Now that Greenspan is no longer working for the government, he's once again turned into a capitalist.
In a rant he recently wrote for the WSJ, he said “The United States, and most of the rest of the developed world, is in need of a tectonic shift in fiscal policy ... Incremental change will not be adequate.”
He went on to say that “Perceptions of a large U.S. borrowing capacity are misleading,” and current long-term bond yields are masking America’s debt problem. “Long-term rate increases can emerge with unexpected suddenness,” such as the 4 percentage point surge over four months in 1979-80.
“The federal government is currently saddled with commitments for the next three decades that it will be unable to meet in real terms,” Greenspan said. “[The] very severity of the pending crisis and growing analogies to Greece set the stage for a serious response.”
He also says that yields on U.S. Treasuries have decreased in recent months (demand has increased) because of the European debt crisis--a situation that is likely only temporary. This is of course directly contradicting Bernanke's latest tirade against the Gold Rally in which he suggested that the low yields on US Treasuries in recent months were a sign of long-term stability (a pack of lies Latewire immediately called out).
10-year Treasury notes yielded 3.20 percent as of 12:11 p.m. in Tokyo on June 17th, down from the year’s high of 4.01 percent in April and compared with as high as 5.32 percent in June 2007, before the recession began. Yields continue to be low “despite the surge in federal debt to the public during the past 18 months to $8.6 trillion from $5.5 trillion". Greenspan says this shift in demand from European into American Bonds is “temporary.”
“Our economy cannot afford a major mistake in underestimating the corrosive momentum of this fiscal crisis,” Greenspan said. “Our policy focus must therefore err significantly on the side of restraint.”
I couldn't have said it better myself. Can you please tell your former underlings that?
UPDATE: Peter Schiff just released a VLOG where he said almost exactly the same thing. (22,786)
Ever had a really great customer service experience with a technology company? Lord knows I haven't. That's why, for years, I didn't really care whether the blithering morpion on the other end of the line was located in Brooklyn, Botswana, or Bombay. I always just plain avoided dealing with customer service altogether. I figured that the level of service was uniformly awful and that, in fact, th' overall better math and science education in places like India (relative to the USA) would probably make for better tech service coming from those labor pools. I watched the comedy farce "Outsourced," whose sunny depiction of the workers at an Indian call center seemed to confirm my suspicion that all this anti-outsourcing noise was just a load a racist hooey.
Boy, was I wrong!
As those who follow th' Latewire will know, I work for a company that deals in computer hardware. One of the products we sell is recycled laptop batteries. We caught wind of a product recall issued by HP last year and then expanded just last month, as detailed in HP's link below :
and discovered that we had at least one potentially affected battery in our stock. Now, I don't know about you, but when one of our customers pays through the nose for a hard-to-find replacement item and pays $60 to ship it to a repair technician via next-day air cargo, they're not going to be happy if the damned thing catches fire or leaks hot battery gunk all over their low-slung techemo trousers. So with that in mind, I attempted to go through the automated recall-verification process on HP's website. This effort was stymied, however, because I didn't have the complete laptop computer on hand from which the potentially-affected battery was taken, and the site has the computer's serial number as a required field. Now, I'd already determined from HP's own listing of affected battery serial number series that the battery I had was likely a recalled unit. I didn't want to send this thing to some poor sucker only to have it burn his legs off, so I contacted HP's customer service via their online chat 'service.'
What I got was some poor bastard, 'Pavan Kuma R,' in India who spoke English perfectly well, but didn't give a flying @#$% about my actual problem, and instead kept inanely repeating the same infuriating obstruction as I attempted to get the situation sorted out. Despite the fact that this recall involves the battery, not the notebook computer as a whole, and despite the fact that the battery-serial-number check step on HP's website shows that the specific item I had is likely under recall, these soulless sons of lizards kept telling me that I needed the laptop serial number in order for them to tell me whether or not my battery was defective and potentially dangerous.
After I'd given up on 'Pavan,' who was less helpful than a pile of dead hamsters, I told him how I felt about the customer service experience and told him to pass my sentiments along to his supervisor. 'Pavan' then practically begged for me to stay on the line while he got his supervisor, who, he hinted, might be able to actually help me. I was short on time and in no mood for any more of this foolishness, so I said forget it, but then he was like 'oh please' and I said OK, five minutes.
Well, guess what? The supervisor, 'Satyanarayana Raju K' was not only equally as obstructive, but also actually more rude and annoying. This individual just parroted HP's bullfeathers policy back at me and jabbered confrontationally. In all, these barfbats wasted about 45 minutes of my time, and I ended up having to remove the battery from our stock anyway, to be on the safe side. That cost real dough.
Now, do I seriously think that these clownsnakes would have necessarily been more willing to help me if they'd been located in the USA? Not really. Maybe the stonewalling and parroting would have been reduced if they knew how to carry on a reasonable English convo instead of acting like monstrous automatons, but I doubt that I'd have been able to get anywhere with these goons even if they were from Duluth. The real failure here is that HP has designed their recall to protect only individual consumers, and to screw service providers and resellers, because HP has designs on monopolizing those industries as far as its own product is concerned. This attitude is BS, MSM, and dangerous. "Who cares if they have acid burns on their inner thighs, they didn't buy a new HP laptop, so they can FRY."
Bottom line : HP sucks gnat nads. Their customer service is jive turkey bait. And call center managers : don't train your @#$%ing people to waste my time and act like some damned robots. If that's how you're going to roll, at least get some real goddamn robots. Preferably with lasers.
I've attached the complete transcript of the exchange between me and HP's customer service demons below, in case you're a glutton for punishment. Read only in the presence of a bottle of Dewar's.
[Thursday, May 27, 2010 3:46 PM] -- Automatically generated message: A support specialist will be with you shortly. [Thursday, May 27, 2010 3:47 PM] -- Automatically generated message: You are now chatting with support specialist Pavan Kuma R. [Thursday, May 27, 2010 3:47 PM] -- Pavan Kuma R says: Welcome to HP Total Care for Notebook. My name is Pavan. Please give me a few moments while I review your problem description details.
NOTE: For security reasons, PLEASE DO NOT send credit card information via chat.
[Thursday, May 27, 2010 3:47 PM] -- Pavan Kuma R says: Hello hank
[Thursday, May 27, 2010 3:47 PM] -- hank latewire says: Hello Pavan [Thursday, May 27, 2010 3:48 PM] -- Pavan Kuma R says: How are you doing today [Thursday, May 27, 2010 3:48 PM] -- hank latewire says: Well, thanks, how are you? [Thursday, May 27, 2010 3:48 PM] -- Pavan Kuma R says: I am doing absolutely wonderful, thank you. [Thursday, May 27, 2010 3:48 PM] -- hank latewire says: Good to hear [Thursday, May 27, 2010 3:48 PM] -- hank latewire says: So how about this battery I have here? [Thursday, May 27, 2010 3:49 PM] -- Pavan Kuma R says: If I understand you correctly, you need to validate and check whether the battery of notebook is under any recall or not. Am I right? [Thursday, May 27, 2010 3:49 PM] -- hank latewire says: that's right [Thursday, May 27, 2010 3:50 PM] -- hank latewire says: that's rught [Thursday, May 27, 2010 3:50 PM] -- Pavan Kuma R says: I do understand your concern, I am here to help you in this regard. [Thursday, May 27, 2010 3:50 PM] -- Pavan Kuma R says: hank, you will find the product and serial number of the notebook at the bottom of the laptop on a white bar coded sticker preceded by p/n and s/n. [Thursday, May 27, 2010 3:51 PM] -- hank latewire says: I don't ahve the notebook handy -- that's why I couldn't proceed on the recall portion of the website [Thursday, May 27, 2010 3:51 PM] -- Pavan Kuma R says: Please check once and provide me the product and serial number to pull up notebook records. [Thursday, May 27, 2010 3:51 PM] -- hank latewire says: I have only the battery [Thursday, May 27, 2010 3:52 PM] -- hank latewire says: this chat interface lags badly, doesn't it? [Thursday, May 27, 2010 3:52 PM] -- Pavan Kuma R says: I regret to inform you that we need the product details to check with this. [Thursday, May 27, 2010 3:53 PM] -- Pavan Kuma R says: With out the product and serial number, we would not be able to check the notebook status in records. [Thursday, May 27, 2010 3:53 PM] -- hank latewire says: I have the battery in front of me here [Thursday, May 27, 2010 3:53 PM] -- hank latewire says: it's the battery that's potentially recalled, not the notebook [Thursday, May 27, 2010 3:53 PM] -- Pavan Kuma R says: I understand your concern and the inconvenience caused, but we need the Serial and Product Number to check with this. [Thursday, May 27, 2010 3:53 PM] -- hank latewire says: really [Thursday, May 27, 2010 3:54 PM] -- Pavan Kuma R says: hank, not complete notebooks battery are under recall only few notebooks battery are under recall. [Thursday, May 27, 2010 3:54 PM] -- hank latewire says: I have the product and serial number of the battery -- why do you need the notebook? [Thursday, May 27, 2010 3:55 PM] -- hank latewire says: right, and I want to know whether this particular battery is under recall [Thursday, May 27, 2010 3:55 PM] -- Pavan Kuma R says: Few notebooks with particular serial and product number has a battery recall. [Thursday, May 27, 2010 3:56 PM] -- Pavan Kuma R says: Hence to check whether the battery of the notebook is under recall or not we need the product details of notebook. [Thursday, May 27, 2010 3:56 PM] -- Pavan Kuma R says: For your help, here is the link with details to Locate the Notebook Product Number or Model Number:
[Thursday, May 27, 2010 3:56 PM] -- hank latewire says: the information on http://bpr/hpordercenter.com/hpbr/m14.aspx indicates that it's the battery bar code that determines recall status -- see for yourself [Thursday, May 27, 2010 3:57 PM] -- hank latewire says: http://bpr.hpordercenter.com/hpbr/m14.aspx that is [Thursday, May 27, 2010 3:58 PM] -- Pavan Kuma R says: I understand the situation. In the above link of battery recall we need to enter the Serial Number to check whether battery is under recall or not. [Thursday, May 27, 2010 3:59 PM] -- Pavan Kuma R says: With the serial and product number of notebook we would not be able to get the correct information regarding recall. [Thursday, May 27, 2010 4:00 PM] -- Pavan Kuma R says: I would love to help you with this, but I am sorry the data to check this cannot be retrieved without notebook details. [Thursday, May 27, 2010 4:01 PM] -- Pavan Kuma R says: If you have product and serial number of notebook, you can validate the whether battery is under recall or not at your end also. [Thursday, May 27, 2010 4:01 PM] -- Pavan Kuma R says: I apologize for any inconvenience this has caused. [Thursday, May 27, 2010 4:02 PM] -- hank latewire says: a bad battery is going to be bad no matter what notebook it's installed in -- this is a major customer service failure and potential safety hazard. Tell your supervisor that the situation is not acceptable. If this battery is deployed and causes damage or injury due to HP's inability to determine its recall status, there are some serious liability issues at play. [Thursday, May 27, 2010 4:02 PM] -- Pavan Kuma R says: hank, not all the notebooks battery are under recall. [Thursday, May 27, 2010 4:03 PM] -- Pavan Kuma R says: Only few notebook with particular serial number is under recall. [Thursday, May 27, 2010 4:03 PM] -- Pavan Kuma R says: To check this we need the details as it is mandatory. [Thursday, May 27, 2010 4:06 PM] -- hank latewire says: I understand perfectly that not all batteries are under recall - that's why I'm checking this one. I've printed this chat record. I recognize that this isn't your fault, it's HP's foolish policy decision. I want you to pass my dissatisfaction and concern to your supervisor so that HP can be made aware of this error in the design of their program and policy. [Thursday, May 27, 2010 4:08 PM] -- Pavan Kuma R says: Please be online for a while, my supervisor will be handling the chat to take your compliant. [Thursday, May 27, 2010 4:09 PM] -- Pavan Kuma R says: The chat would be transfer to floor supervisor with in few minutes. [Thursday, May 27, 2010 4:09 PM] -- hank latewire says: I don't have a whole lot of time here - we've already spent 20 minutes [Thursday, May 27, 2010 4:10 PM] -- hank latewire says: just have the supervisor review the chat -- if they wish to contact me, they can do so via email - hank [at ] latewire [dot] com [Thursday, May 27, 2010 4:10 PM] -- Pavan Kuma R says: hank, transferring the chat to supervisor would take few minutes. [Thursday, May 27, 2010 4:11 PM] -- Pavan Kuma R says: Your time and patience would be much more appreciated if you stay connected few minutes. [Thursday, May 27, 2010 4:12 PM] -- hank latewire says: OK, five minutes [Thursday, May 27, 2010 4:14 PM] -- Automatically generated message: You are now chatting with support specialist Satyanarayana Raju K. [Thursday, May 27, 2010 4:14 PM] -- hank latewire says: Hello [Thursday, May 27, 2010 4:14 PM] -- Satyanarayana Raju K says: Hello hank. [Thursday, May 27, 2010 4:14 PM] -- Satyanarayana Raju K says: My name is Satyanarayana Raju. [Thursday, May 27, 2010 4:14 PM] -- Satyanarayana Raju K says: I am the floor supervisor. [Thursday, May 27, 2010 4:15 PM] -- hank latewire says: Hello Satyanarayana [Thursday, May 27, 2010 4:15 PM] -- hank latewire says: have you reviewed the chat session between Pavan and I? [Thursday, May 27, 2010 4:15 PM] -- Satyanarayana Raju K says: Regarding the battery recall, it is not possible to validate the battery without the serial and product numbers of the notebook because battery recall is only for specific batteries which are shipped in few series notebooks like F700, DV6500, etc.. [Thursday, May 27, 2010 4:16 PM] -- Satyanarayana Raju K says: I have go through the chat, without the notebook information it is not possible to confirm whether the battery is covered under recall or not. [Thursday, May 27, 2010 4:17 PM] -- Satyanarayana Raju K says: Using the notebook serial number we will validate whether that perticular battery is shipped with the notebook series or not. If yes, then we will check whether the battery serial number/bar code comes under recall or not. [Thursday, May 27, 2010 4:18 PM] -- hank latewire says: that's what Pavan told me -- it doesn't make sense because a) we know what series this battery is from and b) the recall page at http://bpr.hpordercenter.com/hpbr/m14.aspx specifies battery serial number bar codes that may be affected, so it's clear that the information about which specific batteries are subject to recall is known [Thursday, May 27, 2010 4:18 PM] -- hank latewire says: this particular one, serial number 65035N7B7V5YDJ [Thursday, May 27, 2010 4:19 PM] -- hank latewire says: is listed uner the potentially recalled ones for the Presario V6000 series, etc, on the page I noted [Thursday, May 27, 2010 4:19 PM] -- Satyanarayana Raju K says: Without using the serial and product numbers of the notebook and series it is not possible to validate the battery. May I know how you have validated the battery? [Thursday, May 27, 2010 4:19 PM] -- hank latewire says: where it specifies that batteries with code 65035^^B7V^^^^ are potentially recalled [Thursday, May 27, 2010 4:20 PM] -- hank latewire says: I haven't validated the battery -- that is what I am attempting to do [Thursday, May 27, 2010 4:20 PM] -- Satyanarayana Raju K says: All the batteries are not affected in DV6000 series notebook. [Thursday, May 27, 2010 4:21 PM] -- hank latewire says: I understand that perfectly -- why can't you grasp that I'm trying to find out whether this particular battery, which I now have in my hand, is affected by the recall? [Thursday, May 27, 2010 4:21 PM] -- Satyanarayana Raju K says: Please get back to us with the notebook serial number and product number. Without the notebook, it is not possible to validate and replace the battery. [Thursday, May 27, 2010 4:22 PM] -- Satyanarayana Raju K says: The battery recall validation tool will work only when we enter the serial and product numbers of the notebook along with the bar code. [Thursday, May 27, 2010 4:22 PM] -- Satyanarayana Raju K says: There is no such option to directly validate the battery using bar code. [Thursday, May 27, 2010 4:25 PM] -- Satyanarayana Raju K says: Please get back to us with the notebook information so that we can check whether the battery is covered under recall or not. If yes, we will replace the battery. [Thursday, May 27, 2010 4:25 PM] -- Satyanarayana Raju K says: Is there anything else that I can assist you? [Thursday, May 27, 2010 4:26 PM] -- hank latewire says: you clearly haven't reviewed the chat between Pavan and myself, so I'll repeat : a defective battery is defective no matter what unit it's installed in. It's not the consumer's fault that your validation tool can't vet individual batteries. It's dangerous that you are unable to tell the consumer whether their battery is defective without the notebook serial number handy. It could lead to damage or injury. I want you to know that this experience has been very worrisome and frustrating, and perfectly typifies the kind of poor customer service that people often associate with HP and this type of customer service operation in general. I suggest that you pass this sentiment along. [Thursday, May 27, 2010 4:27 PM] -- hank latewire says: Good-bye [Thursday, May 27, 2010 4:27 PM] -- Satyanarayana Raju K says: To check whether the battery is defective or not, we have to validate the battery using the notebook information. Without validating the battery it is not possible to confirm whether it is defective or not. [Thursday, May 27, 2010 4:28 PM] -- Satyanarayana Raju K says: Without the serial and product numbers of the notebook, it is not possible to validate the battery. We do not have such option. [Thursday, May 27, 2010 4:30 PM] -- Automatically generated message: You are now chatting with support specialist Pavan Kuma R. [Thursday, May 27, 2010 4:30 PM] -- Pavan Kuma R says: Thank you for hank. [Thursday, May 27, 2010 4:30 PM] -- Pavan Kuma R says: Here is the reference number of current chat : 4574885
[Thursday, May 27, 2010 4:30 PM] -- Pavan Kuma R says: Is there anything else I can assist you with, today? (27,881)
So a few weeks ago Blizzard, makers of World of Warcraft (as well as some games that aren't gay), announced that they weren't going to invest a lot of resources in preventing piracy of their new game, Starcraft II. They basically said it's a losing battle (can't win, don't try).
This was met with a lot of press from the nerd communities who somehow think they finally have found a company that shares their idiotic view of the world that says that piracy has zero negative consequences, and that battling it is futile.
The reason companies use copy protection is because it works. Nerds will use the absolutist argument of "No it doesn't work, people defeat copy protection all the time." Well, nerds say that because nerds defeat copy protection all the time, and they have no notion of what's actually going on outside their mother's basement.
The truth is, all copy protection has to do is hassle pirates slightly more than their time is worth. Some are willing to go to great lengths to pirate, and those will usually find a solution. Others wont.
So the real question is: how rampant is piracy, and how well does copy protection curtail it? To give you some idea, check out THIS article from a shareware software writer who works for Ambrosia Software. It's got nothing to do with morals or how much money you make. From "poor college students" to "well todo capitalists," people love the convenience and cost savings of piracy.
As soon Ambrosia they started implementing real copy protection, they saw a 5 fold increase in sales. When they implemented expiring licenses for "Snapz X", they found that nearly half of all people who upgraded attempted to do so with a pirated code. Ambrosia was a tiny firm started by some bored college students trying to get beer money. They are now a good sized, successful software firm. Most of that, according to these numbers, is due to copy protection.
I think that pretty well answers the question of how rampant piracy is. If you don't have copy protection, people steal the fuck out of shit.
Let's get back to Blizzard. If copy protection is so effective, and they've used it so successfully in the past (with WoW [2007], Warcraft 3 [2002], and Starcraft 1 [1998], for instance), why give up on it?
It's simple really: They haven't given up on shit.
90+% of Starcraft II games are going to be played online. THAT copy protection will still be in place and extremely (if not entirely) effective. All codes are created and archived by Blizzard before the product ships. If you're attempting to play online, you're forced to use Blizzard's proprietary intermediary, Battle.net. Before you can play, the code is matched to one in the archive. If two machines are using the code on Battle.net at the same time, the code is flagged and it wont let you play. The code is disabled and one or both of you will have to purchase a new copy. This kind of protection, barring some fuck-up with key generators, is pretty much unbeatable.
Also, that's not to mention that you still need to activate the product over the internet (Ala M$ Windows) and I'm sure they'll crack down on "[k]racks" with every update--probably even verifying the license code for every update as well. Also remember that for Starcraft 1, you didn't even need to activate the product before you used it (it'd be a dick-move as most people were using dialup then).
Yes, they're saying they're allowing more freedom, but more freedom than what exactly?? There exist some Nazi-ass games that require you to be connected to the internet all the time (if you get disconnected, the game quits), but those are typically games that can function offline (single player). SC2 requires the internet for most of its gameplay anyway, so it doesn't have the same issue. It's very easy for makers of an almost entirely multiplayer game like SC2 to say "Oh yeah, single player mode can be pirated. We're sooo much cooler than those other meanie developers" with a big shit-eating grin on their faces, knowing that most people aren't going to play the single player much as it's a short campaign that will be entirely ignored or only played once by most users.
So to all those who thought this shifts the paradigm about anti-piracy and are spouting off in internet forums about Blizzard's pseudo-crusade: Congrats, you've just been suckered by a multibillion dollar corporation into aiding them in selling more video games. How does it feel to be a tool? (6,660)
The epitome of the Fat-cat is back, and his name rhymes with "sacks." This is appropriate, considering that not since Lincoln's prostitution to the Railroad companies have we seen such shameless and unapologetic chrome-plated balls in our corporate governance.
A few days ago Sachs was sued by the SEC, ostensibly out of nowhere (they weren't even given the customary prior-notice to prepare). This is an unquantifiable mountain of horse-shit. I'm not saying they haven't done anything wrong, I'm saying that everybody knows it's a show-trial and nothing will come of it... well, everybody but the average American, that is.
The average American will see this as a fresh reminder of why we "need" financial reform. When Obama gets up on stage and finally signs this shit into law, most Americans will be watching it live on TV--clapping their sausage-digitted mits together, resulting an enormous orange plume of Dorito-dust which will likely be the 3rd of man's creations that will be visible from space.
Make no mistake: This isn't being done to penalize Goldman Sachs. This fact is so obvious that even the GOP is calling them out on it.
It's not just about the financial reform bill, either. What makes this particular moment in time the most strategic for distraction is that the SEC was finally forced to acknowledge 13 years of epic failure. Long story short: A guy ran a $7 billion ponzi scheme, was investigated by the SEC for 13 years and found to be extremely dirty. Four Times. They never prosecuted--that is, until now. This whole Goldman Shit-fit is almost certainly related. (27,252)
This guy. This fucking guy. Would you give this man your money? What if he promised you that by using his "psychic powers" he could give you vast riches?
The answer of course, is yes: you would give him money. Well maybe you wouldn't, but 100 investors from around the world gave Thai-chi Kitty Douchebag over 6 million dollars. He invested half of that in foreign currencies, embezzled a quarter million by putting it into his wife's non-profit, and did God-knows what with the rest. I'm guessing he donated it to American Cat Rapers Society.
This is a public service announcement to let all Latewire readers know that English producer Burial is the best music artist of the milennium.
On Burial's two records, "Burial" and "Untrue," switchblade trebles and gut-shifting bass duke it out in a spare reverberating mix, while plaintive samples moan and wail. The musical style is often called "dubstep," a direct descendent of another non-crummy UK music genre, drum + bass. But where drum + bass is rapid and and cerebral, Burial and the best dubstep are wobbly, 140-bpm lacerations that are at least as suited to solo-dolo sulking about as they are dancefloors. The tunes are simultaneously soothing and jarring, and their gloomy crispness makes any day feel like a March rain. Like, imagine if drum + bass had a kid with early Massive Attack, and you're getting there.
SPACEAPE
Burial's music has more feeling and creativity in one phrase than all th' garbage emo-metal and faceless Starbucks drug-casualty music put together. Chill them #$%^&* out and listen to this music now. It will help.
Here's another tune that saves lives in a very different way -- 2006's "Yeah Yeah" by Bodyrox. Beware prudes! Sex and nudity within, also amplifier desecration.
STOP DYING IT'S NOT TOO LATE TO GET YOUR SHAPE BACK (7,420)
Dr Roe has explained the dire state of the economy so fluently that I've been putting off publishing anything on the subject. But since we're getting near th' end zone in our collective run for a doomsday touchdown, I might as well just drop a note to explain why it is that some of the most educated economists and business experts in th' US made decisions that are, on their face, bound to destroy the value of the US dollar.
Currency values, even those of modern fiat currency, are pretty simple. They're really controlled by just two fundamental factors. The first, confidence in the government which issues the currency, is important because money that's not backed by a hard asset (like, say, gold, or lima beans) is only backed by the solvency and integrity of the government itself. If the issuing government is not going to be around or if it's going to default on its obligations, its currency isn't worth much. The second basic thing is the same factor that controls the price of all commodities - scarcity.
Scarcity means, simply, that the less of a commodity there is, the higher its price will be. And likewise, the more of that commodity there is, the cheaper it will be. This is a basic and immutable fact of commodity trading.
The government-chartered private bank that controls our money, the Federal Reserve, explicitly told us some time ago that it would print "as much [money] as necessary" during the current crisis. Current estimates are that it has printed, that is, created out of thin air, over three trillion dollars since 2008.
IMPORTANT : THE INTRODUCTION OF MORE SUPPLY OF A COMMODITY RESULTS IN ONLY ONE THING : THE DECREASE OF PRICE
This is basic high school econ stuff. You don't need a degree in econ or finance to know this stuff. So, when econ whiz kids Ben Bernanke and Henry Paulson cooked up this scheme, they knew that printing dollars willy-nilly could have no other effect than the dilution of the dollar's value due to oversupply. That's what we call '%^&*ing massive inflation.' [Incidentally, they also would have known that eroded international confidence in the dollar would cause our big creditors -- like, say, China -- to get skittish about buying our debt, further depressing the currency]. So, knowing this and being employed by th' government -- that is, by taxpayers -- to save and not damn our economic posterior, why did they do it?
To quote Stimpy, the answer's simple, really. Just like Mark Hart made a killing betting against the housing market and Greek debt [ http://bit.ly/cIaFyO ], Bernanke and buddies are going to make a killing because they've bet against the dollar they swore to protect. That's right. I'm saying that the treasonous slaves Ben Bernanke, Timothy Geithner, Henry Paulson, and all their pals made bets against the value of the dollar and then intentionally torpedoed it with their insane monetary policy and general bailout $%#&ery. I'm not kidding. When the jig is finally up and all that extra supply coupled with a tanking economy makes your Benjamins worth less than Zig-Zags, the bald buggerers will make a quick stop at the bookmakers', pick up the vast sums of cash they've made on the bet against your future, and take their NetJets to Aruba where they will sip pina coladas whilst your neighborhood burns.
This is not like your standard conspiracy hypothesis because it is very likely to be true. Use your %^&*ing head. These people aren't stupid. They know exactly what they're doing. And what they're doing is placing bets against US currency while making decisions that they know cannot other but adversely affect it.
Got cash? Get rid of it. Sooner rather than later, you'll be better off with a wallet full of 'Bazooka Joe' comics. At least those smell good. (37,232)
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. (46,757)
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. (87,997)
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. (17,442)
The storm is coming. You've heard it on the radio; seen it on the TV show. The Latewire has been humming warnings for a long time. A dull echo catches you by the ear -- what's that? That's the sound of hope retreating. It flees because it's impossible to prepare for this kind of storm, even when it's known to be on the way.
Total dissolution of the contemporary lifestyle is about to happen. We're about to be plunged into an era of base servitude and complete debasement. We've managed to use our preference for self-enslavement to facilitate a future of real enslavement -- think "Spartacus" without the good soundtrack and with more degrading "oysters vs snails" problems.
The people who facilitated the collapse did so because the knew that their actions had made it more likely, and that if they bet against our survival, they could win big and move to Tahiti while we get introduced to a new life of total abjection.
While you're waiting, think about how much information about yourself you choose to advertise or give away. It's always used to further demolish your autonomy.
Even though it's far too late to do anything to prevent utter catastrophe, there are steps we can take in a last-ditch effort to survive and stay human: Learn new skills pronto. Trust no interface. Stop the hemorrhaging of your information. (18,542)
You hear people like Ron Paul constantly moaning about the good ol' days when we had a gold standard. The reason for this is not that gold is pretty or magical or any better than counterfeit-resistant pieces of paper; the reason is simply that no matter how much they may want to, government cannot create any more gold.
Of course, if we could trust our government, there would be no need to rely on the finite nature of atoms to keep the purchasing power of our currency constant.
Though the United States had been shying away from the gold standard since the early 1900's, it wasn't until 1971 that Nixon took us completely off it. This basically meant the government was now given free reign over the purchasing power of our currency. Let's take a look at the result of that experiment:
In the 1980's, Ronald Reagan eliminated federally-funded asylums for the insane in the United States. Before that, most of the patients in these facilities didn't develop their condition from some genetic predisposition or unfortunate roll of the dice. Most of the occupants of these asylums actually acquired their condition from drinking too much alcohol.
Obviously we're not talking about some weekend benders here, we're talking men and women who drank far more than they ate for several years or even decades.
Apart from the obvious, the biggest problem with this particular lifestyle choice is not just that the person is deprived of nutrients, it's that alcohol actively destroys several important vitamins. Such vitamins include folic acid, vitamin C, B2 (riboflavin), B6 (pyridoxine), and most important in this case: vitamin B1 (thiamin).
When a person with a history of alcohol abuse enters the ER, one of the first things given is an injection of B1. Thiamin, among other things, is necessary for proper metabolism. Your body has energy, but it can't use it because one of the many linchpins of the complicated chemical pathway is missing. In some cases, a man in a near comatose state will be miraculously revived only a few minutes after repletion of thiamin.
Thiamin does many other things as well. Scarily, many of them have to do with the brain. When that alcoholic woke up on the table in the ER, he woke up with a few less marbles than he had before.
Memory is what separates animal from insect. When a person's memory centers of the brain melt away, so with it goes their humanity. Thiamin, for reasons we don't understand, is essential to those parts of the brain. Having deficiency for any length of time will permanently cripple the capacity to form new memories. Old memories are polluted and cannot be recalled properly. Fantastic but meaningless gibberish replaces what used to be a human's mental voice. This is called Korsakoff syndrome, and unfortunately it is common.
All this is well known. What is not well known is why it is that alcohol manufacturers don't fortify their beverages with thiamin. It would not affect flavor, and the cost would be miniscule. As with any obvious idea, someone's already thought of it. In this case, it was the alcohol manufacturers.
At one point, many alcohol makers were actually considering adding thiamin to their products. This would have a benign effect on sales and costs, but could save tens of thousands from debilitating illness. What they decided--or rather what was decided for them--is that they couldn't afford to do so.
It was posited that adding thiamin to alcoholic beverages could potentially lead to alcohol being taken out from under the umbrella of the relatively impotent Alcohol & Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau and it being placed under the jurisdiction of the FDA. This would mean alcohol would have to be treated and regulated as if it were a food (or worse: a drug), which carries with it expensive and pointless changes to facilities, licensing, marketing, and retail sales.
There is a small island of unregulated anarchy the alcohol industry lives on, and they can't afford to swim away to better land for fear of the sharks.
It's sick and wrong, but nonetheless it is less discomforting to know that a man is dying based on the path he has chosen for himself rather than the cards he's been dealt. However, when his pain and suffering (and that of his family) could have been averted so easily, it still makes sense to want to find out why it wasn't. (35,460)
This is a draft I posted to reddit that seemed to go over pretty well, so I decided to post it here. ----------------------- I am a 3rd year medical student seeing patients about 50 hours a week. I am also a libertarian. The news these days, as you can imagine, has been a bit of a distraction.
Back to Reality
With health care, the first thing you have to accept is that there is literally not enough wealth on the planet to give everyone the best and most convenient healthcare possible. There is medical technology out there so advanced and on the bleeding edge it makes NASA look like a 7th grade science class.
Even if we had the money, there are other things we'd much rather be spending our money on than our health. It ends up the case that health care can never be cheap enough, fast enough, or good enough.
Think of it this way--The following is what I want from my health care:
* Fast * Effective * Cheap
Now pick two.
What We Get For Our Money
People look at this system and say that it's way too expensive--that it's bleeding money from every orifice and needs to be patched up by government.
People use life expectancy as evidence for this. Since we're not number 1 (or even number 10), surely this means that our system's results are inferior.
However, using life-span as a measurement of health care is wrong.
Americans, as we all know, are fat. Only about 1/3 of Americans are not fat. Moreover, 1/3 of Americans are not only fat but obese. This fact alone has some huge effects on health care costs, but when you factor in the general lack of health in America due to lack of diet moderation, exercise, and weight control, that's when things get a little heavy (pun intended. deal).
Complications from weight excess, bad diet, and exercise deficiency dwarf even tobacco in morbidity and mortality by several fold. Heart disease is the number 1 cause of death, 8% of Americans have diabetes (+90% of which is type 2), CVA and stroke are up there too. Not to mention the fact that nearly all cancers have increased morbidity and mortality in the obese. This lack of self-maintenance of health has cascading effects on nearly every biological process in the body.
Death is cheap. If people would simply just up-and-die from every heart attack or diabetes exacerbation, it'd save the system a lot of money. However, as our life-expectancy indicates, people don't die from these diseases much in our country. Only a few years of life span is shaved off our average. This is an amazing feat: to actually bolster our abysmal lifespan with the might of our economy.
When people point out that 15% of our GDP is spent on healthcare, I'm actually surprised at how little that is.
Insurance Companies
Nothing would make me happier than to tell you that just removing profit from the insurance companies would make things cheap. I'm a libertarian, but I'd support it if it were just that simple a sacrifice. The problem is, that's totally wrong.
You would be hard-pressed to find a medical insurer in the US that makes more than 7% net income. Up until the past few years, 5% was an astronomical profit and insurers were hovering at cost.
People like to blame insurance companies for the high cost of care. Would cutting 7% off your medical bills be all that earth-shattering?
In a recent interview with Bill Moyers, one former executive at Cigna stated the hideous practice of trying to disqualify high-cost beneficiaries by technical flaws in their paperwork. Indeed they did do that, but it doesn't actually happen that often.
People decrying our system seem to think that nobody with an expensive and potentially deadly disease gets healthcare. If that were true, my health insurance as a fit, healthy young student with no prior conditions wouldn't be $2,000 a year. More than enough people dying of horrific diseases in this country are covered. I know, some of them are my patients and family members.
Insurance companies pay 97% of all claims. (by the way: Many of those claims are made with the health care practitioner knowing full well that they wont be reimbursed, but do so anyway)
HMO Vs PPO
If you saw Michael Moore's Sicko, you know about HMOs. One of the not-so-subtle implications of Mr Moore's movie is that insurance companies to this day still manage care. He even took footage from 10-year-old congressional committee meetings that made a convincing case against managed care.
The problem with this is: we don't have managed care anymore, and we haven't for some time now.
You can look up the "HMO Act" yourself, but basically this act of congress under Nixon made HMOs the standard of American care until it expired in the mid 1990's. HMOs fell by the wayside and PPOs took over. That, combined with a decline in healthy lifestyle, is why health care costs skyrocketed.
HMOs (AKA Managed Care) basically tells doctors straight away which procedures are allowed to be used for each set of symptoms. If you have a cough, you may be able to get a chest x-ray, but you can't get a kidney function test (even though you can have kidney ailments that are involved with cough, they're just rare).
If you had a devastating illness, HMOs did an okay job of covering you most of the time. It's by no means perfect, but remember: it was cheap!
The HMO tells you which doctor you can see (the doctor had to agree to work under the plan), and tells the doctor what they're permitted to do.
In contrast, if you come to a doctor's office with a PPO backing you, it's basically a free-for-all.
One thing I will say for HMOs is that they were cheap, and they provided most of what you want out of a health care plan.
Since the advent of PPOs, it has become very hard to even find a company willing to sell you a HMO plan. When you find a plan, you have to jump through several hoops to qualify. However, even now, HMO's usually cost 30-40% less.
Because HMO's so tightly managed care, they became vehemently opposed by Americans. When the HMO Act came up for renewal, it was voted down by congress and lead to the extinction of the practice.
HMOs Vs Single Payer
Single payer systems are managed care, by definition.
The single payer manages what physicians can do for their patients, puts conditions on care (eg "Quit smoking if you want your arteries fixed"), and sets prices.
When countries allow the single payer to compete with private insurers, some patients and doctors choose not to participate in the single payer program at all. This is why many systems do not allow private competition.
Latest Health Care Plan By Obama Et Al
As far as I can tell, the new health care bill on the table now is going to make it illegal to not have healthcare.
Even if I weren't a libertarian, I'd probably still say that forcing people to buy health insurance is about the most fascist thing this government has done in a long time.
More Health Care = Less Personal Responsibility ?
It's no coincidence that the people who put the least amount of effort into maintaining their health are usually those who have the best healthcare.
I know libertarians are up in arms over medicare, but the fact remains that these patients get superb care. There's a reason why the medicare program is on a rocket-sled to bankruptcy, and it's not that they pay out too little. Medicare pays more per capita than any socialist system in the world. They get everything they want from motorized chairs to unnecessary joint replacements. No private or public managed care system hold a candle to Medicare.
It's true that there's a lot of red tape and that doctors routinely get paid less (or are unexpectedly denied payment)--a lot more than a PPO. However, recipients still live like kings on the plan.
It's no wonder, therefore, that the obesity rate in the elderly is higher than any other demographic, with a close second being the poor (who get coverage under Medicaid).
Yes, it's harder to take care of yourself when you're old, but it's a mistake to think that these people are incapable of diet and even a modicum of exercise. Proof of this is simply by comparing our elderly obesity rates to those of other countries.
It really doesn't matter who pays for it, having a lot of health care makes you lazy about your health. The government directly subsidizes the poor and the elderly, but employer-provided health care is also indirectly subsidized. Basically, government made it more lucrative to both sides to give more reimbursement in the form of health insurance than wages. Just like with wages, employee health care reduces profit, which reduces corporate tax. In addition, it is currently untaxed by the labor tax (aka the personal income tax), nor is it taxed by FICA or Social Security. In fact, employers didn't start providing employee care until government started heavily taxing other forms of employee reimbursement (wages).
Torn
As a libertarian, I'm mortified by the prospect of government manipulating care. However, as a future physician, I can't shake the feeling that maybe having managed care will bring back personal responsibility for health in the US.
It's very conflicting, but in the end, you just can't argue in favor of slavery, even if it will make people safer from themselves. (68,533)
On a brilliant, natural morning in the spring, Hape Shapley set down his enormous green coffee cup, languidly browsed his email, and checked his calendar. Today’s regimen of tasks, uncharacteristically, held one that promised a glimmer of amusement. The job at hand was to successfully woo the franchisee of three Sports Authority retail establishments; this sort of thing was totally usual. The spark of fun flickered behind the name of Hape’s quarry : Danny U. Dracula. Well, Hape thought, I’ve closed deals with bloodsuckers before. At least Danny’s upfront about it.
Hape pulled his Toyota into the parking lot and parked in the barely-crooked fashion that he had subconsciously perfected. The sky was a Martian azure as he stepped out to survey the terrain and push the button on his keyless lock device until it beeped. The Sports Authority location where he was to meet Dracula was in a cement vega of a high-falutin’ strip mall, and Hape could feel the heat that the structural columns radiated as he passed them. The cruelly-designed parking lot was brimful of Infinitis, Land Rovers, and other symbols of middle-class prosperity, though, so Hape felt that this meeting would not be a complete waste. Now, Hape thought, what sort of guy calls himself Danny U. Dracula? As he strode businesslike toward the gargantuan glass doors, he boiled the probabilities down to three, ranked by likelihood: 1) This man is some stripe of mutant jock-goth goofball with enough money, charisma, or brutality to maintain a business 2) This man is a normal and successful person of Eastern European extraction. Hape wondered what the accent would sound like –Romanian? Czech? He struggled to hear the sounds in his head. He chased away invading images of Gary Oldman in purple shades only to have them replaced by a shaveling Klaus Kinski. Presumably, such a fellow would be aware of the strangeness of his name and use some kind of alterative pronunciation to keep the chuckles at bay. 3) This man is called Dulraca, or Drakler, or perhaps Gacula, and Hape’s assistant Kim Deely had puckishly typoed the name.
It was ten-thirty-four by Hape’s Timex when he first grasped the hand of Danny U. Dracula. The walk across the store had given Hape just enough time to develop a wrenching curiosity regarding the man’s name. Had he thought it through, however, he would have realized that the instant camaraderie of modern business etiquette had made moot this question.
“Danny? Hape. Pleased to meet you; how you doing?” “Great to meet you, Hape –- wanna have a look around?”
No! First of all, Hape had been inside three dozen Sports Authorities within the past two years – he didn’t need to have a look around. Second, what about the name? The name! Now that the initial confrontation had been completed, would there even be another opportunity to speak Danny’s last name? Dracula, for his part, did not seem likely to volunteer. Now, so far, the evidence was pointing to possibility number 3), as Danny had zero sartorial matches for “goth” and no discernable accent, and features that looked more Gallic than anything. Hape had little hope now but to make Danny sign the contract compelling him to buy 670 total units from Head’s putatively-groundbreaking “FlexTelligence E” product line plus the full apparel complement. Then, he could at least see the name properly spelled out and, if he could muster the pluck, Hape would inquire about it should it turn out to be the real vampiric deal.
As Danny led Hape around the store, Hape noticed that as usual, most of the store’s patrons looked like they hadn’t played sports in quite a while. It seemed to be a nearly universal phenomenon : these big athletic chains attract dilettantes who will buy the most costly gear and have it gather dust in their closet, or, in the case of high-tech clothing, will wear it to any occasion save that for which it was designed. Folks who are serious about a sport, Hape found, would usually seek out a small specialty store like Runner’s Galaxy or Lacrosse Barn, where the employees tended to give something resembling a hoot about the sport in question, and the owner was often on premises. Hape himself looked to Advantage when he needed to get himself re-shod (which, for a notorious toe-dragger like him, was at least six times yearly). However, it was much better for Hape to sell to the bigger chains like Sports Authority, as the corporate buyers tended to be less discriminating (they only cared about the bottom line, not about a somewhat negative performance review they’d read online) and the customers at the stores were much more likely to buy high-end items with frequency – it was a known fact that Escalade-pushing neophytes buy the most expensive gear possible, with the hope that it’ll improve their play and give them something to talk about with their buddies (“What stick you got there, Bill?... Oh, the Frightanium 6? I heard that’s a real cannon – let me give it a whack?”). Hape wasn’t really listening to Danny as the latter prattled on about which lines had been moving for him, overall foot traffic versus sales volume, the primacy of his location, and other banal details. Hape was instead looking at the girls in the store, taking inventory of the local stock. Hape had decided a few days ago that he was going to seek for himself a steady girlfriend. Danny managed to snap Hape out of his lecherous reverie with a brisk “Hey! You hungry? Let’s go over to Hattie’s and get down to brass tacks.” Hape hated that expression, but he was indeed hungry. Hattie’s was a standard-issue 1950s-themed diner, awash in chrome and tufted vinyl. The two padded over there, sweating slightly in the morning sun. Settled into a cavernous booth, Hape perused the sticky menu. Standard fare : burgers, shakes…. He came across a club sandwich that sounded good, and decided to order it sans fries. The placed their order with the perky, tattooed waitron and descended to the alloy fasteners.
“Hape, I gotta be straight with you. The Head stuff just isn’t moving like it used to. Last cycle, the Wilson product was outselling you guys almost two to one.” “That’s interesting; nationally, we’re seeing the reverse trend,” Hape fibbed. “Think that display placement could be a factor?” Hape was already thrashing in the waves. Maybe this guy was in fact a vampire. “You’re joking, right? Your stuff is right in there with everybody else’s. I think that what we’re really looking at is that Wilson has better endorsements, better graphics, and better advertising. It seems to me that since Agassi retired, you guys have been , ah, scrambling to connect with the consumer.” “I don’t know if that’s true,” Hape hemmed (he’d had to filed this question before, but for some reason felt a lot of pressure now). “What about the Rotundi endorsement? Greaper? Sarkozi? These guys are huge with the kids. And the new stuff we’re gonna give you…” “And look at what’s happening with Babolat and Yonex – they’re both strong in the consumer market now, not like years ago. It’s not just between you, Wilson, and Prince anymore. The kids are seeing that big guys play these funny rackets, and they’ll pay for that. And there’s something else.” “What’s that?” Hape hated it when these goons did their homework. “You’re not supposed to know this, but Nike is going to make a big push into tennis hardware next quarter. I’ve seen the product. It’s good. And they’re going to get Greaper away from you guys.” This sounded like rubbish to Hape. “We’ll see about that. We’ve known about their goals for months – they haven’t got a candle to hold against our technology, racket-wise. Maybe in clothing, which is traditionally more their domain.” “Maybe. But if they do to tennis like they did to golf, some people are going to get squeezed out. They have R+D up the wazoo, and enough ad sense to really exploit the brand…” “Well, Head will worry about Nike when something really starts happening – right now, it’s all vapor, and like I said, our new stuff is going to blow everybody else away. Look at what we’ve got going on.” Hape cracked open his portfolio to reveal a sleek laptop, which he opened to Danny’s dismay and started the presentation. This was his ace in the hole. He’d helped put this thing together, and it not only briskly revealed the technological superiority of the FlexTelligence E line, but broke the news that Head had bought no less than three super-high-profile endorsers away from rivals : Gil Fisher, Ainsley Chong, and the apparently unbeatable Ricky Phil Stiller. Stiller was widely expected to sweep the Grand Slam this year on the strength of his terrifying serve and shrewdly evil baseline play. It was commonly speculated that his endorsement of the “Claymore” model racket had been the only thing keeping the Prince corporation alive.
The presentation video was fast-paced, well-produced, and hard-hitting, saving the Stiller endorsement for last and introducing a flashy new model co-designed with Stiller – the “Big Brain”. That epithet was one commonly applied to Stiller early in his career, when his primary method of winning matches was making fools out of aggressive opponents by exploiting their positions with his surgical shots from the baseline. Since, he had developed a high-velocity first service to match his better opponents, but the name stuck. Hape could never shake a vague unease with this title and Head’s adoption thereof, however – he felt that it was mildly anti-Jewish. There were plenty of cerebral players out there – wasn’t this sobriquet a way to shove Stiller into that old “Jews are smart but lack brawn” box?
Danny, who generally loathed presentations, found himself quite engaged by this one, and the news of new endorsements softened his heart a bit toward Head. Hape, who was watching Dracula’s face like a poker player throughout the presentation, began to notice the details of Danny’s appearance. His close-cropped blond hair amplified his ruddy complexion to an almost alarming degree, and his left ear had no lobe to speak of. The faint shininess of skin around his neck suggested corrected scarring and made Hape suspect that Danny had been in a bad auto or industrial accident. His white Ping golf shirt was pressed, but had a small red stain on the left shoulder blade that Hape surmised Danny had missed, given the meticulous condition of Danny’s Nikes and the impeccably creased pleated khakis he sported. Hape imagined how the stain might have gotten there unnoticed : did the offspring of Dracula sneak up with a Crayola marker? Unintentional dribble of Kool-Aid from a hoisted toddler’s lip? Shirt taken from irregular stock? Hape realized with a twinge of regret that he would never know the answer. In the end, Hape’s presentation won Danny over. After some price haggling (Hape, as was his wont, budged only two percent, saying that “cost is through the roof on carbon fiber”), it was agreed that Danny’s Sports Authorities would carry the presented Head product, minus most of the apparel, which Hape conceded after Danny showed him a spreadsheet indicating that 70% of the previous year’s line had been sold at clearance prices due to lack of demand. Hape printed out the contract that they had edited together on Hape’s computer, and Danny signed it. Danny had made no correction to his name before printing. Hape had to know : “Thanks, Danny; we really appreciate it. How’s your last name pronounced?” Danny fixed Hape with the look that women give to people who ask if they’re pregnant when they’re not : “It’s ‘Dracula.’ Like the vampire.” And that was that. Hape could tell that he had best ask no more.
Hape had teetered a little during his encounter with Dracula, and he knew it. That kind of psychological stutter is the kind that breaks deals. Danny had really clocked Hape with no problem, and here was Hape, driving down the road tormenting himself with the mysteries of Dracula. As Hape dwelled on the meeting, his thirst for details took a firmer hold. What was the deal with the earlobe? The stained shirt? How much of that -
-= = = = = = = = = = = = = =
When Hape was twenty-three, he quit his marketing internship at Scoop Systems to go explore the rough-cut northern towns of Arizona and see if there was any significant tennis-industry jobs out there. The hot buzz of Cake City had grown wearisome to Hape during his last few months of school and he wanted to know whether the vague romantic notions of the reduced-instruction West might be reflected in these parts of his home state. He checked his bank balance ($3,089.04), packed his rackets along several days’ worth of casual and athletic clothes along with his one good suit into his fairly beat-up Rav4, and motored on up the I-10 toward Flagstaff. He had scoped out a few likely targets and identified some worthless backwaters to be avoided. He’d start in Prescott and work his way up toward Payson until he either found something worth doing or gave up.
In Cottonwood, he found a small quasi-resort hotel with a tennis court on premises. He decided to check it out. It turned out that the hotel didn’t have a tennis pro and was considering bringing one on. Hape knew in his heart that he was far from pro material, but a deep geographical prejudice planted in his mind the idea that these faux-cowpokes might not be able to tell the difference. In a spurt of risk, he offered his services, and the recreation director, a trim blonde called Amy Grumman, agreed. The pay negotiated was meager, but this was a chance for Hape to see how far his knowledge and bravado could take him. Hape needed to find lodging. (21,927)
Water management is key for success, especially in desert environments. One of the determining factors in water management is the overall slope of your site space. Observe where water flows and pools when it rains. The areas where water pools are ideal planting locations for root crops (carrots, beets, etc).
You can influence the flow of water by constructing "swales" along the elevation contour lines. "Swales" are geographical features that are constructed by digging along contour lines and mounding the removed soil on the lower-elevation side of the ditch, creating a depression and berm that guides water runoff. This method can be effective for minimizing water loss and guiding flow to where you need it - your planting beds with water-hungry crops.
Rainwater and 'greywater' harvesting are good ways to maximize the self-reliance of your urban agriculture project. Rainwater harvesting requires a well-designed gutter / catchment system and collection barrel. When deciding how to apply your harvested rainwater, be aware that if your house has asphalt / tar / composition shingles, the roof runoff will contain toxic residues from the shingles. Therefore, you don't want water that runs of an asphalt roof to be used on your vegetables; it's probably OK to use on trees and anything you don't eat (though there's some argument about whether you should use it on trees that bear edibles -- see note on toxin concentrations in fruit). Water that runs off tile, tin, concrete, ceramic, wood shingle, or other non-volatile roofing materials is kosher for all plant uses.
'Greywater' is relatively uncontaminated water that's been used once in your home - for example, to wash clothing or the dishes. By using biodegradeable, nontoxic detergents, the urban agronomist can collect that water -- which is quite a lot - and re-use it directly on trees or and non-edible plants. You'll need to plan how best to get the greywater from its source (e.g., the clotheswasher) to the destination (e.g, your orange tree). For example, a hose can be run directly from the clothes washer to the orchard or collection barrel; catchments and barrels can be used to store greywater before use. Note that since greywater can harbor bacteria, it should not be stored for more than 24 hours before use (unless cured by UV rays). For collecting greywater from the kitchen and bathroom sinks, the simplest way is to simply collect the water in bowls and decant it into a bucket to take outside; you can also do minor plumbing alterations to make it easier. There are numerous books and commercially-available systems on the market with more detail about how to install greywater systems in the home; be sure to consult local laws governing greywater before starting on the project.
Some municipalities offer irrigation as a city service. This provides very cheap and plentiful water, sufficient to grow even the thirstiest crops. The downside to this convenience is that irrigation always brings with it numerous seeds (such as Bermuda grass) and insects. Take care to be on the lookout for invasive species when using municipal irrigation. Avoid placing plants directly in front of the irrigation channel to avoid damage from water movement.
When using forced city water -- that is, tap water -- there are several concerns to bear in mind. The most crucial is that tap water is chlorinated and fluoridated; left untreated, it'll kill vital garden bacteria and fungal microrhizome 'residents.' If you have no bacteria, you'll have no worms, and no worms spells doom for vegetable gardens. Without symbiotic fungi, your plant roots won't be able to take in vital nutrients from the soil. Therefore, if you use tap water, install a filter system that's designed to eliminate chlorine and fluoride contamination. If a commercial filtration system is beyond reach, these harmful elements will also evaporate if you leave the water in an open barrel or bucket for 24 hours or more. It's been hypothesized that toxins in water are concentrated in plant tissue to a factor of ten, so prenez garde!
Sun and shade
As important as water management is the practice of solar planning. It's essential to plan your plantings with a mind to the patterns of the sun on your site and the needs / tolerances of your crops. Plants can be sunburned just like animals can.
Pay special attention to summer sun patterns. In arid climates especially, avoid planting vegetables in places where they'll receive direct solar radiation (cactus and desert succulents are OK in direct summer sun). This is one of the reasons why it's desirable to create a multi-tiered "canopy" with trees or trellised sun-tolerant vines providing shade for edibles below. Creating such a canopy system improves not only the soil and plant health, but also site air quality.
You'll note that the sun pattern in your space will vary considerably between summer (the sun will be directly overhead) and winter (sun will come in at more of an angle).
The best spots for planting on your site are those that are in partial shade in the winter sun pattern. Determine your sun patterns by carefully observing the shade patterns as they shift throughout a day. You can approximate the patterns of whatever season it isn't by drawing a bird's-eye-view map of the site, putting objects on it to represent shading structures (for example, a tissue box for the house and saltshakers for trees) and moving a bright flashlight over the model, imitating the sun's sweep, to see how the shade patterns move.
The ideal type of shade is "filtered shade" -- that is, shade that doesn't completely obscure the sun. For this, trees with smaller leaves such as mesquite, palo verde, and palo brea are ideal. These types of trees are also "nitrogen-fixing" plants -- that is, they take elemental nitrogen from the atmosphere and convert it into nitrogen compounds in soil that can be used by other nearby plants. Note : if you have a dead tree on the site, don't root it out - introduce a trellising vine like grapes to grow up it and provide shade. Using what you've got on hand -- like pre-existing structures -- is a key permaculture principle.
Understanding microclimates
Microclimates are local variations within a regional climate. For example, the Phoenix area has an overall climate that is hot and arid. However, variations in elevation and airflow patterns make the North East section of the valley significantly cooler and more verdant than the southwest section. The urban center is hotter than the surrounding areas due to to high concentration of heat-retaining structures and pavement. Likewise, there are microclimates within individual sites. It's a good idea to walk around the site in he middle of the night, making notes as differences in temperature, humidity, and wind movement are perceived. These microclimates will influence the planting layout.
Soil : analysis and composition :
Soil is composed of sand, silt, clay, organic matter, air, and water. It's what plants grow in, and is ultimately the source of all food. It's important to think about and analyze the soil on any planting site.
Typical Arizona soil is heavy with caliche -- a mixture of clay with mica and montmorillonite particles. The clay and mica particles lay flat against each other, making for poor permeability and drainage. It's hard to break up and very challenging to grow in. The type of soil that's ideal for planting is called "loam" -- an equal balance of all particle types and sizes with plenty of organic matter. This soil type is very "friable" -- that is, easy to plant in -- and is nutritious for nearly all plant types. Any soil type can be made to take on the characteristics of loam with the addition of time and natural soil amendments -- compost and mulch. Never use gypsum to break up clay deposits, as it will make soil terribly alkaline.
The site soil should be tested for pH before the project is started. A pH between 6.8 and 7.5 is considered to be neutral and good for most plants; desert soils tend to be alkaline (~8.5 pH); some soils are acidic with a lower pH. The correct way to manage soil pH that's too high or too low is to add plenty of compost, which will help neutralize the overall pH. Any nursery can test the site soil for pH.
If you believe that your site may be heavily contaminated with industrial toxins, motor oil, pesticides, or other hideous stuff, many major universities (such as U of A) will test your soil for poisons (for a significant fee). If you find that your soil is contaminated, but still want to plant, you can attempt to "bioremediate" it using liberal amounts of compost tea and / or so-called "Effective Microorganisms."
Note : never use raw manure or fecal material directly on your soil, no matter what you hear-- it will introduce pathogens and can potentially cause 'nitrogen burn' in crops. Compost all manure before applying to your soil.
How to determine your soil's composition : This is easy. Just fill a lidded jar halfway with the soil to be tested (it's recommended to test multiple parts of your site), fill rest of jar with water, shake it up well, and leave it to settle for 48 hours. The sample will then separate into layers and reveal its composition. The bottom layer is sand, the middle layer is silt, the next and lightest-colored layer is clay, and floating on top is organic matter. The composition of your soil samples will tell you what amendments should be added to optimize the soil's friability.
If clay is present in excess, coarse compost or mulch can be added to help make the soil more permeable over time. Clay does have redeeming characteristics -- for example, it's rich in plant nutrients, as is silt. If your soil is sandy, that's not necessarily a bad thing -- sand is vital for good drainage. Just add plenty of finished compost to amplify the nutrient value. If your soil is weak in organic material, add mulch and compost (the more, the better).
Getting started
A good plan for starting your urban agronomy adventure is to pick the best-shaded, well-watered spot on the site and create a 4 by 8 foot bed (planting your favorite native food crops using the companion-planting strategy -- more on that later). This functional size is manageable for the neophyte and is modular, so that your planting beds can be easily added together or rearranged. Once you have success in the 4x8 bed, create more. A key permaculture principle to apply here is "start small, get big."
Basic tools
The basic tools you'll want to embark on your planting experiment are : - Gloves - Shovel - Rake - Hoe - Wheelbarrow - Rebar stakes are useful for many things including water and air management - Compost and compost sifter - Velcro for plant ties
The bulk of this information was drawn from the lecture series "Designing a Vegetable Garden" as presented by Heather Welch, November 2008. Part 2 to follow (42,993)
In a totally unlikely and unforseen turn of events, markets are not responding favorably to government bailouts and inflation.
NEW YORK (AP) - The Federal Reserve announced a $1.2 trillion plan three months ago designed to push down mortgage rates and breathe life into the housing market.
But this and other big government spending programs are turning out to have the opposite effect. Rates for mortgages and U.S. Treasury debt are now marching higher as nervous bond investors fret about a resurgence of inflation.
That's the Catch-22 threatening to make an awful housing market potentially worse and keep the economy stuck in a funk. Kick-starting the economy requires higher spending, but rising rates mean fewer Americans will be able to refinance their home loans. And some potential buyers will be shut out of the market by higher monthly payments they won't be able to afford.
To understand how this is all connected, you have to think like a bond trader. Inflation is their enemy because it means the purchasing power of the dollars they receive when bonds eventually are paid off will be diminished. The only question is by how much.
The Swine List : The complete list of House representatives who changed their vote from 'no' to 'yes' and passed the bailout proposal against their constituents' will, by state :
Here's the list of 'public servants' who caved in to fear or greed and betrayed the public interest by voting 'yes' on the bailout proposal of 10-03, after they had voted 'no' on 09-29. Every 'yes' voter should be ejected from office come November, but these House members are most responsible for the failure of congress to uphold our rights and values on 10-03. Send a message : write down these names and vote them out of office on Election Day, and write and call them to let them know that you'll do so!
Arizona :
G. Giffords (D); H. Mitchell (D); E. Pastor (D); J. Shadegg (R)
California :
J. Baca (D); D. Watson (D); H. Solis (D); A. Schiff (D); B. Lee (D); C. Woolsey (D); CM Thompson (D); D. Rohrabacher (D)
Florida :
V. Buchanan (R); C. Mack (R)
Georgia :
D. Scott (D); J. Lewis (D)
Hawaii :
M. Hirono (D); N. Abercrombie (D)
Illinois :
J. Jackson, Jr (D); B. Rush (D); J. Biggert (R)
Indiana :
A. Carson (D)
Iowa :
D. Loebsack (D)
Maryland :
D. Edwards (D); E. Cummings (D)
Massachussetts:
J. Tierney (D)
Michigan :
C. Kilpatrick (D); P. Hoekstra (R); J. knollenberg (R)
Minnesota :
J. Ramstad (R)
Nebraska :
L. Terry R)
Nevada :
S. Berkley (D)
New Jersey :
W. Pascrell (D); R. Frelinghuysen (R)
New York :
J. Kuhl (R)
North Carolina :
H. Coble (R); S. Myrick (R)
Ohio :
B. Sutton (D); J. Schmidt (R); P. Tiberi (R)
Oklahoma :
M. Fallin (R); J. Sullivan (R)
Oregon :
D. Wu (D)
Pensylvania :
J. Gerlach (R); B. Shuster (R); C. Dent (R)
South Carolina :
J. Barrett (R)
Tenessee:
Z. Wamp (R)
Texas :
E. Cuellar (D); S. Ortiz (D); S J Lee (D); A. Green (D); K. Conoway (R); W. Thornberry (R) (60,830)
He went on to say that “Perceptions of a large U.S. borrowing capacity are misleading,” and current long-term bond yields are masking America’s debt problem. “Long-term rate increases can emerge with unexpected suddenness,” such as the 4 percentage point surge over four months in 1979-80.
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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
