...the Ancient Ones, to the Lord of Abominations, Humwawa, whose face is a mass of entrails, whose breath is the stench of dung and the perfume of death, Dark Angel of all that is excreted and sours, Lord of Decay, Lord of the Future, who rides on a whispering south wind, to Pazuzu, Lord of Fevers and Plagues, Dark Angel of the Four Winds with rotting genitals from which he howls through sharpened teeth over stricken cities, to Kutulu, the Sleeping Serpent who cannot be summoned, to the Akhkaru, who suck the blood of men since they desire to become men, to the Lalussu, who haunt the places of men, to Gelal and Lilit, who invade the beds of men and whose children are born in secret places, to Addu, raiser of storms who can fill the night sky with brightness, to Malah, Lor of Courage and Bravery, to Zahgurim, whose number is 23 and who kills in an unnatural fashion, to Zahrim, a warrior among warriors, to Itzamna, Spirit of Early Mists and Showers, to Ix Chel, the Spider-Web-that-Catches-the-Dew-of-Morning, to Zuhuy Kak, Virgin Fire, to Ah Dziz, the Master of Cold, to Kak U Pacat, who works in fire, to Ix Tab, to Xolotl the Unformed, Lord of Rebirth, to Aguchi, Master of Ejaculations, to Osiris and Amen in phallic form, to Hex Chun Chan, the Dangerous One, to Ah Pook, the Destroyer, to the Great Old One and the Star beast, to Pan, God of Panic, to the nameless gods of dispersal and emptiness, to Hassan I Sabbah, Master of thee Assassins. To all the scribes and artists and practitioners of magic through whom these spirits have been manifested... NOTHING IS TRUE. EVERYTHING IS PERMITTED. NOTHING IS TRUE. EVERYTHING IS PERMITTED. NOTHING IS TRUE. EVERYTHING IS PERMITTED.
YouTube is quite possibly the worst depository of comments on the internet. While other sites may surpass the depths of stupidity YouTube makes up for it with enormous volume, so much so that the comments section of the videos should be called YouTroll.
Today I got a good dose of confirmation bias:
Bill: The majority of votes in favor of siphoning off wealth to bail out their crony banker friends where in fact Democrats. O-Bot: No you are wrong, what the democrats are doing is trying to put some money into the banking industry because the money which was supposed to be there was taking out of the country by republicans during a period of 8 years, they so a bastard that we keep trying to inject money into the economy and they keep taking the money out of the banks to banks abroad, we the democrats don't own the banking industry my friend, that industry is owned by the republicans Bill: Which is why Ben Bernakie, Rattner, and Geitner are administration fixtures, and why big banking firms like Goldman Sacs dumped millions of dollars in the Obama campaign? Not buying it. O-Bot: no buddy you are wrong, the Obama campaign money came from the owners of GOOGLE, they campaigned for the democrats because the republicans had taking so much money away from Americans that their sells through avertisement campaigns had decrease by more than 20%
[Lookes up data from OpenSecrets.org]
Bill: Goldman Sacs has made hundreds of millions since Obama took office and is the number 2 PAC that gave the campaign [behind a California university]. (Donating three times the amount of money they gave to McFail.) Citibank and JP Morgan came within 10% of funds offered by Google. O-Bot: if you think that the banking industry is owned by liberals (whom have a tendency to give benefits to the poor) you are the one being played for a fool here, the few banks that "gave money to Obama" gave 10 times that amount of money (behind the curtains) to the republicans, if you don't know that the republican are taking our money and putting it in private accounts in banks abroad you don't know anything
[Does more cursory checking.]
Bill: Steven Rattner, Timothy Geithner, Leon Panetta, Ben Bernanke, and other bankers/financiers are prominent in this administration. Fannie May, Freddie Mac, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup Inc, JPMorgan Chase & Co, UBS AG, Morgan Stanley, Lehman Brothers, and other investment houses contributed hundreds of thousands to Obama. Need I point out that Geitner's phone records indicate that he calls his buddies at Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, and JP Morgan more then the President? No need for secrecy, Wall Street sits in the Oval Office. O-Bot: No I know you are not throwing Timothy Geithner in my face, we all know that the republicans made him president of the federal reserve in 2003 and that he is still working for the republican behind the curtains
At this point my brain broke entirely. Why do I even bother? (1,221)
For the first time in 25 years the Social Security program paid out more money then it took in. However unlike the 80s bailout, the demographic shift will increase the number of recipients for the foreseeable future.
It would have been a lot simpler to fix the system years ago, when we could have used Social Security's cash surpluses to buy non-Treasury securities, such as government-backed mortgage bonds or high-grade corporates that would have helped cover future cash shortfalls. Now it's too late.
Even though an economic recovery might produce some small, fleeting cash surpluses, Social Security's days of being flush are over.
To be sure -- three of the most dangerous words in journalism -- the current Social Security cash deficits aren't all that big, given that Social Security is a $700 billion program this year, and that the government expects to borrow about $1.5 trillion in fiscal 2010 to cover its other obligations, about the same as it borrowed in fiscal 2009.
But this year's Social Security cash shortfall is a watershed event. Until this year, Social Security was a problem for the future. Now it's a problem for the present.
Like a freight train, we've heard the and seen the train coming a long way off. We did nothing to get out of the way, now it's time to feel the impact. (1,222)
"The scope of the controversy changed when the new science of economics entered the scene. Political parties which passionately rejected all the practical conclusions to which the results of economic thought inevitably lead, but were unable to raise any tenable objections against their truth and correctness, shifted the argument to the fields of epistemology and methodology. They proclaimed the experimental methods of the natural sciences to be the only adequate mode of research, and induction from sensory experience the only legitimate mode of scientific reasoning. They behaved as if they had never heard about the logical problems involved in induction. Everything that was neither experimentation nor induction was in their eyes metaphysics, a term that they employed as synonymous with nonsense." - Von Mises, Theory and History (2,794)
This is one of the easier recipes in my cook book, and one of the better ones. The only thing you have to cut is the onion, you can let your blender do the rest for you:
1. In a food processor place Italian tomatoes, tomato paste, chopped parsley, minced garlic, oregano, salt, and pepper. Blend until smooth. 2. In a large skillet over medium heat saute the finely chopped onion in olive oil for 2 minutes. Add the blended tomato sauce and white wine. 3. Simmer for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.
*For extra goodness saute some mushrooms and toss them in and/or add olives. Add more paste to thicken.* (1,394)
After bailouts and printed money equivalent to double-digits of the GDP have been injected into the economy, the government managed to boost the GDP figure by 5.7%.
That's like burning your neighbor's house down because you ran out of wood for your fireplace.
What's odd is how unimpressed the Keynesians are with this result:
As expected, a big GDP number, signifying nothing much. It’s an inventory blip: topline growth at 5.7 percent, but only 2.2 of that is final demand. ... And I find myself wondering why I even bother reading the actual numbers; the Goldman Sachs prediction was almost exactly right.
It was a tad strange to have had inventories contribute half to the GDP tally, and at the same time see import growth cut in half last quarter. Normally, inventory adds are at least partly fuelled by purchases of foreign-made inputs. Not this time. Strip out inventories and the foreign trade sector, we see that domestic demand growth in the fourth quarter actually slowed to a paltry 1.7% annual rate from 2.3% in the third quarter. Some recovery. Based on some simulations we ran, demand growth with all the massive doses of fiscal and monetary stimulus should already be running in excess of a 10% annual rate. So, the real question that nobody seems to ask is why it is that underlying demand conditions are still so benign more than two years after the greatest stimulus of all time. The answer is that this epic credit collapse is a pervasive drain on spending and very likely has another five years to play out. ... If you believe the GDP data — remember, there are more revisions to come — then you de facto must be of the view that productivity growth is soaring at over a 6% annual rate. No doubt productivity is rising — just look at the never-ending slate of layoff announcements. But we came off a cycle with no technological advance and no capital deepening, so it is hard to believe that productivity at this time is growing at a pace that is four times the historical norm. Sorry, but we're not buyers of that view. In the fourth quarter, aggregate private hours worked contracted at a 0.5% annual rate and what we can tell you is that such a decline in labour input has never before, scanning over 50 years of data, coincided with a GDP headline this good. Normally, GDP growth is 1.7% when hours worked is this weak, and that is exactly the trend that was depicted this week in the release of the Chicago Fed’s National Activity Index, which was widely ignored. On the flip side, when we have in the past seen GDP growth come in at or near a 5.7% annual rate, what is typical is that hours worked grows at a 3.7% rate. No matter how you slice it, the GDP number today represented not just a rare but an unprecedented event, and as such, we are willing to treat the report with an entire saltshaker — a few grains won’t do.
The State of the Union Address and Rebuttal are political pageant, where the President delivers a long winded speech in which they give an optimistic (read:warped) view of the country policy they have no chance of enacting, and the opposition delivers an equally insubstantial rebuttal. As such should a listener have no better use for their time, it is best the read the transcript instead of listening or watching so that they pick the kernels of content from the stinking mass instead of having it shoved in their eyes and ears. Alternatively you could get roughly the same effect as taking the speeches in whole by downing a pint of absinthe and eating a jar of marshmallow fluff while listing to "Mighty Mighty Bosstones." (5,729)
The following is an excerpt from this article written by Alan Greenspan in 1967--four years before the end of the gold standard (by Richard Nixon).
Recently, Greenspan told Ron Paul he still stands by every word of this.
A fully free banking system and fully consistent gold standard have not as yet been achieved. But prior to World War I, the banking system in the United States (and in most of the world) was based on gold and even though governments intervened occasionally, banking was more free than controlled. Periodically, as a result of overly rapid credit expansion, banks became loaned up to the limit of their gold reserves, interest rates rose sharply, new credit was cut off, and the economy went into a sharp, but short-lived recession. (Compared with the depressions of 1920 and 1932, the pre-World War I business declines were mild indeed.) It was limited gold reserves that stopped the unbalanced expansions of business activity, before they could develop into the post-World War I type of disaster. The readjustment periods were short and the economies quickly reestablished a sound basis to resume expansion. But the process of cure was misdiagnosed as the disease: if shortage of bank reserves was causing a business decline — argued economic interventionists — why not find a way of supplying increased reserves to the banks so they never need be short! If banks can continue to loan money indefinitely — it was claimed — there need never be any slumps in business. And so the Federal Reserve System was organized in 1913. ... Stripped of its academic jargon, the welfare state is nothing more than a mechanism by which governments confiscate the wealth of the productive members of a society to support a wide variety of welfare schemes. A substantial part of the confiscation is effected by taxation. But the welfare statists were quick to recognize that if they wished to retain political power, the amount of taxation had to be limited and they had to resort to programs of massive deficit spending, i.e., they had to borrow money, by issuing government bonds, to finance welfare expenditures on a large scale. ... In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation. There is no safe store of value. If there were, the government would have to make its holding illegal, as was done in the case of gold. If everyone decided, for example, to convert all his bank deposits to silver or copper or any other good, and thereafter declined to accept checks as payment for goods, bank deposits would lose their purchasing power and government-created bank credit would be worthless as a claim on goods. The financial policy of the welfare state requires that there be no way for the owners of wealth to protect themselves. This is the shabby secret of the welfare statists' tirades against gold. Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the confiscation of wealth. Gold stands in the way of this insidious process. It stands as a protector of property rights. If one grasps this, one has no difficulty in understanding the statists' antagonism toward the gold standard.
For those of you who don't know, Glenn Beck is a "conservative" commentator who has apparently recently discovered libertarianism. He gets on the air 5 days a week on Fox News and rants about the 'classical liberals' who we call the founding fathers. Whenever I see his show (not often), I think that it's too bad he wasn't ham-fistedly proselytizing about these things when Bush was in office, he might have actually earned himself some credibility. Beck is well-known for finding and airing buried footage of people in the administration and upper echelon of the democratic party making communist / socialist / fascist / racist / statist / scary-as-hell statements. He then spins these soundbytes into vast conspiracy theories and cries about it. With real tears. On the air.
Devil's advocate: According to Beck, he criticizes republicans too... But only if their names rhyme with Teddy Roosevelt (Seriously??) or John McCain
I've seen a few of these soundbytes made by Obama's various "czars" as well as some of the more central voices of the administration. What strikes me is not that these people exist or that their statements are so unapologetic, it's that the rest of the media aren't airing some of these clips. I'm left thinking "Are these people too insignificant to report or are these ideas just so innocuous to the press that they're not worth noting?"
The press historically gives a free ride to its favored politicians. The American public were denied critical information about FDR and Kennedy--particularly the juicy personal tidbits that would've ruined them. Even Bush was allowed to get away with a heck of a lot until the 9/11 fever broke and the press went rabid once again.
It would seem, however, that even the new liberal messiah can't walk on water forever. Left wingers around the country are waking up to the fact that their former lover and nobel laureate is actually a fraud and a danger to freedom--even as they (the left) narrowly define it. Obama has broken key campaign promises that have driven all but the most vapid party hacks from strong approval to apathy or disillusionment if not outright rage ($5 says they'll vote for him in 2012 regardless; but we're talking politics here, not reality).
With all this, Glenn Beck's muckraking over Obama's appointees is starting to bubble up from the depths of the journalistic septic tank that is "Fixed News" into the liberal press.
One of my favorite examples is a Salon article about Cass Sunstein ("one of Barack Obama's closest confidants"). It talks about 'his' idea to use government funds to pay agents to infiltrate internet chat-rooms and forums to spread the word of the state and to bolster confidence in the government. This isn't a new idea, of course, but it certainly should hit a nerve with the same groups that were upset about Bush's "propaganda" (which the article also goes into at length almost out of nowhere, proving once again that "leftwing" reporters can't say bad things about democrats without scrambling to assert "... But Bush was worse!!").
Interesting historical note: The first official propaganda ministry in the western world wasn't in Fascist Germany or Italy, it was in the United States under the progressive President Woodrow Wilson.
The Salon article goes on to point out the hypocrisy of certain liberal pundits in not jumping on this and other scaryisms drizzling out of the mouths of the Obama administration along side the drool and edamame particulates. They pass over these omens of statism while at the same time dubbing those who don't "Purveyors of Becksh*t-nuts Conspiracy Garbage."
To keep an even keel about politics (if that's even possible), I think it's necessary to look to people who actually endorse the person/group in question to see if your concerns are valid. Obviously most people just assume they're on the "right" side until the evidence piles up to the point of suffocation. However, when you see these 'sheeple' start to defy their shepherds and say the same incendiary stuff you've been saying, that's when you know you're not crazy--at least if you go by George Orwell's definition of insanity as being "a minority of one" ... although in politics it's usually the majority that's crazy, so who knows. (4,324)
This may be black and white enough to actually convict the bastard. We'll see how ballsy the Obama administration is and if they'll refuse to convict their lapdog or if they'll be forced to capitulate to what's bound to be a public outcry.
Apparently Geithner and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York knew about and possibly coerced AIG into illegally omitting some of the items on their balance sheet, particularly those belonging to [you guessed it!] GOLDMAN SACHS.
It would seem that now Obama can stop blaming poor people for the housing bubble collapsing. There is not now nor has there ever been a "Sub-prime Mortgage Crisis." It was an "ARM Mortgage Crisis."
New data suggests that adjustable rate mortgages are foreclosing for both prime and sub-prime at the same rate.
Naturally it spun a better tale to say that the deadbeats who were too poor or too drug-addled or too jailed to be recipients of the "prime" moniker were the bastards responsible for our recession. Unfortunately for us, the problem is not that simple/ridiculous.
It wasn't just that "poor people got drunk," it's that "everyone got drunk" at the same time.
Not only does this point to the devastatingly largeness of the bubble but it also begs the question even more: How did this problem get so big? What fundamental factor do all these people, neighborhoods, banks, and interest rates all have in common?
The supply of credit, maybe? Thanks Greenspan. For everything. (15,933)
In these hectic holiday times it is so easy to get caught up in the bustle of things; buying presents, running last minute errands, picking up relatives at the airport, chasing gin with whiskey, making sure that grandma is still alive and knows who she is, etc. sometimes I think we as people forget about the true nature of the holiday season which is worship and devotion to our one true lord and savior; my mystikal master, Satan. It may very well be that Baby King Jew himself was born on Christmas day a fuckload of years ago but why waste your life worshiping a Jewish zombie anyways? Satan has existed since before time immemorial and was created ex nihilo rather than shat forth from the voraciously bleeding and gasping-gaping birth canal of an ambiguously virginal she-Jew. Given Lucifer's proficiency for disguise, it isn't all that unreasonable to assume that Satan donned the guise of an endlessly ejaculating angel of rape everlasting and sired the very King of Jews himself between the spread thighs of everyones favorite candle-jar mascot. So before you tie the final drunken knot on your holiday noose and hang your sorry sack of meat until stiff, do please consider who it is you drunkenly mumble your last desperate prayer to. After all, you're going to hell anyways so you might as well start earning brownie points with the angel of the bottomless pit. Word on the street is that hell has an excellent benefits package with plenty of uncomfortable living with promotion options available to the upwardly mobile minion. Keep in mind climbing circles is a pain in the ass without Virgil, but it is so very worth it for it's far from lonely at the top! The Muslims may get 72 virgins of dubious beauty, but down in hell there are literally planets of whores just ripe for the fucking. Now as it is appearing time for my 5:30 AM Wild Turkey enema, I'll be signing off and seeing you all... in hell. (6,817)
The state has the power to levy taxes on it's citizens for reason it wants. This means that the state is entitled to whatever portion of wealth it deems necessary; ergo the population is allowed to retain it's wealth by whim of the state. The people have no right to wealth but we may be allowed the privilege to accumulate until such time as the state deems it necessary to appropriate our fortunes.
What system is it when the fruits of labor do not belong to the laborer? (5,488)
As I've stated before, I'm a libertarian and a medical student currently seeing patients in the field. As such, I'm uniquely annoyed by all the goings-on in DC lately. I'm sure most people reading this think it's all over--that the socialists/corporatists in power have "won" and that there's no use even talking about it anymore. Of course if we've learned anything from these systems of central planning, we know that eventually, they all fall down. If the current health bill passes, it's likely to actually make our unsustainable system even worse for all the same reasons it's currently failing (which this article is about). The debate is not over, it's just been put on hold for a few years--until the government's new plans to screw up their mess even further can come into fruition.
I propose a different approach: not more government, but less government. Then there's the obligatory argument about the number of uninsured being "too high." I posit that the best way to reduce that number is to make healthcare less expensive and more accessible rather than just accept the huge costs and setup government programs to cover it. The easiest and most effective way to reduce prices is the free market.
84% of Americans already have some form of health insurance. If the free market were allowed to reduce costs by say, 30%, how would that "84%" figure grow?
Our system fits the classic Harry Browne line, "Government is good at one thing: It knows how to break your legs, hand you a crutch, and say, 'See, if it weren't for the government, you wouldn't be able to walk.'" The Government is responsible for the high cost of healthcare and therefore the high number of uninsured, and the only way to fix their mess is to get them to stop doing what they're doing.
I know many people reading this will say "but we already have a free market, and clearly it's expensive and ineffective!" Of course, those same people really don't know what a "free market" is--that is, a market where the government does not regulate, subsidize, or fix prices. Our medical system, though not outright socialist or fascist, is about as close to capitalism as the Titanic is from docking in New York.
Most people don't understand how cheaply healthcare could be done if we allowed the industry to evolve like other industries. Many of the things we as doctors do require equipment and drugs that are either cheaper than dirt or have alternatives that are. The high cost of doctors' time could be supplanted in most cases by trained nurses or even the injured/sick individual themselves. The folly of those who don't see this is a failure of imagination. Rest assured, however, Medicine is no different from other industries (eg Unlicensed individuals service their own cars all the time, and most medical procedures are far less dangerous or could at least be made that way by the demand to do so). Given the opportunity to evolve, quality care would be as ubiquitous as color televisions
I imagine a country where an uninsured person living in poverty will be diagnosed with cancer, and even the most bleeding-heart socialist will unsympathetically say "Well why the hell didn't you buy health insurance? It's cheaper than your smoking habit. Here's $10, go get some chemotherapy"
Indirect Health Care Subsidies - Tax Incentives
59% of Americans with health care receive it through their employer. The reason the employer does this is because the government taxes cash reimbursement (wages) not only through the Federal Income Tax (Median ~20%), but also Unemployment (6%), Medicare (6%), and Social Security taxes (12%). Paying for employee healthcare incurs none of these taxes. Therefore, the government is effectively partially paying for employee healthcare by so heavily taxing other forms of compensation.
This is an indirect subsidy which, again raises prices universally. In addition, like the direct subsidy, recipients of this care will use much more of it because they are not responsible for paying the premiums. (* See explanation below)
The way to end this is more complicated than ending a direct subsidy--if we continue taxing wages**, we must then start to tax all forms of employee compensation, including health care. This would start to push people towards paying their premiums directly instead of getting insurance through their employer. Sounds like a bad thing, but theoretically you could reduce the federal income tax (and other wage taxes) to match the massive influx of revenue generated by this tax.
Also, remember that "15% of Americans are uninsured" statistic? Well 1/3 to 1/2 of all people currently uninsured are uninsured because they're in between jobs that provided them with insurance. If they paid for their insurance themselves, they'd have it now. Therefore, we could eliminate the number of uninsured by 33-50% almost immediately by simply transferring the employer's policy to the employee. Eliminating the tax incentive to do otherwise would certainly fix the problem.
** Optimally, we would tax neither wages nor other forms of compensation, but that's even more of a pipe dream than any of the other things I've mentioned.
Direct Health Care Subsidies - Medicare & Medicaid
28% of Americans with health insurance have it totally paid for by the government. This is an obvious subsidy and leads to higher prices for those who do not enjoy this subsidy. Moreover, recipients of this care will use much more of it because they are not responsible for paying the premiums. (* See explanation below)
Indirect Governmentally Managed Care - Tort
This argument you've surely heard before: Health Care Providers change their care to accommodate an altered risk/benefit ratio strictly because they're afraid of getting sued. It's unknown how much this actually contributes to costs, but there are a few studies that show it being greater than 25%. That's not including the change in the culture of medicine, which may actually bring quality down in the end.
Several states have started implementing tort reform and not surprisingly it's been a complete success.
Direct Governmentally Managed Care - Health Care Regulations
Americans are universally turned off by managed care, yet they are inexplicably in favor of Government managing their care through regulations.
Health Care is one of the most regulated industries in the United States. From compulsory licensing of physicians to the drug approval process, the market is mired in government ineptitude, sloth, and corruption. Nearly every step of patient care is delivered exactly according to government edicts.
Giving people a choice between licensed and unlicensed physicians (for instance, allowing a nurse to write prescriptions and perform simple procedures without a doctor) would drastically reduce costs and therefore insurance premiums.
In addition, giving people a chance to buy drugs that haven't been through the FDA's 12-year process would save thousands of lives and allow the market to find better and faster ways of ensuring drug safety. Meanwhile, the actual FDA could be privatized and run by Ralph Nader (or some other ostensibly incorruptible person) and its approval being available for people who are untrusting of drug companies.
* 3rd Party Payer - The Bugbear of Subsidy
73% of all Americans (87% of the insured) not only receive a government subsidy for care (directly or indirectly) but are also not responsible for paying their own premiums. This is the biggest reason prices are rising both through the indifference and profligacy of the recipients (nobody "shops around" for care before they get it) as well as recipients actually taking worse care of themselves as they are not responsible for the bills that come of it.
For instance, if a private insurance company were to give breaks for people who ate right and exercised, this would start a trend that may even fix America's obesity problem. It sounds far-fetched, but that's only because you have no idea how much the actuarial tables would change for a healthy population as opposed to ours (with 1/3 of Americans being overweight and another 1/3 obese). The premiums for these "fit" people, especially in their later years, would be halved.
The current incentive structure encourages the opposite--if you're not fat, you're not getting your money's worth for healthcare. After all, by taxation or reduction in cash wages, you are paying the premiums to be fat whether you want/need to or not. It could be that our "good" healthcare is what's killing us.
The Current Healthcare Bill (Dec 23, '09) Is More of the Same
The current healthcare bill will expand all of the problems with American healthcare--direct subsidy, indirect subsidy, direct regulation, and indirect regulation:
Direct Subsidy - This bill mandates that everyone pay a private corporation for healthcare. In addition, it increases Medicaid and pays for private health insurance for people who 'can't afford it'. I thought they called this Fascism. It'll be interesting to see how they determine who gets paid and who doesn't--who draws the line between 'fully paid' and 'forced into poverty by paying obscene premiums'.
Indirect Subsidy - This bill gives money to [small?] businesses who can't afford to provide healthcare to their employees. Government giving money to private corporations... I couldn't fathom how corruption could ensue!
Direct Regulation - This bill adds at least a thousand pages of healthcare regulation, especially on insurance companies. Insurance companies make a tiny profit margin as it is. Take it away, you don't increase competition, you bankrupt competition. Many think this new bill will be a boon to insurance companies because of the compulsory addition of 30+million new customers. I'd advise those who believe this to look at the remaining 1,000+ pages of the bill and see if that makes you want to start an insurance company.
Milton Friedman was always railing against 'central planning' for its inherent immorality. However, he also said that we were lucky in that these systems had the added detriment of inevitable failure. Our healthcare system is like Frankenstein--sewn together from all manner of dead and dysfunctional parts, then artificially reanimated and left to run amok. Eventually, the people will grow wary of its rampage and destroy it. The question is: how many people will die in the interim. (31,602)
On behalf of everyone who posts on Latewire, I would like to grant everyone Happy Holiday season with BBQ Sauce. Lots of BBQ Sauce. Big things are in development here at one of the many and glorious satellite studios of Latewire. Actually we are just chugging some egg nog with extra rum and counting how many it takes to pass out or vomit, but that is neither here nor there. (6,163)
There's a thundering hailstorm in Phoenix today, sending drops of frozen hate clattering across the skylight and beating the life out of weak trees. On the outskirts of my peripheral vision, I caught a glimpse of something white and jagged -- the future.
Life as a human right now is akin to having woken up inside the chute of a woodchipper. We may not even recall how we got inside the woodchipper in the first place. The one thing that is clear : the inevitability of the blades.
A feeling like saws chewing into my neck. The sounds of weeping just outside my door. And a cold light knife into my pupil reminds me : This is a world divorced from hope.
When facing a suffocated reality of nonexistent future, what do you do? Here are some options :
1) Lie down and wait quietly for the ice weasels to come. 2) Cry until you're too tired to cry any longer, then die. 3) Fight until death. 4) Put on heavy metal records and rock out for as long as possible.
Now, I don't know which of these sounds most attractive, or which you, the reader, may already be doing. I choose option #4. Here's why :
* Metal music is brain floss. * Metal music improves blood flow to the face. * Metal music is not a norm. * Metal music has no sympathy for your suffering. * Metal music remembers when you were only an animal. * Metal music hasn't heard about your regrets, but it can drench them in molten @#$%^& * Metal music will survive long after the Universe is toast. * Metal music recognizes your true form and can restore it if lost. * Metal music connects you with that aspect of youself that you forgot about. * Metal music is truth erupting from a sea of lies.
There's no future. But with metal music, the present can be made to rock. In these bleak and doomed days, everybody looks for help. Some go to shrinks, some watch TV, and some try in futility to numb the pain with drugs. Well, you all are welcome to your 'cheese' heroin, 'lean,' and amphetamines. I'm an Earache man myself. (10,296)
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It was limited gold reserves that stopped the unbalanced expansions of business activity, before they could develop into the post-World War I type of disaster. The readjustment periods were short and the economies quickly reestablished a sound basis to resume expansion.
For those of you who don't know, Glenn Beck is a "conservative" commentator who has apparently recently discovered libertarianism. He gets on the air 5 days a week on Fox News and rants about the 'classical liberals' who we call the founding fathers. Whenever I see his show (not often), I think that it's too bad he wasn't ham-fistedly proselytizing about these things when Bush was in office, he might have actually earned himself some 
Interesting historical note: The first official propaganda ministry in the western world wasn't in Fascist Germany or Italy, it was in the United States under the progressive President Woodrow Wilson.
It would seem that now 
As I've stated before, I'm a libertarian and a medical student currently seeing patients in the field. As such, I'm uniquely annoyed by all the goings-on in DC lately. I'm sure most people reading this think it's all over--that the socialists/corporatists in power have "won" and that there's no use even talking about it anymore. Of course if we've learned anything from these systems of central planning, we know that eventually, they all fall down. If the current health bill passes, it's likely to actually make our unsustainable system even worse for all the same reasons it's currently failing (which this article is about). The debate is not over, it's just been put on hold for a few years--until the government's new plans to screw up their mess even further can come into fruition. 
Our system fits the classic 
Direct Health Care Subsidies - Medicare & Medicaid
The current healthcare bill will expand all of the problems with American healthcare--direct subsidy, indirect subsidy, direct regulation, and indirect regulation:
Trial and Error
