Re: OT: Layoff Letter

When you get to a certain amount of critical mass, you pay people to manage the business. Those are probably the 30 people he gives a shit about and pays their healthcare.

It is like being a landlord. You own one building and you spend your evenings plunging poop in clogged toilets. You own 20 buildings, then you have "people."

Under Obamacare, you actually have to spend 85% of the premiums on healthcare . Spending premiums on healthcare rather than corporate jets and bonuses does effectively reduce the cost of healthcare by keeping the premiums lower. You should research corporate criminals like Governor Rick Scott or dollar Bill McGuire from United Healthcare.

I agree a single payer system would be better. Perhaps we can get that in Obama's second term, or maybe during the Hillary Clinton administration.

I haven't hit anything with my car this year. Auto insurance is such a waste. ;-)

See what it costs to get treatment without insurance versus with insurance. The difference is staggering. Of course, without insurance, you can try to skip out on paying.

Funny how the individual mandate was popular with the GOP until the Democrats put it into law.

You hear the horror stories about Kaiser, but than again, they treat a lot of people, so of course it is more likely that they will have the occasional bad press. I know people that swear by Kaiser. Also, it is a good union shop.

It's about half of list price. Insurance and Medicare pay the doctors and hospitals 25% to 35% of list price, so they do appreciate those that pay cash.

I have no insurance. I've had 4 major medical horror stories in the past 10 years. All were paid at a negotiated price in cash. The logic for the hospital is simple. If an uninsured patient goes to collections, then the best the hospital can do is get half the list price. The collection agency gets the other half. So, the hospital just cuts out the collections agency and charges the patient half.

I rather like the idea of Obamacare because I stand to be one of those that will benefit from it. 10 years ago, I would have declared it pure evil. My only question is who is going to pay for adding 16 to

33 million non-elderly recipients to the system that have never paid anything into the system? The money has to come from somewhere, and it's NOT going to come from "savings" or similar rhetorical rubbish.

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Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D    http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann     AE6KS    831-336-2558

Who pays for their care pre-Affordable Health Care Act?

Rick

Kaiser tried to kill me twice with various mistakes. I couldn't dump them because the insurance came with the job. When I switched jobs, I ended up with BlueCurse. When I got hit on my bicycle by a dentist and his Pontiac, BlueCurse simply decided that they didn't want to pay my expenses. Several months, advocates, and ombudsmen later, and they still refused to pay, without offering any reason beyond "not covered". I dumped BlueCurse and haven't had medical insurance since about 1984.

In the past 10 years, I've had 4 major medical horror stories. Hospital treatment was acceptable, but the number of mistakes that I caught was unacceptable. The one that I didn't catch (botched lab interpretation of a biopsy) nearly killed me. Helping friends through similar circumstances, such mistakes appear to be routine.

Oh, I forgot to mention that my first pair of eyeglasses were with Kaiser. They couldn't copy my prescription from one piece of paper to another, so the first pair of glasses were totally useless.

With Obamacare, we'll all have insurance, but not medical care.

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Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D    http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann     AE6KS    831-336-2558

Public assistance also known as your tax dollars.

During the 1990's, I maintained the ER (emergency room) Xenix computah system that produced release forms, prescriptions, and kept statistics. For the local hospital, that was about 60,000 admissions per year. That's not 60,000 individuals as many of them visit the ER multiple times. During a major remodeling, the ER was moved 3 times in 2 years. During one of the moves, I manage to break the credit card machine. Nobody noticed for about 5 years when I got a frantic call from the ER that the machine was broken. What this means is that most people either pay with insurance, or simply don't pay. So, I ran some statistics. Only about 18% of the visits during a 12 month period around 1995 were paid for by someone. 82% of the visits were covered by "other sources". The list of "other sources" is rather large and controversial. I don't want to get diverted down that road. Ultimately, Joe Taxpayer ends up paying for most of the unpaid visits.

I'm not sure exactly what will change under Obamacare. Instead of paying for uninsured hospital stays indirectly through a long chain of intermediaries, Joe Taxpayer pays almost directly. That may not be so horrible as it reduces the inefficiency of having too many agencies handling the money.

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Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D    http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann     AE6KS    831-336-2558

If it's managed like Amtrak or Homeland Security or (name most any other government operation) things will get worse.

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John Larkin                  Highland Technology Inc
www.highlandtechnology.com   jlarkin at highlandtechnology dot com   

Precision electronic instrumentation
Picosecond-resolution Digital Delay and Pulse generators
Custom timing and laser controllers
Photonics and fiberoptic TTL data links
VME  analog, thermocouple, LVDT, synchro, tachometer
Multichannel arbitrary waveform generators

My Kaiser care has been excellent. They are big on prevention, vaccinations, checkups.

I hurt my foot hiking, noticed the pain on a Saturday night, called in on Sunday morning, saw two doctors at 10:30. They gave me a plastic cast sort of thing and decided to do some blood chemistry, which was just across the floor. I was out of there by 11:15. I get regular tetanus and shingles shots and TB tests and colonoscopies, whether I want them or not.

All my records are online, so I don't fill out forms. I get lab results by email. I'm encouraged to email my doctor, and she answers me. Prescriptions are refilled online, mailed to me at work, and the co-pay is billed to my credit card. Parking even isn't too bad.

I once had a rough spot on my face. I showed it to my doctor, and she called in a dermatologist. It was a precancerous keratitus. Mentioned, diagnosed, and cured, in about 10 minutes.

--

John Larkin                  Highland Technology Inc
www.highlandtechnology.com   jlarkin at highlandtechnology dot com   

Precision electronic instrumentation
Picosecond-resolution Digital Delay and Pulse generators
Custom timing and laser controllers
Photonics and fiberoptic TTL data links
VME  analog, thermocouple, LVDT, synchro, tachometer
Multichannel arbitrary waveform generators

We already know that at least 6000 IRS agents will be hired to begin the process.

This is the interpretation I was talking about.

The owner of a company can take what ever paycheck he wants to, I have no problem with that.

But he still has a responsibility to pay the taxes and obey the laws that are required.

If he wants to close his company so he does not have to pay X,Y, or Z taxes, that is his prerogative.

However, cutting the pay and benefits of those who work for him is another mater.

Mr. Barr is cutting the pay and benefits of those and not cutting his own paycheck.

OK, fine.

Close the doors and walk away.

If the company does not survive is in not his fault ?

Mr Barr needs employees to make a company work. Hes own paycheck is not guaranteed.

You build a company to survive to be profitable in the future, not to milk it for all its worth until you can no longer get enough out of it.

What is business school teaching today.

No wonder Ponzi schemes are so rampant.

hamilton

In other words, you don't want to follow the rules you make for others. That's called "tyranny". Have a nice day, and I hope your side loses big.

Phil Hobbs

--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs
Principal Consultant
ElectroOptical Innovations LLC
Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics

160 North State Road #203
Briarcliff Manor NY 10510
845-480-2058

hobbs at electrooptical dot net
http://electrooptical.net

That's a joke rationale that's been around for a while now. I think some ja= ckass who owns a nationwide pizza chain came out with it first. Here's the = deal on these low life scoundrels: the public is picking up their employees= ' health care through the medicaid for which they qualify. The idea with O= bamacare is to shift this burden away from the general tax payer and into t= he private sector. Which private sector is that you ask? It is the friggin = customers of these cut-throat businesses screwing their employees and the A= merican taxpayer by not providing health insurance just so they can make a = price point for their customers. If their customers don't want to pay the n= ominal increase then let the market rule and put the business and its so-ca= lled services out to pasture. Obamacare was designed by people with long ex= perience and extreme expertise in the health industry economics sector. The= y know quite a bit more than some shmo hawking junk food, dontcha think?

s

your comment "...make it economically unattractive..." highlights a point that everyone seems to ignore

Corporations MUST maximize profits, else their managers are NOT performing their fiducial responsibility and will be replaced. Corporations are NOT greedy, they simply operate within a known system of maximizing profits, duh!

If people want a corporation to do something pass laws to MAKE them do something, or pass taxes that make it economicall attractive to do something. But, stop the stupid bitching about how corps are greedy!

Thus, the people have can exercise control over corp in two ways - laws and taxes. At least then if the corps don't comply they have broken the laws or they have poor managers who will be replaced.

Hmm, I must have said something to get this kind of response.

I am not sure what tho.

I do not own a business that has employees. I am a one man shop.

If I did have employees, I would follow the rules and take the hit myself if I have too.

That's the cost of doing business in America.

Yes I will vote for the lesser of two evils.

The healthcare debate(?) if just todays way of the power that be to keep the masses off their backs and after each other.

I have no idea how this comes in.

Have a nice day,

Thank You

and I hope your side loses big.

LOL, I hope we survive as a country, when will the shooting start ?

hamilton

A corporation doesn't have to maximize profit, especially not maximize short-term profit. Privately held corporations don't have quarterly pressure from stockholders and can do whatever they like. We could double our profits, but we give most of it away, mainly to employees, but some to charities and schools. Some of what we do is longterm investment in the business and the people, which a high-profile public corporation might not get away with.

When a big technology company lays off 10, 20, even 40% of its employees to increase quarterly profit it's, well, cruel and stupid.

Agreed. Make it cheaper to create jobs, cheaper to invest longterm, easier to import foreign earnings. It makes sense to eliminate all corporate taxation and go to a national sales tax to raise government revenues. That way, people would have jobs and be able to pay the taxes. That will never happen.

And tax financial transactions, like stock transfers, to shift investment horizons from milliseconds to years. That won't happen either. Wall Street owns Washington.

--

John Larkin                  Highland Technology Inc
www.highlandtechnology.com   jlarkin at highlandtechnology dot com   

Precision electronic instrumentation
Picosecond-resolution Digital Delay and Pulse generators
Custom timing and laser controllers
Photonics and fiberoptic TTL data links
VME  analog, thermocouple, LVDT, synchro, tachometer
Multichannel arbitrary waveform generators

Like VA healthcare.

But the ones with public shareholders are more or less obliged to do everything to make sure the next quarters profits are up. There is no patient money any more apart from a handful of smaller business angels.

UK was always much worse than the USA in this respect. Our bankers have always been completely self serving bastards interested only in their own personal bonus and prepared to screw any customer to maximise it.

(*) Actually to be fair I have known one or two decent ones but that was back in the 1980's. Now everyone is just a number.

It does happen with monotonous regularity though when some jumped up MBA wants to massage the bottom line prior to selling it on or an IPO. I have seen it happen to several companies over the years.

It may surprise you that I agree with your position almost entirely. The challenge is how to make sure they *do* invest long term.

Taxing ultra fast ms or faster back to back transactions would seem like a sensible way to go. I expect we will have to wait for a bad transaction spike to totally annihilate a major corporation before anyone takes the instability caused by high frequency trading seriously. There will be a spectacular avalanche sooner or later.

It is even worse in the UK. Austerity all the way except for the hyper rich who come here to play high stakes libel games in our high court.

Our present government cabinet consists mostly of multimillionaires who have no idea about normal life or the price of milk in a supermarket. The chancellor of the exchequer is demonstrably clueless. The thick rich kids are in charge and do things that only benefit their mates.

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Regards,
Martin Brown