SS is a generation income transfer scheme. It was never about individual accounts. The original law set contributions [SS taxes] at less than 2% when there were 13 workers per retiree. As the number of workers per retiree decreased, the SS tax was increased, now at over 12% (add both employee and employer FICA components).
Of course, the addition of COLA, coverage of disabled persons, and other additions have also contributed to the "insolvency" of SS. In any case, the SS "crisis" is a matter of definition. Depending on your assumptions, SS is either bankrupt or in fine shape, and private accounts will either make us all rich or bankrupt the Republic.
Last time I checked, the First Amendment was in the US Constitution.
Article 17 of the Czech Republic's Constitution ("Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms") states, in Section 4, "The freedom of expression and the right to seek and disseminate information may be limited by law in the case of measures essential in a democratic society for protecting the rights and freedoms of others, the security of the State, public security, public health, and morality." So here, limitations on these rights are more specifically spelled out. I'm not sure, but I would argue that writing virus code and releasing such code certainly is not protected "expression," at least as defined here. Such expression clearly may interfere with the rights of others and public security. Mr. Strihavka may not be as free as he thinks, and he's certainly not protected by the First Amendment.
In the US, First Amendment protections are not all they're cracked up to be, in any case. These rights are clearly spelled out in the US Constitution, but, in practice, that only means that they can be asserted and litigated. Thus, you have the presumption of such freedom, until some corporation or government entity wishes to deny or abridge your rights, armed with better lawyers. Unless, you're rich and can afford press coverage and good attorneys, you can be screwed by a simple letter.
In the current generation of OSX, any user (or program) can place programs or scripts in the StartupItems folder. These then execute as 'root' or actually as no owner. You do need access, but not necessarily root access (which is disabled by default anyway).
I mean really. All my guns (Browning BDA, H&K P2000, and Colt M4) are loaded and ready to go. My kids and wife are checked out and happen to be better shots than old astigmatic me. We go out and shoot at the range periodically.
I have taught them the same thing my father taught me - all guns are loaded! Never assume or think a gun is safe until you break it, remove the clip, or eject the round, etc. yourself. There are no unsafe guns, only unsafe users. (Insert computer reference here.)
So, again, what good is an unloaded, locked up gun when it comes to home defense?
Actually, you should go and browse Yellow Dog Linux's site. They provide PowerBooks and iBooks with YDL preinstalled, dual boot with OSX. Even for these experts, not all hardware is supported.
I have installed Gentoo on an iBook with fair results; it works better on my G4 desktop. I've done better on the Dell Inspiron 2150. The best two laptops, in my experience are the Dell Inspiron 7000-7500 (old, yes, but works 100%) and the IBM T41.
A good example is medical devices and products. All you need to do is slap the term "medical" ona product and double or triple the price. Cheap rolls of 22" wide paper become exam table covers, manila folders become medical chart binders, and medical billing software companies always try to force you to buy their own equipment, all for a little extra lagniappe.
Don't even get me started on the price of a tablet of acetaminophen given in the hospital.
Technically, it is infringment to play music licensed by ASCAP, etc. for entertainment or business purposes in the US, as well, including playing a radio station while on hold. Many professional offices, malls, and so on pay a company, such as Muzak, to stream the music to their sound system, phones, or paging speakers. The company pays all the license fees to BMI, ASCAP, and so on, and provides several channels of content.
A buddy of mine is a district rep/salesman for Muzak in South Texas and makes a very good living at it. He gets the bonus for the sale as well as residual payments for as long as the client continues to use the service. It's really not very expensive for a small business, such as a dentist's office, and the artists may get a pittance at least.
I can speak as a physician and lifetime astigmatic. Several points to consider:
1. How old are you? Vision changes as does the geometry of the eyeball. A correction at age 20 may not be accurate at age 40. OTOH, the cornea at age 40 is less flexible and may not respond to sculpting as well.
2. How severe is the refractive error? The more of the cornea which is removed, the steeper are the edges, and the more halos and other refractive problems are seen.
3. Have a proper evaluation. Not everyone can have LASIK and not everyone should. The thicknes of the cornea at the site of treatment is critical, and varies between patients.
4. See an experienced ophthalmologist, but not one who runs a mill. Avoid those who advertise "Free LASIK Screening" or who own their own machines. Ask your ophthalomogist or optometrist who he used/would use.
Personally, I depend or my eyes and I would never do anything the least bit risky which would jeopardize my career. One dictum in medicine is "never be the first to do anything." I wouldn't do it unless or until there is solid multi-center 15 year experience. I am concerned that, in a few years, we will be seeing delayed problems in these patients.
As one who has both an MD and a PhD, I would say you have no idea how they differ.
Medical school is a trade school. You learn and regurgitate 'facts' such as anatomy, pharmacology, pathology, etc. There is no data to fake. Grades are, in the first two years, based on your ability to memorize and repeat (on exams) the knowledge base. The second two years are practical training and development of certain skills by repetition. Residency and fellowship are much the same.
Graduate school, at least in the Biochemistry Dept. where I spent 4 years, was purely research. One dispensed with the course requirements in the first year, while the rest was grant proposals, learning how to administer a lab, and experimentation. Plenty of opportunities to "dry lab" your results, if you were so inclined. The degree depended on independent research, reviewed by your thesis examiners as well as publications in the peer-reviewed literature, and sucess at obtaining funding from the NIH, etc. If you washed out, you could always get a Masters degree.
So, if someone faked their research, I agree the PhD could be stripped. That may be more a reflection on the oversight in the department, however. An MD, though, cannot be faked. You have to repeatedly demonstrate your skills to multiple examiners.
First the UK air traffic control system, then the RBC, all during "software upgrades." At least that's the story they're letting out, but a worm and/or a breach of the system could also have occurred, perhaps by malicious hackers, perhaos by some who got passwords from some phishing scam, or perhaps some directed attack by "terrorists." I would be interested in info from RBC employees. What really happened?
I don't know if you are being sarcastic. In India, while the cubicle may look the same, the employment conditions are not equivalent. There is no Social Security (although that may not be here for us either, based on current short-sighted administration and Congressional policy), Medicare, OSHA, and a host of other government mandates/programs.
These programs do make a difference in employees' quality of life. Many were instituted in response to problems in the workplace (safety, child labor laws) that were not addressed by the all-powerful market, that totem of faith for the GOPers. In India, the Phillipines, Malaysia, and other outsourcing destinations, salaries are less due in part to lower costs of living. Standards of living are not the same, particularly when you consider public utilities (such as water), the health care system, and the hidden costs of environmental degradation. Employers' non-personnel costs are also less as labor and employment standards are not comparable, tax avoidance is endemic, and current tariff regimes allow, even encourage, movement of production and services.
I tried their live CD, then installed SUSE 9.1 as well. Aside from some issue with the sound, as suggested above, the install was generally without problems. However, I went back to Knopppix/Debian (using the new 3.4 live CD as the base installer). The install was faster and about as problem free. I still prefer Debian because of the ability to compile new kernels and install them as kernel_image packages. These are easy to remove, along with all their modules, which makes testing of newly compiled kernels very easy. The same can be said for other packages you install, whether home-made or obtained from apt-get sources. Really, apt is so slick.
You know, this is so friggin' true. One of my pet peeves at work is that many programs can't be installed on w2k by the user and require either admin login or that damned "Run As" security hole. You just know that these programs can then screw with system at a higher permission level with (often) time-consuming results. Locking down the registry and system files is harder than it looks.
If you define spyware as programs from third party sources, you may be right. I'm not sure that there is a total lack spyware out there. I haven't seen any yet, though.
However, OS X appears to phone home on boot. Check out some of the ip traffic (you can't use kismet or such as the OS X box is still booting, but you can look at the log from your router/firewall). This may not be spyware, technically, but Apple does see which systems are connected, if you let them. If you block this traffic or boot without an internet connection, the system still works fine, of course. I don't have an XP box to play with, but my buddy Amit says the same thing occurs.
Any comments?
Simplistic and wrong. Trade does affect wages. When a manufacturer can get his product made in, say, Malaysia, for 1/2 the cost in the US, either the wages of the US worker will drop to a level commensurate of the competing factory or drop to zero as his job is eliminated. In times past, trade was in products, but now trade exists for services and capital.
The assertion that the net effect of trade on jobs is zero is empirically wrong and also has no basis in theory. There is no requirement that exporting jobs gained equal manufacturing jobs lost.
The effect of tariffs is also unpredictable, but probably is negative in aggregate. There may be innovation or development of domestic competitors in a country with high trade barriers, but examples of this are hard to come by.
As a Mac (primarily) and Linux user, I would say Linux on the Mac or Mac clone is not ready for prime time. Just look at Yellow Dog Linux. Terrasoft sells Macs with YDL preinstalled, but, if you browse their site, there are major areas in their own Mac machines which are not supported.
I run Gentoo on a Mac clone (Power Computing PowerCenter Pro accelerated with a G3 add-on card). Getting this up was quite a chore and the video (an on-board version of an ATI Rage card) still only works in fb mode despite literally months screwing around with it. On a G4 dual processor Mac, Gentoo works better, but the DRI acceleration is still not up to snuff.
I mostly find Linux useful in bringing slow older x86 boxes to a useful speed. My main laptop is an old 400 MHz P2 Dell which runs wonderfully with Knoppix/Debian (although the Dell Rage Mobility is still a problem).
The fact that Windows installers usually work on such a variety of hardware conglomerations is, in itself, a testament to the ingenuity of Mr. Gate's programmers. Those install scripts never cease to amaze me, no matter what sort of old card I throw into whatever cast off mainboard when I repair broken workstations at work.
Upon further reflection, however, there really isn't such a broad array of hardware. There may be a number of video cards, for example, but most are clones of two or three types using a limited number of chipsets. Nevetheless, it's a marvel.
Now when I use Knoppix as a recovery disc and that boots on the same aforementioned goulash of parts, I'm even more impressed.
In medicine, the outsourcing game is just beginning. Medical transcription and standard back-office tasks have been moved off-shore for years. Now the high paid labor, namely doctors, are on the chopping block. Many radiologic studies are generated as digital images, such as CT, MR, and digital angiography. Standard film techniques are increasingly being done in digital imaging suites. "Teleradiology," the transmission of these images to a distant viewer, was an inescapable development. It was promoted as a way for smaller outlying hospitals without radiologists on staff to have more rapid interpretations or to allow university radiologists to give a second opinion on difficult cases. While it is occasionally used for these purposes, the technology mostly enables local radiologists the stay home and avoid coming to the hospital.
However, the birds are coming home to roost as hospitals, including major medical centers like the Massachusetts General Hospital, are now outsourcing the radiology jobs.
Currently, radiologists are among the best compensated physicians with salaries in the $350,000 to $750,000 range, not counting profits from their ownership of imaging centers. In our town, they usually are found in their waterfront homes, continuing to read X-rays and bill their fees from the comfort of the den. Indeed, there is a radiology imaging center near my office owned by a radiologist in Miami who has, to my knowledge, not been in the building for weeks. Expect a major change in this state of affairs, and rapidly.
Already, newly-minted radiology graduates have found salaries offered in practice have dropped about 50%. Further, partnership (an ownership position in the practice, imaging center, or an enforceable portion of the hospital contract) is as far-fetched as a balanced Bush budget. Junior radiologists will never make enough money to afford the millions in equity the senior partners have in the imaging center, yet their work and billings increase the value of the business. As salaried physicians, they are hired and fired at will by the senior partners, who were lucky to have entered the field only 5-6 years earlier. In our hospital, the turnover at the junior level (and these are the newest trained physicians, the most up to date on the technology) has been dizzying - 8 fired and replaced in the last 5 years - while the older partners, often without any special fellowship training in CT, MR, or interventional techniques, continue to rake it in. As offering salaries have dropped, well... let's just say that several of the replacement rdiologists could be 'outsourced' with a definite improvement in quality.
[Actually, this trend to shuttiing out newer hires from any hope of partnership has been apparent for about 10 years, before outsourcing became a issue. The "RAP" (radiology, anesthesia, and pathology) services were bundled in with the hospital compensation in DRG-based reimbursement systems. These specialists hold contracts with the hospital which is the value of their practice. The older partners, signatories to these contracts, have been loathe to share the spoils, preferring instead to hire newer trainees for 3-5 years, promising partnership at that time, only to offer it under onerous terms or not at all.]
The next jobs on the plane will be the pathologists. In the last 10 years, hospital pathology groups have banded together to form large regional or national practices, such as Ameripath or Quest. But slides which are sent to Utah can just as easily be digitized or FedEx-ed to India, Russia, or Europe where there is an abundance of low-paid medical talent. Other hospital based interpretive contracts, which are extremely lucrative for the contract-holders, should follow rapidly. I see echocardiograms and ECGs going next. As a matter on fact, I think I am going to speak to the hospital administrator about this tomorrow.
Well, net negative for the workers. The poor(er) Indian IT workers get richer, in Indian terms. The American IT workers get (a lot more) poorer in American terms. Net result: less money spent on programmers, more money to the owners of the company. Ergo, the rich get richer.
Here in S. Florida, Nextel is beta-testing a service which is to be (tentatively) named "Teen Tracker." This will allow parents to know location of the (teen) phone holder as well as his/her speed. It allows alerts to be sent to the parents phone if the speed exceeds certain limits or location is outside certain areas.
Just think of the possibilities! My son (17 yo) proposed incorporating one of those mini-breathalyzers into the handset. Then you could call your child and determine if he/she had been drinking (patent applied for)
Slashdot Mirror
SS is a generation income transfer scheme. It was never about individual accounts. The original law set contributions [SS taxes] at less than 2% when there were 13 workers per retiree. As the number of workers per retiree decreased, the SS tax was increased, now at over 12% (add both employee and employer FICA components).
Of course, the addition of COLA, coverage of disabled persons, and other additions have also contributed to the "insolvency" of SS. In any case, the SS "crisis" is a matter of definition. Depending on your assumptions, SS is either bankrupt or in fine shape, and private accounts will either make us all rich or bankrupt the Republic.
Last time I checked, the First Amendment was in the US Constitution.
Article 17 of the Czech Republic's Constitution ("Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms") states, in Section 4, "The freedom of expression and the right to seek and disseminate information may be limited by law in the case of measures essential in a democratic society for protecting the rights and freedoms of others, the security of the State, public security, public health, and morality." So here, limitations on these rights are more specifically spelled out. I'm not sure, but I would argue that writing virus code and releasing such code certainly is not protected "expression," at least as defined here. Such expression clearly may interfere with the rights of others and public security. Mr. Strihavka may not be as free as he thinks, and he's certainly not protected by the First Amendment.
In the US, First Amendment protections are not all they're cracked up to be, in any case. These rights are clearly spelled out in the US Constitution, but, in practice, that only means that they can be asserted and litigated. Thus, you have the presumption of such freedom, until some corporation or government entity wishes to deny or abridge your rights, armed with better lawyers. Unless, you're rich and can afford press coverage and good attorneys, you can be screwed by a simple letter.
I know you know this but consumer "tin foil" is aluminum. In the UK, it is made of aluminium.
In the current generation of OSX, any user (or program) can place programs or scripts in the StartupItems folder. These then execute as 'root' or actually as no owner. You do need access, but not necessarily root access (which is disabled by default anyway).
Of course, my favorite is Homo sapiens.
Actually, you are right. The guns are loaded, but no round is chambered, as I was also taught. But, pull back the slide and the gun is ready.
I mean really. All my guns (Browning BDA, H&K P2000, and Colt M4) are loaded and ready to go. My kids and wife are checked out and happen to be better shots than old astigmatic me. We go out and shoot at the range periodically.
I have taught them the same thing my father taught me - all guns are loaded! Never assume or think a gun is safe until you break it, remove the clip, or eject the round, etc. yourself. There are no unsafe guns, only unsafe users. (Insert computer reference here.)
So, again, what good is an unloaded, locked up gun when it comes to home defense?
Actually, you should go and browse Yellow Dog Linux's site. They provide PowerBooks and iBooks with YDL preinstalled, dual boot with OSX. Even for these experts, not all hardware is supported.
I have installed Gentoo on an iBook with fair results; it works better on my G4 desktop. I've done better on the Dell Inspiron 2150. The best two laptops, in my experience are the Dell Inspiron 7000-7500 (old, yes, but works 100%) and the IBM T41.
Oldsmobile = Buick = Chevy = GM, all in the car dealership strip.
but the practice exists in many fields.
A good example is medical devices and products. All you need to do is slap the term "medical" ona product and double or triple the price. Cheap rolls of 22" wide paper become exam table covers, manila folders become medical chart binders, and medical billing software companies always try to force you to buy their own equipment, all for a little extra lagniappe.
Don't even get me started on the price of a tablet of acetaminophen given in the hospital.
Technically, it is infringment to play music licensed by ASCAP, etc. for entertainment or business purposes in the US, as well, including playing a radio station while on hold. Many professional offices, malls, and so on pay a company, such as Muzak, to stream the music to their sound system, phones, or paging speakers. The company pays all the license fees to BMI, ASCAP, and so on, and provides several channels of content.
A buddy of mine is a district rep/salesman for Muzak in South Texas and makes a very good living at it. He gets the bonus for the sale as well as residual payments for as long as the client continues to use the service. It's really not very expensive for a small business, such as a dentist's office, and the artists may get a pittance at least.
I can speak as a physician and lifetime astigmatic. Several points to consider:
1. How old are you? Vision changes as does the geometry of the eyeball. A correction at age 20 may not be accurate at age 40. OTOH, the cornea at age 40 is less flexible and may not respond to sculpting as well.
2. How severe is the refractive error? The more of the cornea which is removed, the steeper are the edges, and the more halos and other refractive problems are seen.
3. Have a proper evaluation. Not everyone can have LASIK and not everyone should. The thicknes of the cornea at the site of treatment is critical, and varies between patients.
4. See an experienced ophthalmologist, but not one who runs a mill. Avoid those who advertise "Free LASIK Screening" or who own their own machines. Ask your ophthalomogist or optometrist who he used/would use.
Personally, I depend or my eyes and I would never do anything the least bit risky which would jeopardize my career. One dictum in medicine is "never be the first to do anything." I wouldn't do it unless or until there is solid multi-center 15 year experience. I am concerned that, in a few years, we will be seeing delayed problems in these patients.
As one who has both an MD and a PhD, I would say you have no idea how they differ.
Medical school is a trade school. You learn and regurgitate 'facts' such as anatomy, pharmacology, pathology, etc. There is no data to fake. Grades are, in the first two years, based on your ability to memorize and repeat (on exams) the knowledge base. The second two years are practical training and development of certain skills by repetition. Residency and fellowship are much the same.
Graduate school, at least in the Biochemistry Dept. where I spent 4 years, was purely research. One dispensed with the course requirements in the first year, while the rest was grant proposals, learning how to administer a lab, and experimentation. Plenty of opportunities to "dry lab" your results, if you were so inclined. The degree depended on independent research, reviewed by your thesis examiners as well as publications in the peer-reviewed literature, and sucess at obtaining funding from the NIH, etc. If you washed out, you could always get a Masters degree.
So, if someone faked their research, I agree the PhD could be stripped. That may be more a reflection on the oversight in the department, however. An MD, though, cannot be faked. You have to repeatedly demonstrate your skills to multiple examiners.
First the UK air traffic control system, then the RBC, all during "software upgrades." At least that's the story they're letting out, but a worm and/or a breach of the system could also have occurred, perhaps by malicious hackers, perhaos by some who got passwords from some phishing scam, or perhaps some directed attack by "terrorists." I would be interested in info from RBC employees. What really happened?
</tin_hat>
I don't know if you are being sarcastic. In India, while the cubicle may look the same, the employment conditions are not equivalent. There is no Social Security (although that may not be here for us either, based on current short-sighted administration and Congressional policy), Medicare, OSHA, and a host of other government mandates/programs.
These programs do make a difference in employees' quality of life. Many were instituted in response to problems in the workplace (safety, child labor laws) that were not addressed by the all-powerful market, that totem of faith for the GOPers. In India, the Phillipines, Malaysia, and other outsourcing destinations, salaries are less due in part to lower costs of living. Standards of living are not the same, particularly when you consider public utilities (such as water), the health care system, and the hidden costs of environmental degradation. Employers' non-personnel costs are also less as labor and employment standards are not comparable, tax avoidance is endemic, and current tariff regimes allow, even encourage, movement of production and services.
I tried their live CD, then installed SUSE 9.1 as well. Aside from some issue with the sound, as suggested above, the install was generally without problems. However, I went back to Knopppix/Debian (using the new 3.4 live CD as the base installer). The install was faster and about as problem free. I still prefer Debian because of the ability to compile new kernels and install them as kernel_image packages. These are easy to remove, along with all their modules, which makes testing of newly compiled kernels very easy. The same can be said for other packages you install, whether home-made or obtained from apt-get sources. Really, apt is so slick.
You know, this is so friggin' true. One of my pet peeves at work is that many programs can't be installed on w2k by the user and require either admin login or that damned "Run As" security hole. You just know that these programs can then screw with system at a higher permission level with (often) time-consuming results. Locking down the registry and system files is harder than it looks.
However, OS X appears to phone home on boot. Check out some of the ip traffic (you can't use kismet or such as the OS X box is still booting, but you can look at the log from your router/firewall). This may not be spyware, technically, but Apple does see which systems are connected, if you let them. If you block this traffic or boot without an internet connection, the system still works fine, of course. I don't have an XP box to play with, but my buddy Amit says the same thing occurs. Any comments?
Simplistic and wrong. Trade does affect wages. When a manufacturer can get his product made in, say, Malaysia, for 1/2 the cost in the US, either the wages of the US worker will drop to a level commensurate of the competing factory or drop to zero as his job is eliminated. In times past, trade was in products, but now trade exists for services and capital.
The assertion that the net effect of trade on jobs is zero is empirically wrong and also has no basis in theory. There is no requirement that exporting jobs gained equal manufacturing jobs lost.
The effect of tariffs is also unpredictable, but probably is negative in aggregate. There may be innovation or development of domestic competitors in a country with high trade barriers, but examples of this are hard to come by.
As a Mac (primarily) and Linux user, I would say Linux on the Mac or Mac clone is not ready for prime time. Just look at Yellow Dog Linux. Terrasoft sells Macs with YDL preinstalled, but, if you browse their site, there are major areas in their own Mac machines which are not supported.
I run Gentoo on a Mac clone (Power Computing PowerCenter Pro accelerated with a G3 add-on card). Getting this up was quite a chore and the video (an on-board version of an ATI Rage card) still only works in fb mode despite literally months screwing around with it. On a G4 dual processor Mac, Gentoo works better, but the DRI acceleration is still not up to snuff.
I mostly find Linux useful in bringing slow older x86 boxes to a useful speed. My main laptop is an old 400 MHz P2 Dell which runs wonderfully with Knoppix/Debian (although the Dell Rage Mobility is still a problem).
The fact that Windows installers usually work on such a variety of hardware conglomerations is, in itself, a testament to the ingenuity of Mr. Gate's programmers. Those install scripts never cease to amaze me, no matter what sort of old card I throw into whatever cast off mainboard when I repair broken workstations at work.
Upon further reflection, however, there really isn't such a broad array of hardware. There may be a number of video cards, for example, but most are clones of two or three types using a limited number of chipsets. Nevetheless, it's a marvel.
Now when I use Knoppix as a recovery disc and that boots on the same aforementioned goulash of parts, I'm even more impressed.
In medicine, the outsourcing game is just beginning. Medical transcription and standard back-office tasks have been moved off-shore for years. Now the high paid labor, namely doctors, are on the chopping block. Many radiologic studies are generated as digital images, such as CT, MR, and digital angiography. Standard film techniques are increasingly being done in digital imaging suites. "Teleradiology," the transmission of these images to a distant viewer, was an inescapable development. It was promoted as a way for smaller outlying hospitals without radiologists on staff to have more rapid interpretations or to allow university radiologists to give a second opinion on difficult cases. While it is occasionally used for these purposes, the technology mostly enables local radiologists the stay home and avoid coming to the hospital.
However, the birds are coming home to roost as hospitals, including major medical centers like the Massachusetts General Hospital, are now outsourcing the radiology jobs.
Currently, radiologists are among the best compensated physicians with salaries in the $350,000 to $750,000 range, not counting profits from their ownership of imaging centers. In our town, they usually are found in their waterfront homes, continuing to read X-rays and bill their fees from the comfort of the den. Indeed, there is a radiology imaging center near my office owned by a radiologist in Miami who has, to my knowledge, not been in the building for weeks. Expect a major change in this state of affairs, and rapidly.
Already, newly-minted radiology graduates have found salaries offered in practice have dropped about 50%. Further, partnership (an ownership position in the practice, imaging center, or an enforceable portion of the hospital contract) is as far-fetched as a balanced Bush budget. Junior radiologists will never make enough money to afford the millions in equity the senior partners have in the imaging center, yet their work and billings increase the value of the business. As salaried physicians, they are hired and fired at will by the senior partners, who were lucky to have entered the field only 5-6 years earlier. In our hospital, the turnover at the junior level (and these are the newest trained physicians, the most up to date on the technology) has been dizzying - 8 fired and replaced in the last 5 years - while the older partners, often without any special fellowship training in CT, MR, or interventional techniques, continue to rake it in. As offering salaries have dropped, well ... let's just say that several of the replacement rdiologists could be 'outsourced' with a definite improvement in quality.
[Actually, this trend to shuttiing out newer hires from any hope of partnership has been apparent for about 10 years, before outsourcing became a issue. The "RAP" (radiology, anesthesia, and pathology) services were bundled in with the hospital compensation in DRG-based reimbursement systems. These specialists hold contracts with the hospital which is the value of their practice. The older partners, signatories to these contracts, have been loathe to share the spoils, preferring instead to hire newer trainees for 3-5 years, promising partnership at that time, only to offer it under onerous terms or not at all.]
The next jobs on the plane will be the pathologists. In the last 10 years, hospital pathology groups have banded together to form large regional or national practices, such as Ameripath or Quest. But slides which are sent to Utah can just as easily be digitized or FedEx-ed to India, Russia, or Europe where there is an abundance of low-paid medical talent. Other hospital based interpretive contracts, which are extremely lucrative for the contract-holders, should follow rapidly. I see echocardiograms and ECGs going next. As a matter on fact, I think I am going to speak to the hospital administrator about this tomorrow.
Well, net negative for the workers. The poor(er) Indian IT workers get richer, in Indian terms. The American IT workers get (a lot more) poorer in American terms. Net result: less money spent on programmers, more money to the owners of the company. Ergo, the rich get richer.
Here in S. Florida, Nextel is beta-testing a service which is to be (tentatively) named "Teen Tracker." This will allow parents to know location of the (teen) phone holder as well as his/her speed. It allows alerts to be sent to the parents phone if the speed exceeds certain limits or location is outside certain areas.
Just think of the possibilities! My son (17 yo) proposed incorporating one of those mini-breathalyzers into the handset. Then you could call your child and determine if he/she had been drinking (patent applied for)