The fact is that Obama is a redistributionist who claims that jobs are owed and not earned.
I've never heard this specific claim. Perhaps you could cite the "owed not earned" quote. But isn't every president, or every politician, or really anybody a "redistributionist" to some degree? Didn't the owners of Haliburton and Blackwater become fabulously (or more fabulously) wealthy during and due to the decisions and policies of the Bush administration? Hasn't someone or some class always gotten proportionately richer than average due to the policies of presidents over the years?
Sorry, but that kind of attitude is what's driving employers away from the USA.
Don't apologize to me. It's your opinion. I disagree, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't be proud of it.
You wish you had a girlfriend/boyfriend?
I'm married, you insensitive clod!
Obama is consistently talking about "American jobs" as if the jobs are rightfully American.
He's the president of the United States of America. You think he's gonna go around trying to boost employment in Brazil? He was elected by Americans, so criticizing him for looking out for the interests of Americans seems backwards and confusing.
Oh stop already with the politics. Stop with the infernal 'progressive' talking points and bringing class into everything. Simplify to this:
"Stupid people do stupid things that cause them to die sooner."
Ah, Social Darwinism, how I've missed you. But from the summary, we have this:
. . . some groups -- particularly people in rural locations are already stagnating or slipping in contrast to all other industrialized nations. Hardest hit are regions in the Deep South, along the Mississippi River, in Appalachia and also the southern part of the Midwest reaching into Texas . ..
So are you suggesting that perhaps there is a geographical component to stupidity? Like that part of the world is just the "Smart Man's Burden"?
It's personal responsibility. You go unannounced into a strangers house - ESPECIALLY after dark, and there's a very good chance that you're not coming back out. If you put yourself in that position then you have to live (or die) with the consequences.
Good ol' "Personal Responsibility". Funny how it always applies to the other guy.
Brandishing a firearm on your own property when someone refuses to leave = defense of property in almost every state in the Union.
Umm, you might want to be careful there. In several states you are limited to "physical force" to deal with a trespasser. "Deadly force" can only be employed if your life is in danger or they actually break into your residence. I would love the chance to throw a debt collector off my property but I think I'd leave the firearms out of it.
Besides, it's much more fun to watch them puking their guts out after you pepper spray them than it is to watch them bleed to death on your front lawn;)
You'd be less likely to be convicted if you use a sporting good or some other household item. Fetching your gun out of the locker to scare off the intruder looks more premeditated. If you have time for that, why not call the fuzz? ("I always keep my gun in easy reach" doesn't sound as good as you think.) Softball/Baseball bats, golf clubs, fireplace pokers and the like are more ad hoc and improvised defensive weapons, thus a spur of the moment response to an emergency. Naturally this should only be used on low-lifes like bill collectors or kids who are "on your lawn".
But with that said, the entire globe managed to switch to the metric system, including the U.K. Oh wait, not the entire world... the U.S. is a hold-out... is the U.S. the *last* hold-out?
We use a metric system in the US, in fact we use two of them. We're bi-mensurate!
So, let me tip my hat and say: I hope your ****ing nose is crooked for the rest of your life, greedy twit.
You're kind of an unsympathetic so-and-so, aren't you?
TFA doesn't even say what the victim is suing for. Or which of the parties he's suing. Kinda hard to say whether it's justified or not. The guy needed medical attention, new glasses, and probably missed some work.
And then to conflate all this with the high cost of medical care? That's a little bit of a stretch.
We provide the ability to sue for actual and punitive damages to compensate the wronged party and to discourage bad behavior. If Verizon sends techs to people's homes without any due diligence then they are liable for some punitive damages. Not to make those lucky victims rich, but to make sure they change their ways. The fact that they've still got the guy on the job, suggests that they might be a little lax in the background check department, too. Obviously, the blame for Mr. Benjamin's actions is his own. But if Verizon was willfully ignorant, it is OK to punish them as well.
It could turn out that Benjamin had a clean background check, good references, no history of violence that anyone could have reasonably discovered. If Verizon did this check and got these results, then I'd agree that they are not at fault. And probably a judge would too. As to keeping the tech on after that -- that doesn't make them look too conscientious.
Blaming victims for suing as a cause of "high costs" in medicine or anywhere is a pretty lame idea. The costs of criminal conduct (like Benjamin's alleged), and corporate negligence (like apparently Verizon's) are due to the fact that the perpetrators do bad things. It's not because they're punished that we pay, it's because they did it that we all suffer. It wasn't the customer's idea to get hit, nor did he write Verizon's screening policy. Just because justice is more costly than doing nothing doesn't mean it's better to do nothing.
To say it's too expensive to consumers to make corporate entities behave responsibly is shortsighted and immoral. If you think punitive damages are expensive, consider the alternative of having government agents shadowing every employee with a crimes and ethics handbook -- restraining a phone tech from hitting his customer and rewriting a corporate HR manual to provide for screening. We punish people and businesses because we simply cannot catch every example of bad behavior and prevent it.
Unless the dude had a history of violence/instability that they were aware of and ignored, I can't see why VZ should be held liable.
The dude should be charged criminally with assault.
According to TFA, he's still on the job!
Verizon spokesman Rich Young said the company has "zero tolerance for any sort of unethical or illegal behavior" and noted Benjamin was not convicted of any crime.
"In the months since this incident, his conduct has been blameless. As a result, we will not take further action," Young said.
So do you think it's OK to hold them liable next time?
How is that relevant? Does playing football disqualify you from becoming a cop or do college football players have background checks? Not really sure what you're trying to say.
Is it in the public's interest for individual officers to have their names, pictures, addresses and photographs of their houses published to the world?
1. Web postings need not serve the public interest. 2. These items were all previously published elsewhere.
It's not about hiding something... As someone who has three family members in law enforcement, I can tell you, without a shred of doubt, that she has put these peoples families in danger.
Wow. Those guys really should have been more careful about their cover then, unless they just don't give a damn about their families. Because it seems like their plan was to hope that no one would know how to use a computer, or a phonebook, or the library, or the county records. And their bosses should hang their heads in shame.
Now you seem to imply, when you write about the danger to the families, that there are actual people who might to actual physical harm to these folks. If true, that's pretty serious. Serious enough, that safeguards other than just relying on the ethics of a person with a lot of free time are needed. Because if there really are such people who would harm these guys' families, then you probably can't just rely on personal ethics or even laws against posting information to stop them.
Of course, this is probably just BS, I don't believe you about the danger.
My folks had an Encyclopedia set. The World Book Encyclopedia. When we learned about sperm and eggs and embryos and fetuses in school, I became curious as to how the man's sperm got into the woman. Not only was I curious, I was concerned. I certainly didn't want something like that happening: fathering a child simply by kissing a girl or holding her hand, so I figured I better find out before I got in trouble. So I pulled out the first "S" volume.
The article on "Sex" (human) starts out quite dry enough, describing relationships between the sexes and how they develop and change as children mature. It discusses dating and marriage and religious and social influences on intersexual relationships. Then finally the mechanics. As I recall, the description read like this: "A man and woman lie close together. The man places his penis inside the woman's vagina." This made a real impression on me: I figured I'd have to do quite a bit of growing before I could lie down next to a woman, take hold of my penis, and pull it over to the her vagina and plug it in like an extension cord! I was a little disappointed by how dull this sounded, but at the same time relieved that I wouldn't be accidentally spreading my genes around by casual contact.
It make perfect sense, you don't have a history of proving you can handle people loaning you money and paying it back. It is called a credit HISTORY for a reason.
It also makes perfect sense that using a credit report to judge Mr. Mundt's level of "responsibility" or other job-related factors is a bad plan. Which is the topic at hand: That one's credit report might disqualify one for a job.
In the US all hospitals are required by Federal and state laws to treat anyone without discrimination. You do not have to prove you have insurance or can pay prior to treatment. In the event a patient can't pay, most hospitals have a social worker on staff who administer indigent cases. In such cases, the hospital has no way to recover the money due other than to write it off on their taxes.
Whether a debt is "written off" or not is separate and distinct from the non-payment being reported on one's credit report.
So, US taxpayers are already subsidizing medical care.
First of all, there all still a few Not For Profit hospitals left. In this case, a tax write-off is worth little or nothing. Second, in the case of For-Profit hospitals, a tax write-off only means they reduce income by the amount of the write-off, not tax owed. Taxes owed are only a fraction of income -- this is known as a "tax rate" -- the top corporate tax rate in the US is 35% for income over about $18 million. To use a car analogy, it's like writing off a Corvette and getting a Malibu back. Thus, the taxpayer is only on the hook for a maximum of a Malibu.
Therefore, in order to cover costs, medical providers need to increase prices. Can't do that for Medicare/Medicaid or Insurance patients, since those rates are preset or pre-negotiated. All you can do there is try to upcode as much as possible. So guess who has to pay MSRP for their medical care -- the "self-pay" aka uninsured patient.
I had an anaesthesiologist bill in the US go into collection.
I had the same thing, and without the aggravating factor of relationship/address issues.
My anesthesiologist's bill was handled by a billing company in another state than the hospital. The first statement they sent me was a laser-printed bill on plain paper with no mention of what was being billed for, who did it or where it was performed. I had to assume it was from a recent hospital visit. I called the hospital and asked if anyone practicing there bill through the company in question, and they said "No". I sent the bill to my insurance, and of course they ignored it because it lacked billing codes, dates, and all other necessary data to verify it. This went on for almost a year, and in the mean time I was reported to a collections agency -- I told them they were collecting a fraudulent debt. The way they stopped hassling me immediately tells me in retrospect that they got that a lot with this client. Eleven months later, the original biller was finally able to provide a legitimate bill.
Your credit can be harmed by the incompetence of others.
The taxpayer only foots the bill if you can't pay. Or, even worse, they'll slap the cost of your bill on the bill of the next patient.
Even if the hospital gets federal funding because they are have a lot of poor patients, and even if the hospital can recover the cost of treating someone who can't afford it by raising costs for other patients -- despite the fact that insured patients (and their insurance) pay a pre-negotiated price for a given service -- even then -- you still get a bill, non-payment of which goes on your credit report.
Credit scores are a good indicator of responsible attitudes.
If you believe corporate astrology, sure. You do realize that Experian has a footnote that says it's just for entertainment, right?
. . . but your score will only go bad if you do something irresponsible, like buying something on credit which you don't pay back.
If -- for example -- you define "cancer" or "appendicitis" or such as "doing something irresponsible", and "chemotherapy" or "appendectomy" as "buying something on credit", then you've got a point.
It is DESIGNED to punish the poor or those that lose their job. It's being set up to "encourage" you to take all the crap they dish out at work so you dont lose that job and get blackballed.
But if you take that away, people will have less incentive to become rich! Because what with higher tax rates and euthanasia and the lack of freedom to own other people, it's just not worth it to be wealthy.
Slashdot Mirror
The fact is that Obama is a redistributionist who claims that jobs are owed and not earned.
I've never heard this specific claim. Perhaps you could cite the "owed not earned" quote. But isn't every president, or every politician, or really anybody a "redistributionist" to some degree? Didn't the owners of Haliburton and Blackwater become fabulously (or more fabulously) wealthy during and due to the decisions and policies of the Bush administration? Hasn't someone or some class always gotten proportionately richer than average due to the policies of presidents over the years?
Sorry, but that kind of attitude is what's driving employers away from the USA.
Don't apologize to me. It's your opinion. I disagree, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't be proud of it.
You wish you had a girlfriend/boyfriend?
I'm married, you insensitive clod!
Obama is consistently talking about "American jobs" as if the jobs are rightfully American.
He's the president of the United States of America. You think he's gonna go around trying to boost employment in Brazil? He was elected by Americans, so criticizing him for looking out for the interests of Americans seems backwards and confusing.
No secrets in a free market? Since when was that a requirement?
Since 1776, when Smith published Wealth of Nations. We're talking about no secret prices here, not secrets like the formula for Coke.
Oh stop already with the politics. Stop with the infernal 'progressive' talking points and bringing class into everything. Simplify to this:
"Stupid people do stupid things that cause them to die sooner."
Ah, Social Darwinism, how I've missed you. But from the summary, we have this:
. . . some groups -- particularly people in rural locations are already stagnating or slipping in contrast to all other industrialized nations. Hardest hit are regions in the Deep South, along the Mississippi River, in Appalachia and also the southern part of the Midwest reaching into Texas . . .
So are you suggesting that perhaps there is a geographical component to stupidity? Like that part of the world is just the "Smart Man's Burden"?
In a libertarian system there'd be no need to sue them for defamation, the wronged party could just go round and kick their fucking heads in.
True enough, but wronged party would probably just say "fuck it!" long before he got the road built even halfway to his offender's place.
It's personal responsibility. You go unannounced into a strangers house - ESPECIALLY after dark, and there's a very good chance that you're not coming back out. If you put yourself in that position then you have to live (or die) with the consequences.
Good ol' "Personal Responsibility". Funny how it always applies to the other guy.
Brandishing a firearm on your own property when someone refuses to leave = defense of property in almost every state in the Union.
Umm, you might want to be careful there. In several states you are limited to "physical force" to deal with a trespasser. "Deadly force" can only be employed if your life is in danger or they actually break into your residence. I would love the chance to throw a debt collector off my property but I think I'd leave the firearms out of it.
Besides, it's much more fun to watch them puking their guts out after you pepper spray them than it is to watch them bleed to death on your front lawn ;)
You'd be less likely to be convicted if you use a sporting good or some other household item. Fetching your gun out of the locker to scare off the intruder looks more premeditated. If you have time for that, why not call the fuzz? ("I always keep my gun in easy reach" doesn't sound as good as you think.) Softball/Baseball bats, golf clubs, fireplace pokers and the like are more ad hoc and improvised defensive weapons, thus a spur of the moment response to an emergency. Naturally this should only be used on low-lifes like bill collectors or kids who are "on your lawn".
I've heard hundreds of cases like that about Experian. Can someone tell me how this doesn't amount to defamation?
I believe that the libertarian answer would be: "Defamation laws only apply to the government, not the private sector."
You are implying that we are all stupid, and we all are materialistic.
Coming from a guy whose teenage years are gone but not forgotten, that's not some generational blip, that's just always described teenagers.
That's not very fair of you.
Please forgive this next clause, but I'm imagining you stomping your feet right now
But with that said, the entire globe managed to switch to the metric system, including the U.K. Oh wait, not the entire world... the U.S. is a hold-out... is the U.S. the *last* hold-out?
We use a metric system in the US, in fact we use two of them. We're bi-mensurate!
So, let me tip my hat and say: I hope your ****ing nose is crooked for the rest of your life, greedy twit.
You're kind of an unsympathetic so-and-so, aren't you?
TFA doesn't even say what the victim is suing for. Or which of the parties he's suing. Kinda hard to say whether it's justified or not. The guy needed medical attention, new glasses, and probably missed some work.
And then to conflate all this with the high cost of medical care? That's a little bit of a stretch.
We provide the ability to sue for actual and punitive damages to compensate the wronged party and to discourage bad behavior. If Verizon sends techs to people's homes without any due diligence then they are liable for some punitive damages. Not to make those lucky victims rich, but to make sure they change their ways. The fact that they've still got the guy on the job, suggests that they might be a little lax in the background check department, too. Obviously, the blame for Mr. Benjamin's actions is his own. But if Verizon was willfully ignorant, it is OK to punish them as well.
It could turn out that Benjamin had a clean background check, good references, no history of violence that anyone could have reasonably discovered. If Verizon did this check and got these results, then I'd agree that they are not at fault. And probably a judge would too. As to keeping the tech on after that -- that doesn't make them look too conscientious.
Blaming victims for suing as a cause of "high costs" in medicine or anywhere is a pretty lame idea. The costs of criminal conduct (like Benjamin's alleged), and corporate negligence (like apparently Verizon's) are due to the fact that the perpetrators do bad things. It's not because they're punished that we pay, it's because they did it that we all suffer. It wasn't the customer's idea to get hit, nor did he write Verizon's screening policy. Just because justice is more costly than doing nothing doesn't mean it's better to do nothing.
To say it's too expensive to consumers to make corporate entities behave responsibly is shortsighted and immoral. If you think punitive damages are expensive, consider the alternative of having government agents shadowing every employee with a crimes and ethics handbook -- restraining a phone tech from hitting his customer and rewriting a corporate HR manual to provide for screening. We punish people and businesses because we simply cannot catch every example of bad behavior and prevent it.
Unless the dude had a history of violence/instability that they were aware of and ignored, I can't see why VZ should be held liable.
The dude should be charged criminally with assault.
According to TFA, he's still on the job!
Verizon spokesman Rich Young said the company has "zero tolerance for any sort of unethical or illegal behavior" and noted Benjamin was not convicted of any crime.
"In the months since this incident, his conduct has been blameless. As a result, we will not take further action," Young said.
So do you think it's OK to hold them liable next time?
You mean like the customer consenting to getting beat up, right?
It's probably right there in the Verizon contract fine print.
Imitation +1 Funny Mod. Now with half the calories!
Half the calories and still no Karma!
How is that relevant? Does playing football disqualify you from becoming a cop or do college football players have background checks? Not really sure what you're trying to say.
I find your lack of synthesis disturbing . . .
Is it in the public's interest for individual officers to have their names, pictures, addresses and photographs of their houses published to the world?
1. Web postings need not serve the public interest. 2. These items were all previously published elsewhere.
Most senators and Michael Jackson wouldn't pass the background check to be a cop, anyway.
There are senators who played football in college.
It's not about hiding something... As someone who has three family members in law enforcement, I can tell you, without a shred of doubt, that she has put these peoples families in danger.
Wow. Those guys really should have been more careful about their cover then, unless they just don't give a damn about their families. Because it seems like their plan was to hope that no one would know how to use a computer, or a phonebook, or the library, or the county records. And their bosses should hang their heads in shame.
Now you seem to imply, when you write about the danger to the families, that there are actual people who might to actual physical harm to these folks. If true, that's pretty serious. Serious enough, that safeguards other than just relying on the ethics of a person with a lot of free time are needed. Because if there really are such people who would harm these guys' families, then you probably can't just rely on personal ethics or even laws against posting information to stop them.
Of course, this is probably just BS, I don't believe you about the danger.
How did we learn about things before google?
My folks had an Encyclopedia set. The World Book Encyclopedia. When we learned about sperm and eggs and embryos and fetuses in school, I became curious as to how the man's sperm got into the woman. Not only was I curious, I was concerned. I certainly didn't want something like that happening: fathering a child simply by kissing a girl or holding her hand, so I figured I better find out before I got in trouble. So I pulled out the first "S" volume.
The article on "Sex" (human) starts out quite dry enough, describing relationships between the sexes and how they develop and change as children mature. It discusses dating and marriage and religious and social influences on intersexual relationships. Then finally the mechanics. As I recall, the description read like this: "A man and woman lie close together. The man places his penis inside the woman's vagina." This made a real impression on me: I figured I'd have to do quite a bit of growing before I could lie down next to a woman, take hold of my penis, and pull it over to the her vagina and plug it in like an extension cord! I was a little disappointed by how dull this sounded, but at the same time relieved that I wouldn't be accidentally spreading my genes around by casual contact.
It make perfect sense, you don't have a history of proving you can handle people loaning you money and paying it back. It is called a credit HISTORY for a reason.
It also makes perfect sense that using a credit report to judge Mr. Mundt's level of "responsibility" or other job-related factors is a bad plan. Which is the topic at hand: That one's credit report might disqualify one for a job.
In the US all hospitals are required by Federal and state laws to treat anyone without discrimination. You do not have to prove you have insurance or can pay prior to treatment. In the event a patient can't pay, most hospitals have a social worker on staff who administer indigent cases. In such cases, the hospital has no way to recover the money due other than to write it off on their taxes.
Whether a debt is "written off" or not is separate and distinct from the non-payment being reported on one's credit report.
So, US taxpayers are already subsidizing medical care.
First of all, there all still a few Not For Profit hospitals left. In this case, a tax write-off is worth little or nothing. Second, in the case of For-Profit hospitals, a tax write-off only means they reduce income by the amount of the write-off, not tax owed. Taxes owed are only a fraction of income -- this is known as a "tax rate" -- the top corporate tax rate in the US is 35% for income over about $18 million. To use a car analogy, it's like writing off a Corvette and getting a Malibu back. Thus, the taxpayer is only on the hook for a maximum of a Malibu.
Therefore, in order to cover costs, medical providers need to increase prices. Can't do that for Medicare/Medicaid or Insurance patients, since those rates are preset or pre-negotiated. All you can do there is try to upcode as much as possible. So guess who has to pay MSRP for their medical care -- the "self-pay" aka uninsured patient.
I had an anaesthesiologist bill in the US go into collection.
I had the same thing, and without the aggravating factor of relationship/address issues.
My anesthesiologist's bill was handled by a billing company in another state than the hospital. The first statement they sent me was a laser-printed bill on plain paper with no mention of what was being billed for, who did it or where it was performed. I had to assume it was from a recent hospital visit. I called the hospital and asked if anyone practicing there bill through the company in question, and they said "No". I sent the bill to my insurance, and of course they ignored it because it lacked billing codes, dates, and all other necessary data to verify it. This went on for almost a year, and in the mean time I was reported to a collections agency -- I told them they were collecting a fraudulent debt. The way they stopped hassling me immediately tells me in retrospect that they got that a lot with this client. Eleven months later, the original biller was finally able to provide a legitimate bill.
Your credit can be harmed by the incompetence of others.
Sorry, are you saying that there are no state-funded hospitals in the US?
Where do people go who can't afford private healthcare?
If the answer is "nowhere", how can that system possibly work?
It sounds like your healthcare system needs fixing, not your credit scoring system. That's an entirely separate debate to credit scoring.
That's pretty much it, man. And we do need to fix both, really, but health care more urgently.
The taxpayer only foots the bill if you can't pay. Or, even worse, they'll slap the cost of your bill on the bill of the next patient.
Even if the hospital gets federal funding because they are have a lot of poor patients, and even if the hospital can recover the cost of treating someone who can't afford it by raising costs for other patients -- despite the fact that insured patients (and their insurance) pay a pre-negotiated price for a given service -- even then -- you still get a bill, non-payment of which goes on your credit report.
Credit scores are a good indicator of responsible attitudes.
If you believe corporate astrology, sure. You do realize that Experian has a footnote that says it's just for entertainment, right?
. . . but your score will only go bad if you do something irresponsible, like buying something on credit which you don't pay back.
If -- for example -- you define "cancer" or "appendicitis" or such as "doing something irresponsible", and "chemotherapy" or "appendectomy" as "buying something on credit", then you've got a point.
It is DESIGNED to punish the poor or those that lose their job. It's being set up to "encourage" you to take all the crap they dish out at work so you dont lose that job and get blackballed.
But if you take that away, people will have less incentive to become rich! Because what with higher tax rates and euthanasia and the lack of freedom to own other people, it's just not worth it to be wealthy.