Jihad needs scientists
in [Design]
|
From: lucasea on 23 Nov 2006 01:59 "unsettled" <unsettled(a)nonsense.com> wrote in message news:6dd17$45646b74$4fe74f0$17139(a)DIALUPUSA.NET... > > If we hadn't gotten past FDR as we have, we'd have some > sort of an NHS as well. What's forgotten is that in most > instances the US is the leader, not the follower. This is nothing but pure, blind jingoism ignoring the many, many cases where the US has not been even close to being a leader. Industrial revolution--US was pure follower. Chemical industry--US was pure follower. Early automotive industry--clearly the US followed the Germans. Current automotive and consumer electronics industry--Japan is clear leader, and US is nothing but follower. > Society, governments, and politics, are all long term > experiments. How long did it take for the FSU with its > "wonderful new" system of politics to fail? NHS has not > yet withstood the test of time. Maybe not, but the insurance system that we have is already failing. I'll take something that has worked for 50 years, over something that's badly failing after that same 50 years, any day. Eric Lucas
From: lucasea on 23 Nov 2006 02:15 "unsettled" <unsettled(a)nonsense.com> wrote in message news:4cb81$45647cf4$4fe77c5$17514(a)DIALUPUSA.NET... > Ken Smith wrote: > > "Nonproductive spending in the healthcare system..." > > What happens to the money? Someone destroys it? It is wasted on 1) corporate profit and dividends to shareholders, 2) inflated salaries of corporate leadership, 3) needless layers of bureaucracy and management, 4) needless paperwork, and 5) sustainment of the bureaucracy itself. >> If the government builds infrastructure this is generally not a drag on >> the economy. > > Depends on the effectiveness of the infrastructure. Name one that is. >> ... and I'm saying you are wrong on this, but even assuming that you are >> right that a US single payer system will look like medicare, this would >> be better than the current situation. > > Then why are retirees who had private insurance paid for by > their former employers complaining so bitterly when those > programs are terminated? What you can't (or won't) see is that this is actually an example of a failing of the current insurance system. It became so expensive and unwieldy that companies decided they couldn't afford to insure their proteges anymore. The failing isn't in Medicare, the failing is in an unstable insurance system that promised these people things that it couldn't afford to deliver, and now they're disappointed in the reality that they're forced to accept. Medicare is the messenger, it isn't the cause of the problem. > Every system fails eventually unless it evolves. Private > enterprise does a much better job of evolving than massive > governments because you can have partial failures of private > enterprise, but when a government topples, an impromptu > praetorian guard notwithstanding, it all falls apart. Well, our current system of health care based on private enterprise is failing badly, despite all your pomping on about how private enterprise doing a much better job of evolving. Not in this case, it didn't, and people are dying as a result. Eric Lucas
From: lucasea on 23 Nov 2006 02:18 "unsettled" <unsettled(a)nonsense.com> wrote in message news:3fcbb$45647f3d$4fe77c5$17560(a)DIALUPUSA.NET... > AT&T's former monopoly was licensed and regulated. They > eventally voluntarily gave it up in order to be permitted > to invest their profits in something unrelated to > their primary business. > > And just in case you haven't been paying attention, the > phoenix is arising out of its ashes. Yes, and the American consumer and worker had better hope that this is one pendulum that starts to swing back the other way, and FAST. Jobs are being lost and prices are rising, all because of the lack of effective competition in several sectors of the American economy. The SEC and FTC have been asleep at the wheel for the past 20 years, and the American middle class is the one paying the price. Eric Lucas
From: lucasea on 23 Nov 2006 02:21 "unsettled" <unsettled(a)nonsense.com> wrote in message news:c16c5$456482ae$4fe77c5$17631(a)DIALUPUSA.NET... > Lloyd Parker wrote: > >> In article <ek1kpf$8qk_002(a)s853.apx1.sbo.ma.dialup.rcn.com>, >> jmfbahciv(a)aol.com wrote: > >>>I know why it manages to do "better". It is local. You do not >>>have a large geographic distribution to deal with. It is also >>>accepted by the populace because your basic tenets are based on >>>a socialism. The US is not. <snip - cleanup> > >> Right-wing extremism rears its head. > > Nope. Yep. >> The US wasn't founded on fascism either. > > You've just gone over the cliff with the other lemmings. And you think calling people names is a valid substitute for discussing facts. Nice way to influence people to your point of view. Eric Lucas
From: lucasea on 23 Nov 2006 02:22
"Eeyore" <rabbitsfriendsandrelations(a)hotmail.com> wrote in message news:456482EE.32ADCE27(a)hotmail.com... > > > unsettled wrote: > >> NHS has not >> yet withstood the test of time. Wake me up in a few more >> decades. > > 60 years is enough to prove the point imho. Especially considering how badly the US system of insurance has begun to fail its customers in that same time period. Eric Lucas |