Another $300M Down the Drain at DoD

lSlomanwrote in part:

would

Probably. Australia and the Netherlands tax capital gains - but only when you realise them - and some countries used to tax "unearned" income from dividends at a different rate from "earned" income from salaries, but there's no clear argument for which ought to be taxed at a higher rate

The problem is that you want people to invest, and it doesn't make sense to penalise them for diverting their income into expanding the economy.

tage

We all benefit from investments that make it possible for us to buy manufactured goods more cheaply, or travel faster or farther for the same money, but too much encouragement concentrates the wealth of a country into the hands of a very limited few, and that damages the social fabric.

e f

Seems plausible, but it isn't going to happen until the US cleans up it's antiquated political system. Thomas Love Peacock wrote a great satire - The Misfortunes of Elphin - on the opposition to the British electoral reform act finally passed in 1832, and some of the claims we see here about the perfection of the US constitution are remarkably like the anti-reform arguments pilloried in the satire.

-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

es

No. They spend enough to cover defence against real threats, around

2.5% of GNP. The US expenditure of 4.7% of GNP totally out of proportion to the threats it faces, and in fact seems to be some kind of corporate welfare. You really don't need to spend as much as all the next ten nations down the pecking order do in total. If you just spent as much as the Chinese and the French together, you'd be spending 25% of what you do at the moment.

Which primarily reflects the fact that you have a plague of medical malpractice lawyers, and every US doctor orders many more MRI scans than doctors in other countries (who are more interested in finding out what is wrong with the patient than making sure that they have a good defence if somebody sues them for malpractice).

-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

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Read what I wrote. Your expenditure is totally out of proportion to what you actually do, let alone what you need to do.

And you don't "defend the rest of the world". You defend your oil- extraction interests around the world, and try to root out Al Qaeda, which is an essentially Saudi resistance group formed in reaction against the right-wing government you keep in power in Saudi Arabia to keep the oil flowing, in the best US banana republic tradition.

One might have hoped that you might have learned something from the fall of your puppet Batista in Cuba

or the Shah in Iran, but you persist in prefering short term political repression to long-term political stability, then get upset when the repression spawns effective resistance.

-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

The Tower of Babel collapsed on his sorry ass.

--
It's easy to think outside the box, when you have a cutting torch.

The big pharmaceutical companies are all multi-nationals these days. If they appear to be spending most of their R&D money in the US they are probably exploiting a loop-hole in the US corporate tax system, which is riddled with loop-holes.

gives the total R&D expenditure by USA based comapnies as $33.9 billion out of the world total of $70.8 billion, which doesn't show the USA as subsidising anybody.

-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

I agree, we need reform in this area.

It's not always the doctor protecting himself. I got a prescription for an MRI on my back, I did some phone shopping, then went in and confirmed the price. They said I can come in for the procedure tomorrow or tonight at 9pm. I got the MRI within 7 hrs and it cost me $386.00

What was the quotes' range?

--James Arthur

That's true, until this year 2011.

I read your page, but I don't see anything about FICA taking in more than it paid out, even that WAS true. But I do see it says SS has a 2.6 trillion dollar surplus. But then goes on to say -it's been spent- and blames it on Bush. 2.6 trillion is only 4 years worth of payments, seems if it was handled as a proper retirement fund it would have *10 to 15 years of collected funds to pay for today's retirees.

*what ever the average life span is after retirement.

Hey you pointed that out, without a bunch of name calling. :-) Mikek

So

In 2010, ($712,526 / $781,128) =3D 91.2% of every dollar paid in went straight out the door to current beneficiaries.(*)

(*)

2010 781,128 712,526 68,602

The fund is irrelevant--it belongs to the gov't. They have no legal obligation to give you any. It's theirs. From the moment you paid it in. You have no guarantee of any benefit whatsoever.

A 62-year-old male in the US can expect to live another 19.4 years. A woman, 22.3 years.

-- Cheers, James Arthur

Fine. But the US has about 27 MRI machines per million patients, while France and Germany, which have seriously good universal health care get by with about 5 and 8 respectively. The UK - with 5.5 - actually seems to have more than France. Australia seems to have just under five, and nobody is complaining about the queues here.

27 MRI machines per million patients isn't about reducing the time you have to stand in queue for an MRI machine, its about having four times as many MRI machines as you actually need, and the support staff having nothing to do for 75% of the time.

By analogy with the telephone system, queue-less access requires that you have four more MRI machines within acceptable patient travel-time than you'd need if you had just enough. The US population may be spread out enough to need more MRI machines per head than European, but Australia is roughly the same size as the body of the US (excluding) Alaska and we seem to be able to get by with 5 machines per million patients (which would be 110 machines).

--
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

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Really? The entire system is rife with corruption:

ion-unit/

How come I continuously get criticism for feeding that troll Larkin, yet the rest of you keep on feeding AlwaysWrong (and all his nyms), Fred Bloggs, Phil Allison, Slowman, et al, without a peep from the holier-than-thou crowd?

Why? Why? Why? ...Jim Thompson

[On the Road, in New York]

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| James E.Thompson, CTO                            |    mens     |
| Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
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I love to cook with wine.     Sometimes I even put it in the food.

Because constantly bitch about feeding AlwaysWrong

Because you say you killfiled Larkin, yet feel compelled to talk to him through others' posts.

Because you constantly cluck.

It's complicated but I'll try to explain it. I have BCBS insurance with a high deductible, I hope I never reach. The bills go to BCBS and then they tell the provider the amount allowed, and I pay the bill. First I need to change the above number from $386 to $368 My doctor's office set up an appointment. I called the MRI office to check the price, I was told $489. I called another MRI office and was told $368. Great, $121 cheaper. I called my insurance company just to verify the prices. I got conflicting info, I was told the office that quoted $489 was only allowed $427 by BCBS (this is from memory so not exact). The company that quoted $368 was allowed $440. I told BCBS about the conflicting numbers, they had no good explanation. So I went to the $368 office and ask for the price in writing, they said they couldn't do that because it depended on what the insurance company allowed. Their forms said BCBS allowed $368 but they seemed to want it confirmed after the procedure. I persisted and a decision was made to do the procedure for $368 and if it came back from BCBS at a higher rate they would eat it.

I'll tell my insurance / HSA story again, because I think it holds good information. My BCBS got to $9,900 for a family of 4, with no existing conditions and no pregnancy benefits. I shopped several insurance offices and all told me get BCBS. So I looked at raising my deductible from $2,500 to $10,000. This lowered my premium to $4,300, a $5,600 savings. I jumped on this. I then opened a Health Savings Account (HSA) and put the $5,600 I saved on the premium into the HSA. I also added a little more to max out the contribution. I'm now over 55 so I get an additional $1,000 catch up contribution, allowing a 2010, $7,150 tax deductible contribution. I think the high deductible HSA combo is a winner. An added benefit, it's my money in the account, so I shop for better prices, lowering healthcare costs. I think that's something I often hear thrown about, lowering healthcare cost! Mikek

Here is a fairly concise summary of how the *TRAITORS* in the US government work:

ath-spiral/

I was expecting it too. He must have missed it.

mike

[Gap added for dramatic effect]

This made me weep. GOD BLESS THE FREE MARKET!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Vote Ron Paul! He's what the country needs!

Thanks, Rich

So, what's a typical waiting time for an MRI in those socialized medicine countries?

Got numbers?

Thanks, Rich