I don't get this concept of sustainable. The pricing mechanism in a free economy does a very good job of allocating resources. And as technology progresses we learn how to use what we have more effectively if it is cost effective to do so. For instance right now as an engineer I use mostly Aluminum and Steels for the things I build. But as the cost of carbon fiber cloths and epoxies come down in price it starts making sense to use those in some applications.
If you want to live as a hunter gatherer and die an early violent death I guess that is sustainable but it is not what I want.
I for one think that taking the US off of the gold standard in the 70's was the cause. Once that was done to pay for the Welfare/Warfare state the government had the ability to print as much money as they wanted. Because it's fiat money on a fractional reserve the banks get to create money out of nothing and loan it out for interest. This causes a HUGE transfer of wealth from people who build things and provide services to the government and financial sector. It has nothing to do with productivity.
As humans we have two roles. As a consumer we want goods to be cheap and abundant. As producers we want OUR goods to be scarce and expensive. The question is what type of society do you want to live in? I would prefer one where goods are cheap and abundant. So anything that increases production and lowers costs is good for society overall even if it is detrimental to certain workers. The increase in productivity will benefit society overall.
The reason is because in the US and most of the western world banks are allowed to create money out of thin air and lend it out to people with interest. Take away fiat currency and fractional reserve banking and bankers would make what they are worth.
I've built many pieces of automation for manufacturing. The truth is this automation is very costly and only worth it if there is an expected payback. One of the first things I did was to help do an analysis to see what level of automation if any is worth it based on the expected demand, labor costs, expected length of production, how often the product changes and the associated tooling change costs, power costs, maintenance costs, ect.
Full automation was very rarely needed to meet the demand.
Most of the time we built some tools to help automate. Things like pallet systems that held parts down while the operator assembled them with powered screwdrivers and then had automated inspections. These systems were good because if demand increased you could replace the more difficult or time consuming stations as needed.
I live in Florida and we have lots of local honey. I usually prefer the citrus honey which I eat regularly. I'll check my symptoms when they are in bloom.
You are pretty close. I have environmental allergies (dust, pollen, ect). So I get allergy shots which builds up my tolerance. It works great. The same thing with peanuts. My kid had allergies and we had him tested for everything and he was allergic to peanuts. When he ate peanut butter he would get red in the face and complain about an itchy throat. They don't do shots for food. So we started building his tolerance by giving him smaller doses that he could handle an slowly built up. It is working just like the shots.
So what you said is correct. If parents keep shielding their kids from things they are allergic to they will never build up immunity to them.
I don't know if my post was clear but the malpractice comment was only regarding emergency care not regular care.
One of the better ideas I've heard to replace malpractice for regular care is outcome based insurance. It would be like buying flight insurance before a flight. It pays out for certain events regardless of fault. So you could have the same thing when you go to a doctor. If you are having surgery you could buy insurance if something goes wrong. If it goes wrong it doesn't matter if the doctor was at fault it would pay out.
One of the problems is the feedback in the politics/science loop. You have politicians that by their nature want power. Assume all scientists started their investigation unbiased (I know bad assumption). You have different results from studies. The politicians pick the ones that give them more power and fund those exclusively. Then you end up with a scientific consensus.
My personal view on the topic is that until all raw data and all algorithms and code are made public I don't trust a bit of it. The one objective measure is the satellite data. It maps lots of points all through the atmosphere all the time. But trying to match that with hand recorded surface stations (http://www.surfacestations.org/) where someone installed an A/C compressor 10 feet away or put one in a waste water treatment plant (yes these both are official temperature recording stations) is problematic. Even worse is trying to match it with tree ring data.
I did forget to mention that patents are an anachronism that should be eliminated. I would also do away with the FDA as a regulatory body and just make it advisory. They can test drugs that are on the market and give their seal of approval. A person should be free to put in their body what they want. As long as the drug maker is truthful about the compound they are selling I would let them sell it with no liability. The human body is too complex to say if a drug is safe.
Also you made made my point about expenses. Imagine if auto insurance covered preventive maintenance. Can you imagine how expensive the insurance would be? Also people wouldn't shop around for service.
One finally thing is that I do think that emergency medicine should be treated like fire and police and be funded by local communities. The reason is there isn't enough time for someone to shop around for the best price. But along with that the doctors should not be liable for malpractice except for the case of malice. They a operating at a time where there is limited time and information. Just like you can't sue a cop or fireman for preventing you from being robbed or for stopping you house from burning down,
Unfortunate you are correct with everything except for calling what we have in the US insurance. Insurance in all other areas of life is a way to pay a little cost up front in order to be spared the expense of a rare but costly event in the future. Examples?
You get homeowners insurance in case of a fire, burglary, storm damage. These events don't happen often. I've paid homeowners for 12 years with no claims.
You get car insurance to protect for accidents, liability in an accident, or having the car stolen. These are usually higher risks than homeowners insurance so the cost is more vs what is actually being insured.
Term life insurance. Pays whomever you want upon your death. Very cheap for the young and it gets much more expensive as you get old.
Health "Insurance" is no such thing. I use healthcare all the time. Weekly if you count my family. It is not insurance is is some sort or prepaid health service contract.
Whats the difference? All of the former insurance I don't want to use. I don't want my house to burn down, I don't want to get in a car accident, I don't want to die. The insurance company and I are on the same page.
But with healthcare if I'm paying for the service I'm going to use it. Everyone has aches and pains and sniffles. If you actually had to lay a doctor what it costs out of pocket you would take more care as to how you spent those dollars. Also doctors are to blame for having a monopoly on prescribing medicine. This forces what should be a 10 minute $4 trip to the pharmacy into a $80 afternoon.
If you eliminate doctors monopoly on drugs and go back to real insurance to cover things you can't pay for out of pocket you would see costs drop.
'the notion of a shared responsibility in the collective metropolitan realm is predictably distant."
What a bunch of crap. I didn't realize that Apple had any responsibility to a "collective metropolitan realm". It has a responsibility to the shareholders. And lucky for the "collective metropolitan realm" Apple also pays a ton of taxes.
That is part of the reason. I've worked all sides of contracts. I've worked in contracts between private companies and between government and private companies on both sides of the contract. Here is my reasoning.
When I worked in private industry on engineering contracts we tended to want to do a good job and get it done on time and budget. It didn't always happen. But the idea was if you did a good job you would earn their trust and could get more work in the future. If there was something in the design that needed to be changed we would handle it two ways. If it was minor we would just ask them and change it no charge. If it was major we would bring up the cost or schedule hit and and revise the contract pretty quickly. It was in both parties interest to resolve it quickly and cheaply to maintain a good business relationship.
With government contracts it's exactly the opposite. The low bidder gets the job no matter what if they show they are capable of doing the job. But once they get the contract it becomes a legal game. Any problems with the requirements work stops and a change order is written. It is usually inflated and it goes to legal where almost always it is decided in favor of the contractor because the contractor has good lawyers and it was engineers that wrote the technical part of the contract to begin with. The contractor has no incentive to control costs because they are not building a business relationship. As long as they meet the legal requirements they make more money by finding every requirement they can prove is vague and interpreting it the wrong way. Nobody would ever do this with a private business because nobody would ever work with you again. There is another effect and that is it takes much longer to write contracts when you know the other side is going to exploit everything they can.
Take for example if I wanted the outside of my house painted. I call a painter and we decide on which paint to use and he quotes a price and I hire him.
If this was a government contract I would have to have a drawing of the house. Show every surface I wanted painted and according which specification and what technique on each surface. I would have to be a painting specialist to write the contract otherwise I'd get screwed.
I see this as regressive. I want to use more power not less. It is the biggest factor in quality of life. As we produce mo Owed so many problems go away. Water can be pumped to where it is needed or distilled or filtered. We can travel faster and easier. I mean what do you think the power demand of the USS Enterprise is? I want that future not living in a mud hut like these tree huggers want to force us into.
Sorry but you are wrong, if this device had to be approved by the FDA it would cost just as much as other hearing aids. You don't think they could put filters to only amplify certain frequencies? I have a $10 radio with an EQ.
So let me get this straight. You are saying that the price controls in a single layer system have no effect on availability of services? Why do you think there is a shortage of doctors in all single lay health systems? The reason is two fold. First the person using the service doesn't have to pay so there is no incentive to conserve the resources. Also since the price the government is willing to lay for services is fixed there is no signal to increase the supply of doctors or nurses. In a for profit system the profits serve as a signal there there is unmet demand and mo people enter that field.
What happens when a store on the day after thanksgiving reduces some prices below costs? People wait in line and there is never enough products to fill the demand. This is how a single payer helth care system always works.
I almost didn't want to link to it because I'm sure there are a few people here that think this company is taking advantage of those with hearing loss since it's not an FDA approved device and they might report it and get them to remove this product. I wish people would read the comments. It's all people that needed a hearing aid but couldn't afford the FDA approved ones. Many people admit that it isn't quite as good as the FDA ones but for them it's a better choice. And that is what a free market is about. Government regulations is about a bunch of politicians getting paid by lobbyists to set the legal hurdle so high it grants them a defacto monopoly. It would be like BMW getting a lobbyist to get the politicians to pass a law saying all cars must be equipped with all of the devices on the 7 series. Would cars be better? Sure for those can afford them. But I don't want or need all of that stuff. I'm happy with the technology and features on a 8 year old Accord.
It charges less money but requires you pay in other ways. Services are limited to only those approved by the single payer system. Like all price controls there is rationing where people have to wait for service.
Life is a multiple tier system. There are products and services of all qualities based on price. It is up to you to determine how much you are willing to pay for what you want. If you take your argument that people all deserve the same quality service who gets to determine the quality? What happens if a person is unable to afford that quality product? They will be unable to buy an inferior product even if they are happy with it. Also it means no matter how talented a doctor is he can't be paid more than other doctors since there is one price.
Just because it's quaint doesn't mean it's false. I never knew a friend that at the behest of friends and family turned their life around. It was only after hitting rock bottom and finally wanting to change did they do so.
Wow thanks for that. Indeed a good laugh. Regulations are the way that large corporations prevent small competitors from competing by setting the legal hurdle so high for entry that nobody tries.
A good example was for along time after prohibition you were not allowed to brew your own beer without a liscense. But since the only way to learn how to brew beer was by doing it to learn the craft it effectively provided a huge barrier to entry that the big beer companies enjoyed. When Carter allowed making small quantities of beer and wine at home for personal consumption people did and got better at it. They go to the Oint where they decided to start their own micro breweries. This would never have happened if Carter didn't deregulate that market,
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I don't get this concept of sustainable. The pricing mechanism in a free economy does a very good job of allocating resources. And as technology progresses we learn how to use what we have more effectively if it is cost effective to do so. For instance right now as an engineer I use mostly Aluminum and Steels for the things I build. But as the cost of carbon fiber cloths and epoxies come down in price it starts making sense to use those in some applications.
If you want to live as a hunter gatherer and die an early violent death I guess that is sustainable but it is not what I want.
I for one think that taking the US off of the gold standard in the 70's was the cause. Once that was done to pay for the Welfare/Warfare state the government had the ability to print as much money as they wanted. Because it's fiat money on a fractional reserve the banks get to create money out of nothing and loan it out for interest. This causes a HUGE transfer of wealth from people who build things and provide services to the government and financial sector. It has nothing to do with productivity.
Bastiat in Economic Sophisms made a great point.
As humans we have two roles. As a consumer we want goods to be cheap and abundant. As producers we want OUR goods to be scarce and expensive. The question is what type of society do you want to live in? I would prefer one where goods are cheap and abundant. So anything that increases production and lowers costs is good for society overall even if it is detrimental to certain workers. The increase in productivity will benefit society overall.
The reason is because in the US and most of the western world banks are allowed to create money out of thin air and lend it out to people with interest. Take away fiat currency and fractional reserve banking and bankers would make what they are worth.
I've built many pieces of automation for manufacturing. The truth is this automation is very costly and only worth it if there is an expected payback. One of the first things I did was to help do an analysis to see what level of automation if any is worth it based on the expected demand, labor costs, expected length of production, how often the product changes and the associated tooling change costs, power costs, maintenance costs, ect.
Full automation was very rarely needed to meet the demand.
Most of the time we built some tools to help automate. Things like pallet systems that held parts down while the operator assembled them with powered screwdrivers and then had automated inspections. These systems were good because if demand increased you could replace the more difficult or time consuming stations as needed.
I live in Florida and we have lots of local honey. I usually prefer the citrus honey which I eat regularly. I'll check my symptoms when they are in bloom.
Yeah I know all about it. I've had some bad reactions to the shots as well. Since we are so allergic we have several Epi-Pens for just such an event.
Sweet site. Thanks.
You are pretty close. I have environmental allergies (dust, pollen, ect). So I get allergy shots which builds up my tolerance. It works great. The same thing with peanuts. My kid had allergies and we had him tested for everything and he was allergic to peanuts. When he ate peanut butter he would get red in the face and complain about an itchy throat. They don't do shots for food. So we started building his tolerance by giving him smaller doses that he could handle an slowly built up. It is working just like the shots.
So what you said is correct. If parents keep shielding their kids from things they are allergic to they will never build up immunity to them.
I don't know if my post was clear but the malpractice comment was only regarding emergency care not regular care.
One of the better ideas I've heard to replace malpractice for regular care is outcome based insurance. It would be like buying flight insurance before a flight. It pays out for certain events regardless of fault. So you could have the same thing when you go to a doctor. If you are having surgery you could buy insurance if something goes wrong. If it goes wrong it doesn't matter if the doctor was at fault it would pay out.
One of the problems is the feedback in the politics/science loop. You have politicians that by their nature want power. Assume all scientists started their investigation unbiased (I know bad assumption). You have different results from studies. The politicians pick the ones that give them more power and fund those exclusively. Then you end up with a scientific consensus.
My personal view on the topic is that until all raw data and all algorithms and code are made public I don't trust a bit of it. The one objective measure is the satellite data. It maps lots of points all through the atmosphere all the time. But trying to match that with hand recorded surface stations (http://www.surfacestations.org/) where someone installed an A/C compressor 10 feet away or put one in a waste water treatment plant (yes these both are official temperature recording stations) is problematic. Even worse is trying to match it with tree ring data.
I did forget to mention that patents are an anachronism that should be eliminated. I would also do away with the FDA as a regulatory body and just make it advisory. They can test drugs that are on the market and give their seal of approval. A person should be free to put in their body what they want. As long as the drug maker is truthful about the compound they are selling I would let them sell it with no liability. The human body is too complex to say if a drug is safe.
Also you made made my point about expenses. Imagine if auto insurance covered preventive maintenance. Can you imagine how expensive the insurance would be? Also people wouldn't shop around for service.
One finally thing is that I do think that emergency medicine should be treated like fire and police and be funded by local communities. The reason is there isn't enough time for someone to shop around for the best price. But along with that the doctors should not be liable for malpractice except for the case of malice. They a operating at a time where there is limited time and information. Just like you can't sue a cop or fireman for preventing you from being robbed or for stopping you house from burning down,
Unfortunate you are correct with everything except for calling what we have in the US insurance. Insurance in all other areas of life is a way to pay a little cost up front in order to be spared the expense of a rare but costly event in the future. Examples?
You get homeowners insurance in case of a fire, burglary, storm damage. These events don't happen often. I've paid homeowners for 12 years with no claims.
You get car insurance to protect for accidents, liability in an accident, or having the car stolen. These are usually higher risks than homeowners insurance so the cost is more vs what is actually being insured.
Term life insurance. Pays whomever you want upon your death. Very cheap for the young and it gets much more expensive as you get old.
Health "Insurance" is no such thing. I use healthcare all the time. Weekly if you count my family. It is not insurance is is some sort or prepaid health service contract.
Whats the difference? All of the former insurance I don't want to use. I don't want my house to burn down, I don't want to get in a car accident, I don't want to die. The insurance company and I are on the same page.
But with healthcare if I'm paying for the service I'm going to use it. Everyone has aches and pains and sniffles. If you actually had to lay a doctor what it costs out of pocket you would take more care as to how you spent those dollars. Also doctors are to blame for having a monopoly on prescribing medicine. This forces what should be a 10 minute $4 trip to the pharmacy into a $80 afternoon.
If you eliminate doctors monopoly on drugs and go back to real insurance to cover things you can't pay for out of pocket you would see costs drop.
'the notion of a shared responsibility in the collective metropolitan realm is predictably distant."
What a bunch of crap. I didn't realize that Apple had any responsibility to a "collective metropolitan realm". It has a responsibility to the shareholders. And lucky for the "collective metropolitan realm" Apple also pays a ton of taxes.
That is part of the reason. I've worked all sides of contracts. I've worked in contracts between private companies and between government and private companies on both sides of the contract. Here is my reasoning.
When I worked in private industry on engineering contracts we tended to want to do a good job and get it done on time and budget. It didn't always happen. But the idea was if you did a good job you would earn their trust and could get more work in the future. If there was something in the design that needed to be changed we would handle it two ways. If it was minor we would just ask them and change it no charge. If it was major we would bring up the cost or schedule hit and and revise the contract pretty quickly. It was in both parties interest to resolve it quickly and cheaply to maintain a good business relationship.
With government contracts it's exactly the opposite. The low bidder gets the job no matter what if they show they are capable of doing the job. But once they get the contract it becomes a legal game. Any problems with the requirements work stops and a change order is written. It is usually inflated and it goes to legal where almost always it is decided in favor of the contractor because the contractor has good lawyers and it was engineers that wrote the technical part of the contract to begin with. The contractor has no incentive to control costs because they are not building a business relationship. As long as they meet the legal requirements they make more money by finding every requirement they can prove is vague and interpreting it the wrong way. Nobody would ever do this with a private business because nobody would ever work with you again. There is another effect and that is it takes much longer to write contracts when you know the other side is going to exploit everything they can.
Take for example if I wanted the outside of my house painted. I call a painter and we decide on which paint to use and he quotes a price and I hire him.
If this was a government contract I would have to have a drawing of the house. Show every surface I wanted painted and according which specification and what technique on each surface. I would have to be a painting specialist to write the contract otherwise I'd get screwed.
I see this as regressive. I want to use more power not less. It is the biggest factor in quality of life. As we produce mo
Owed so many problems go away. Water can be pumped to where it is needed or distilled or filtered. We can travel faster and easier. I mean what do you think the power demand of the USS Enterprise is? I want that future not living in a mud hut like these tree huggers want to force us into.
Sorry but you are wrong, if this device had to be approved by the FDA it would cost just as much as other hearing aids. You don't think they could put filters to only amplify certain frequencies? I have a $10 radio with an EQ.
So let me get this straight. You are saying that the price controls in a single layer system have no effect on availability of services? Why do you think there is a shortage of doctors in all single lay health systems? The reason is two fold. First the person using the service doesn't have to pay so there is no incentive to conserve the resources. Also since the price the government is willing to lay for services is fixed there is no signal to increase the supply of doctors or nurses. In a for profit system the profits serve as a signal there there is unmet demand and mo people enter that field.
What happens when a store on the day after thanksgiving reduces some prices below costs? People wait in line and there is never enough products to fill the demand. This is how a single payer helth care system always works.
I almost didn't want to link to it because I'm sure there are a few people here that think this company is taking advantage of those with hearing loss since it's not an FDA approved device and they might report it and get them to remove this product. I wish people would read the comments. It's all people that needed a hearing aid but couldn't afford the FDA approved ones. Many people admit that it isn't quite as good as the FDA ones but for them it's a better choice. And that is what a free market is about. Government regulations is about a bunch of politicians getting paid by lobbyists to set the legal hurdle so high it grants them a defacto monopoly. It would be like BMW getting a lobbyist to get the politicians to pass a law saying all cars must be equipped with all of the devices on the 7 series. Would cars be better? Sure for those can afford them. But I don't want or need all of that stuff. I'm happy with the technology and features on a 8 year old Accord.
It charges less money but requires you pay in other ways. Services are limited to only those approved by the single payer system. Like all price controls there is rationing where people have to wait for service.
Life is a multiple tier system. There are products and services of all qualities based on price. It is up to you to determine how much you are willing to pay for what you want. If you take your argument that people all deserve the same quality service who gets to determine the quality? What happens if a person is unable to afford that quality product? They will be unable to buy an inferior product even if they are happy with it. Also it means no matter how talented a doctor is he can't be paid more than other doctors since there is one price.
Hearing aids are regulated by the FDA which is why it costs $5k or so in paperwork.
Here is capitalism. It looks like a hearing aid but it is really a sound amplifier so it is not regulated by the FDA. It costs $70.
http://www.amazon.com/Voxom-Hearing-Aid-Sound-Amplifier/dp/B005AM7S3K/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8&qid=1315622221&sr=8-9
Just because it's quaint doesn't mean it's false. I never knew a friend that at the behest of friends and family turned their life around. It was only after hitting rock bottom and finally wanting to change did they do so.
Wow thanks for that. Indeed a good laugh. Regulations are the way that large corporations prevent small competitors from competing by setting the legal hurdle so high for entry that nobody tries.
A good example was for along time after prohibition you were not allowed to brew your own beer without a liscense. But since the only way to learn how to brew beer was by doing it to learn the craft it effectively provided a huge barrier to entry that the big beer companies enjoyed. When Carter allowed making small quantities of beer and wine at home for personal consumption people did and got better at it. They go to the
Oint where they decided to start their own micro breweries. This would never have happened if Carter didn't deregulate that market,
Or go back to the Constitution where the government is in charge of protecting life, liberty,and property and nothing else.