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Dan Avenell
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 06 March 2008
Posts: 1038
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| Posted: 19 September 2008 at 4:47am | IP Logged | 1
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Oops, I copied the wrong link... anyway, here's the interview, and then a clip of the gaffe being discussed on CNN with a statement from McCain saying he knew exactly who he was being asked about... which seems pretty unlikely, doesn't it?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdRlXNbk2ms
http://br.youtube.com/watch?v=ONGFONFz4FM
Edited by Dan Avenell on 19 September 2008 at 4:49am
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William McCormick
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 26 February 2006
Posts: 3297
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| Posted: 19 September 2008 at 5:01am | IP Logged | 2
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You are both right to a partial degree, but also confused or lacking in real-world information. There are attempts to pass on costs, but in the case of physicians, they are limited by what 3rd party payer's will reimburse- as are hospitals. Most offices make substantially less money now than 10 to 15 years ago. This has led many offices to the situation where they see more patients in less time, use less office personnel and spend less time seeing inpatients.
***********
Not lacking in anything. When my second daughter was born 3 months premature it cost $60,000 dollars. She was in Neonatal ICU for 13 days. The cost for that was over $30,000 and the doctor charged another $11,000. Then the cost of delivery and various other charges. When we got the itemized bill for insurance purposes I couldn't believe what we were charged for certain items. $75.00 for a teddy bear they but in my daughter's bed with her. You could buy the same one at Wal-Mart for $2.00. You can say all day that these charges get written off, I don't buy it.
The problem is, that hospitals are "for profit" orginazations. And a doctor who spent 5 minutes a day with daughter, left all the actual work up to the nurses, and charged $846.15 a day.
I was lucky enough to have insurance, but I for one have no problem paying a little more in taxes if it means someone else can go to a hospital and not have to worry how they are going to pay the bill.
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Michael Myers
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 28 December 2004
Posts: 831
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| Posted: 19 September 2008 at 5:22am | IP Logged | 3
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William, my son was born just 9 weeks premature (healthy as an ox now, 8yrs old) and the bills ran close to yours. In his case, the neonatal ICU was only six days, until he was feeding relatively easily. Like you, insurance covered the bulk of the total expense. Having said that, I just don't agree with the inference that any of the three reforms currently on the table necessarily offer anything better for the majority of people in this country.
I, for one, have rarely been happier to live in America than when my son needed the best care available. That option for the most people possible, is something I don't even want to toy with in light of the three alternatives currently on the table.
Edited by Michael Myers on 19 September 2008 at 5:45am
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Michael Myers
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 28 December 2004
Posts: 831
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| Posted: 19 September 2008 at 5:52am | IP Logged | 4
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And, back to this. Michael, I'm half-convinced you're a sock puppet, but I've gotten some use out of arguing with you rather than hammering someone else on an emotional, worry-laden issue. So, I'll play this round through. After that, I'm just gonna mess with you...
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| Michael c'mon. Get out Barron's dictionary and read it to the PC screen. |
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I don't even get this, Michael.
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What you don't understand is what has happened in the course of what? Two weeks? You can stomp your feet all
you like Mike but it doesn't change reality. |
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Am I the one suggesting that a "general bankruptcy" of every developed economy in the world is the "realistic" conclusion to be drawn from the current credit crunch and crisis?
You're arguing for what would amount to replacing every monetary system in the world with some nebulous, new credit system based on the 1648 Peace of Westphalia...and I'm the one out of touch with reality?
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| How much has been lost? Gimme a dollar amount Mike. Russia was my model? No, sorry. To the extent Russia follows FDR they will, with China and India, do quite nicely compared. Russia is for a fixed-exchange rate but you say it isn't possible? You know how Malaysia handled you speculators in 1997 or so don't you? |
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Quite nicely, indeed. In the post where you admitted you didn't understand real GDP, you touted Russia's economy as a critique of everything America is doing wrong and a role model to be emulated. The only problem is that they can't manage to compete internationally as a big boy in a global economy, and had to literally bar the doors of their domestic two stock exchanges for what is now going on three days. What does that say about to what "extent Russia follows FDR?"
Of course, you know what Lyndon LaRouche said about Rusasia recently, don't you? Here's a quote from him:
"Yuri should stop listening to strange voices and start listening to me again, which he hasn't done for a number of years. I will straighten him out, so that he and others are not used by the friends of George Soros in Russia who are deployed against me."
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| Odd, governments are discussing fixed-exchange rates. You just either ignore it, don't talk about it, or deny it. |
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Why exactly do you think the Euro is ONLY a semi-pegged currency, Michael? And on top of that, they have the ERM II mechanism. Now, how would you go about relegating the United States, Japan, and the European Union to a fixed exchange rate system over the current semi-pegged system on a global scale? Even China had to go with a valuation semi-pegged to the US Dollar to allow for modern globalization and its economic rise...and the first thing they did was adopt a semi-peg to the US Dollar. Oh, everbody loves the discipline of a *fully* fixed exchange rate, but nobody, including the Eurozone (only semi-pegged] wants all of the other downsides: the sheer expense of maintaining the necessary reserve capital, the import of inflation, enforced deflation of a nation with balance of trade payments resulting in automatic high unemployment, across the board wage controls, stagnant GDP growth rates, etc.
So, instead we go with semi-pegged exchange and organizations like the IMF and ECB to curb the unavoidable flucuations of a fiat system. But, as you've stated, with your notions of a fixed-rate system a'la a new Bretton Woods agreement, even the semi-pegged nature of the Euro, Yen, and Dollar would not be enough. How in the world would you implement this scheme of fixed exchange rates over semi-pegged? How are you going to convince the economically strong nations to go along at the very real expense in terms of inflation and wage-fixing to the expense of their own populations?
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| What people? Here or people that actually run things in various governments? People that got pink-slipped on Wall St. this week? How many? Reminds me of some song... "That's all there is"? PJ Harvey singing it. |
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Well, you've misrepresented basic economic theory in the modern world and promoted an utter fantasy, so let's stick with you.
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| The people I am talking about run governments and they are talking about slamming down enough regulation to shut down your casino and return to what works. Think of a bomb going off. You there? It has blown. A few days, weeks, months later corpses wash ashore. That's all AIG is. You assume this will work but then out of the other side of your mouth say it is uncharted territory. |
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The Fed acting like a Warren Buffet LBO to scoop up an asset solvent company at a profit while imposing a confiscatory interest rate of almost 12% with required periodic payment on principle--rather than letting it fail or issuing a straightforward bridge loan--is definitely uncharted territory. But, the entire point of the Fed and central banks is to curb panic like yours and restore confidence in the system. The SEC reinstituting the rules against naked shorts, and the UK cracking down to do the same, is a far cry from your notions of what would amount to strict protectionism and the idea that only a "global" bankruptcy will achieve anything. But then, that's just the start, isn't it, Michael?
Oh, I'm all too familiar with the general outline you're copying from, here. I see your kind at least twice every year at this seminar or that. One or two in groups together--or protesting outside the host hotel--and going on about a "generational" cycle, "fountains" of scientific output, and the "European Land Bridge" to anybody who will listen. Why do you think I reacted so strongly to your kooky ideas in the first place? I mean from your very first post addressing my own. Or, from your last, when you finally advocated letting "people who know what to do" step in and take charge.
Tell me, Michael, exactly who are these people? What did the man say? "It is not necessary to wear brown shirts to be a fascist....It is not necessary to wear a swastika to be a fascist....It is not necessary to call oneself a fascist to be a fascist. It is simply necessary to be one!"
What you advocate, by any name, be it a "generational cycle of change" or anything else, is fascism in its *purest* form. By very definition, unfettered fascism.
Edited by Michael Myers on 19 September 2008 at 6:29am
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Jeff Alan Hays
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 20 January 2007
Posts: 133
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| Posted: 19 September 2008 at 5:54am | IP Logged | 5
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William- what was your part of this bill?
As far as charges being written off, you are denying something that you have no knowledge of. In the bigger picture, you have no idea how many physicians out there write off thousands or tens of thousands of dollars a year while seeing patients.
Though, a couple of points you make are worth noting. 20 years ago, hospitals functioned as local businesses which would meet costs, pay employees and put funds back into the business. Now they are corporate entities with stock holders and the obligations that come with that.
The incredible cost of medicine is due to managed care organizations- private and government- and the legal protection they enjoy as well as the booming malpractice industry. If you understand that, then you understand the problem. Remember- the insurance company sets the fee schedules but also establishes many practices that raise the cost of medicine.
As an aside, I would say that doctors do spend less time per patient than ever, but you may not understand what physicians do. What sort of chart orders did your neonatal intensivist write on any everyday basis? And what sort of training did he have in order to do this? And do you happen to know the likely cost of his malpractice premiums?
I really agree with Michael Myers and I'll say in my own words that the system has problems, those problems are often secondary to government's current level of intrusion and a fully socialized medical program will create further problems with a decreased use of available technology and the decreased development of new technologies.
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Michael Myers
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 28 December 2004
Posts: 831
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| Posted: 19 September 2008 at 5:56am | IP Logged | 6
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QUOTE:
| And, as usual, the Fed asking the Treasury for a bailout goes unanswered by you. I believe it wad for $40b but it could have been more. Who knows? Does it matter? It's over. |
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Yep, the Treasury sold short-term bills to the tune of $40 billion. And couldn't sell them fast enough, as people rushed to a safe harbor like t-bills and gold. Everyone is uncertain about where to lend money right now, so no one is rushing to do so. The need, now, is to reassure people. Isn't that the purpose of a monetary policy and Federal Reserve in the first place? We've got people like you talking about AIG spending "ordinary people's" premiums on stock plays, for goodness' sake.
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| So no one but crazy ole me is talking about this? On the contrary many are, just not many on John's forum. From 2008 (Tremonti is the current Minister of Economy and Finance in the Italian government ::::::SNIP: Insert quotation:::::: Didn't the Wall St. Urinal report that? Didn't it report that most of the world supports such a move? Hmm, wonder why? Could it be that Dow Jones owns the Urinal? Could it be that? Nah. Tremonti is just some nut right? |
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The Wall Street Urinal? And, you're serious. More "brainwashed" tools for the man, huh?
Wasn't Tremonti running for office, then, and wasn't the context of his statements quite different than you're representing? At any rate, Italy is a prime example of those countries which desire a fixed global exchange rate; that is, nations which have for the most part been completely unsuccessful in developing topflight multinational corporations and have always had to deal with a sluggish international competition on the part of what big corporations they do have. Italy still has one of the lowest GDP growth rates of any industrialized nation. This is twice as true a summation with regard to Russia, btw.
Well, Michael, why did the proposal for the sort of conference you're touting get laughed out of even the Italian parliament the last time it came up in 2005? Or when it came up before the Italian parliament in 2003? Or, when it was proposed in Italy in 2002? Too many "brainwashed" shills in the Italian parliament, too?
So, how do we plan to go about convincing Japan, China, the United States, the United Kingdom, and the greater Eurozone economies--all with successful records of international competition and HUGE multinational economies--to go along with your scheme? It certainly isn't in the interests of the respective populations of those nations...you know, the *voting* populations.
I think convincing them involves something called the "Noosphere", doesn't it? On this one, I'll defer to your expertise on the matter.
QUOTE:
| EDIT: To add, all these bailouts are doing is adding the losses of parasites to the taxpayers. None of these bailouts have zip to do with protecting homeowners. It is all about protecting the parasites that have ruined the economy. Or as my friend put it: During the heyday of the bubble:::::SNIP:::::: |
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Parasites, huh? You mean, like somebody who has done time for mail fraud and conspiracy to commit loan fraud? Or someone who would publish in print a list of the names of 116 MI-6 agents over protests of arguably our greatest ally, The United Kingdom?
And, who is your "friend", Michael? Is he really special, or something?
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Michael Myers
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 28 December 2004
Posts: 831
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| Posted: 19 September 2008 at 6:01am | IP Logged | 7
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QUOTE:
Notional value...
Mike you're a blow hard, as someone once said. You think you know so much but you're on John Byrne's forum trying to outwit me on something I know like the back of my hand. |
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Really?
Then why don't you correct your previous and ongoing misrepresentations of "notional value" as hard debt? Why didn't you understand what data was actually contained in Employment Releases? Why would you misinterpret the insurance market as you did? Why would you not understand the nature of simple swaplines or refer to weather derivatives--something I'm very familiar with--as something out of the ordinary? Or later mimic my phrasing of them almost verbatim? Why advocate a fixed-exchange system over a semi-pegged or floating system as the answer to today's financial woes, when it would be to the detriment of the fully industrialized nations and involve fascism on a grand scale? Why not dispute my statements on inflation, monthly food cost, or loan repayment terms regarding *your* example of the Fifties or Sixties in contrast to today?
How about you just try to guess my actual age? Here's a hint, I was born in 1969...but I'm not forty.
No? The reason you can't, is because you truly are just regurgitating what you've read in a loon's writings. Hey, Lyndon LaRouche and his Cassandra prophecies aren't going to be around for you all the time. You had to expect you'd eventually debate someone familiar with both mainstream AND lunatic fringe economic thought. You know, sometimes, you really should just pony up and earn that degree.
Oh, I don't think we've touched upon the British-controlled spot market. Any thoughts on that, Michael?
QUOTE:
| I'd sure like to know what you do for a living. I've known plenty of brokers, that ran chop-shops, all scared out of their wits of being caught and compliance. I bet them about this crisis. They lost to a man. We wagered a laptop. It sits as a trophy to their insanity. I told them the so-called Asian crisis was the same crisis as today's. No, they insisted. Most of them had no idea what a functioning economy was or had read the simplest of economic history books, primary source stuff here. They were just greedy, vapid clowns like you see on CNBC. |
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Gee, why not simply ask all the other kooks in the Schiller Institute to investigate? Maybe, I'm one of those evil Jewish Children of Satan they've gone on about in their diatribes. Maybe, I'm black? What, if I'm gay? My typing, while fast, is filled with typos...maybe I'm handicapped? Maybe, I'm an aetheist?
But, tell me, hasn't LaRouche predicted the imminent downfall of the world and prevailing democratic governments every year or so, since about 1980? Has he *ever* been correct about this *imminient* collapse? What...you guys just play the odds every other year in the hopes that this one will come up the winner for your nihilistic dreams of global collapse?
What was last year's webcast? Wasn't it entitled "LaRouche’s Emergency Address to the Citizens of the U.S.A" in September of 2007. And, in 2006, "Organizing the Recovery from the Great Crash of 2007"; and, to avoid blowing too hard, by skipping to 2001, it was "How To Survive the Onrushing Global Financial Crash." Isn't that about right? How about one way back from the Eighties? Plenty to choose from.
You know the July 24, 2001 rant entitled, "How To Survive the Onrushing Global Financial Crash" routine had the most succint preamble, let's see if it sounds familiar:
"We are now in the depths of a systemic financial crisis, that, if war does not break out between now and the end of the year, or if there are not assassinations of key figures from among international leaders during this period, by the end of year, purely and simply, the present financial system will have collapsed. And the present monetary system as well. It cannot be stopped. We're at the end of the system. What we can do, is, we can save the economy, at the price of sacrificing the existing system."
Cute. Hey, Michael, how about this one, from LaRouche's "The Campaigner: Strategy for Socialism", Sept. 1971, vol. 1:
"Unless socialist governments are established in the U.S.A. and key sectors of Western Europe during the next several years, the coming capitalist depression means an end to the existence of humanity as we know it. From the standpoint of theoretical economics, the predicament of the entire advanced capitalist sector coming depression will be like that of the economy in 1933."
Yep, no matter the year, it is ALWAYS one minute to midnight, with you guys. And, we can fill in just about all the years in between with similar prognostications of ever "imminent" collapse.
You know, for a guy so opposed to the current economic system, he and his vanity press operation sure have made a lot of money off talking about an ever-present financial collapse just around the corner, haven't they?
Of course, LaRouche has taken time off for other endeavors, hasn't he, Michael? Like in 1988, when LaRouche formed the committee, appropriately named PANIC which drafted the Proposition 64 initiative in California. Proposition 64 would would have made AIDS victims subject to mandatory, not simply universally available, aids testing and possible quarantine under California Public Health law. You may recall, Michael, being as old as you are, that this little piece of art was based on LaRouche's theory that HIV was, in a combined contagion-miasma model, spread by casual contact and insect bites. It was a fairly common fear, but LaRouche's "Biological Holocaust Task Force" put a different spin on it by combining the theories of contagion, and sought to give false credence to the notion by wrapping it in junk science.
Fortunately, California must be filled with "brainwashed" rubes, because they defeated the proposition. Twice.
Some people wonder how Hitler's platform of fascism could ever have sounded appealing to the everyday German or Bavarian; well, I'm don't wonder.
And, so it goes...
Edited by Michael Myers on 19 September 2008 at 6:32am
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Michael Myers
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 28 December 2004
Posts: 831
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| Posted: 19 September 2008 at 6:07am | IP Logged | 8
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Oh, and do me a favor and actually address my points and questions this time, huh? I mean, rather than avoiding the question of your errors in favor of taking us off on some new Lyndon LaRouche rant.
To your credit, I will say that you've almost managed to check off all of Christopher Toumey's list regarding the long-established tactics of LaRouche adherents. This, Michael, is from his Conjuring Science, 1996, page 86:
1. The issue is highly visible and charged with emotion.
2. LaRouche and his associates research the issue...
3. LaRouche presents a simplistic solution to the issue. The tone of his rhetoric is authoritarian...
4. The solution requires a crash program for the centralized command of the economy..
5. LaRouche and his followers allege that an evil conspiracy of diabolical forces is blocking LaRouche's solution. Those who disagree with him are subjected to ad hominem attacks, particularly the accusation that they are liars and that their motivations are immoral.
6. LaRouche's personal credentials are presented in terms of his personal expertise in esoteric, even cryptic, subjects and in terms of his privileged access to leading specialists, whose identities are alluded to vaguely, but not usually specified.
Now, the first was a given. You ticked off #6, #5, and #3, almost immediately. What was it on #6...you had "special" training and "special" friends? Number #2 was dodgy, but only myself and two others seemed hip. Yep, looks like I only had to goad you on #4 by pushing you along to a fixed exchange rate, Michael. Sorry, my patience was wearing thin.
It was extremely interesting to see who nodded their head at your nonsense, and who didn't. Extremely interesting, I thought. Hell, I'm still not convinced you're even a real person. Either way, it gives me the opportunity to trash LaRouche and his predictions for anyone else entertaining their "usefulness."
I even smiled, once or twice...like with the authoritarian tone bit, I come across that way on issues I feel strongly about, too; just without the over-simplification caveat. By the way, when you copied the Tremonti bit from LaRouche's site, you left off a few crucial paragraphs that put it in its proper context. No surprise there, I suppose.
Hey, Michael, what do your "well-connected friends" and "special training" have to say about pages like this one, discussing LaRouche and people like you?
democraticunderground.com
I had to smile when read the one who simply wrote, "Crazy MF." I immediately liked that cat, for some reason. Out of hundreds of pages all over the net shredding LaRouche and his wacky theories, that guy summed it up best. He must have been a finance major, familiar with economic theory.
Here's my favorite site, though:
laroucheplanet.info
Any thoughts?
Anyway, spare me the rants aimed at the overly gullible and generally uninformed.
Edited by Michael Myers on 19 September 2008 at 6:34am
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Michael Myers
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Joined: 28 December 2004
Posts: 831
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| Posted: 19 September 2008 at 6:08am | IP Logged | 9
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I nearly busted a gut when I read this one:
"Frankly, the "government is bad" or "government can't do anything right" crowd is full of it."
LMAO. You tell 'em, Michael! Show those voting fools where it's really at! Brown shirts for everybody!
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Michael Myers
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 28 December 2004
Posts: 831
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| Posted: 19 September 2008 at 6:10am | IP Logged | 10
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Oh yeah, your response. I'll save you the time, Michael.
Anyone interested can just go to this page and have it generate your response for them to read:
LaRouche memo generator
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Michael Myers
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 28 December 2004
Posts: 831
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| Posted: 19 September 2008 at 6:12am | IP Logged | 11
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My apologies for the clutter.
Jeff Alan Hays wrote:
William- what was your part of this bill?
As far as charges
being written off, you are denying something that you have no knowledge
of. In the bigger picture, you have no idea how many physicians out
there write off thousands or tens of thousands of dollars a year while
seeing patients.
Though, a couple of points you make are worth
noting. 20 years ago, hospitals functioned as local businesses which
would meet costs, pay employees and put funds back into the business.
Now they are corporate entities with stock holders and the obligations
that come with that.
The incredible cost of medicine is due to
managed care organizations- private and government- and the legal
protection they enjoy as well as the booming malpractice industry. If
you understand that, then you understand the problem. Remember- the
insurance company sets the fee schedules but also establishes many
practices that raise the cost of medicine.
As an aside, I would
say that doctors do spend less time per patient than ever, but you may
not understand what physicians do. What sort of chart orders did your
neonatal intensivist write on any everyday basis? And what sort of
training did he have in order to do this? And do you happen to know the
likely cost of his malpractice premiums?
...I'll say in my own words that the system has
problems, those problems are often secondary to government's current
level of intrusion and a fully socialized medical program will create
further problems with a decreased use of available technology and the
decreased development of new technologies |
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Edited by Michael Myers on 19 September 2008 at 6:23am
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Joe Zhang
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 12843
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| Posted: 19 September 2008 at 6:33am | IP Logged | 12
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"
Confused old McCain seems to think Spain is part of Latin America."
A few years back I got really interested in geography. I was surprised how little I knew of countries and their national boundaries (and still don't.) On the other hand, I'm not going to become the P.O.T.U.S. anytime soon.
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Topic Closed)
