, and the jobs aren't all that common. They aren't very diverse either, most being in STEM fields. For someone who's going to be a physicist, I would recommend learning something about programming. For someone who's going to be a chef, I'd recommend skipping it in favor of something else.
I don't make twice as much money because I work twice as hard. I make more money primarily because of my genetic makeup and upbringing, and I can't take any credit for that. I don't feel guilty or anything, but the fact is that from some moral points of view I don't deserve to make as much as I do. There's lots of people who work harder than me and earn a lot less money.
I'm also not going to feel guilty for buying more stuff than the person who was less fortunate in genetics and/or upbringing. However, in an emergency situation, I don't feel like I should be treated better because I have more money. People at that time have immediate needs, and I'd rather see those tended by some priority other than how much they can afford.
If you take $50 rides as a matter of course, then you almost certainly can afford a single $120 ride. However, some of the people were presumably intending to use mass transit out of the area, which was disrupted, and some of them likely could afford $50 but not $120.
[The name change is] a legal fact. I can continue to use the old name because "Chelsea" is not a woman and never will be, and I became familiar with the person as Bradley, not "Chelsea".
In any case, you are referring to a person by a name that is not hers, and which she does not want to be addressed by. You are assuming a sex that is not based on brain characteristics, and refusing to use Manning's name because you think it's a name of the wrong sex. I'm obviously not going to get you to use the proper gender of pronoun, but by using a name that isn't hers because of your prejudices, you're being rude.
We sure don't want to rush these out half-baked, and I'm happy to report that the Pittsburgh experimental vehicles have drivers ready to take over at a moment's notice. One observer reported difficulty in staying engaged enough, which was expected, and will continue to be a problem.
I don't think automated cars will always be luxury items. They'll cost more than non-automated cars, unless we get to the point where we no longer need driver controls and displays, and if that happens at all it's a long time in the future. If they show sufficient advantages in safety, they may be mandated at some point down the line, like seat belts and catalytic converters. I believe there will always be non-automated vehicles for things like race cars, but they may eventually not be considered street-legal.
For a minimum time on that, figure at least another five years to make autonomous vehicles usable, another five to notice the safety difference, and another fifteen to change over. I am not at all confident it will happen in my lifetime.
Climate is complicated, data is noisy, and nothing is monotonic. Arctic sea ice is in decline, just not in a nice ordered progression. 2007 was an outlier, like 1998 for global temperatures.
What's happening with the areas mentioned is obviously that they're losing ice, and the quotation is clear about that. The "if" and "I think" are speculations about the future - meaning that it might or might not stop happening in the future.
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Government intervention in education and health care produces results in literally every other developed country, frequently results better than ours. Are you claiming that the US can't be made great?
Most people work for other people as employees, and normally the employer has a lot more negotiating leverage. Providing something like universal basic income and decent health care would even the scales a lot, and lead to better allocation of national resources.
Got a source for that 60%? I'd be interested in following up.
She said that she lost money on Medicare patients because she still had to pay her employees and pay for supplies and such. She said that she wanted to treat them, and she wasn't that concerned about her making money on them, but that the reimbursement was less than her cost of doing business. This wasn't opportunity cost, this was actually losing money.
Assuming you pay US Federal income tax, you are subsidizing the most expensive way to give health care to the people who can't afford regular health care. This is part of the US health care system that pretty much nobody likes, but not enough people can agree on how to fix it so we're stuck with it for now.
You know, if you didn't start the body of your post in the subject line, it would be easier to write grammatically.
If I don't buy an album, the artist doesn't get paid. It doesn't matter why I don't buy it. I may not have the money, or I might not want to spend the money on an album I haven't listened to. The question the industry should be asking is how they can induce me to buy, not how to prevent me from listening if I don't buy. The answers to these questions are normally different. Many people pirate far more than they could afford, so after a certain amount of piracy the artists weren't going to get paid anyway. Many people pirate to see if they like something before they buy, and would spend less on music if they couldn't pirate, and so stopping piracy may reduce the number of albums purchased.
As far as the rationale goes, here's one: Music is worth something, so more copies of music is worth more than fewer. It's possible to increase the planetary wealth very slightly by making more copies of music. If the pirate wasn't going to pay for the music anyway, for whatever reason, there's no effect on the legitimate economy because of the piracy or lack of same. Therefore, it's good to pirate music you want if you wouldn't have paid for it anyway.
Children have less to learn in many cases. Even in the backward US, weights and measures are a lot simpler than they used to be. Being able to write by hand quickly and readably (I managed the quickly) was vital when I was a kid, but now dropping cursive looks like a better and better idea.
We do have more history now (partly because we've been learning more about already existing history), and more science. We don't have to teach all of it. If kids used to wind up knowing 2% of science and now know 1.5%, but still get the general idea, we're fine. Becoming better thinkers and problem solvers is useful, and class instruction can be useful there, but you need to give kids free time to practice those skills.
In the meantime, we're still working with humans, and humans have limits. We need to work within those limits, and adding additional school time will work only up to a point, and I suspect we're already there.
I think part of the reasoning was that Dungeons & Dragons players were covert Satanists, who'd need to sacrifice [rolls dice] five children every [rolls dice] fifteen months.
Just part of the desire to ban teenager activity that isn't sex and drugs.
I'd think the danger is that the current manufacturer could drop the price dramatically, so the newcomer wouldn't make its investment back.
By rationing health care by cost, you're ensuring that poor people will have a great deal of difficulty getting even basic health care, and that any significant health problem will wipe them out financially and has a good chance of leaving them to die. Many people find this unacceptable.
Many countries have a certain level of health care provided for free, and allow people to purchase increased levels of care. It's not an either-or situation.
Nobody's suggesting a system where "unworthy" people get health care and "worthy" people don't. Those of us who want a first-world health care system here want everyone covered. As far as people who want to be sure that nobody else is getting something that might be undeserved, screw 'em. They cause enough problems already, and swell welfare costs.
It isn't always clear whether a kid has a cold or something serious, and given the state of US healthcare a lot of people can't afford more cost-effective care. Moreover, poor people basically don't pay their emergency room bills, because they can't, so it doesn't matter how much the ER charges.
A friend of mine once complained to me that treating Medicare patients cost her money, given the costs she had to pay for supplies, nurses, etc., not even counting money for her. She may not have been operating a cost-efficient practice (I have much more confidence in her as a surgeon than her as a businessperson), but I doubt she was way far out of line.
Yup. There's much to be said for allowing pharma companies to make a lot of money on what they devise for several years, and drug patents tend to be relatively short in effect. The expense of getting an FDA approval is much more dangerous, since it can keep something tied up forever. The barrier to entry can be sufficiently high that company A won't want to get a replacement for company B's drug or device approved, lest B drop the price enough to make A lose money overall.
Yup. The FDA needs to become more flexible in approving drugs and devices licensed in other countries, or we need to be legally able to import them personally.
One really big problem is that there's too much money in drug lobbies who are absolutely against the government doing anything to contain the costs, by allowing more imports of stuff found to be safe and effective elsewhere, or by using its purchasing power to negotiate.
I think you'll find that Clinton is viewed more favorably by people of other countries, where the hate machine is at least less active, and there have been European candidates for high office (e.g., Berlusconi) who don't deserve to be there.
I await an explanation as to how a lack of government intervention guarantees everyone access to quality education and health care, and why the disposable worker concept promotes family stability.
You also seem to assume that someone who is hard working will normally achieve a middle-class income, which is dubious at best.
You were claiming that there's a significant difference between someone who can write gcode and someone who has to manipulate things manually, and I don't see it. Milling is complicated, and even if you understand the gcode you won't necessarily understand what's going to happen inside the mill. If someone can operate a mill manually, they can almost certainly write down what they're doing in gcode with a little training. Obviously knowing how to cook and knowing how to use a CNC mill are very different skill sets.
Your list of jobs that may require programming isn't all that long, and the jobs aren't all that common. They aren't very diverse either, most being in STEM fields. For someone who's going to be a physicist, I would recommend learning something about programming. For someone who's going to be a chef, I'd recommend skipping it in favor of something else.
I haven't developed on iOS. (I haven't developed anything on Android, either, but I'm better set up for it.)
I don't make twice as much money because I work twice as hard. I make more money primarily because of my genetic makeup and upbringing, and I can't take any credit for that. I don't feel guilty or anything, but the fact is that from some moral points of view I don't deserve to make as much as I do. There's lots of people who work harder than me and earn a lot less money.
I'm also not going to feel guilty for buying more stuff than the person who was less fortunate in genetics and/or upbringing. However, in an emergency situation, I don't feel like I should be treated better because I have more money. People at that time have immediate needs, and I'd rather see those tended by some priority other than how much they can afford.
If you take $50 rides as a matter of course, then you almost certainly can afford a single $120 ride. However, some of the people were presumably intending to use mass transit out of the area, which was disrupted, and some of them likely could afford $50 but not $120.
Thanks for the good explanation.
In any case, you are referring to a person by a name that is not hers, and which she does not want to be addressed by. You are assuming a sex that is not based on brain characteristics, and refusing to use Manning's name because you think it's a name of the wrong sex. I'm obviously not going to get you to use the proper gender of pronoun, but by using a name that isn't hers because of your prejudices, you're being rude.
We sure don't want to rush these out half-baked, and I'm happy to report that the Pittsburgh experimental vehicles have drivers ready to take over at a moment's notice. One observer reported difficulty in staying engaged enough, which was expected, and will continue to be a problem.
I don't think automated cars will always be luxury items. They'll cost more than non-automated cars, unless we get to the point where we no longer need driver controls and displays, and if that happens at all it's a long time in the future. If they show sufficient advantages in safety, they may be mandated at some point down the line, like seat belts and catalytic converters. I believe there will always be non-automated vehicles for things like race cars, but they may eventually not be considered street-legal.
For a minimum time on that, figure at least another five years to make autonomous vehicles usable, another five to notice the safety difference, and another fifteen to change over. I am not at all confident it will happen in my lifetime.
Climate is complicated, data is noisy, and nothing is monotonic. Arctic sea ice is in decline, just not in a nice ordered progression. 2007 was an outlier, like 1998 for global temperatures.
You also misused "begs the question".
What's happening with the areas mentioned is obviously that they're losing ice, and the quotation is clear about that. The "if" and "I think" are speculations about the future - meaning that it might or might not stop happening in the future.
The far right refuses to acknowledge there's a problem, and I think the far left is being a little more useful than that.