Who needs to suffer through academia when there's plenty of blue-collar jobs that pay a lot out there?
EXCELLENT!
I've been looking for a good quote to show people in the "jobs going over seas" threads. This way when blue collar workers are complaining about their salaries/jobs going over seas, I can reference this which shows either the mentality of their compatriots, or even themselves.
Blue collar workers who passed up the opportunity for higher learning, and still continue to pass it up (eg, refuse to go back), despite the fact that the price of their labour is decreasing, to amounts they can't afford, resulting in their jobs being moved over seas. Who then cry foul, and want us to bare the cost of their lack of skills through regulation, subsidies, or similar.
Yeah, definitely. I have done some mathematics and technology study, and while there are many bright international students, they do seem few and far between. I think it's the added problems of having to move to a different country, possibly having to work, possibly having to study a certain quota for their visa, possibly being on their own for the first time, and lastly having to learn a totally new language. I know all of this would place a huge strain on me. When we did a statistical comparison of grades attained when seperated by natively english speaking vs. several alternative groups (there were a pile of these done, we just analyzed some data, but the university had a lot, and conducted its own), we noticed that the probability distributions for native speakers had a higher mean/mode/median than the distribution for non-native speakers. We also noticed fatter tails towards the higher end for native speakers.
Which makes sense, international students are exactly like us in demographics, personality, skill (given they passed the entrance exams), etc, so we both have similar proportions of lazy people, or people who just don't understand the material, and so these distributions should be similar. However, on top of this, you have even more challenges, so it makes sense that we'd see some difference.
The most amazing things I've seen, are talking to some people (a few from Vietnam, a few form China), where their families are paying insane amounts of money for them to study here, and these people didn't really care much about studying. They were some of the biggest partyers I'd seen. Staying out late, handing in assignments late, or not at all. Skating through with barely passes. Amazing. I just couldn't do that.
Another unrelated statistic which was quite interesting, was that your grades throughout the year, are a weak predictor of your grades at the end of the year (exam grades). Which seems totally wrong, but isn't. Given how lousy my exam grades turn out, due to the pressure/time limits/etc, and considering I get near 100%'s for all other work, I can see why universities are abandoning exams as a determinant of your competency, these days. Unfortunately, mine isn't one of them.
Haha, ahhh, okay, so you're Chinese. Good to know. I wasn't trying to be derogatory or anything (just to clarify).
I'm currently studying with a fair few immigrants (I'm not in America), and I see a lot of these sorts of problems. Learning to read and write English really well will help you in your studies (tend to get higher grades), and will really help you get a job.
On another note, if you've got a non-anglo-saxon name (like John Smith) you might find it harder to get jobs, and will find it harder to get interviews. This is mainly because businesses are used to seeing non-anglo-saxon names, and used to seeing them have lower than average grades, used to having trouble communicating with them in the business, and on top of that, a whole lot of fundamental attribution error problems.
Because of this, a friend of mine who is Indian (from India) yet grew up in Australia, and has Australian parents, finds that he absolutely has to call up jobs he applies for, and make sure they hear his voice, and see that he's not from that certain group. When he told me this I was amazed, since I hadn't thought, or heard of it before. He said he wishes he had a (legal) anglo-saxon name, even if his parents/friends/family called him something else, just so it didn't inhibit him before the interview.
I actually have a non-anglo-saxon name, because my parents are hippies. Luckily part of my name is anglo-saxon, so I use that part instead, and leave out the other parts. When I started doing this, after my friend mentioned it, suddenly I was getting a LOT more call backs. It was quite amazing.
Also, my first name is more middle eastern than anything, and many people from reading it, assume that it's a female name (which it isn't, it's one of those strictly male names). So, I also found many people who would get my call before, shocked to hear a male voice. Always used to make a bit of a joke about it.
Anyhow, just some things I've come across. You should definitely look to improve your English to help your studied and career though (unless your studies are strictly in a non-English area, or unless you want to work outside of an English speaking country, though I hear that many countries require English for business).
Step 1: Learn to English. Step 2: Study a lot. Step 3: Get full time job. Step 4: Study more. Step 5: Get next full time job. Step 6: Study more. Step 7: Get next full time job.
Assumes you're in or willing to move to a competitive location (NYC, London, Segments of California, etc), that you're able to put in this amount of work, and that you're lucky.
Given you weren't born into it, or extremely lucky, or extremely exceptional (which everyone seems to think they are), then you too could earn this sort of money.
I've family and friends, who are close to or in those tax brackets, and though I've really simplified it, they essentially did the above.
One studied for 5 years, worked through it, had no life, got reasonable grades, travelled to the other side of the world, with almost no money, a suit case, and without a job (in the 90s), now has a job working in remote places for large amounts of time, flying in and out, sees his family rarely. Another studied and worked to support that study for 6 years, got quite high grades, had no life, now works in isolated areas around the world, moving from place to place.
There's a few more instances of this, but they become less close to that amount of money, but they all have a few things in common: 1 - No family life, and no life with friends, or more so, little to speak of. 2 - Extremely long hours, such that at even on "holiday", their phone is on, they've got their laptop, they'll probably end up doing SOME work, and their holidays are often under the amount many would get. 3 - Took some huge risks which could have ruined them, forcing them to return to their relatively poor beginnings (one guy above came from a very very poor neighbourhood, the other a middle lower class neighbourhood). 4 - Studied for ages, while others worked. 5 - When opportunities to study more came up, they took them, AND kept working. 6 - When opportunities to work came up, they took them.
So... what's unnecessary? The tax, the tax break, the cartoon news of it, or the article on it?
Overall, I like this idea. Forcing larger companies, into shitty areas, which they'll have to do up, and which will provide incentives for other businesses to move there too (such as those that will supply these other businesses).
I could see such strategies being valuable to both the businesses (as it eliminates the cost of moving, and problems of re-hiring people), and it could revitalize some run down areas.
Though doing it for just one business, might not be on a large enough scale.
Yeah. That's why I like it when "scavengers" go and "scavenge" copper and electrical equipment from abandoned houses. Maybe the house is old, maybe the financing ran out, maybe it's just delayed building. Either way, they're "no longer in use", so feel free to take it.
Can't wait till the next news article after this goes live...
"There has been a sudden increase in credit card fraud in France of late, due to users using the same password on every different system. So when a.fr site is hacked or an employee goes rogue, suddenly you get a lot more than you originally bargained for."
So do I. Due to the increased health risk, in *many* countries his employer would be paying him more - as well as more insurance fee and other taxes.
He earns a dismal amount. My first salary was $10k over what he was earning. See, blue collar workers on the whole, tend to have also not invested too much in their own skills, or more so, not more comparatively than labour from other countries. So, these days, he competes with the indians, and chinese, who have almost no education, and sometimes can't even speak the language.
...and by going vegetarian years ago I reduced my cholesterol while keeping my vitamins-and-so-on levels just perfect. Should I pay less?
Following the above logic, yes. If you're at less risk, then you should.
...because it would make you pay more taxes and make me pay less? While also educating people to think that caring about their health is not such a stupid idea?
The problem being, if you follow this logic, and continue to scrutinize costs, you approach a limit where public health care, becomes private health care. In which case, why did you make it public in the first place? All you've then done is setup giant monopolies and given them heaps of power. You've the worst of both worlds.
Do blue collar workers create positive externalities?
They tend to work in factories, and similar, which produce pollution.
They reduce the competitiveness of the nation, when in many circumstances they could have educated themselves further, and we could have left more of that work to other countries. A run on consequence of this is making dumber financial/political decisions, which has run on effects.
They push to subsidize their labour, as the price they can earn, is below the price we can afford, hence there is no net consumer surplus.
I just woke up, so I'm a little hazy, but I'm sure there's many other negative externalities attribute to them. So that means we've got a fight between which ones over power the others. As such, no, we can't say that they provide a net positive benefit with regards to externalities.
Therefore, we leave ourselves in the exact same position as I just said.
Also, did you consider the externalities of fat people? Are they this way due to sedentary lifestyles? Such as being an academic, or being apart of the "knowledge economy"?
The point I'm trying to get across is that other activities do correlate highly, and if you're going to be taxing those activities more, then you're eventually just going to be taxing the ailments themselves, which is essentially private health care.
Though I don't have any data on it, except for me and 1 of my uncles, all of my extended family are hard manual labourers.
I've a mother that's had 3 shoulder reconstructions. A father who's in and out of the doctors with back and leg problems. An uncle who is 50, can't support himself, and almost can't do any physical work, who required constant doctors visits... etc, etc, etc. There are a significant amount of people doing these activities, and they would have to be correlated with healthcare costs, it just depends on how much. Which comes down to comparing via models, which is quite subjective, as we need to consider future costs.
In comparison me and my uncle, have had no surgery, and few ailments to mention.
HOLY FUCK! You were paying $40 per month as a single 20's male for PRIVATE HEALTH CARE? That's insane. That means you pay around $480 a year.
I have private health care in Australia, and I pay $1,200 or abouts and I'm a single 20's male (more so my parents pay this for me, as they want to know I'm covered).
However, I have heard that your private health care companies can be real cunts when it comes to paying out on the policy. Have you had troubles with this? I know that's one problem I've never had.
I'm not sure that what you've said there, are established facts. I come from a country which has public health care, and I don't believe there's any reasonable measure which captures "healthier" or "better". They would be quite subjective models.
However, the middle question I can answer with some back of the envelope calculations. Just quickly digging around I was able to get the various budgets for our countries, and they are as follows.
The United States spends 5.81% of GDP on health care. Australia spends 9.1% of GDP on health care.
So, your larger system (though with all its problems) is having proportionally less money spent on it than ours.
Yes. Your bastardized model is absolutely insane. However, I'd rather you moved in the opposite direction. Get rid of your drug policy, get rid of the FDA, get rid of the patents, get rid of the inflexibility of government contracts, and similar.
First, unpopular activities that a lot of voters find disgusting such as smoking or being very fat will get disproportionately charged.
Yes, and no. There is only so much taxing you can do, and it's very politically unpopular, not to mention fraught with implementation problems. While that's what happens in theory, that's not what happens in practice.
Second, private health care systems have to compete with other private health care systems which leads to some degree of reduction of cost, depending on the degree of competition, while there is no competition for this health care system.
Ever worked in the industry? That's completely NOT what happens. First of all the public sector undercuts the private sector, resulting in crowding out of investment in that sector. Secondly, those that do go to support the public sector, require a significant amount of financing to support the hordes of new patients, this either drives the cost of their services up, or (and this is what usually happens) they are given extremely beneficial long term contracts, which meet their long term investment needs. In the end these long term contracts result in a small amount of providers, consuming the market, and driving up the price anyway. I have worked closely with a company in my state, which is the "only" nursing provider. They have one of these contracts, which they have to bid for, but since they are the only real contender, they always get them. In the end, these providers end up acting like defence contractors, by growing as big as possible, ensuring they source their labour from all over the area. This makes them absolutely, 100%, politically untenable to remove.
What you have, is in the end, a public system, which is actually more of a private system, which you have no direct control over, which inhibits competition, and provides an increasingly worse service.
Caveat: I am discussing this in an extremely unfavourable light here, however there are counteracting forces, and it isn't as black and white as I describe it. I'm just using that to get my point across, in that, in my experience with these systems, this is what it tends towards. Though disruptive forces, such as "rogue" politicians, other aggressive companies, new technology, constituent push back, all work in the opposite direction, and it's more of a battle between these forces. However, the former forces (discussed above), usually hold the greater balance of power.
I concur with assuming it's correct, and about experimental tests. The problem being, economists rely on "ceteris paribus" saying, "holding all else equal". This allows us to do thought experiments where we have the ability to run experiments, where we can try various scenarios. These are what our models are based on.
In reality, we can't "ceteris paribus". People don't like to have their economy reset, and nor are they willing to stop doing other ideas, so we can test just 1 variable.
This means our systems are prone to extreme correlation problems, not the least bit of which is due to the fact that, we operating inside a system which is essentially infinitely recursive, such that every variable, relies on every other variable, to some degree.
You're right, the sensitivity of the variables in our models are insane. I recall first year finance/econ students learning about simple models (dividend discount/good market) where the variables, especially over a reasonable amount of time (like 20 years), to change say the discount rate, or the marginal propensity to consume, could produce changes on an order of magnitude. The further into the future you attempt to analyse, the more subjective your models will be, such that it approaches guess work. Such that, these days, I only consider extremely short term models to be even slightly relevant, and for anything of significantly long term, I only take an axiomatic approach and heavily qualify my expectations and assumptions (eg, "We would expect it to tend towards this... given this holds...").
In this way, every economic model, whether its for or against your point, whether it's the best model we can find, or not, can be scrutinized to the point that you can disregard it.
I hope that some day, we'll be able to achieve a state where we can accurately predict and model all sorts of changes, however after reading Godel, Escher, Bach I don't particularly think we'll ever achieve that goal.
It can also be logically taken to the extent of "everyone pays what they get" which is the OPPOSITE of a public health care system. When you scrutinize more, and charge more for some, you inevitably approach a limit where it becomes a private health care system.
Though, without any of the benefits of the private health care system. So the worst of both worlds.
Sweet, that exact same argument is an argument against the very study above.
I do work along these lines, and all I can say is that while economic models are often wildly wrong, they are our best, most informed, attempts at finding ways to solve extremely complex problems. You think solving engineering/physics/mathematical problems are hard? Try solving people problems, on the state/country/world scale. Try solving problems where the entities (like particles) can up and change their mind, and do something else. I guess this is why we end up employing so many engineering/physics/mathematicians to work with us.
While economics has many bad models, some are getting better over time. I've been noticing a significant shift toward Austrian models (which are softer and less about predicting the future), and Post Keynsian models (which are more about empirics and less about ideological principles). So, over time, we attempt to make the best decisions possible. Additionally, a large problem with the models is, they often aren't implemented. Politicians tend to pick the pieces they like, that agree with them, then implement those, without realizing that the WHOLE system is required. Though, they're not all to blame, as most people also aren't willing to implement the "whole" system. For a really good documentary about this, see the documentary The Trap by Adam Curtis.
Lastly, if your problem is models in general, then what would you have us do? Just guess? Flip a coin? Implement whatever we feel like, without regard to consequences?
What do you think a model is?
I must confess, this post is somewhat rehearsed, I'm used to hearing this from luddites. "Oh sure they're the models the 'scientists' created at the LHC show it will be fine, but they don't know for sure, and their models are often wrong!"
(DISCLAIMER: I'm talking as if I live in America, I don't, I actually live in Australia, but work closely with Americans, and my family/friends are in the health care industry in Australia. There is a good chance I'll be relocating there for work soon.)
Excellent. Well, while we're at it, I want a blue collar workers tax. My father who worked on farms, and has done sheet metal work, all his life, is perpetually at the doctors, with all sorts of ailments. Far more than any fat person, and likely, blue collar workers would collectively spend a lot more time at the doctors, especially in their old age.
This would "reward good behavior" like studying hard and going to college, and "raise awareness that certain conditions, including" manual labour, "raise costs throughout the system. If you want to" not invest in your own education and settle for a simple life, "go for it". "But understand you're going to have to contribute something for the cost of the care of your" choice of occupation.
Also, we need a sportsmen tax. When I used to play ice hockey, I was always getting fucked up knees, ankles, shins, shoulders, etc. I was always going to see the doctor, and a few times I took a puck in the wrong place, and had to get some serious attention. My lower leg once filled up with blood, due to a really good slap shot, that cut a muscle internally by pushing the muscle against a bone. These days that leg still gives me trouble, all the time.
This would "reward good behavior" like not playing rough sports, and "raise awareness that certain conditions, including" physical sports, "raise costs throughout the system. If you want to" play rough sports, "go for it". "But understand you're going to have to contribute something for the cost of the care of your" choice of leisure.
Oh, also, some of my family are vegans and keep having problems with balancing their iron needs and some other vitamin stuff (can't remember exactly), so we need a tax on that.
This is absolutely absurd, and extremely counter productive. Especially since, things like this are the reason the people on the right fear increasing the scope of medicaid. This sort of thing, and the scrutiny over different forms of treatment, are what is wrong with public health care. In Australia, doctors are limited via their treatment options, because the public system won't pay for various sorts of treatments (might be contingent on some variables being met), and the private system won't pay for them, because the public system pays more than what normal people can afford to the providers, while attempting cost cutting measures (such as quota limits, and more scrutinzation of patients, etc). This results in driving up the price, and creating an oligopoly type situation.
That's just the start of the sort of problems you have with things like this. They are complex systems, where everyone has a say, many different parties hold influence, resulting in absolutely intractable problems, that will result in higher costs, and less benefits.
Also, the BMI is fucking ridiculous. I've got friend who did/do body building, and they'll tell you that they're actually obese, based on the BMI that is. It's at this point that people say "but but but there's other measures you use in combination", the looser the legal policy is, the more useless this bill is (in fact, it will just add administrative overhead). The tighter it is, the more you're going to be victimizing these other people.
Oh, it should also be noted, that these body building types often put a higher burden on the health care system. They push their bodies to extreme limits, such that they require regular check ups, and can easily end up in a bad situation. Ever seen someone cut weight before? It's pretty fucked.
Ever used Chrome? It's PDF reader is fucking fast, more secure, and a good alternative to loading Adobe. Also, you can right click and save as if you want to load it in something else (Adboe/FoxIt/etc).
I know you're just a troll, and you couldn't have missed that the entire reason for the court case, isn't about what they said (though in legal terms that's how its described), and that you couldn't have missed the BILLIONS of replies to this exact same statement, which perfectly address and explain what this case is about.
Exactly! This is what I've been trying to say about Ferrari, Pagani, Lambourghini, Koenigsegg, Porche, McLaren, Maybach, and similar. Those poor struggling producers will never make it in the automobile industry. If you want an American example, Saleen.
While I'm being facetious here, I know that those companies above have eventually merged with others, however some of them haven't, and some have different financing arrangements such that they are independent. However, none of them started from the mass-market, most of them started with fuck all capital, and most of them make a fuck load of money.
Slashdot Mirror
Who needs to suffer through academia when there's plenty of blue-collar jobs that pay a lot out there?
EXCELLENT!
I've been looking for a good quote to show people in the "jobs going over seas" threads. This way when blue collar workers are complaining about their salaries/jobs going over seas, I can reference this which shows either the mentality of their compatriots, or even themselves.
Blue collar workers who passed up the opportunity for higher learning, and still continue to pass it up (eg, refuse to go back), despite the fact that the price of their labour is decreasing, to amounts they can't afford, resulting in their jobs being moved over seas. Who then cry foul, and want us to bare the cost of their lack of skills through regulation, subsidies, or similar.
This is perfect. Thanks!
Yeah, definitely. I have done some mathematics and technology study, and while there are many bright international students, they do seem few and far between. I think it's the added problems of having to move to a different country, possibly having to work, possibly having to study a certain quota for their visa, possibly being on their own for the first time, and lastly having to learn a totally new language. I know all of this would place a huge strain on me. When we did a statistical comparison of grades attained when seperated by natively english speaking vs. several alternative groups (there were a pile of these done, we just analyzed some data, but the university had a lot, and conducted its own), we noticed that the probability distributions for native speakers had a higher mean/mode/median than the distribution for non-native speakers. We also noticed fatter tails towards the higher end for native speakers.
Which makes sense, international students are exactly like us in demographics, personality, skill (given they passed the entrance exams), etc, so we both have similar proportions of lazy people, or people who just don't understand the material, and so these distributions should be similar. However, on top of this, you have even more challenges, so it makes sense that we'd see some difference.
The most amazing things I've seen, are talking to some people (a few from Vietnam, a few form China), where their families are paying insane amounts of money for them to study here, and these people didn't really care much about studying. They were some of the biggest partyers I'd seen. Staying out late, handing in assignments late, or not at all. Skating through with barely passes. Amazing. I just couldn't do that.
Another unrelated statistic which was quite interesting, was that your grades throughout the year, are a weak predictor of your grades at the end of the year (exam grades). Which seems totally wrong, but isn't. Given how lousy my exam grades turn out, due to the pressure/time limits/etc, and considering I get near 100%'s for all other work, I can see why universities are abandoning exams as a determinant of your competency, these days. Unfortunately, mine isn't one of them.
Haha, ahhh, okay, so you're Chinese. Good to know. I wasn't trying to be derogatory or anything (just to clarify).
I'm currently studying with a fair few immigrants (I'm not in America), and I see a lot of these sorts of problems. Learning to read and write English really well will help you in your studies (tend to get higher grades), and will really help you get a job.
On another note, if you've got a non-anglo-saxon name (like John Smith) you might find it harder to get jobs, and will find it harder to get interviews. This is mainly because businesses are used to seeing non-anglo-saxon names, and used to seeing them have lower than average grades, used to having trouble communicating with them in the business, and on top of that, a whole lot of fundamental attribution error problems.
Because of this, a friend of mine who is Indian (from India) yet grew up in Australia, and has Australian parents, finds that he absolutely has to call up jobs he applies for, and make sure they hear his voice, and see that he's not from that certain group. When he told me this I was amazed, since I hadn't thought, or heard of it before. He said he wishes he had a (legal) anglo-saxon name, even if his parents/friends/family called him something else, just so it didn't inhibit him before the interview.
I actually have a non-anglo-saxon name, because my parents are hippies. Luckily part of my name is anglo-saxon, so I use that part instead, and leave out the other parts. When I started doing this, after my friend mentioned it, suddenly I was getting a LOT more call backs. It was quite amazing.
Also, my first name is more middle eastern than anything, and many people from reading it, assume that it's a female name (which it isn't, it's one of those strictly male names). So, I also found many people who would get my call before, shocked to hear a male voice. Always used to make a bit of a joke about it.
Anyhow, just some things I've come across. You should definitely look to improve your English to help your studied and career though (unless your studies are strictly in a non-English area, or unless you want to work outside of an English speaking country, though I hear that many countries require English for business).
Rolling stones don't gather Moses. ...
That's why you're studying a Ph.D.
I got no idea what you're saying.
What language are you studying in?
I wish I were in that bracket.
Step 1: Learn to English.
Step 2: Study a lot.
Step 3: Get full time job.
Step 4: Study more.
Step 5: Get next full time job.
Step 6: Study more.
Step 7: Get next full time job.
Assumes you're in or willing to move to a competitive location (NYC, London, Segments of California, etc), that you're able to put in this amount of work, and that you're lucky.
Given you weren't born into it, or extremely lucky, or extremely exceptional (which everyone seems to think they are), then you too could earn this sort of money.
I've family and friends, who are close to or in those tax brackets, and though I've really simplified it, they essentially did the above.
One studied for 5 years, worked through it, had no life, got reasonable grades, travelled to the other side of the world, with almost no money, a suit case, and without a job (in the 90s), now has a job working in remote places for large amounts of time, flying in and out, sees his family rarely.
Another studied and worked to support that study for 6 years, got quite high grades, had no life, now works in isolated areas around the world, moving from place to place.
There's a few more instances of this, but they become less close to that amount of money, but they all have a few things in common:
1 - No family life, and no life with friends, or more so, little to speak of.
2 - Extremely long hours, such that at even on "holiday", their phone is on, they've got their laptop, they'll probably end up doing SOME work, and their holidays are often under the amount many would get.
3 - Took some huge risks which could have ruined them, forcing them to return to their relatively poor beginnings (one guy above came from a very very poor neighbourhood, the other a middle lower class neighbourhood).
4 - Studied for ages, while others worked.
5 - When opportunities to study more came up, they took them, AND kept working.
6 - When opportunities to work came up, they took them.
On top of all of that, they had some good luck.
So... what's unnecessary? The tax, the tax break, the cartoon news of it, or the article on it?
Overall, I like this idea. Forcing larger companies, into shitty areas, which they'll have to do up, and which will provide incentives for other businesses to move there too (such as those that will supply these other businesses).
I could see such strategies being valuable to both the businesses (as it eliminates the cost of moving, and problems of re-hiring people), and it could revitalize some run down areas.
Though doing it for just one business, might not be on a large enough scale.
Either way, quite interesting.
Especially if the algorithm was something like Whirlpool or SHA512, as compared with MD5.
Yeah. That's why I like it when "scavengers" go and "scavenge" copper and electrical equipment from abandoned houses. Maybe the house is old, maybe the financing ran out, maybe it's just delayed building. Either way, they're "no longer in use", so feel free to take it.
Yeah, you're right. Because there is still SOMETHING they need to do, then it hasn't made their live EASIER. (Easier being the operative word here)
Also, sure, Google and Facebook might be secure, so ALL websites will be secure.
Can't wait till the next news article after this goes live...
"There has been a sudden increase in credit card fraud in France of late, due to users using the same password on every different system. So when a .fr site is hacked or an employee goes rogue, suddenly you get a lot more than you originally bargained for."
So do I. Due to the increased health risk, in *many* countries his employer would be paying him more - as well as more insurance fee and other taxes.
He earns a dismal amount. My first salary was $10k over what he was earning. See, blue collar workers on the whole, tend to have also not invested too much in their own skills, or more so, not more comparatively than labour from other countries. So, these days, he competes with the indians, and chinese, who have almost no education, and sometimes can't even speak the language.
...and by going vegetarian years ago I reduced my cholesterol while keeping my vitamins-and-so-on levels just perfect. Should I pay less?
Following the above logic, yes. If you're at less risk, then you should.
...because it would make you pay more taxes and make me pay less? While also educating people to think that caring about their health is not such a stupid idea?
The problem being, if you follow this logic, and continue to scrutinize costs, you approach a limit where public health care, becomes private health care. In which case, why did you make it public in the first place? All you've then done is setup giant monopolies and given them heaps of power. You've the worst of both worlds.
LOL I know what positive externalities are.
Do blue collar workers create positive externalities?
They tend to work in factories, and similar, which produce pollution.
They reduce the competitiveness of the nation, when in many circumstances they could have educated themselves further, and we could have left more of that work to other countries. A run on consequence of this is making dumber financial/political decisions, which has run on effects.
They push to subsidize their labour, as the price they can earn, is below the price we can afford, hence there is no net consumer surplus.
I just woke up, so I'm a little hazy, but I'm sure there's many other negative externalities attribute to them. So that means we've got a fight between which ones over power the others. As such, no, we can't say that they provide a net positive benefit with regards to externalities.
Therefore, we leave ourselves in the exact same position as I just said.
Also, did you consider the externalities of fat people? Are they this way due to sedentary lifestyles? Such as being an academic, or being apart of the "knowledge economy"?
The point I'm trying to get across is that other activities do correlate highly, and if you're going to be taxing those activities more, then you're eventually just going to be taxing the ailments themselves, which is essentially private health care.
Though I don't have any data on it, except for me and 1 of my uncles, all of my extended family are hard manual labourers.
I've a mother that's had 3 shoulder reconstructions. A father who's in and out of the doctors with back and leg problems. An uncle who is 50, can't support himself, and almost can't do any physical work, who required constant doctors visits... etc, etc, etc. There are a significant amount of people doing these activities, and they would have to be correlated with healthcare costs, it just depends on how much. Which comes down to comparing via models, which is quite subjective, as we need to consider future costs.
In comparison me and my uncle, have had no surgery, and few ailments to mention.
Though, this is all anecdotal.
My point exactly. However as soon as you introduce public health care, you get rent seekers.
HOLY FUCK! You were paying $40 per month as a single 20's male for PRIVATE HEALTH CARE? That's insane. That means you pay around $480 a year.
I have private health care in Australia, and I pay $1,200 or abouts and I'm a single 20's male (more so my parents pay this for me, as they want to know I'm covered).
However, I have heard that your private health care companies can be real cunts when it comes to paying out on the policy. Have you had troubles with this? I know that's one problem I've never had.
I'm not sure that what you've said there, are established facts. I come from a country which has public health care, and I don't believe there's any reasonable measure which captures "healthier" or "better". They would be quite subjective models.
However, the middle question I can answer with some back of the envelope calculations. Just quickly digging around I was able to get the various budgets for our countries, and they are as follows.
The United States spends 5.81% of GDP on health care.
Australia spends 9.1% of GDP on health care.
So, your larger system (though with all its problems) is having proportionally less money spent on it than ours.
Yes. Your bastardized model is absolutely insane. However, I'd rather you moved in the opposite direction. Get rid of your drug policy, get rid of the FDA, get rid of the patents, get rid of the inflexibility of government contracts, and similar.
First, unpopular activities that a lot of voters find disgusting such as smoking or being very fat will get disproportionately charged.
Yes, and no. There is only so much taxing you can do, and it's very politically unpopular, not to mention fraught with implementation problems. While that's what happens in theory, that's not what happens in practice.
Second, private health care systems have to compete with other private health care systems which leads to some degree of reduction of cost, depending on the degree of competition, while there is no competition for this health care system.
Ever worked in the industry? That's completely NOT what happens. First of all the public sector undercuts the private sector, resulting in crowding out of investment in that sector. Secondly, those that do go to support the public sector, require a significant amount of financing to support the hordes of new patients, this either drives the cost of their services up, or (and this is what usually happens) they are given extremely beneficial long term contracts, which meet their long term investment needs. In the end these long term contracts result in a small amount of providers, consuming the market, and driving up the price anyway. I have worked closely with a company in my state, which is the "only" nursing provider. They have one of these contracts, which they have to bid for, but since they are the only real contender, they always get them. In the end, these providers end up acting like defence contractors, by growing as big as possible, ensuring they source their labour from all over the area. This makes them absolutely, 100%, politically untenable to remove.
What you have, is in the end, a public system, which is actually more of a private system, which you have no direct control over, which inhibits competition, and provides an increasingly worse service.
Caveat:
I am discussing this in an extremely unfavourable light here, however there are counteracting forces, and it isn't as black and white as I describe it. I'm just using that to get my point across, in that, in my experience with these systems, this is what it tends towards. Though disruptive forces, such as "rogue" politicians, other aggressive companies, new technology, constituent push back, all work in the opposite direction, and it's more of a battle between these forces. However, the former forces (discussed above), usually hold the greater balance of power.
I concur with assuming it's correct, and about experimental tests. The problem being, economists rely on "ceteris paribus" saying, "holding all else equal". This allows us to do thought experiments where we have the ability to run experiments, where we can try various scenarios. These are what our models are based on.
In reality, we can't "ceteris paribus". People don't like to have their economy reset, and nor are they willing to stop doing other ideas, so we can test just 1 variable.
This means our systems are prone to extreme correlation problems, not the least bit of which is due to the fact that, we operating inside a system which is essentially infinitely recursive, such that every variable, relies on every other variable, to some degree.
You're right, the sensitivity of the variables in our models are insane. I recall first year finance/econ students learning about simple models (dividend discount/good market) where the variables, especially over a reasonable amount of time (like 20 years), to change say the discount rate, or the marginal propensity to consume, could produce changes on an order of magnitude. The further into the future you attempt to analyse, the more subjective your models will be, such that it approaches guess work. Such that, these days, I only consider extremely short term models to be even slightly relevant, and for anything of significantly long term, I only take an axiomatic approach and heavily qualify my expectations and assumptions (eg, "We would expect it to tend towards this... given this holds...").
In this way, every economic model, whether its for or against your point, whether it's the best model we can find, or not, can be scrutinized to the point that you can disregard it.
I hope that some day, we'll be able to achieve a state where we can accurately predict and model all sorts of changes, however after reading Godel, Escher, Bach I don't particularly think we'll ever achieve that goal.
It can also be logically taken to the extent of "everyone pays what they get" which is the OPPOSITE of a public health care system. When you scrutinize more, and charge more for some, you inevitably approach a limit where it becomes a private health care system.
Though, without any of the benefits of the private health care system. So the worst of both worlds.
Sweet, that exact same argument is an argument against the very study above.
I do work along these lines, and all I can say is that while economic models are often wildly wrong, they are our best, most informed, attempts at finding ways to solve extremely complex problems. You think solving engineering/physics/mathematical problems are hard? Try solving people problems, on the state/country/world scale. Try solving problems where the entities (like particles) can up and change their mind, and do something else. I guess this is why we end up employing so many engineering/physics/mathematicians to work with us.
While economics has many bad models, some are getting better over time. I've been noticing a significant shift toward Austrian models (which are softer and less about predicting the future), and Post Keynsian models (which are more about empirics and less about ideological principles). So, over time, we attempt to make the best decisions possible. Additionally, a large problem with the models is, they often aren't implemented. Politicians tend to pick the pieces they like, that agree with them, then implement those, without realizing that the WHOLE system is required. Though, they're not all to blame, as most people also aren't willing to implement the "whole" system. For a really good documentary about this, see the documentary The Trap by Adam Curtis.
Lastly, if your problem is models in general, then what would you have us do? Just guess? Flip a coin? Implement whatever we feel like, without regard to consequences?
What do you think a model is?
I must confess, this post is somewhat rehearsed, I'm used to hearing this from luddites.
"Oh sure they're the models the 'scientists' created at the LHC show it will be fine, but they don't know for sure, and their models are often wrong!"
(DISCLAIMER: I'm talking as if I live in America, I don't, I actually live in Australia, but work closely with Americans, and my family/friends are in the health care industry in Australia. There is a good chance I'll be relocating there for work soon.)
Excellent. Well, while we're at it, I want a blue collar workers tax. My father who worked on farms, and has done sheet metal work, all his life, is perpetually at the doctors, with all sorts of ailments. Far more than any fat person, and likely, blue collar workers would collectively spend a lot more time at the doctors, especially in their old age.
This would "reward good behavior" like studying hard and going to college, and "raise awareness that certain conditions, including" manual labour, "raise costs throughout the system. If you want to" not invest in your own education and settle for a simple life, "go for it". "But understand you're going to have to contribute something for the cost of the care of your" choice of occupation.
Also, we need a sportsmen tax. When I used to play ice hockey, I was always getting fucked up knees, ankles, shins, shoulders, etc. I was always going to see the doctor, and a few times I took a puck in the wrong place, and had to get some serious attention. My lower leg once filled up with blood, due to a really good slap shot, that cut a muscle internally by pushing the muscle against a bone. These days that leg still gives me trouble, all the time.
This would "reward good behavior" like not playing rough sports, and "raise awareness that certain conditions, including" physical sports, "raise costs throughout the system. If you want to" play rough sports, "go for it". "But understand you're going to have to contribute something for the cost of the care of your" choice of leisure.
Oh, also, some of my family are vegans and keep having problems with balancing their iron needs and some other vitamin stuff (can't remember exactly), so we need a tax on that.
This is absolutely absurd, and extremely counter productive. Especially since, things like this are the reason the people on the right fear increasing the scope of medicaid. This sort of thing, and the scrutiny over different forms of treatment, are what is wrong with public health care. In Australia, doctors are limited via their treatment options, because the public system won't pay for various sorts of treatments (might be contingent on some variables being met), and the private system won't pay for them, because the public system pays more than what normal people can afford to the providers, while attempting cost cutting measures (such as quota limits, and more scrutinzation of patients, etc). This results in driving up the price, and creating an oligopoly type situation.
That's just the start of the sort of problems you have with things like this. They are complex systems, where everyone has a say, many different parties hold influence, resulting in absolutely intractable problems, that will result in higher costs, and less benefits.
Also, the BMI is fucking ridiculous. I've got friend who did/do body building, and they'll tell you that they're actually obese, based on the BMI that is. It's at this point that people say "but but but there's other measures you use in combination", the looser the legal policy is, the more useless this bill is (in fact, it will just add administrative overhead). The tighter it is, the more you're going to be victimizing these other people.
Oh, it should also be noted, that these body building types often put a higher burden on the health care system. They push their bodies to extreme limits, such that they require regular check ups, and can easily end up in a bad situation. Ever seen someone cut weight before? It's pretty fucked.
Yeah, good point.
Ever used Chrome? It's PDF reader is fucking fast, more secure, and a good alternative to loading Adobe. Also, you can right click and save as if you want to load it in something else (Adboe/FoxIt/etc).
I know you're just a troll, and you couldn't have missed that the entire reason for the court case, isn't about what they said (though in legal terms that's how its described), and that you couldn't have missed the BILLIONS of replies to this exact same statement, which perfectly address and explain what this case is about.
Exactly! This is what I've been trying to say about Ferrari, Pagani, Lambourghini, Koenigsegg, Porche, McLaren, Maybach, and similar. Those poor struggling producers will never make it in the automobile industry. If you want an American example, Saleen.
While I'm being facetious here, I know that those companies above have eventually merged with others, however some of them haven't, and some have different financing arrangements such that they are independent. However, none of them started from the mass-market, most of them started with fuck all capital, and most of them make a fuck load of money.