Why didn't you give us a link to that quote? Just curious.

And maybe the waiting periods for those hip replacements in Canada (for some reason, these articles always cite hip replacements) should be weighed against the people in the US who are simply denied hip replacement surgery by their insurance companies or cannot afford the out-of-pocket.

You see, waiting periods can be very misleading. You have to compare outcomes.

Truth.

At my last job, I was talking about the input validation that I'd created on a web application. My PHB asked why I had done that, since the client hadn't asked for it.

If I could include pictures with a Slashdot post, it would be the Jackie Chan "My Brain Is Full Of Fuck" meme.

Too bad your mother didn't give you a name.

It's called the rent-a-friend program. Ditto frats.

I have one of those too but I've been too lazy to badcap the system it's in. It was a really great processor too, got it to OC to 3.2 with a $20 cooler master heat pipe and arctic silver iv. I bought that originally for $100, and then upgraded to this twice-the-cores X6 1045T later, for $110 shipped or so. You just can't beat the value of these mid-range AMD chips.

Sure it does. I just read your post. Your argument is it's circular because it's circular.

Unregulated taxis in the US would be less regulated. Fraud and robery is still illegal, and would be aggressively persecuted. Try that in some 3rd world countries. If you get taken, the police will not care, well, other than wanting their cut of the take of whatever the result is.

You have a very narrow and sheltered idea of "unregulated".

And UBer is still, in some ways, more regulated than old Taxis. Why? Because you get rated, reviewed drivers you can verify the identity of before you get in. The taxi ID in many US taxis (most in NYC) is posted where you can't read it before you get in. Uber at least lets you check their pic to verify they are the real driver before you've gotten in. And you can check reviews and other things before agreeing to the trip. Something else impossible with old taxis.

My safety is likely higher on Uber than a hailed taxi.

They don't, and never will, unless required to by law.

They don't pick up hailed fares. Thus, they are not a taxi service.

I worked for a smaller company, about 50 employees. We self-insured.

Common insurances have low limits. The standard numbers for car insurance won't cover past a cap. Sure, it doesn't invalidate the insurance, but it will result in a lack of coverage past the limits. Home insurance will explicitly not cover items over a set amount, unless previously put on an item list. So your $15,000 diamond necklace is covered for $0, unless previously declared. The idea is to discourage fraud.

That's not the standard. If I'm driving from office A to office B between two offices while on the clock, I'm not using it for commercial use (unless I'm a Uber driver). I've even gotten that in writing from an insurance company. I'm not using it for commercial use while driving to a contract job. So why does that apply if the contract job is to build a house, but not if it's to drive someone as a Uber driver?

Wait, so commuting from home to your job (the pickup point), is not commuting, but driving from point a to point b to get to a paying job is commuting, so long as you aren't a Uber driver.

There are other considerations as well. Houses require sewers and you do not want sewers filling full of salt water, it tends to cause lots disease when it floods out. Electricity is also problematic when it floods. Not to forget no, good people do not stand by, when people are being ripped off. The whole absurd notion of what business is if of mine when I see people being ripped off, seriously, do unto others and yes I would appreciate being warned when I am about to be ripped off. What the bloody hell, do people not understand about that.

In a perfectly competitive market (I don't care which term you use, you understood what I meant, and I think they are used differently in different places/industries), you do what you do anywhere, set it at market price. If "market price" isn't cost plus, then you don't have a perfectly competitive market. Which is true for unique items. A commodity item, like a computer mouse, is cost plus. A monopoly (the only mona lisa, the only taxi medallion in an area, a telecom monopoly), cost plus wouldn't apply.

Yes, I know you are being deliberately obtuse.