Jihad needs scientists
in [Design]
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From: lucasea on 23 Nov 2006 02:38 "unsettled" <unsettled(a)nonsense.com> wrote in message news:c7c7a$456495bf$4fe7432$18128(a)DIALUPUSA.NET... > Jonathan Kirwan wrote: >> On Wed, 22 Nov 2006 17:03:42 +0000, Eeyore >> <rabbitsfriendsandrelations(a)hotmail.com> wrote: >> >> >>>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. >>> >>>Graham >> >> >> What all this discussion shows is how any excuse is found/made, by >> some US folks, for not doing something that has been working pretty >> well for a very large number of people and for keeping a system that >> most people WITHIN it as practicing clinicians seem to agree is "in >> crisis" here. >> >> Bizarre. > > Let's start with NHS not having 60 years experience. That > would have given it a birthdate of 1946. Yes, that's correct. > Next, a goodly number of people living in the FSU and > Warsaw Pact nations say that life was better for them > under the old system than it is being liberated and > responsible for themselves. Lemmings, all. More irrelevant name-calling. > Much, but not all, of the "crisis" is as BAH describes > it. The fact that the healthcare system as it exists in > the US has its share of problems is no surprise. Every > business as extensive as healthcare is, that is, touching > virtually *every* member of society, is bound to have some > problems. Does one expect every business to fail 20% of its customers? If you honestly do, it's good that you have retired. It's time for you to step aside while the rest of society progresses right past your stagnated corpse. > It is my opinion that we need the AMA or some other > similar organization to work towards improving what > we have. In my case the healthcare system has been > working well 99% of the time. I'm looking for an > improvement on that, not the experiment run amok > that's being proposed. Translation: "Unsettled has been getting his needs met, you 20 % of society that insurance has failed should just go ahead and die so that he doesn't have to give up treatment of his hangnails." Nice attitude. Eric Lucas
From: unsettled on 23 Nov 2006 04:29 Ken Smith wrote: > In article <a031$4565241d$4fe717b$21341(a)DIALUPUSA.NET>, > unsettled <unsettled(a)nonsense.com> wrote: > >>Ken Smith wrote: >> >>>In article <6dd17$45646b74$4fe74f0$17139(a)DIALUPUSA.NET>, > > [...] > >>I'm glad you've given this some serious thought, so unusual >>for usenet newsgroups. It would be nice, if you have the time >>and the ambition, if you'd give Hayek a thorough read. He's >>well respected. > > > Do you have the title of his work(s) hand? I could add it to my xmass > list. > > It is easier for me, and just as complete a list, if you enter Hayek on the search line at amazon.com. Thanks for asking.
From: unsettled on 23 Nov 2006 04:34 'foolsrushin' wrote: > Homer J Simpson wrote: > > >>"Gordon" <gordonlr(a)DELETEswbell.net> wrote in message >>news:00c0i29vn31ejl71pku1d0r1nfaevj6p4i(a)4ax.com... > > >>>>So you are saying they are NOT better Xtians than everyone else? > > >>>No, I'm saying that this war on terrorism started long before >>>President Bush and the present Republican administration was >>>involved in any way. > > >>But it isn't a war. It is a problem for a police force that requires >>international cooperation, something the US is notoriously unable or >>unwilling to be involved in. > > > Bush and 'Boy Blair' poked a nest of hornets, and now we all have to > live with the consequences. Gosh, I had rather thought that 9/11 was a poke at the hornets nest. Do you remember that day, and the aftermath? > Probably the intention was to stir up the > guys to get at their oil, Possibly their intention was?????? Take a stand. If you're going to allege, then allege, but don't mince words and dance around the edges! > but the miscalculation was that this was a > political issue: probably, whoever thermited the Towers, Take your meds and come back once they've taken hold. snip
From: unsettled on 23 Nov 2006 05:25 Let me expand a little more on part of this: unsettled wrote: > BAH wrote: >> I simply don't tend to write about agreeable stuff because >> that doesn't need work. > Overall, methinks you're being far too kind. When > a pack gets into a feeding frenzy, they reinforce > one another against "troubling dissent" (troubling > to their commonly held PC value systems) by a sort > of backslapping agreement. IMO that makes them seem > to be "right" and their opposition "wrong." In stepping back and looking at the entire thread since I came into it, I've come to an even more distressing view of why this thread has been as hot as it has been. Lucas and Wake are, without a doubt, agitator class Marxist socialists. Lucas keeps denying it, but all the words and concepts are there from both of them. Neither of them has any real depth in the things they write. I think that's because they're dealing out of a backdrop of recitational knowledge of their beliefs, learned much as we learned the times tables as children without a really good handle on numbers systems and all those associated concepts. The problem, of course, is that they'll never progress past the point they've achieved. Like so many things that are only superficially understood by them, they're adament that their entire scheme fits together and works well and will argue the subject to death while only scratching the surface, steadfastly denying the validity of any deeper analysis. They come to the discussion lacking a working understanding of economic theory. Ken Smith stands in opposition to a lot of stuff, but he's willing to look past the superficial aspects. His disagreements are generally honorable so it is a pleasure discussing issues with him. I'll start thinking that the healthcare system is failing when we start to see a significant decline in US life expectancy. So far, it seems to me, that has been increasing. The US doesn't do well with infant mortality. I haven't delved into why that is. Given the number of abortions we do in this country I wonder if some of them aren't simply a cruel form of post partum abortion. See also the "Who is the father of my baby" genre television talk shows of recent times.
From: unsettled on 23 Nov 2006 06:13
Ken Smith wrote: > In article <4cb81$45647cf4$4fe77c5$17514(a)DIALUPUSA.NET>, > unsettled <unsettled(a)nonsense.com> wrote: > >>Ken Smith wrote: > > [....] >>"Nonproductive spending in the healthcare system..." >>What happens to the money? Someone destroys it? > It isn't the money so much as the wealth. Money is a "score keeping > system" used to allow the flow of wealth through the economy. I am > pointing this out because increases in the money supply can happen in > times of stagflation where wealth is in fact decreasing. > The money spent on paying people to push needless paper around is the best > sort of example. In every universal employment scheme this became an artform. Sometimes the choice is whether to have them show up for work and shuffle papers all day and pay them, or pay them to sit at home because they are unemployed. The problem was discovered at Amoco Oil headquarters in Chicago a few years back, by the CEO, who cut 200 management level jobs out of the corporation as nonproductive paper shuffling that provided nothing of value to the corporate enterprise. So he terminated them en masse. The burden shifted, at least for a while, from the private sector to the public sector as those 200 collected unemployment. It woud be intereresting to know how many in that class ever did find employment again. > The person gets a days pay but produces nothing as a > result. That person will consume things from the economy but not add any > goods or services to it. So in effect that person has destroyed a bit of > wealth. They consumed, but the money, representing wealth, has passed through. The goods and services they purchased with the money they earned adds value back into the economy. All well designed (or evolved) economic systems are able to absorb inefficiencies which are always impossible to completely eliminate. If a government works hard to eliminate inefficiencies, then what value are the people supervising that effort adding to the economy? It becomes a snake consuming itself. >>>If the government builds infrastructure this is generally not a drag on >>>the economy. >>Depends on the effectiveness of the infrastructure. > The "generally" was intended to leave room for th esilly bridges to > nowhere. Precisely the concept I had in mind. >>>When the CEOs of a bunch of companies go golfing in >>>Scotland, it is a drag on the US economy. >>Not so simple. How's our balance of trade with UK? > I used golf in my example because it is a truly useless > activity. Lots of room for disagreement there. I know men for whom it is the best exercise possible. I don't golf myself, I'm generally a lot more active. > The CEOs will leave a bunch of the money in the UK > and bring nothing back to the US in return for it. And yet I know a highly successful salesman who uses golfing as a very effective setting for closing rather large, in his area of business, deals. The fact that they're out on the green instead of the office with hot and cold running secretaries bringing them scotch and coffee is, in the scheme of things, a small thing. I can't imagine a group of go-getter executives passing up the opoportunity to talk shop while enjoying themselves in the company of their peers. The US will be a little poorer as a result. "Wealth" transfers to Scotland. Scotland doesn't burn it, but spends it, either at home or abroad. In the meantime people in Scotland are working, adding value. >>While the costs for administration of Medicare are repeatedly >>reported to be ~3% this doesn't include many expense factors >>which private industry must report. It is another of the many >>lying by statistics gambits used in such cases. > Please provide a list of these costs or a cite so I can look them up. You do know I won't do this, it is far too much work. If you've been involved in business you recognize cost elements that are universally common. As BAH mentioned, collections is a big expense. If you were to take the amount of money spent by Medicare each year, and on that basis allocate the % expenses incurred by IRS collection mechanism that lands in the medicare pocket, you'd have a handle on what that part actually costs but remains unreported as a medicare expense. Then there's auditing by the GAO, also unreported as a medicare expense, and the cost of mailings for which postage is absorbed by the USPS. There are lots of similar line items. Either you accept the point, or you don't. I have neither the time nor the energy required to flesh this out beyond the obvious logical sorts of expenses I've mentioned above. >>>... 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? > Huh???? I don't see how you got from one place to the other. Some > retirees getting cheated is an unrelated issue. Here's the point. If US insurance is so bad, and government run healthcare is better then why are the retirees complaining? BTW, they're not being screwed now. Their screwing happened when their employer talked them into lower pay based on promises of future redundant healthcare schemes. > Note that the "look like" was not meant as "exactly like". I would also > not suggest one that is exactly like the VA system as it is today. It seems to me the VA system more closely resembles NHS than medicare does. >>Why do people like me buy supplemental insurance? Because I >>am insuring against the possibility that a severe illness >>not well covered by Medicare can bankrupt my estate. > You want more coverage. That is fine with me. The point is, insurance isn't "a bad thing" as so many in this discussion want to make it. > [....] >>>Fiat money and irrigated agriculture lead to the downfall of all >>>civilizations. The record is full of such examples. We are doomed, >>>doomed I tell you. >>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. > Private enterprise evolves very well indeed. So do viruses. I wouldn't call that evolution. > Merely > having the propery of evolving is not enough. The direction of evolution > needs to be a direction that favors us. In healthcare funding, it appears > that private enterprise is evolving to consume all the wealth. I don't think so. I would like to find a study that compares median healthcare costs to a family as a % of median income today compared to 1950, which is before the leading edge of the growth of health insurance hit, if I recall things correctly. Somehow we'd have to factor in all the new very expensive equipment and procedures that weren't available in 1950 but are commonly used today. |