You forgot about the Bowling Green massacre, you insensitive clod!

"Any medical system must limit the amount of goods and services provided. Otherwise, costs would quickly spiral out of control."

FTFY. All scarce resoources are rationed. If you think that medical goods and services aren't rationed in a private healthcare system, you are mistaken. The conversation is (or at least, should be) how to distribute those scarce resources in the "best" way possible. The problem is that right now, everybody has their own definition of what "best" means.

While it is absolutely true that Clinton didn't do herself any favors with that line about deplorables, Trump was doing just fine (won primaries, won the nomination, etc. etc.) before she made that crack. People were voting for him in droves before she said it.

Ha. Well done.

I think the best bet is to contact either ICE (Immigration & Customs Enforcement) or CIS (Citizenship & Immigration Services). Or maybe both, just to be sure.

I don't know if you're trolling or not, to expect that your average consumer is going to sue "CompanyA" over a $5 tube of aloe vera gel and somehow wind up owning said company. I couldn't convince a smart 12-year-old of that actually happening in the real world.

While your example sounds great in theory, here's what happens all too often in the real world:

CompanyA sells a product that claims it contains magic. You find it has none, but don't do anything because it is impossible for the average consumer to finance a lawsuit by themselves, and class-action lawsuits are extremely rare with a miniscule payout to everybody but the lawyers. Knowing this, 99.99% of the time people just shrug and move on with their lives. CompanyA may or may not have to pay some nominal fine which doesn't come close to the money they made through their lies.

CompanyB sees CompanyA make lots of profit and get away with it, and decides that they want a seat at the table.

And how do we know that that last part happens? Because if you had bothered to read even the summary, you would have seen that that is what actually happened.

I find it ironic that you are the one making snarky comments about cognitive dissonance.

There is frequently a large gap between theory (how people think the market should react), and practice (how the market actually reacts).

It does nothing of the kind.

I'm pretty sure that quote is biased. After all, you quoted from Wikipedia, duh!

Now, now. If you keep talking like that, you're going to cause migraine-inducing cognitive dissonance amongst a certain portion of the population. Although I do have to laugh at the irony of the "free market" resulting in "socialism"* as an act of defiance/desperation.

Kudos to the local City Council for coming up with this remedy, even if it's only temporary. Hopefully the absurdity of the situation will draw enough attention to it that the corrupt state lawmakers are forced to do the right thing.

Imagining the reaction of the local broadband providers' executives when they first heard about this plan makes me chuckle.

* Yes, I am perfectly aware that the "internet access"-market is anything but a free market, and the City Council's response isn't socialism.

I completely agree. The absolute worst offenders (that I'm aware of, anyway) are car rental agencies. Plan on the actual daily rate being about double the advertised rate. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people in the US who believe that any attempt to force businesses to be transparent like that is "socialism". It would be funny if it didn't have such pervasive and profound negative consequences.

You are basically saying the same thing the OP said. The cable companies are artificially/fraudulently lowering the advertised cost in order to entice people to sign up. He just chose to phrase it differently.

"hide the true cost of the service" == "allowing an advertised rate that doesn't actually include what should be part of the service fees"

Here's the thing: Trump didn't "make" that money in the sense that most people use it. It's more accurate to say that he stole that money (maybe not all of it, but certainly a fair portion of it) from gullible people who trusted his schtick about being a savvy businessman.

Citations:

http://www.cnn.com/2016/10/03/opinions/art-deception-dantonio/index.html
http://www.cnn.com/2016/09/13/politics/trump-small-business-owners/
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/trump-university-did-not-make-these-americans-great-lawsuit-2016-02-25
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/trump-made-millions-from-multilevel-marketing-firm-endorsements-2015-08-13

So he claims. And it may very well be true; I don't know. But here's the problem. If you read his blog you will see he has said numerous times that "the truth doesn't matter", in the context of declaring Trump a "persuasion genius". The fact that Trump lies so much that he manages to make Hillary Clinton look honest by comparison (which is no mean feat) doesn't seem to bother Adams in the slightest. The inescapable conclusion is that Adams will blatantly and gleefully lie his ass off to get what he wants. Just like he admires Trump for doing. Genius "master persuaders" like Trump clearly don't need to be constrained by trifling details like facts. And if you disagree with him, he will dismiss you as just not being a genius like he is.

Man, I wish I had mod points for you. Reading his blog over the last few months has made it painfully clear what a narcissistic dipshit he really is. "Because I'm a hypnotist!!1", is his explanation of every stupid claim he makes. It's sad; I used to enjoy the Dilbert strip. They're mostly ruined for me now.

Instead of being like the character Dilbert, he's more like a cross of the PHB and Dogbert.