Filter error: That's too much.
;)
I had to trim a lot.
My point was that, if the road were private, it would be a different situation. You would not "own" the road up to the center line. It would be a parcel of private property abutting your own.
...or it would still be your property and they leased it to them. Or you "join the road club" and agree to maintain your section for a share of the profits.
I certainly don't like that either. It's worth noting though that government _wants_ to do it but, in the meantime, private companies have gone ahead and just done it. Don't like it? You can't ever buy a new vehicle again. The only hope is if government regulates out of control private industry.
Most states have "black box laws" that tell manufacturers to collect certain data. Since vehicle manufacturers don't have to make 50 different models of their car because of the different laws, they typically collect everything they are required to for every state and they don't care if they're "over collecting" for your state.
I mean...the easy solution without government interference is to realize that "every car company is collecting and selling your data and it's super intrusive"...and then either launch a competing car company that brands itself as not collecting your data...or start a company that specializes in removing black boxes from vehicles. Government isn't the solution, it's the problem.
The bridge failed due to age, design problems [snip] Companies have been known to do beancounting on this stuff. Figure out how much profit they can make by stretching safety limits under the understanding that failure resulting in death _will_ be the result.
Sounds like a lawsuit would be in order.
As long as the payouts are less than what they have to pay out in lawsuits, fines, etc. in the end, they often just go ahead knowing they will kill people because it's more profitable.
Why would the payout be less than the profit? Could it be a corrupt, incompetent, or ineffective judiciary? Could the government have made some sort of laws that limit the amount of damages in certain cases through regulatory agencies? Look at the Monsanto/Bayer trial about glyphosate. I have a friend who used to handle the stuff in the 90s. They are a walking trainwreck of medical issues--everything from cancer to psoriasis to things the doctors can't even diagnose. The government has been saying for years that there's no grounds for a lawsuit because the FDA or EPA (don't recall which) says it's perfectly safe. Finally someone managed to convince a judge that Bayer/Monsanto had the governemnt in their back pocket and lawsuits are proceeding...unfortunately the friend died several years ago and won't see a penny.
The government gets sued all the time and they don't generally lean on their sovereign immunity. The government is generally much more likely to settle when they're at fault than a corporation.
Nearly every single lawsuit against the police would beg to differ. Regardless, it's easy to settle in those cases when you aren't financially responsible for it. The people are--including the accuser.
You're the one who presented legal liability as a solution to corporate greed killing people. The lack of profit motive makes government less likely to make the kind of unsafe choices that can lead to this liability in the first place.
You're telling me there isn't a single politician in Washington DC that has made money by private companies sending them "campaign donations" to get them to vote a certain way? I mean hell...insider trading is *legal* for Congress. It might be unethical, and they might get a slap on the wrist from a committee, but they regularly benefit from trading stocks in companies they actively regulate.
On the local level, there are plenty of police departments that police for profit. Civil asset forfeiture. They'll take your money and force you to prove you aren't a criminal in order to *try* and get it back.
You're seriously using submarines as an example right now, after the recent Titan debacle?
I didn't mean to offend you, and certainly didn't try to diminish the absolute tragedy of the situation. It's just a recent event where news agencies are reporting on the "lack of regulation" killing people.
Well, they normally have to compensate you at market value. Eminent domain can get pretty ugly.
Contrast that with any other crime. We don't condone rape as long as the victim gets compensated for the market value of their body. (I have no idea what a hooker costs in Nevada, but I would imagine it's under $1,000/hr).
We don't allow vehicles to be stolen out of people's driveway as long as they pay $57 per day (or whatever Enterprise charges to rent a car).
It's still not slavery or theft, of course. I once lived on a property [snip] In any case, he never got to build his road. So, I've had some experience with the pitfalls of eminent domain.
Seems like fraud to me. He misrepresented and hid things from you when selling the property. It's not slavery or theft because the government didn't take it from you and give it to him "for the public good".
Ranked choice would be a fairly good alternative. It's not entirely free of paradoxes, but it's definitely a better system.
Agreed. I haven't put too much thought into it, so I don't have any idea of a good (or perfect) solution. I'm going to have to read up on multi-pass voting (never heard of it before), but on a quick skim it appears to be pretty similar to ranked choice. Not that I vote. Both parties are corrupt as hell.
Representative Republic is not mutually exclusive with Democracy. You're thinking of direct democracy.
Granted. But that's what we've become. Property tax is atrocious. If 51% of your neighbors decide the police department needs a tank, you *will* help pay for that tank or your property will be seized over taxes. We no longer say "we can vote on stuff, but we can't vote to take other people's stuff".
if the ISPs were a purely capitalistic endeavor with no regulation, how many choices do you imagine you would have for an ISP (at least one with hard lines)?
I think if the internet suddenly became a big thing today and there was little or no regulation (similar to when I worked for a startup ISP in the early 90s), you would see a lot more cheap wireless ISPs (and competitors standing near towers with microwave ovens pointed at the towers with the door open and the safeties disabled) because it doesn't require as much in terms of land purchases/leases. You would probably see a lot of neighborhood co-ops too. i.e. everyone on my street has internet and it runs through fiber buried in a ditch by the road or on power poles. I'm sure we could come to a mutual agreement to trench fiber or put fiber on poles (hey--maybe electricity too) in order to get what we all want.
Side note: I think electricity would be different too. I think you'd see a lot more home generation. While the solar gain in my area isn't enough to power my house with the current solar technology, I think you would see a lot more solar, and I would guess there would probably have been significant advancement in the small nuclear appliance market. I remember some company in Australia talking about in the late 90s. They had a box smaller than a car that was self-maintaining and didn't have the ability to melt down that would provide power for 25 or 50 years or something like that.
On the contrary, I think they care a lot about the cost - it determines the size of their kickback from the private contractor they toss the work to.
LOL! Maybe. But I'm betting they'd rather approve a $100,000,000 project and get a 2% kickback as opposed to approving a $50,000 project and get a 2% kickback.
The politicians who know nothing about space technology but make all the big technology decisions, that is. That's still not an artifact of government though, that's yet another example of private industry polluting things.
The politicians (government) who know nothing...make...the...decisions...that's still not...government?
Thanks to the EPA, it's extremely difficult to sue for harm because various companies are "just following the EPA rules".
I mean...it was difficult to sue for all the thalidomide injuries because it was considered save by government. Eventually the government realized it wasn't safe and it would be political suicide to stand behind the drug companies in the face of public outrage.
Because the Republicans won't allow a proper government healthcare plan so they "compromised" on Obamacare.
The government's plan was to *force* everyone to buy insurance and insurance must provide a minimum set of specific things. That's abhorrent. Again, it's involuntary servitude. Based on my family history that goes back several generations, I will need almost *zero* medical care (excluding random trauma like an unexpected car accident) my entire life. I won't get diabetes, I won't have heart problems, I won't get cancer, etc...right up until I hit about 58. Then I will unexpectedly drop dead. I won't bore you with the details, but modern medicine checked everything out and there is *nothing* that can be done. Not meds, not diet changes, not more exercise.
It was the same with my dad. Same with my grandfather. Same with my great grandfather.
I found out about the condition due to the autopsy when my father passed and I found out *I* had it when I finally decided to get life insurance and they tested me for free. They said "We can't insure you, you should call your doctor immediately". I found a doctor, had them run blood work.
Excluding those tests (which I paid cash for), my total medical expenses for the last ~20 years have been under $5,000. I'm on my fourth set of glasses--not because my prescription has changed, but because eventually they become completely scratched up or I lose them. I've also had two root canals and one cavity filled.
So tell me why government knows best and should force me to pay for a service I don't need and costs more than just paying out of pocket? The risk is acceptable to me.
Everyone should be free to make their own choices and accept their own risk. Yeah, tomorrow I could have some horrendous health issue and need to spend tens of thousands. That's my choice. My potentially bad decisions shouldn't be subsidized by you.
It sure sounds like that was what you were saying.
Sorry--bad context and bad Slashdot threading.
If I decide to cut down a tree on my own property, make a raft, and float it on a pond on my property....exactly how much should the government be involved?
If I decide I *want* a raft, should anyone be forced to sell it to me? Should anyone be forced to manufacture it for me? Should I get it for free because I voted to force you to pay $0.01 per $100,000 value on your property in "raft taxes"?
Some people don't want or need a raft. Some people already have a raft. Some want one raft, but have to pay the equivalent of 500 rafts to get one. Some people wouldn't even think of rafting, but now that they get one, they're going to use it every day for weeks, smash it into rocks, and then get issued a new raft.
That's the government's healthcare plan.
Then we're all slaves. Not sure what else to tell you. Everyone lives under some kind of restrictions on their body and their own actions. Everyone in some way, shape or form. Everyone, regardless of the particular system you live under. Anything else is a magical fantasy with unicorns and singing toilet brushes.
Well...yes. My original point was that taxation and government are a form of slavery. We should minimize it as much as possible, not grow it for comfort.
I've already voiced my objections to the public/private abomination you're talking about and made it clear that I favor a government run option for a health insurance plan. As for regulation, it certainly can had added costs to business.
And I've already voiced my objections to government-run healthcare. I have a handful of military buddies that have all be screwed over by the VA. They provide terrible healthcare. One of my friends broke his glasses. After 5 months of not being able to get an appointment, they finally got him one and completely screwed up the prescription. He was repeatedly told "just keep wearing them and your eyes will adjust--they're new". After another 3 months of trying to get an appointment, I took him to my *private* eye doc. Got a next-day appointment, and he said "yeah, they reversed the lenses". I got him new glasses within a week--even though it was a private doctor suffering under dumb regulation and insurance companies....because I paid cash.
Done right, it reduces costs and unfairness to consumers and, in some cases, can even reduce costs.
Again, what's fair about stealing everyone's money to put it into a slush fund to pay for everyone's healthcare.
How does adding a few thousand government employees who all get an above-average salary, gold-plated retirement, and plenty of sick/vacation time (paid out of the slush fund) decrease costs?
For example, the regulation about not denying people for pre-existing conditions clearly does add cost for businesses because they can't just dump sick people and let them die uninsured which is a great money saver. Do you actually object to that regulation?
Yes. There's one of those "guns" I was talking about.
People have a way of pretending government is a nebulous thing. Instead of pretending that "government" is going to magically fix some injustice, imagine it was dumped directly on you--the individual, not spread out in a million tiny increments across all the population.
If you start a business, grow it to earning $30k/mo, hire two employees, and one of them says "Darn. I got cancer. I'm going to take a lot of time off work, and you're going to have to find someone else to partially (and eventually permanently) fill my shoes...but you're still going to have to pay me even though I can't do the work...is that fair to you? Is that fair to the other employees who are actually able to work?
It's different if you've signed a *contract* to do so--like with an insurance company. Unfortunately insurance is frequently tied to employment which screws people over when they leave or get fired. They get told "Sorry you lost your job. That'll be $800/mo if you want to keep your insurance. Cancer? Ooh...you definitely don't want insurance to lapse, but no one is going to offer to let you pay $50/mo payment in exchange for having to shell out hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical treatment."
I ran into this with FMLA in my state. An employee decided to take 4 months off because his live-in girlfriend has his baby. Why am *I* responsible for the employees personal choices? Why didn't he save money for the event? Why didn't he go find an insurance company that will let him pay $75/mo, but then cough up $18,000 when he *decides* to have a child? You can't find that without government regulation because business owners don't say "I can't wait to start a business so I can't afford to feed my family and I go into serious debt to let employees not work but still get paid".
Sure a heart attack isn't a decision like a child...but things like smoking, eating McDonalds every day, and drinking 4 monster energy drinks every morning are.
Who is responsible for those dumb decisions? Under your plan, it's not the person who is smoking and eating Big Macs non-stop. Random doctors are.
Who pays the bill for those dumb decisions? You. Me. Everyone who earns money. But not my neighbor who is 32 and hasn't worked a day in her life because she gets "anxiety" if she's not in front of her computer 24/7 and somehow managed to convince the government we all should be paying her way in life.
So you've removed personal responsibility...and you've removed financial responsibility. That's a dangerous situation to be in. I mean...the ERs have been overrun in the last 20 years by people treating the sniffles like it's a medical emergency...and they don't think twice because they don't have to pay for it.
Once again, you seem to be confused about what a monopoly is. There are, in fact, many insurance companies. They theoretically compete against each other. So it seems to me what we're seeing here is a breakdown of a supposedly free market rather than a government created monopoly.
I forget what the number is in my state, but let's just say $10 million. So to become a "competing" insurance company in my state, you're gonna need $10,000,000 in the bank to cover potential claims, not to mention a few licenses and certifications and permission from the state insurance commissioner and business registration, and, and, and. Go! Wait...why aren't you competing yet?
What we have now isn't the free market. It's not capitalism. It's crony capitalism. You can't say true capitalism doesn't work and government is better when you are comparing government to crony capitalism.
I'm saying that NIH is not just an acronym for national institutes of health. Too many layers of contractors and sub-contractors and sub-sub-contractors and sub-sub-sub-contractors who contract back to the original contractors, etc. leads to an environment where no-one can get anything done. No-one is a decider.
Seems like the typical gridlock of government. I'd rather have my local doctor decide my treatment and maybe refer me to a specialist and pay them for their services than have some heavily-regulated insurance company second-guessing a doctor, mandating changes to prescriptions, deciding who is "in network" and who is out, forcing me to see someone that is cheaper for them (possibly because they are less educated or have worse stats or are bad at negotiating), delaying payments to doctors because hanging on to a few million for a few extra weeks or months can really earn you a lot in interest, and possibly having to go to court to settle things.
Anyways, eventually this article will age-out and neither of us will be able to reply. Not to mention, I doubt I'm going to change your mind. So I will leave it with these simple thoughts:
Why can't people pay for the service they use instead of paying government to combine everything in to a slush fund (with costly government administrators) that seriously screws some people over and seriously benefits others (i.e. healthcare, the insolvency of social security, taxes in general)?
If an idea is so good (like buying car insurance or health insurance), why does it need to be made mandatory by government?
Why set up complex government systems that end up being corrupted by companies donating to corrupt members of government that prevent you from being compensated when you've been harmed (i.e. the EPA, the FDA and drug company protections and allowed chemicals, state government and drunk drivers, etc...)?
Who is responsible when bad things happen to people--like someone loses their job or suddenly gets cancer? Everyone dies. Do you want government mandating that you help pay for something that isn't your fault? Maybe they should have had health insurance. You could consider charitable giving though...I mean...see my first question. Why not give money directly to someone who needs it instead of setting up a complex system? If your answer is that people aren't charitable, see my second question--why make "charity" mandatory through theft only to have it corrupted by corrupt politicians and crony capitalists?
I enjoyed the debate--thanks.