Jihad needs scientists
in [Design]
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From: Eeyore on 20 Nov 2006 23:09 krw wrote: > rabbitsfriendsandrelations(a)hotmail.com says... > > jmfbahciv(a)aol.com wrote: > > > krw <krw(a)att.bizzzz> wrote: > > > >jmfbahciv(a)aol.com says... > > > > > > >> But are the towns allowed to own the stuff or do they > > > >> have contract out to a telco? > > > > > > > >I don't know if the towns will own it or there is a not-for-profit > > > >coop that owns the equipment, but the towns are organizing the > > > >effort at doing the required permits. They're also paying the tab. > > > > > > It is beginning to look like internet, or rather, web access, > > > is becoming a town utility service, like water, power, and road > > > plowing. > > > > 'Town utilities' seem to be a US concept. > > In some places, yes. > > > Over here individual towns don't get usually involved in commercial businesses. > > One notable exception here is Hull's telecoms yet I have no idea why it's just > > them. > > Cities in your hole don't have things like roads? Local roads are the responsibility of the local town/city/district council ( local government). Major roads are the responsibilty of the county council ( local government ) Motorways are the direct responsibilty of the Department of / for Transport ( national government ) They don't run commercial utilities though. The one exception being Kingston Communications. http://www.kcom.com/aboutus/ourhistory.shtml Graham
From: Ken Smith on 20 Nov 2006 23:26 In article <MPG.1fcae9c9199518f8989c01(a)news.individual.net>, krw <krw(a)att.bizzzz> wrote: >In article <ejqve0$fgo$2(a)blue.rahul.net>, kensmith(a)green.rahul.net >says... >> In article <6af58$455ba5ff$4fe75f7$20998(a)DIALUPUSA.NET>, >> unsettled <unsettled(a)nonsense.com> wrote: >> [.....] >> >The original error starts with you two clowns failing to >> >appreciate that capitalism has a soul. >> >> (Boggle) Capitalism is a cold hard logical system. >> >> > To define a term >> >"fair profit" isn't beyond the capacity of capitalism to >> >embrace freely and without external (read governmental) >> >imposition. >> >> It is beyond the capacity of capitalism to define what "fair profit" >> really means. > >Nonsense! Capitalism perfectly defines what is fair; did someone >pay the fair market value? If so, it is by *definition* fair. If >not it is not "fair". No, there are situations where the market does not work. Drugs are an example. You do not have the choice of going with a different drug if only the patented one will save your life and you don't have the option of waiting. That makes the market is not free since you are under duress. > >> Is it 7% or 15%? > >Who cares, other than someone who wants to control others lives? I don't want to control others lives. I want to prevent others from controlling. > >> More importantly, who gets to decide and > >Exactly! Yes, exactly. Who. Do the shareholders in a company decide that it is ok if half the people who catch some disease die because that it the price point the maximizes the stock value? Does the CEO of the company or the marketing department? It is a question of who decides who's life is not worth saving. >> how do you deal, in the short term, with those who choose not to make only >> a "fair profit"? > >Apparenlty you think *you* should be the arbiter. ...sounds >totalitarian to me! No, you have suggested that the market will deal with it. It doesn't. How do you propose to solve the problem? There are lots of things that the market doesn't do well. For those we form governments. You can have tyranny in many forms. One is where corporations control everything. [....] >> The specific example of drug pricing is a better example. Nobody dies >> because they didn't use a Microsoft OS. > >Maybe some do because... So far I don't think there has been a proven case. Industries that use computers for things that could kill you usually have standards that rule out Windows. > >> >Even then, competitive products emerge. >> >> "emerge" implies a length of time. In the case of drugs, you may just >> have to wait for the patent to run out. > >...or use an older drug that may be perfectly fine. WHy anyone >would listen to drug ads on the TeeVee is beyond me! What if the new drug is the only one that will save the life and there is no older one? -- -- kensmith(a)rahul.net forging knowledge
From: unsettled on 20 Nov 2006 23:57 Ken Smith wrote: > In article <MPG.1fcae9c9199518f8989c01(a)news.individual.net>, > krw <krw(a)att.bizzzz> wrote: > >>In article <ejqve0$fgo$2(a)blue.rahul.net>, kensmith(a)green.rahul.net >>says... >> >>>In article <6af58$455ba5ff$4fe75f7$20998(a)DIALUPUSA.NET>, >>>unsettled <unsettled(a)nonsense.com> wrote: >>>[.....] >>> >>>>The original error starts with you two clowns failing to >>>>appreciate that capitalism has a soul. >>> >>>(Boggle) Capitalism is a cold hard logical system. >>> >>> >>>>To define a term >>>>"fair profit" isn't beyond the capacity of capitalism to >>>>embrace freely and without external (read governmental) >>>>imposition. >>> >>>It is beyond the capacity of capitalism to define what "fair profit" >>>really means. >> >>Nonsense! Capitalism perfectly defines what is fair; did someone >>pay the fair market value? If so, it is by *definition* fair. If >>not it is not "fair". > > > No, there are situations where the market does not work. Drugs are an > example. You do not have the choice of going with a different drug if > only the patented one will save your life and you don't have the option of > waiting. That makes the market is not free since you are under duress. False dilemma. We only have an occasional small possibility or probability that one drug will save your life to the exclusion of all others. Even that is measured in numeric terms, leaving individual choice to decide the matter. Whenever one is ill they're under all kinds of duress affecting their choices. How do you isolate one duress from the other? Medicine is rarely 100% effective for all cases for which is is prescribed. For example, I can't take statins. Should I be beating up on the drug manufacturers to come up with an equivalent I can take? Isn't whether or not to develop a substitute, and on what schedule, part and parcel of what the manufacturer does? Should that right be taken away from them as well? >>>Is it 7% or 15%? >>Who cares, other than someone who wants to control others lives? > I don't want to control others lives. I want to prevent others from > controlling. There is no society in which that won't happen to some extent. The best we can hope for is to minimize the interference. >>>More importantly, who gets to decide and >> >>Exactly! > Yes, exactly. Who. Do the shareholders in a company decide that it is ok > if half the people who catch some disease die because that it the price > point the maximizes the stock value? I'd like to find an actual documented case where this has happened. > Does the CEO of the company or the > marketing department? It is a question of who decides who's life is not > worth saving. Oh dear, Oh Henry!!!!! Oh what drama! Humanity doesn't have unlimited resources let alone a god-like insight into what's going to solve all of humanities' travails. >>>how do you deal, in the short term, with those who choose not to make only >>>a "fair profit"? >> >>Apparenlty you think *you* should be the arbiter. ...sounds >>totalitarian to me! > No, you have suggested that the market will deal with it. It doesn't. > How do you propose to solve the problem? There are lots of things that > the market doesn't do well. For those we form governments. You can have > tyranny in many forms. One is where corporations control everything. Is that an actual threat in the US today? > [....] > >>>The specific example of drug pricing is a better example. Nobody dies >>>because they didn't use a Microsoft OS. >> >>Maybe some do because... > > > So far I don't think there has been a proven case. Industries that use > computers for things that could kill you usually have standards that rule > out Windows. Just what OS do they require? >>>>Even then, competitive products emerge. >>>"emerge" implies a length of time. In the case of drugs, you may just >>>have to wait for the patent to run out. >>...or use an older drug that may be perfectly fine. WHy anyone >>would listen to drug ads on the TeeVee is beyond me! > What if the new drug is the only one that will save the life and there is > no older one? Example?
From: Ken Smith on 21 Nov 2006 00:01 In article <ejs81b$8qk_001(a)s952.apx1.sbo.ma.dialup.rcn.com>, <jmfbahciv(a)aol.com> wrote: >In article <ejr4o4$k7c$3(a)blue.rahul.net>, > kensmith(a)green.rahul.net (Ken Smith) wrote: [....] >>Agreed but if you wish to hang onto an insurance based system rather than >>a NHS like system, this is a completely seperate problem. > >I don't want either. Insurance should be only for extraordinary >circumstances. The insurance companies disagree with you on this for a good reason. It is less costly for them to cover the checkups that may find the disease early than to pay for the cure once it is well under way. > Instead what we have is a "insurance" that is >expected to pay for everything. As a result, it does pay for >everything and becomes a Ponzi scheme. You are once again confusing two problems. Insurance currently is not running as a Ponzi scheme. I believe this is also true of the NHS. In both cases, the budgets are balanced. Ponzi schemes operate by making promices for the future that are not intended to be kept. Insurance companies don't do this. They wish to remain in business for the long term. Systems like the NHS tend not to do this also because the politicians know messing with it is a career ender. >> You have moved >>from the subject of paying for services provided to the providing of >>services. In an insurance based system, ensuring that the services are >>provided requires that the payment from the insurance company to the >>doctor is large enough that market forces will attract providers in. > >What happens is all payments get padded. I think you missed my point. My point was about the method by which any providers will be attracted into the market. The insurance company and the provider are different companies. The provider will only do work for the ensurer if the ensurer agrees to pay enough. > Every bureaucratic >layer adds a little bit. The NHS and Medicare most likely both have fewer layers than the insurance model. > The more layers, the more tithes the >cost increases. You are assuming that the layers don't take decreasing sized fractions and that the layers don't take less than lets say the small business case. Take the extreme small business example of a one person operation. When that person buys paperclips, it costs "doctor time" to buy paper clips. [...] > This is what happens when the small business model >is no longer used. Patients are no longer treated as individuals. I have dealt with small businesses that didn't treat people as individuals. [....] >>How do you expect the services to be provided to those who can't pay for >>them? > >Which services are we talking about? Assume a man with no insurance and TB walks into the emergency room. [....] >>No, it does nothing of the kind. The only thing that an insurance company >>or even the NHS can decide is what to pay for. If I want to pay for >>something out of my own pocket, my insurance company won't stop me. In >>England, the NHS doesn't stop people from paying outside the system. The >>big difference between the insurance and the NHS in this respect is that >>the insurance company has to take about 20% off the top to pay for its >>running costs. > >What percentage do you think the government has to take? Medicare runs with about a 3% overhead rate. This is much less than an insurance company. I am sure that part of the reason that both Canada and the UK pay less for "health care" is because their governments require a smaller overhead than the 20% of the US insurance companies. The 20% alone isn't enough to explain it because they actually pay about 60% not 80% of what the US pays. > It is a much >larger organization and it has to soothe political feathers. The >politics is the number one goal. Keeping the voters happy is the goal. In the insurance case it is keeping the shareholders happy that is the goal. The NHS is a very bad system but nearly as bad as all the other options. [....] >>>Look at how this happened in the HMOs. These are small organizations >>>compared to one that is a single-payer. >> >>In the HMO case, the insurance company is in the business to make a >>profit. > >HMO? That wasn't insurance when it got started. They were non-profits. Actually, they were not-for-profit insurance companies. It still was a system of spreading the risk. >> It only provides the care needed to cause there to be a profit. >>A NHS system is quite different in this regard. > >Right. Instead of profits, the extra monies are called graft or >payoffs. There is no accounting involving these monies so nobody >has an idea of what the real cost of delivery service is. The US has the example of medicare vs insurance. The graft and corruption in medicare perhaps accounts for some part of the 3%. Who knows what portion of the %20 the insurance companies skim is graft and corruption, but it really doesn't matter. Even if it is purely honest, it is still %20 vs %3. It still cost less to have a system like the UK and Canada have. [...] >>That is a problem with the current situation. You are arguing against >>changing the situation but have just provided a good reason why that >>system should indeed be changed. > >It will only get worse if the administration of the biz becomes >centralized in a national center. I am arguing that the >administration needs to go the other way. But it seems that most of your arguments don't work. They point in the direction of wanting a NHS. -- -- kensmith(a)rahul.net forging knowledge
From: Ken Smith on 21 Nov 2006 00:46
In article <af7b3$45628739$4fe765f$4895(a)DIALUPUSA.NET>, unsettled <unsettled(a)nonsense.com> wrote: >Ken Smith wrote: [....] >> No, there are situations where the market does not work. Drugs are an >> example. You do not have the choice of going with a different drug if >> only the patented one will save your life and you don't have the option of >> waiting. That makes the market is not free since you are under duress. > >False dilemma. It would seem very real to the person who is going to die. > We only have an occasional small possibility or >probability that one drug will save your life to the exclusion >of all others. That is getting less true of diseases like TB. There are several others where the list of drugs that work is rather short. > Even that is measured in numeric terms, leaving >individual choice to decide the matter. Whenever one is ill >they're under all kinds of duress affecting their choices. How >do you isolate one duress from the other? I wasn't trying to isolate the duress. I was pointing out that it existed and thus made it no longer a free market. >Medicine is rarely 100% effective for all cases for which is >is prescribed. True and not taking a needed drug doesn't always cause death. You also may not die if you blindly run out onto the highway. This doesn't make people very willing to run out into traffic. [...] > For example, I can't take statins. Should I >be beating up on the drug manufacturers to come up with an >equivalent I can take? Well you can do that or spend your time in flame wars on the Usenet. It really is a matter of your personal priorities. > Isn't whether or not to develop a >substitute, and on what schedule, part and parcel of what >the manufacturer does? Should that right be taken away from >them as well? I never suggested taking anyones rights way from anyone. I am suggesting that the taking of peoples rights be prevented. >>>>Is it 7% or 15%? > >>>Who cares, other than someone who wants to control others lives? > >> I don't want to control others lives. I want to prevent others from >> controlling. > >There is no society in which that won't happen to some extent. >The best we can hope for is to minimize the interference. Yes, the ideal can't be reached but that is not a reason for not preventing the control we can prevent. >>>>More importantly, who gets to decide and >>> >>>Exactly! > >> Yes, exactly. Who. Do the shareholders in a company decide that it is ok >> if half the people who catch some disease die because that it the price >> point the maximizes the stock value? > >I'd like to find an actual documented case where this has >happened. Well there is always google but you will never find it spelled out like that. People rationalize and duck the truth when they do that sort of thing. People eat cheeseburgers but would be upset if they saw the cow die (or in some cases cats, dogs and mice). >> Does the CEO of the company or the >> marketing department? It is a question of who decides who's life is not >> worth saving. > >Oh dear, Oh Henry!!!!! Oh what drama! > >Humanity doesn't have unlimited resources let alone >a god-like insight into what's going to solve all of >humanities' travails. I agree the resources are limited but that is no reason to not think about how they get allocated and who decides what happens. For that matter it is all the more reason to think carefully. [....] >> No, you have suggested that the market will deal with it. It doesn't. >> How do you propose to solve the problem? There are lots of things that >> the market doesn't do well. For those we form governments. You can have >> tyranny in many forms. One is where corporations control everything. > >Is that an actual threat in the US today? It is somewhere above the giant mutant squid right now. In the past the nation has trended stongly in that direction. The breaking up of the "trusts" was about taking the excess power away from them. > >> [....] >> >>>>The specific example of drug pricing is a better example. Nobody dies >>>>because they didn't use a Microsoft OS. >>> >>>Maybe some do because... >> >> >> So far I don't think there has been a proven case. Industries that use >> computers for things that could kill you usually have standards that rule >> out Windows. > >Just what OS do they require? In many cases, there is no OS as such. The software owns the whole machine. If there is an OS it is a well studied one and usually small. I have heard of QNX being used. [....] >> What if the new drug is the only one that will save the life and there is >> no older one? > >Example? The latest version of TB in South Africa is just about in that class. There are older drugs but the bug is resistant to them. There are also drugs like KDI for ALS that may be the first to cure a disease. There are also drugs like Avandia that are the first of their class. -- -- kensmith(a)rahul.net forging knowledge |