Maybe that's the case for some drugs, but for asthma, the only thing they've seemed to do is change the dosage and combine the two therapies that have been around as long as I've had medication. The only two choices have always been beta agonists and steroids. The steroids have terrible side affects and both of them you have to take continuously. I always get the generics after I realized why should I pay 4-5x the price for a product that differs only in the dosage. However, you still see ads for Serevent(beta agonist) and Advair (combination of the two) being marketed as revolutionary changes.
Blame the doctors for prescribing it. I used to date a girl who worked as a sales rep for a pharmaceutical company. These girls are usually pretty, buy the doctor lunch or fly him to a conference and flatter the doctor the whole time. Their whole job is to put the name of the product on the tip of the doctor's tongue and believe me, they know exactly which doctors are prescribing what to whom so they target their approach to the doctor. This isn't the 50's where the doctor is a glamorous position. In this current day and age, they're rushed to fit in a ton of patients, so whether consciously or not when they're writing out that prescription they write down the brand name drug which is often 3x the price. Something needs to be done to stop the mutual back scratching here, or maybe consumers need to ASK if there are any usable generics. Then again, part of the problem may be that Americans get too many prescriptions filled; a pill isn't always the best way to handle something unpleasant.
We are rapidly getting to the point where drug benefits are totally out of whack. I recently had a plan that charged me 15$ for a generic drug that could be gotten for 9$ through Canada, or 11$ through New Zealand and in the latter case I didn't even need a prescription, so I was able to avoid that 20$ copay. For people who know exactly what medication they need I think the time is coming where you're going to be able to go and get what you need easily outside of the country for far more competitive prices. For the next year's benefit elections I have the cheapest, only in a catastrophe medical coverage and the cheapest drug plan they have. Over the course of the year I save several thousand dollars. Oh, and the prescription that I got from New Zealand was made by an American country, so it probably traveled halfway around the globe to come right back at a cheaper price. The plans that cover the little stuff simply don't work for a healthy person like me and at least I have coverage should something totally unforeseen happen.
I hear there is a country just north of here where if you can get across the border, not only will you not have to pay for any part of the delivery, they'll make your kid a citizen. I'd hurry though, someone told me they're building a wall.
The bigger problem with the American system is that although it is said to be a free market system, it is far from that. If there were solely tax free savings accounts and people negotiated their own service instead of going through insurance companies, everyone would be better off. Right now, there is too much incentive for doctors to create a practice that works like an assembly line, moving patients in and out as quickly as possible. Patients come in, are given a quick glance over and subsequently over medicated and under treated. Right now, the only ones who are guaranteed to like the system are the middlemen, insurance companies.
Adding to the above problem is the fact that Americans eat too much, get little exercise and are far too willing to believe the ads for each and every miracle drug on the market. However, claiming that national health care is some type of panacea is far too simplistic.
Does anyone else think that this could affect organized crime? If you live in a state where they don't have legal sports betting (all states except Nevada), wouldn't you likely increase the likelihood of someone using their friendly neighbor Vito to place the bets by passing legislation like this? After all, most of the people I know would never play slots online, but many of them like to bet on sports.
I remember working on a similar project to this back in college. The highest weighted markers for plagiarism were identically mispelled words and unusually grouped words. Once you have the likelihood of word x following word y and it appears more than z times in only one in 5000 papers, I think that's a far better marker of plagiarism than a sentence that is entirely the same. Variance from the norm can be measured in more ways than straight sentence by sentence comparison as the more sophisticated cheaters will likely make changes to the paper organization and structure, but the same minor variations will likely continue to appear.
Every time I see one of these lists, I start to consider how the compilers could even imagine a way to combine all the factors that go into living in a particular area. The smaller things like that people you meet, the options for spending a free Friday night and the availability of a local coffee place and bookstore I love is so much better than moving to the middle of nowhere even if it's cheap. After all, even if you save a few thousand more a year, does it really make up for the people, options and excitement of the larger metropolitan areas? In NY, you're just a few minutes on public transport from some of the best live jazz in the world, major sports teams, museums, comedy clubs, bars, parks and dozens of other things that in most of the places listed here you just simply can't get. Of course, you can spend that free time counting the money you've saved, but I'd rather be out and trying something new.
To each his own...
In many business instances, it's exactly the opposite of what you stated. The cheaper product, on a percentage basis, has a higher margin. For example, I have a friend who owns a guitar store. He sells an Alvarez guitar for 300$ and it costs him 260, so he's making around 15% (40/260 = 15.4). He also carries a Taylor model that costs him 2200 and he sells 2500 (300/2200 = 13.4). I'm sure he'd love to sell as many of the expensive one as he does the cheaper one, but he makes up in volume and when he does spend the time selling the expensive one, he can afford to shave a bit off. It takes quite a bit longer to explain everything about the cheaper one for less money, so he should set the margin a bit higher to compensate himself for the time.
Even in the most expensive areas of the United States, you have far more choice in living conditions. Although I have a roommate, I spend 8-9% of my net income on rent and food and drive a very modest car. I could easily live by myself for 12% and I don't even make a very large salary. Now, if you want a BMW, a McMansion and a 40 inch plasma tv, you have to pay for it.
That example totally avoids the issue of labor supply and demand. Apple is a company trying to make a profit, so they will pay the lowest salary they can get away with based on the available labor supply. Just like in the Grapes of Wrath, all you need is a few people to work for less and then it forces everyone to work for less, or not work at all. Hopefully these people will educate and organize in the near future, but in the current political climate of China I doubt it would do much good.
I'm waiting for some enterprising kid in a fight with his parents to tell them he hates them and never wants to see them again. Then, he mails the phone to a buddy in another state, hides and waits until they freak out. I see this happening within a few months of the service being widely available.
All the rage these days seems to be decrying the companies involved when most of the companies realize that excess oil prices, although positive at the moment, will lead to headaches down the road. There was a recent Wired article that listed three different energy alternatives that would be viable around 90$ a barrel. I think these companies realize that when it hits that price, they have serious competition especially because of the negative reputation of oil producing countries and the serious environmental costs.
Maybe I'm being paranoid, but if the labels were really clever they could have set this all up themselves. Think about it, who loses in this case? The artists appear more independant from the greedy companies and build sympathy with the public. They sell more records which even if they look terrible doesn't bother the industry heads. This could be a great studio publicity stunt by creating some artificial drama between themselves and the artists even if none really exists. After all, how many of us are really optimistic enough to believe that the artists are really in it to spread their music? I believe the quote is: "Follow the money".
I can't believe that slashdot would do something as incendiary as calling me as referring to white people as crackers. I think we need to form a riot and burn some stuff down.
What about such works of art as the Crucifix in the jar of urine? Freedom of religion is based as much on freedom from religion and freedom to critique other religions. So long as it does not physically harm someone else, you should be able to espouse whatever beliefs you may have. The further out of the norm, the better to, and more important to protect.
Verizon should be scared. There's no way they can possibly compete. They have all the overhead of a large unionized workforce and have artificially inflated bills. In New York, when I had a home phone, over 10% of my bill was taxes and surcharges. The law hasn't caught up with technology and anyone who builds a better mousetrap like Google is trying to do has a huge head start over Verizon over any of the traditional IPS backbones provided no legislation impedes them.
As a NY resident and now a NJ resident, if you work in one state and live in the other, you file your taxes twice. However, as is presently the case, any taxes you pay to one state are deductible from the second state. Where you wind up with problems is in this guy's case because since TN has no state income tax, he has nowhere to deduct the out of state taxes from. I feel bad for the guy, but I don't see a way to fight it.
In this case, that is totally unfair. The lawyers suing Microsoft got a little greedy and tried to certify far too large of a class action party. However much some people want to paint the class action lawyers as white knights they rarely, if ever, have altruistic motives. They don't care if they're suing Microsoft, Google or anyone else. They are only in it to make the almighty buck. When they get 30 something percent of any settlement if damage is found you tend to look to make the settlement as large as possible. In the case of the Microsoft settlement in California all the plaintiffs received were crappy rebates, but the lawyers were taken care of with cash.
Slashdot Mirror
It doesn't look that hard to me. You're fine if you just stay one lesson ahead of the kids, right?
Maybe that's the case for some drugs, but for asthma, the only thing they've seemed to do is change the dosage and combine the two therapies that have been around as long as I've had medication. The only two choices have always been beta agonists and steroids. The steroids have terrible side affects and both of them you have to take continuously. I always get the generics after I realized why should I pay 4-5x the price for a product that differs only in the dosage. However, you still see ads for Serevent(beta agonist) and Advair (combination of the two) being marketed as revolutionary changes.
Blame the doctors for prescribing it. I used to date a girl who worked as a sales rep for a pharmaceutical company. These girls are usually pretty, buy the doctor lunch or fly him to a conference and flatter the doctor the whole time. Their whole job is to put the name of the product on the tip of the doctor's tongue and believe me, they know exactly which doctors are prescribing what to whom so they target their approach to the doctor. This isn't the 50's where the doctor is a glamorous position. In this current day and age, they're rushed to fit in a ton of patients, so whether consciously or not when they're writing out that prescription they write down the brand name drug which is often 3x the price. Something needs to be done to stop the mutual back scratching here, or maybe consumers need to ASK if there are any usable generics. Then again, part of the problem may be that Americans get too many prescriptions filled; a pill isn't always the best way to handle something unpleasant.
We are rapidly getting to the point where drug benefits are totally out of whack. I recently had a plan that charged me 15$ for a generic drug that could be gotten for 9$ through Canada, or 11$ through New Zealand and in the latter case I didn't even need a prescription, so I was able to avoid that 20$ copay. For people who know exactly what medication they need I think the time is coming where you're going to be able to go and get what you need easily outside of the country for far more competitive prices. For the next year's benefit elections I have the cheapest, only in a catastrophe medical coverage and the cheapest drug plan they have. Over the course of the year I save several thousand dollars. Oh, and the prescription that I got from New Zealand was made by an American country, so it probably traveled halfway around the globe to come right back at a cheaper price. The plans that cover the little stuff simply don't work for a healthy person like me and at least I have coverage should something totally unforeseen happen.
I hear there is a country just north of here where if you can get across the border, not only will you not have to pay for any part of the delivery, they'll make your kid a citizen. I'd hurry though, someone told me they're building a wall.
The bigger problem with the American system is that although it is said to be a free market system, it is far from that. If there were solely tax free savings accounts and people negotiated their own service instead of going through insurance companies, everyone would be better off. Right now, there is too much incentive for doctors to create a practice that works like an assembly line, moving patients in and out as quickly as possible. Patients come in, are given a quick glance over and subsequently over medicated and under treated. Right now, the only ones who are guaranteed to like the system are the middlemen, insurance companies.
Adding to the above problem is the fact that Americans eat too much, get little exercise and are far too willing to believe the ads for each and every miracle drug on the market. However, claiming that national health care is some type of panacea is far too simplistic.
Does anyone else think that this could affect organized crime? If you live in a state where they don't have legal sports betting (all states except Nevada), wouldn't you likely increase the likelihood of someone using their friendly neighbor Vito to place the bets by passing legislation like this? After all, most of the people I know would never play slots online, but many of them like to bet on sports.
I remember working on a similar project to this back in college. The highest weighted markers for plagiarism were identically mispelled words and unusually grouped words. Once you have the likelihood of word x following word y and it appears more than z times in only one in 5000 papers, I think that's a far better marker of plagiarism than a sentence that is entirely the same. Variance from the norm can be measured in more ways than straight sentence by sentence comparison as the more sophisticated cheaters will likely make changes to the paper organization and structure, but the same minor variations will likely continue to appear.
Every time I see one of these lists, I start to consider how the compilers could even imagine a way to combine all the factors that go into living in a particular area. The smaller things like that people you meet, the options for spending a free Friday night and the availability of a local coffee place and bookstore I love is so much better than moving to the middle of nowhere even if it's cheap. After all, even if you save a few thousand more a year, does it really make up for the people, options and excitement of the larger metropolitan areas? In NY, you're just a few minutes on public transport from some of the best live jazz in the world, major sports teams, museums, comedy clubs, bars, parks and dozens of other things that in most of the places listed here you just simply can't get. Of course, you can spend that free time counting the money you've saved, but I'd rather be out and trying something new. To each his own...
In many business instances, it's exactly the opposite of what you stated. The cheaper product, on a percentage basis, has a higher margin. For example, I have a friend who owns a guitar store. He sells an Alvarez guitar for 300$ and it costs him 260, so he's making around 15% (40/260 = 15.4). He also carries a Taylor model that costs him 2200 and he sells 2500 (300/2200 = 13.4). I'm sure he'd love to sell as many of the expensive one as he does the cheaper one, but he makes up in volume and when he does spend the time selling the expensive one, he can afford to shave a bit off. It takes quite a bit longer to explain everything about the cheaper one for less money, so he should set the margin a bit higher to compensate himself for the time.
With the rate of inflation being what it is, we won't have to worry about micropayments for long; they won't exist.
Even in the most expensive areas of the United States, you have far more choice in living conditions. Although I have a roommate, I spend 8-9% of my net income on rent and food and drive a very modest car. I could easily live by myself for 12% and I don't even make a very large salary. Now, if you want a BMW, a McMansion and a 40 inch plasma tv, you have to pay for it.
That example totally avoids the issue of labor supply and demand. Apple is a company trying to make a profit, so they will pay the lowest salary they can get away with based on the available labor supply. Just like in the Grapes of Wrath, all you need is a few people to work for less and then it forces everyone to work for less, or not work at all. Hopefully these people will educate and organize in the near future, but in the current political climate of China I doubt it would do much good.
I'm waiting for some enterprising kid in a fight with his parents to tell them he hates them and never wants to see them again. Then, he mails the phone to a buddy in another state, hides and waits until they freak out. I see this happening within a few months of the service being widely available.
All the rage these days seems to be decrying the companies involved when most of the companies realize that excess oil prices, although positive at the moment, will lead to headaches down the road. There was a recent Wired article that listed three different energy alternatives that would be viable around 90$ a barrel. I think these companies realize that when it hits that price, they have serious competition especially because of the negative reputation of oil producing countries and the serious environmental costs.
Maybe I'm being paranoid, but if the labels were really clever they could have set this all up themselves. Think about it, who loses in this case? The artists appear more independant from the greedy companies and build sympathy with the public. They sell more records which even if they look terrible doesn't bother the industry heads. This could be a great studio publicity stunt by creating some artificial drama between themselves and the artists even if none really exists. After all, how many of us are really optimistic enough to believe that the artists are really in it to spread their music? I believe the quote is: "Follow the money".
Exactly, look how Ross Perot lifted the Reform party to the juggernaut it is today.
I can't believe that slashdot would do something as incendiary as calling me as referring to white people as crackers. I think we need to form a riot and burn some stuff down.
What about such works of art as the Crucifix in the jar of urine? Freedom of religion is based as much on freedom from religion and freedom to critique other religions. So long as it does not physically harm someone else, you should be able to espouse whatever beliefs you may have. The further out of the norm, the better to, and more important to protect.
Verizon should be scared. There's no way they can possibly compete. They have all the overhead of a large unionized workforce and have artificially inflated bills. In New York, when I had a home phone, over 10% of my bill was taxes and surcharges. The law hasn't caught up with technology and anyone who builds a better mousetrap like Google is trying to do has a huge head start over Verizon over any of the traditional IPS backbones provided no legislation impedes them.
Did anyone else read this as "Daft law"? They will never come up with an equitable dispersal of the funds, so why even bother?
The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
As a NY resident and now a NJ resident, if you work in one state and live in the other, you file your taxes twice. However, as is presently the case, any taxes you pay to one state are deductible from the second state. Where you wind up with problems is in this guy's case because since TN has no state income tax, he has nowhere to deduct the out of state taxes from. I feel bad for the guy, but I don't see a way to fight it.
I was planning to do something. I was planning to overthrow the government until the Patriot Act led to me being discovered.
In this case, that is totally unfair. The lawyers suing Microsoft got a little greedy and tried to certify far too large of a class action party. However much some people want to paint the class action lawyers as white knights they rarely, if ever, have altruistic motives. They don't care if they're suing Microsoft, Google or anyone else. They are only in it to make the almighty buck. When they get 30 something percent of any settlement if damage is found you tend to look to make the settlement as large as possible. In the case of the Microsoft settlement in California all the plaintiffs received were crappy rebates, but the lawyers were taken care of with cash.