The Tyranny of Medical Bills in America

[Rob C]

Complacency, sorry but teenagers will swallow you up if you are not on your game. Teaching was a never ending challenge!

Cheers,

I know Tom, and my teacher daughter tells me she sees it and fights it every day.

Why does it exist? Easy: political correctness. Teachers can't tell it like it is anymore. Cellphones in class: she can't take them off the little buggers because if she does, puts them all on a table, when it's time to collect them after the period, she will be accused of having broken them. No, not joking. Being in a class is considered as good as having worked in that class.

School successes or otherwise: she teaches in a well-regarded city school; there are several non-indigenous, non-white kids in every class she deals with, and some do better than others. When it comes to streaming them into Higher or Lower English grades for the next year she often, at parent-teacher nights, gets indignant Asian parents complaining that their child has been relegated to the Lower division, that it mars their future chances, and they ask why. On asking which language the family speaks at home, they reply Hindi, Urdu or whatever. Reluctantly, she has to rest her case and therefore face accusations of racism. How can she, in all honesty, and with that child's future results in mind, send it up to a level she knows perfectly well that it hasn't a snowball's chance of hacking? Better a pass at Lower grade than abysmal failure at Higher. Unlike on the Indian sub-continent, there's no glory in "Failed BSc" on your UK CV!

It's the trouble with so much in the last forty or so years: everybody has to be perceived a winner and as equally good at everything as everybody else, the unachievable hights of fantasy. But, 'tis how it has become.

Atlas Shrugged comes to mind, and where this might easily lead us.

Rob C

[amolitor]

I love Atlas Shrugged. They idea of a bunch of CEOs living in a far away valley starving to death because they can't actually do anything practical fills me with joy.

Assuming that the profit motive will solve all problems is naive.

[Alan Klein]

I know Tom, and my teacher daughter tells me she sees it and fights it every day.

Why does it exist? Easy: political correctness. Teachers can't tell it like it is anymore. Cellphones in class: she can't take them off the little buggers because if she does, puts them all on a table, when it's time to collect them after the period, she will be accused of having broken them. No, not joking. Being in a class is considered as good as having worked in that class.

School successes or otherwise: she teaches in a well-regarded city school; there are several non-indigenous, non-white kids in every class she deals with, and some do better than others. When it comes to streaming them into Higher or Lower English grades for the next year she often, at parent-teacher nights, gets indignant Asian parents complaining that their child has been relegated to the Lower division, that it mars their future chances, and they ask why. On asking which language the family speaks at home, they reply Hindi, Urdu or whatever. Reluctantly, she has to rest her case and therefore face accusations of racism. How can she, in all honesty, and with that child's future results in mind, send it up to a level she knows perfectly well that it hasn't a snowball's chance of hacking? Better a pass at Lower grade than abysmal failure at Higher. Unlike on the Indian sub-continent, there's no glory in "Failed BSc" on your UK CV!

It's the trouble with so much in the last forty or so years: everybody has to be perceived a winner and as equally good at everything as everybody else, the unachievable hights of fantasy. But, 'tis how it has become.

Atlas Shrugged comes to mind, and where this might easily lead us.

Rob C

Wow.  Stuff like that is going on in America.  I didn't realize you had the same problem over there. 

[Alan Klein]

And another: http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/tb-drug-price-cycloserine-1.3237868

Reminds me of when those Enron scum started jacking up the price of electricity in California, just because they could. One of the reasons humans started collecting into groups was to protect themselves from predators. I wonder why we sometimes remove regulations that protect us. Who benefits from that?

Free-market competition didn't do much to lower prices in these cases, so some mechanism appears to have broken down. I don't think it's a good sign that our culture can't protect us from this kind of behaviour.

We were protected against these corrupt people at Enron.  The people who did those things went to jail, committed suicide, lost their money or just plain died early.  These things happened because they violated regulations and civil and criminal laws.

So what's your point? 

 http://www.efinancialnews.com/story/2011-12-01/enron-ten-years-on-where-they-are-now

[Diego Pigozzo]

These things happened because they violated regulations and civil and criminal laws.

So what's your point? 

Do damage is less damaging if it's legal?
If they hadn't violated any laws, would you find their behavior acceptable?

[Otto Phocus]

I wonder why we sometimes remove regulations that protect us. Who benefits from that?

Follow the money. 

If corporations can make more money with deregulation, that is what they will push for. 

[amolitor]

In these more enlightened times we fine banks a small percentage of the profits they made with their illegal scams, and we don't jail anyone.

Enron was the exception. And corporate America moved quickly and decisively to ensure that it doesn't happen again.

And here we are!

[Alan Klein]

Do damage is less damaging if it's legal?
If they hadn't violated any laws, would you find their behavior acceptable?

No, their behaviors would not be acceptable.  That's why we have those laws. The original poster complained that these people committed fraud without penalty.  He was mistaken.  Enron officials paid severe penalties.

[Alan Klein]

In these more enlightened times we fine banks a small percentage of the profits they made with their illegal scams, and we don't jail anyone.

Enron was the exception. And corporate America moved quickly and decisively to ensure that it doesn't happen again.

And here we are!

Write President Obama.  It is his Dept of Justice that prosecutes.  Either he's in bed with the banks or there wasn't enough evidence to prosecute. 

[amolitor]

Enron officials paid severe penalties.

Quick now. Name a second case.

[amolitor]

Write President Obama.  It is his Dept of Justice that prosecutes.  Either he's in bed with the banks or there wasn't enough evidence to prosecute.

Yes. Obama is the only president that has ever been, so all of history is his fault.

[Isaac]

"What in the hell doe's that mean? "

Please explain!

You generalized one person's opinion into a national stereotype.

[Isaac]

Write President Obama.

President Obama is not the bogeyman, that's for children.

"The crisis definitely happened on their watch," said Kenneth Rogoff, a professor of economics at Harvard University who advises the Republican presidential candidate John McCain. "This is eight years into the Bush administration. There was a lot of time to deal with it."

[Alan Klein]

Yes. Obama is the only president that has ever been, so all of history is his fault.

Obama has been president some the 2008 shock to the economy caused mainly by najor real estate and bank finagling.   Yet Obama prosecuted none of the culprits except for monetary fines.   So yes.   He did nothing.

[amolitor]

Yes. Well, to be exact, the failure to prosecute those particular criminals occurred on his watch.

And the rest of the criminals on other presidents' watches? I feel confident that:

- when a republican was a president, the justice department was a bunch of impossible foot draggers
- when a democrat was president, the president himself simply lacked the will, the guts, to enforce the law of the land

[Rob C]

If you want a wonderful exposé of the entire sub-prime scandal and how and why it happened, ran for so long, you simply must catch a film called Inside Job.

Of particular interest to LuLa photographers, it starts with the Icelandic banks, and in getting there, you have the pleasure of some breathtaking Icelandic imagery.

Beauty apart, you eventually learn about the various U.S. university lecturers who were advisers to various governmental heads, how they remain in position, their monetary philosophy still being sold to students and govt. so much later, and, basically, the unbelievable crap shoot that banking and the markets actually appears to be.

I wish I had that video as my own, but I only borrowed it, twice!

Rob C

P.S.

William B. Williams, author of this book, is an American gentleman I know who spends time here; his book, Future Perfect, is very explanatory of the American electoral system and why it holds the U.S. in the vice from which it appears unable to release itself.

This link is relevant to the book:

http://www.albertsuckow.com/future-perfect-present-empowerment-william-williams/

[Alan Klein]

Of course the banks and real estate brokers gave out these mortgages because Congress insisted upon it so the poor could live in homes like other people.  So people who couldn't support the mortgages are given them without any need to show capability to repay.  So maybe Obama didn't prosecute because it would have embarrassed too many people in Congress as well as all t h e truth came out.  So the Democrat Congress told Obama to forget it.

[tom b]

I'm only speaking from my experience. As a teacher you can't be lazy, students will chew you up and spit you out.
I'm pretty sure that is true for most public servants. Cutbacks have made sure that if you are not pulling your weight you will lose your job.
I went through three restructures before the global financial crisis caught up with me on the fourth occasion. Luckily I had some good Superannuation.
My last job as a Teacher Illustrator went from 28 positions to just 3, just saying.

Cheers,

[Isaac]

Of course the banks and real estate brokers gave out these mortgages because Congress insisted upon it so the poor could live in homes like other people.

'The Big Short'

[Ray]

Here is one plausible explanation of what is going on: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800914000615​

They predict it could only a few decades left for us.

Interesting article, Petrus. I'm sure that climate-change alarmists will find fuel in that study to support their opinions, because of the conclusions that over-exploitation of natural resources, (in combination with economic stratification or economic inequality), might be the cause of the eventual collapse of our civilization, unless we take effective action to avoid it.

However, when reading this study, I was reminded of the following article I read some time ago in which the author calculated that solar panels alone, if they were to cover the entire, uninhabited part of the Sahara Desert, could provide 46 times the amount of energy the world currently consumes.

Of course, some of that energy would be lost during transmission over long distances, although current HVDC lines have a very low transmission loss. Also, for security reasons it wouldn't be wise to concentrated all the world's power sources in one location. The point is, just a small fraction of the uninhabited area of the Sahara Desert would be sufficient to provide our current energy needs. There are many deserts on the planet, and large areas of arid and sparsely populated land, including vacant roof areas on millions of buildings.

As solar technology improves we could theoretically produce hundreds of times the amount of energy we currently use, and in a sustainable and affordable manner.
Since energy supplies are directly related to the average material wealth of all of us, (nothing can be produced without expenditure of energy), the future is very bright. Every person on the planet could (theoretically and technically) become a millionaire, if we apply the latest, innovative technology.

We are limited only by our energy supplies and our imagination. Energy from the sun is huge. Unfortunately, our imagination might be lacking. 

http://www.planetthoughts.org/?pg=pt/Whole&qid=3149
 
"the unpopulated area of the Sahara desert is over 9 million km², which if covered with solar panels would provide 630 terawatts total power. The Earth's current energy consumption rate is around 13.5 TW at any given moment (including oil, gas, coal, nuclear, and hydroelectric). This measure arrives at a multiplier of 46 times the area needed (to provide all the current energy demands of the entire human race)."