Hee! Hee! Hee!

system.http://www.google.com/search?q=define%3Aefficiency

T'was irony, my friend. I figured you guys knew me well enough to get that.

Indeed.

-- Cheers, James Arthur

Umm, Tytler, not Tyler. Sorry. It's apocryphal, but apt. Or Bastiat, if you prefer:

"Everyone wants to live at the expense of the state. They forget that the state wants to live at the expense of everyone." - Bastiat

-- Cheers, James Arthur

And Cronkite's biased reporting after Tet.

Or perhaps one of those "No Fear" bumper stickers. :-)

One of the disties gave me an "O Crap" bumper sticker.

Reasonable enough definition. And I accept that we gave up in the case of Vietnam, but I don't really accept the premise that all endeavors are worth fighting until the bitter end (i.e., either a resolute win or sound defeat) in the first place -- sometimes the best choice *is* to give up. In the case of Vietnam... well, I'd have to admit that I don't really know my history well enough to be able to have a strong opinion that I could back up with decent arguments on the matter.

In retrospect that seems quite clear; at the time I doubt it was. (See also Kennedy and the Bay of Pigs invasion, or even WMDs in Iraq -- I'm quite convinced that Bush, Cheney, and many others truly believed they existed at the time they invaded Iraq...)

We were actively involved for more than a decade; it's no surprise that public support waned at the end.

Were you a fan of Nixon and/or Ford's foreign policy in Vietnam?

---Joel

Good links, James, thanks... and I appreciate your pointing out that the article I linked to is rather weak. I'll have to read a little more closely next time...

Clearly those should both be "billions." It is an obvious error that she (and her editor) should have been caught, although it's also in the category of "common typo" and not really "bad math."

"But they both miss the bigger issues and most of the $$s: defensive medicine, fraud, and the distributed overhead thrust on the providers."

I'm all for cracking down on fraud and reforming the tort system to reduce the need for defensive medicine. For fraud, I'd support the sort of "triple damages" requirements that other severe forms of white collar crimes command.

---Joel

Yes.

Well, I *could* educate myself, of course -- I do know where the local library is and I'm no stranger to Amazon.Com --, although like many people here learning something new about electronics is often more attractive than learning something new about politics or economics. And it's not like I don't value the input people provide here, even when I disagree with them -- Jim Yanik and Jim Thompson both make a lot of really good points, even if they are (as Thompson says), "right of Attila the Hun." :-)

Maybe Jim Yanik will give a presentation on such topics at Jim's BBQ in April... I've come to accept his point that a lot of "living interpretation" of the constitution is supposed to be done via the amendment process, but the political will to attempt to do so just doesn't exist today.

(Which seems a bit ironic when people now routinely try to, e.g., ban gay marriages using their STATES CONSTITUTIONS as the instruments... if gay marriage is such an important issue that you need to modify the state's constitution, surely universal healthcare is important enough to amend the federal constitution?)

---Joel

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I meant no offense, nor that you were ineducable, just that your education hadn't blessed your generation with the same tools the rest of us got coming out of the box. Important tools in a land where the People have to run the joint.

I too would much rather do, talk, and learn electronics, but at the moment I don't feel like I can; the political changes affect too much. They're more important--they threaten my way of life, my investments, my savings, and the future of my country.

I've created somewhere north of a thousand jobs in my day, and I'm getting ready to create a few more. But, if the changes being proposed become final, I won't.

So, it's big stuff. I don't like it, I wish it weren't so, but there it is. That's why I went to Washington. If I'd stayed another day I don't think this bill would've passed.

I'm against socialized medicine mostly because I think the design's inherently flawed, but particularly against a federal program because the Constitution doesn't allow it, on several grounds.

But, ISTM the states could pass their own if they so chose, and several have. That would be better, faster, and easier to do. Lower risk too, in case the prototype programs need refinement, which they almost certainly will.

I might even be coaxed along into such a scheme, despite my reservations, if it were at least well-designed. I'm quite sure it would suck, but I'm willing to let other people find that out the hard way if that's what they want to do.

But, I'm dead-set against Pelsoi's program because it's dumb, it's mandatory, it costs more, it doesn't pay for itself, and the many dirty tricks in it offend me. I don't like being lied to, especially not by fools.

It does _not_ let you keep your current coverage, it _prevents_ tort reform, is insanely, unnecessarily complex, it _is_ mandatory, it _invades_ your privacy, and on and on and on.

And worst of all, it doesn't fix the problems.

-- Best wishes, James Arthur

Hi James,

No offense taken; thanks for the explanation.

"I've created somewhere north of a thousand jobs in my day, and I'm getting ready to create a few more. But, if the changes being proposed become final, I won't."

Because it wouldn't be sufficiently protfitable to do so? Or just based on the principle?

"I'm against socialized medicine mostly because I think the design's inherently flawed, but particularly against a federal program because the Constitution doesn't allow it, on several grounds."

The constitution not allowing it is one of the most solid arguments I've heard. ("We can't afford it" is a good argument, but not one that's very easy to definitively defend, as clearly plenty of our countries have had socialized medicine for decades and haven't gone bankrupt.)

"But, ISTM the states could pass their own if they so chose, and several have."

OK, but I think there's a significnat economy-of-scale-based efficiency to be gained with all 50 states rather than just a handful participating.

"I might even be coaxed along into such a scheme, despite my reservations, if it were at least well-designed. I'm quite sure it would suck, but I'm willing to let other people find that out the hard way if that's what they want to do."

I believe that a lot of people right now are reacting out of fear -- what's left of the middle class in this country can't afford 10% hikes in healthcare rates year after year when their salaries increase at nowhere near that same rate -- and they're reaching out for a monumental response to the problem, which essentially means the federal government. (And of course most people are definitely not up on what the constitution does and does not allow.)

If a large number of states had addressed the problem, say, a decade ago, it seems to me that McCain and Palin probably would be the ones in office today. (Why can't one buy insurance across state lines? Why is it still illegal -- in most states -- for individuals to order prescription drugs from Canadian pharmacies!? -- Although I realize that few if any are actually prosecuted for breaking such laws.)

Despite Jim Yanik disagreeing, I still think there's something to how technology today -- making communications and transportation so much easier -- has tended to erode people's identities with their own states and they tend to more quickly think of the federal government as the conduit through which solutions arrive.

"But, I'm dead-set against Pelsoi's program because it's dumb, it's mandatory, it costs more, it doesn't pay for itself, and the many dirty tricks in it offend me. I don't like being lied to, especially not by fools."

Do you happen to have a link to an article that discusses some of the dirty tricks?

Thanks,

---Joel

Your method of quoting is lame. Use a standard news reader client.

Shesh.

Are you the afraid his arguments are valid, that all you can do is critize his "qouting" methods ?

Talk about Shesh !!

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Sure, but the only people crazed enough to keep up with this usually have very partisan, critical sites.

So, rather than have me send you to someone you might not trust, here's one example you can read yourself, directly from the bill.

The title and the language starting on this first page describe incentive payments available only to states that pass tort reform laws:

Okay, that sounds good--they're rewarding tort reform, right? That'll lower costs for everyone.

But, if you continue to the next page, 1432, on lines 14 and 15 you'll see the poison pill--the states only get these payments if their tort reforms neither cap damages, nor limit attorney's fees.

So, it's a kind of DeMorgan's obfuscation, but the gist is if you pass tort reform with any effectiveness--with any teeth--you lose your federal incentive funds. Which could be a very big stick--the bill doesn't specify or limit how big those incentive payments are. They could be huge.

That's a dirty trick. It blocks tort reform, under a section title that says the opposite. It's a lie. And they buried it 1,431 pages into a bill published just a few days before the vote.

It's full of stuff like this. I'm still finding more.

James Arthur

Thanks James, I agree that squarely falls into the category of a dirty trick.

:-(

Sad that politicians aren't any more upright....

---Joel

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Because with this level of extra burden I don't think I could. I don't think there are enough hours in a 90-hour week. I need to concentrate on the technology first, but also the project, the people, the logistics. It's a barely-possible thing under the best of conditions.

Add on to that this bill, and look at all the junk it makes me do, all the things I have to learn, follow, and obey. I _have_ to read and understand this bill, for starters.

There's a significant financial burden, of course. I could evade that, but again, I don't want to spend all my time reading these edicts and trying to outfox my government. I can't fight them all the time and succeed, they're too big.

Besides presenting a significant business danger, besides distracting me and thus significantly increasing the risk that I'll lose all my money, besides making me stay up nights to deal with this when I should be innovating, it takes all the fun out of the whole thing.

So, the upshot is, at some point it's just not worth it. Bottom line.

-- Best, James Arthur

ick.

Here's another one...

This is the section that lets you keep your current coverage:

Great, you're grandfathered in--you can keep your current policy.

The poison-pill is in lines 23-26. You can keep your current policy, as long as you never change it in any way, not benefits, co-pays ("cost-sharing"), nothing. Do that, and you're out.

James Arthur

No, it's not wrong. It obviously doesn't apply to small businesses, which exist cooperatively with the local communities or other businesses that they serve. Such businesses flourish largely on the personal good will and trust of the people they do business with. That is, there is some sort of social contract between business and the community. Business at it's best, imo.

What i am concerned about are the globalised businesses that really don't give a damn about any form of social contract and ride roughshod over everything the can get away with. If you think that's ok, fine, but when such businesses have so much power that they can effectively subvert and overide local democracy and standards, then it's time they were reigned in imo. As I said, they are not elected and often no interest in the communities they operate in.

You said elsewhere in this thread that you have created over 1000 jobs, which suggests that you run a medium sized business. In which case, you have my sympathy. I can't speak for the us, but here in the uk, business is saddled with an ever increasing admin workload and expense just to comply with eu and government imposed regulation. A medium sized business has neither the critical mass and slack to pay for this, nor the small scale to allow legal avoidance of the overhead. I always wanted to design and build stuff, not run a business, so it's effectively a one man show here. If I need services outside the skill set, I either learn new skills, or buy in. It can be a feast / famine thing, but that's the tradeoff to simplify life and allow me the freedom to work on some of my own ideas, try to keep up with the state of the art, do whatif projects and live a more hassle free life in general. In the end, it all comes down to how *you* want to live your life and your own goals, philosophy, needs etc.

That might be an overly cynical view. I have more faith in people's basic values, especially when confronted, though have to admit it's at least partly true. However, if a very large percentage get unreasonable handouts, someone else must be paying for it and they will eventually wake up and demand change. Yet another reason why governments must hold the line against (in extremis) the voice of the mob and try to plot a clear path through the chaos, if they want to stay in the job.

Kipling springs to mind here as well :-)...

Regards,

Chris

No. I've been in a number of startups, playing many roles, but I was thinking of particular things I invented, which led to something close to $1B in commerce.

I had help; I can't and wouldn't take full credit, solo, but it wouldn't have happened at all without me inventing key stuff and busting my butt 90 to 100 hours a week, week after week. That's simply a fact. I make that point not for glory, but to point out the practical impact of Mr. Obama's vision.

He, Bill Gates, and Warren Buffett were touring this past week, saying that innovation is going to be America's saving grace, that inventors creating fabulous new stuff will lead us out of this ditch.

Mr. President, I'm one of those guys. And by your actions, I'm not so sure you want me to.

I despise paperwork. As a young man getting started I once got called over to personnel...

"James, you have to re-do these timesheets, they've got over 40 hours a week on them."

"Well, I worked more than 40 hours. Did you want me to lie?"

"No, I just want you to do what everyone else does and give me a standard 40-hour time sheet."

"I gave you my time sheets. They were a pain in the ass to do, and that's what I really worked."

"James, I need your time sheets."

"Why the hell do you need my timesheets anyhow Lois? I'm on salary, and I get the same paycheck no matter what."

"Well, we just do. And if you don't turn them in properly, we're not gonna give you your paycheck."

"Okay."

I went back to work and forgot all about it. I was working from ~11:00 or noon until 04:00 or 05:00 every day, seven days a week, pulling one-, two-, and once a 3-nighter, trying to save that company. And I did. That was #1--I didn't care about my paycheck.

One day many weeks later, Lois stormed into my office, slapped a fat envelope on my desk, and stormed out. It was full of paychecks. Oh yeah, I forgot about those. I'd forgotten all about it, but she couldn't--she couldn't close her books...too many checks outstanding! I laughed.

Right. It's not just the financial impact, it's the time, that you spend all your time trying to comply with endless, byzantine, arbitrary drivel stuff & can't concentrate on your goals.

We're of one mind and have made similar choices. But I've got some really cool stuff I think the world would enjoy, that would save energy and water and resources, and be fun in the bargain. So I've got the itch to do another startup.

Or not. Make it too difficult, and I won't. I'll make cool stuff for my friends, work on my place, maybe even take a straight job doing whatever--why not? Who is John Galt anyway, if not us?

-- Cheers, James Arthur

Jim's research into laissez-faire countries might be of interest to you... :-)

It sounds like you're currently retired?

---Joel