I agree, bush and obama had no other option than to take a big bite of the shit sandwich, and the rest of the world's leaders had to line up behind them. Allowing the banks and mega-corps to fall like dominoes would have been great depression bad, rather than the current bubble burst bad.
My opinion is that It's a managerial fuck-up, so they should man-up and feel the consequences via higher taxes, an extra 5% on the top 5% and an extra 10% on the top 2% sounds fair to me.
But that's easier said than done, I believe (but cannot prove) that our PM (Rudd) was thrown under the bus because he dared to be serious about miners paying a modest windfall tax while the industry is booming to the point of straining public infrastructure. Currently there's a bunch of heavy industries, (and their pet "journalists"), spending millions to try and convince the public that a ~0.03% increase in costs from a carbon tax on heavy industry and mining is going to kill the economy. I think it just proves the old adage that "nobody gets rich by writing cheques".
Victoria's roads have not seen a decrease in accident rates in years unlike the rest of the world.
Yes. However Victoria was/is seen as a world leader in reducing it's road toll, and I've observed the change as a driver since 1977, the stats show their effectiveness but after the massive reductions in the 80-90's, most of what's left are non-preventabile accidents or Darwin awards. Once the first big gains were seen, other states followed, and then other countries flocked here to see how it was done, ie: other countries are now lagging but will catch up soon enough.
As an old fart I think that over the years most Aussie government's from both sides have made a "good faith" effort to use real world data to efficiently direct their efforts towards specific types/locations of road accidents where there is most room for improvement. It is, IMHO, a good example of what governments can do well, but too often don't. TFA looks like a continuation of that tradition - it's aimed at reducing the number of valid excuses for kids in uniforms to chase kids in stolen cars, which I imagine accounts for a significant portion of the current road toll.
Yes, drones are a double edge sword, as an Aussie these particular drones don't raise my eyebrow, there are way too many catastrophes involving kids in stolen cars trying to out run the cops. When you get to "get of my lawn" age you'll be able to rattle of at least a few people you know who were killed or maimed on the road, A personal example; My best mates 15yo son was found dead, 5m up a tree, 2 days after one such catastrophe that killed 6 teenagers, and to pre-empt all the armchair parents out there, no, it wasn't "his parent's fault".
With a drone doing the patrolling, the chase is over as soon as it's locked on to the stolen car, expensive resources such as helicopters can stop patrolling and focus on the current hot spots. - More efficient, safer, very slight increase in the chances of a normal driver getting a ticket. I don't have the right to ignore speed limits, so no tangible reductions to my rights. Sure you could make a "boiled frog" argument about rights, but IRL frogs, like kids in stolen cars, will try to get out when things are too uncomfortable.
Yes, and we can thank a yank for the brilliant design of our nations capital.
- Pick an empty spot far away from population centres.
- Build the world's largest concentric round-about and put all the politicians in the middle of it.
- From high up, the round-about looks like a giant bulls eye, making it safe and easy to nuke from orbit.
Sure. However, I've been driving in Oz for 35yrs, for as long as I can remember there have been "airborne speed traps", these are clearly signposted and have a line several feet thick painted across the road where they start and end (usually 1-5km apart). They're only on country roads, and are so obvious that any driver who misses one really shouldn't be behind the wheel. OTOH, I've never known anybody to get a ticket from a "flying pig", which is probably why lot of people simply ignore them.
Malthus was a chief proponent of what became erringly called "Social Darwinism".
I fail to see how he could be a chief proponent of something that did not emerge until half a century after his death. There is a lot of claptrap written about Malthus, here's a brief outline of his Social theory, it's a non-prescriptive "evolutionary social theory of population dynamics". In other words, science did not create Social Darwinism or the Eugenics Movement, bigotry did that all by itself.
Don't know about the US but there are plenty of bare metal machines available here in Oz, and not just in the major cities. As for the subject at hand, I would be very surprised if there wasn't an on/off switch in the bios setup, so wiping a department store abomination shouldn't be a problem.
But, in today's world we're expected to always compete whether we want to or not
This has been a fact of life since the first proto-cells started eating each other about 4Gyrs ago, the very reason cooperation evolved in the first place was it imparted a competitive advantage. You and I may not like relentless competition, but there's fuck all we can do about the fundamental facts of life.
"but propaganda will never work against intelligent people
That belief is exactly why propaganda DOES work on intelligent people. Skepticisim is an important tool for spotting propaganda and pseudo-scientific claims, self-skepticisim is an essential tool.
Hi Doc, I trust you and your figures, but fuck me 23% is unbelievably low for millionaires, no wonder the US budget is dripping in red ink. As a comparison here's the Aussie income tax rates, sales tax is 10%, and the top capital gains rate is 30%, there are no other significant taxes that normal people pay. Company tax is ~30% IIRC.
So as a professional on $100K/yr I'm paying a total tax rate of ~35%. However, our budget is balanced, we have a strong economy with low unemployment and I enjoy a good standard of living in my beach house that's 30min from the city, so I have no complaints about paying it. In fact I would love to be on $1M/yr and pay the higher rate.
Funny you picked serious disfigurement, Perth has world renowned burns unit and Adelaide has world renowned facial reconstruction unit. Surgeons from around the world come to both units to study and both units have enough spare time to do charity work, particularly in SE Asia.
The "queue" is based on medical need, so yes if there's an unusually heavy load you may become a little disfigured while the doctors with the requisite skills are busy preventing others from becoming a lot disfigured. Such a system is obviously not perfect but it is fair and ethical in the sense that money and social status are irrelevant to your position in the "queue" for the finite medical resources any conceivable system will have.
Dunno? However at 52 I am finding a lot of friends and relatives are having "elective surgery" and the waiting time from decision to cut and the actual cutting is around a month.
What would be news is reports of successful treatments that are available overseas but not in the US.
Actually it wouldn't, new surgical procedures in particular are routinely developed by small teams all over the world and then spread to other nations via the global network of teaching hospitals.
Insightful? Hardly, no amount of bold text will make a logical argument appear where there is none.
And your logical fallacy is comparing the US to a despot's playground, so lets compare the US to Australia .
1. Australia is ranked around 10th for health outcomes by the WHO, the US around 35th. I once researched what this meant and it turns out that the Aussie death panels need to kill an extra 20K people a year to catch up with the US.
2. The Aussie government spends a similar amount per capita on health care as the US government, but somehow manages to balance the budget and provide full health cover for ALL of it's citizens.
3. UHC is 1.5% of taxable income + $500 for "high income earners" who have no private cover. For example, I earn ~$100K/yr and pay $2k/yr tax levy for UHC, I would pay a $1500/yr levy if I was a the sole bread winner of a family or purchased $500 worth of private cover. From what I understand $1500 is comparable to what a family of four would pay per MONTH in the US for full cover. (Currently $1.00AU = $1.02US)
4. The Aussie government can't worm it's way out of paying the bill on a technicality that's clearly stated in (say) Appendix C, Paragraph 17, of an insurance contract.
5. No Aussie fears bankruptcy from medical bills. Prescription drug costs are capped at $1200/yr for a family, anything above that is "free".
6. UHC enjoys bipartisan support in Oz, it's a political football in the US. This more than anything explains why the US taxpayer gets such a woeful return on their labyrinth of publicly funded heath care "systems" (see point 2).
7. You can still buy private cover in Oz starting at around $500/yr but you're mainly paying for cosmetics, creature comforts, and "alternative medicine", you cannot use cash or private insurance to buy better or faster medical treatment.
8. The Aussie government invests in preventative programs such as free check-ups at work and health awareness campaigns in the media. An ounce of prevention really is worth a pound of cure.
9. The Aussie government has reciprocal arrangements to treat tourists from other nations with UHC systems as they would their own citizens. I learnt this when I became violently ill in the UK. After being treated I wanted to know how to pay, "Just show the front desk your passport" was the doctors answer.
10. I can walk into a local clinic without an appointment and be talking to a doctor within an hour, within minutes if I'm spewing into a bucket or bleeding profusely.
Is the Aussie system perfect? - Far from it, but it's light years ahead of the US industry.
People from all over the world come to the US for rapid access to treatment if they have the money because their countries socialist healthcare causes shortages and long lines.
I'm pretty sure I could get treated for a serious ailment here in Australia much faster than I could organise a US visa.
You support the constitution, right? Well off the top of my head...
Perry wants to repeal the 16th & 17th amendments (source his 2010 book). You think the economy is in a bad way now and congress is controlled by mega-corps? - What will it look like when the feds can't collect income taxes and senators are appointed rather than elected? Also, Perry's recent "pray for rain day" stunt makes a mockery of the 1st.
Bachman wants to disband the federal reserve and replace it with...I don't know...fairy dust? I don't think she even understands the constitution since her light bulb bill would have required Congress to trample all over the executive branch's enumerated powers.
These people may call themselves “constitutional conservatives”, but from my vantage point they walk and talk like extremists.
I'm not a grammar Nazi, my prose is often full of it's/its and your/you're mistakes. So before someone calls you an idiot for a simple syntax error I would just like to point out you have made the then/than mistake twice as in "more efficient then computers" and "better at this type of problem solving then computers".
According to TFA, the gamers are named as co-authors on the write-up in a highly prestigious journal, which is very nice kudos indeed.
Yes, I suspect F@H players are like OSS contributors at heart, they enjoy a puzzle and just want a bit of recognition when they're the first to solve it.
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I agree, bush and obama had no other option than to take a big bite of the shit sandwich, and the rest of the world's leaders had to line up behind them. Allowing the banks and mega-corps to fall like dominoes would have been great depression bad, rather than the current bubble burst bad.
My opinion is that It's a managerial fuck-up, so they should man-up and feel the consequences via higher taxes, an extra 5% on the top 5% and an extra 10% on the top 2% sounds fair to me.
But that's easier said than done, I believe (but cannot prove) that our PM (Rudd) was thrown under the bus because he dared to be serious about miners paying a modest windfall tax while the industry is booming to the point of straining public infrastructure. Currently there's a bunch of heavy industries, (and their pet "journalists"), spending millions to try and convince the public that a ~0.03% increase in costs from a carbon tax on heavy industry and mining is going to kill the economy. I think it just proves the old adage that "nobody gets rich by writing cheques".
That's the bullshit collector, anything smaller would melt.
Victoria's roads have not seen a decrease in accident rates in years unlike the rest of the world.
Yes. However Victoria was/is seen as a world leader in reducing it's road toll, and I've observed the change as a driver since 1977, the stats show their effectiveness but after the massive reductions in the 80-90's, most of what's left are non-preventabile accidents or Darwin awards. Once the first big gains were seen, other states followed, and then other countries flocked here to see how it was done, ie: other countries are now lagging but will catch up soon enough.
As an old fart I think that over the years most Aussie government's from both sides have made a "good faith" effort to use real world data to efficiently direct their efforts towards specific types/locations of road accidents where there is most room for improvement. It is, IMHO, a good example of what governments can do well, but too often don't. TFA looks like a continuation of that tradition - it's aimed at reducing the number of valid excuses for kids in uniforms to chase kids in stolen cars, which I imagine accounts for a significant portion of the current road toll.
Yes, drones are a double edge sword, as an Aussie these particular drones don't raise my eyebrow, there are way too many catastrophes involving kids in stolen cars trying to out run the cops. When you get to "get of my lawn" age you'll be able to rattle of at least a few people you know who were killed or maimed on the road, A personal example; My best mates 15yo son was found dead, 5m up a tree, 2 days after one such catastrophe that killed 6 teenagers, and to pre-empt all the armchair parents out there, no, it wasn't "his parent's fault".
With a drone doing the patrolling, the chase is over as soon as it's locked on to the stolen car, expensive resources such as helicopters can stop patrolling and focus on the current hot spots. - More efficient, safer, very slight increase in the chances of a normal driver getting a ticket. I don't have the right to ignore speed limits, so no tangible reductions to my rights. Sure you could make a "boiled frog" argument about rights, but IRL frogs, like kids in stolen cars, will try to get out when things are too uncomfortable.
FFS, just climb up the top of the parliament house flagpole and you can see the whole state
Yes, the parliament house flagpole is a mighty erection.
Yes, and we can thank a yank for the brilliant design of our nations capital.
- Pick an empty spot far away from population centres.
- Build the world's largest concentric round-about and put all the politicians in the middle of it.
- From high up, the round-about looks like a giant bulls eye, making it safe and easy to nuke from orbit.
There is a way to trap drivers into speeding.
Sure. However, I've been driving in Oz for 35yrs, for as long as I can remember there have been "airborne speed traps", these are clearly signposted and have a line several feet thick painted across the road where they start and end (usually 1-5km apart). They're only on country roads, and are so obvious that any driver who misses one really shouldn't be behind the wheel. OTOH, I've never known anybody to get a ticket from a "flying pig", which is probably why lot of people simply ignore them.
Malthus was a chief proponent of what became erringly called "Social Darwinism".
I fail to see how he could be a chief proponent of something that did not emerge until half a century after his death. There is a lot of claptrap written about Malthus, here's a brief outline of his Social theory, it's a non-prescriptive "evolutionary social theory of population dynamics". In other words, science did not create Social Darwinism or the Eugenics Movement, bigotry did that all by itself.
Try wearing them when looking at the present, I find it helps calm the nerves..
Yes, in a way I'm obviously wearing rose-tinted glasses
I agree. :)
Don't know about the US but there are plenty of bare metal machines available here in Oz, and not just in the major cities. As for the subject at hand, I would be very surprised if there wasn't an on/off switch in the bios setup, so wiping a department store abomination shouldn't be a problem.
What I meant was that when compared to say, my parents' generation, my generation clearly has to compete on a different level.
My parents were born during the great depression. The game's rules and the prizes are in constant flux, but the competition has always been full on.
Agreed, and if you argue with yourself too loudly you may find yourself sitting next to Tyler Durden on plane.
But, in today's world we're expected to always compete whether we want to or not
This has been a fact of life since the first proto-cells started eating each other about 4Gyrs ago, the very reason cooperation evolved in the first place was it imparted a competitive advantage. You and I may not like relentless competition, but there's fuck all we can do about the fundamental facts of life.
"but propaganda will never work against intelligent people
That belief is exactly why propaganda DOES work on intelligent people. Skepticisim is an important tool for spotting propaganda and pseudo-scientific claims, self-skepticisim is an essential tool.
an effective income tax rate of 23.27%
Hi Doc, I trust you and your figures, but fuck me 23% is unbelievably low for millionaires, no wonder the US budget is dripping in red ink. As a comparison here's the Aussie income tax rates, sales tax is 10%, and the top capital gains rate is 30%, there are no other significant taxes that normal people pay. Company tax is ~30% IIRC.
So as a professional on $100K/yr I'm paying a total tax rate of ~35%. However, our budget is balanced, we have a strong economy with low unemployment and I enjoy a good standard of living in my beach house that's 30min from the city, so I have no complaints about paying it. In fact I would love to be on $1M/yr and pay the higher rate.
Funny you picked serious disfigurement, Perth has world renowned burns unit and Adelaide has world renowned facial reconstruction unit. Surgeons from around the world come to both units to study and both units have enough spare time to do charity work, particularly in SE Asia.
The "queue" is based on medical need, so yes if there's an unusually heavy load you may become a little disfigured while the doctors with the requisite skills are busy preventing others from becoming a lot disfigured. Such a system is obviously not perfect but it is fair and ethical in the sense that money and social status are irrelevant to your position in the "queue" for the finite medical resources any conceivable system will have.
Dunno? However at 52 I am finding a lot of friends and relatives are having "elective surgery" and the waiting time from decision to cut and the actual cutting is around a month.
What would be news is reports of successful treatments that are available overseas but not in the US.
Actually it wouldn't, new surgical procedures in particular are routinely developed by small teams all over the world and then spread to other nations via the global network of teaching hospitals.
Insightful? Hardly, no amount of bold text will make a logical argument appear where there is none.
And your logical fallacy is comparing the US to a despot's playground, so lets compare the US to Australia .
1. Australia is ranked around 10th for health outcomes by the WHO, the US around 35th. I once researched what this meant and it turns out that the Aussie death panels need to kill an extra 20K people a year to catch up with the US.
2. The Aussie government spends a similar amount per capita on health care as the US government, but somehow manages to balance the budget and provide full health cover for ALL of it's citizens.
3. UHC is 1.5% of taxable income + $500 for "high income earners" who have no private cover. For example, I earn ~$100K/yr and pay $2k/yr tax levy for UHC, I would pay a $1500/yr levy if I was a the sole bread winner of a family or purchased $500 worth of private cover. From what I understand $1500 is comparable to what a family of four would pay per MONTH in the US for full cover. (Currently $1.00AU = $1.02US)
4. The Aussie government can't worm it's way out of paying the bill on a technicality that's clearly stated in (say) Appendix C, Paragraph 17, of an insurance contract.
5. No Aussie fears bankruptcy from medical bills. Prescription drug costs are capped at $1200/yr for a family, anything above that is "free".
6. UHC enjoys bipartisan support in Oz, it's a political football in the US. This more than anything explains why the US taxpayer gets such a woeful return on their labyrinth of publicly funded heath care "systems" (see point 2).
7. You can still buy private cover in Oz starting at around $500/yr but you're mainly paying for cosmetics, creature comforts, and "alternative medicine", you cannot use cash or private insurance to buy better or faster medical treatment.
8. The Aussie government invests in preventative programs such as free check-ups at work and health awareness campaigns in the media. An ounce of prevention really is worth a pound of cure.
9. The Aussie government has reciprocal arrangements to treat tourists from other nations with UHC systems as they would their own citizens. I learnt this when I became violently ill in the UK. After being treated I wanted to know how to pay, "Just show the front desk your passport" was the doctors answer.
10. I can walk into a local clinic without an appointment and be talking to a doctor within an hour, within minutes if I'm spewing into a bucket or bleeding profusely.
Is the Aussie system perfect? - Far from it, but it's light years ahead of the US industry.
People from all over the world come to the US for rapid access to treatment if they have the money because their countries socialist healthcare causes shortages and long lines.
I'm pretty sure I could get treated for a serious ailment here in Australia much faster than I could organise a US visa.
Why, exactly?
Thalidomide and similar cock ups.
You support the constitution, right? Well off the top of my head...
Perry wants to repeal the 16th & 17th amendments (source his 2010 book). You think the economy is in a bad way now and congress is controlled by mega-corps? - What will it look like when the feds can't collect income taxes and senators are appointed rather than elected? Also, Perry's recent "pray for rain day" stunt makes a mockery of the 1st.
Bachman wants to disband the federal reserve and replace it with...I don't know...fairy dust? I don't think she even understands the constitution since her light bulb bill would have required Congress to trample all over the executive branch's enumerated powers.
These people may call themselves “constitutional conservatives”, but from my vantage point they walk and talk like extremists.
I'm not a grammar Nazi, my prose is often full of it's/its and your/you're mistakes. So before someone calls you an idiot for a simple syntax error I would just like to point out you have made the then/than mistake twice as in "more efficient then computers" and "better at this type of problem solving then computers".
According to TFA, the gamers are named as co-authors on the write-up in a highly prestigious journal, which is very nice kudos indeed.
Yes, I suspect F@H players are like OSS contributors at heart, they enjoy a puzzle and just want a bit of recognition when they're the first to solve it.