New study on wind energy

Oh Golly, Pollyanna, is it true that the same American businessmen who made their fortunes during the horrific uncertainty of the Cold War and the ever-present threat of Nuclear Winter no longer live and breathe? I hear this "uncertainty myth" and I ask you to name what "certainties" modern businesses enjoy today. They have almost no guaranties of any kind. To make the "uncertainty of health care costs" into the horrible, fearsome incalcuable uncertainty monster holding the entire US business sector at bay borders on the ludicrous. I'm just saying . . . (-:

My employers/companies always paid for health benefits. Since the recent, mostly manufactured debate on the debt limit centers on "the children" it seems that taking away their health care at more and more businesses every day doesn't factor into "robbing their future." Our children should have better lives than we've led because of the addition of our life's labor to society. I had employer/company provided healthcare during my life. Why should the next generation get ripped off? That's how companies can afford $20M+ salary packages for CEOs - by reducing costs to the bone for everyone

*else* in the company.

The idea that businesses that have the daring to attempt to commercialize moon travel yet fear some extra costs associated with employees doesn't even sound plausible. It sounds like anti universal health care propaganda. Matching two dates does not a correlation make.

Obviously I am astounded at the idea that businessmen who've created entire new sectors of the economy out of scratch cower at taking on the risk of once again having to at least co-pay worker's health care. Where was this alleged incredible risk aversion when businesses were buying the complex financial securities that sank the economy? It wasn't there then, it isn't there now.

There's no demand for products or the new employees to make more of them because the economy hasn't restarted. That's why the numbers are flat. If it's up to some in Congress, it will never restart.

Yabbut. Compare the cradle-to-grave care some of these countries offer compared to ours and the numbers come out a little differently in what it costs to actually "live a life." That's a metric that's pretty hard to come by in way that's easily comparable and not subject to incredible cherry-picking and criticism.

by far the highest

Does i.e. mean the top 10% pay half their income to the state?

There's a reason why people come to America rather than Russia to make their fortunes. Here in America, they might even be allowed to keep their fortunes AND live. The government everyone loves to hate stands as a rock of stability worldwide and is why Wall St. runs the world. Yet some are determined to drive us to very grim consequences to score political points. It's ironic that Boehner now has to deal with the Tea Party he was happy have swell House ranks last year (I'll bet he was never *really* happy about it and this predictable state of affairs is why).

All this (and much of economic prediction) depends on people acting rationally. Study after study shows they don't. Especially NOT Congress! Even you've reminded us that people aren't well equipped psychologically to evaluate potential risks from various threats. People have been warned so many foods are evil followed by a "we were wrong about so and so" that they shut down input on the subject altogether.

Except for now, when for a lot of people there's NO capital gain when they have to sell a house for less than they paid for it. I'll agree that the wealthy have strange and wonderful ways to evade/avoid taxation and will certainly always find a way to adjust to a tax law change. But maybe we'll help balance the budget by the time they catch up. What happened some other time is only mildly comparable to today's market. Employment numbers are strongly affected by housing prices. You won't move from NJ to Seattle to take a $250K loss. When the housing market slumps, employment numbers soon follow.

Hard to imagine that when the Constitution was written there was no income tax. No capital gains tax. No sales tax.

-- Bobby G.

Reply to
Robert Green
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So even the denialist report admits that GW _is_ happening. Clue. Science changes it's predications as date shows it is necessary.

Harry K

Reply to
Harry K

If you can't refute the stats, ridicule them. Works every time. There is a big difference from the amorphous maybe of a missile strike and the actual lack of knowledge of what will happen with what is most people's second biggest expense. Especially in the great unwashed of those who don't currently have to will past reform.

Actually the employer paid HC is a large part of the reason we are in the fix we are. It managed to divorce the user (you and me) from the costs of healthcare. CMS figures have shown every year that the average person in America pays less then 20% (topping out at 18%) of all healthcare expenses out of pocket, and that includes the o-o-p part of the premium. When things are subsidized to such a great extent, then all sorts of weird things happen to demand and supply. That and for awhile (in one of the great ironies of the latter 20th century) it was actually cheaper to give better health insurance than to actually pay a similar wage. THis exacerbated the above problems by moving (for awhile anyway) toward hiding even more of the expenses through low co-pays. We haven't had health insurance (with insurance defined as taking a rare but expensive risk and dividing that risk among many people) since the demise of the old Major Medical policies.

Well is you are astounded, everyone must be astounded.

Job formation is THE major driver of demand for products, especially in the early stages of a recovery (which we are in). I also noted you haven't done anything to actually call into question the validity of the stats.

WHich has nothing to do with the progessivity of the tax system.

Which is completely beside the point since under current law, you don't PAY cap gains taxes on housing unless you have a monster cap gain (IIRC it somewhere over $500,000 of cap gains that are excluded. That is cap gains, not the price of the house.) and then only if you don't recycle the gain into another abode within two years.

Yep.

Reply to
Kurt Ullman

And there's your answer: don't do the required annual physical and you get dinged financially

Reply to
Malcom "Mal" Reynolds

On 7/29/2011 1:04 PM, Malcom "Mal" Reynolds wrote: ...

And there's the rub (but the apparent panacea to many) -- let the government control every aspect of every minute of everybody's life.

Thanks, but no thanks... :(

Reply to
dpb

Your entire thesis is built around the all-too-commmon belief that only short-term profit and supply demand count in dealing with the labor force. There are many Western developed countries that calculate differently: They believe that workers are human beings and are entitled to be treated as human beings. Healthful working conditions; adequate pay to support a family in dignity; the right to organize; the right to health care, especially preventative health care, and so forth.

The American model does not include any of the above --unless they have been won by organized labor negotiating with employers. And we all know what has happened to organized labor since Reagan started the avalanche of union-busting by firing the air controllers. Are you happy now, with air controllers falling asleep on the job, and the FAA still not allowing scheduled rest periods? How blind and deaf can they be? YOU're the one who is going to crash - heaven forbid.

What American-style capitalism dismally fails to recognize is that PRODUCTIVITY IS MUCH HIGHER AND TURNOVER (expensive to retain) IS MUCH LOWER if the employees are well-treated; given reason to think that they have a stake in the company's success; listened to; and a host of other factors that any company with half a brain would see are to the long-run BENEFIT of their profits. Enlightened capitalism is still by far the best way to run an economy -- ENLIGHTENED!!!!

Trouble is that employers, especially the giant mega-mega employers, including the international ones, do not give a **** about the human beings work who work for them. They look only at quarterly earnings reports and ****in their pants with fear that the share price might drop and the shareholders will move on. They have the entire economy by the short & curlies. The pathetic thing is that the very ones being

****ed up the *** are bending over & begging for more. Like the more obtuse dupes of the Tea Party (started by a gazillionaire in Texas, who must be laughing all the way to the bank).
Reply to
Higgs Boson

On 7/29/2011 2:17 PM, harry wrote: ...

Or at least the ones _you_ choose... :)

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Reply to
dpb

Just leave Communism out of it, buddy! Communism, as practied in the former USSR and its satellite slave countries, had zip to do with atheism; that was just a convenient tool. To turn Marx on his head, Atheism became the opium of the masses.

Atheism, and its more reasonable cousin Agnosticism, is a scientific way of looking at the EVIDENCE. NO belief system (religion) has ever had a shred of EVIDENCEto support its beliefs. Whatthese belief systems have is scared people looking for comfort, which they find in their faith. If I were to tell a (practitioner of belief system) that he could walk across 8 lanes of freeway traffic without getting killed, would he do it? I think he'd look at the EVIDENCE.

I look forward to the day when we can have an honest agnostic in the White House (and in Congress). Being an agnostic means leading a moral existence without the need for an outside Deity or whatever to hold a reward/punishment threat over people's heads. Religious people

-- which is most of them -- lead hypocritical lives, where they pick and choose what edicts they will hold to, and what they will violate. Of course there are enormously good and decent religious people. But they would be that way even with an outside belief system.

HB

Reply to
Higgs Boson

What stats? Did you post something that conclusively showed businesses weren't hiring due to this "uncertainty factor" that's so often thrown around in the press? I must have missed it. All I saw were two trends that matched up for what could have been a dozen different and far more like reasons. I believe Cindy nailed it: there are no jobs because there is no demand because too many people are out of work or underwater on a home. As unemployment benefits and stimulus money runs out and states "shut down" like Minnesota:

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we can expect demand to slacken even more and the housing and unemployment numbers to react accordingly.

" Consider these tricky rules: The State Department of Revenue says it still expects people to pay their taxes, but it won't be sending out refunds. Residents may renew their driver's licenses in certain locations, but no driver's exams will be offered. The Minnesota Zoo is closed to visitors, but a "Music in the Zoo" concert series was to proceed (though no animals would be on display). State lottery ticket sales have ceased, costing the state revenue, but people with winning tickets in hand can't redeem them for cash."

Yes, that's certain to create jobs. In the Twilight zone.

You need to translate that into English for me and perhaps the rest of us. Your English teacher is rolling in his or her grave. Well, at least mine would be.

Agreed. But the source was the practice of providing outrageously cheap health care as a way to circumvent the WWII wage freeze that began the problem. It's another of the many *gifts* that wars keep on giving us. Once it got established, it was very hard to put the brakes on it.

Is that working Americans? Retirees? Out of work people? I haven't seen a detailed study of medical cost issues that didn't have structural "issues" you could drive a Mack truck through. The way the health care system is arranged if you DON'T belong to an organization like Carefirst or even Medicare, you'll pay the full freight for your medical care, including the outrageously kited prices of medicines, fees and DME that in many cases doubled before the RX portion of Medicare started up. Sure you can offer the government "great" prices on drugs after you've raised them enormously. Europeans pay less (up to 40% less!) for American drugs than Americans do. How is that right? Why am *I* subsidizing Europeans?

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"Decision Resources came out with a report showing that drug costs in Europe are an average of 40 percent less than in the U.S.--a price differential that shows why reimportation was ever raised in the first place. The study covered 170 of the most popular drugs and found costs to range from a low of

55 percent of the U.S. price in Italy to a high of 70 percent in Germany. Most of the biggest price differences were on older drugs--such as Eli Lilly's Prozac--that face generic competition; apparently, branded drugmakers tend to cut prices in the face of generic competition in Europe, but hold those prices steady in the U.S. Differentials varied not only by geographic area, but also by therapeutic area, too."

Why do seniors have to take buses to Canada to buy medicine there? There's a lot wrong with American medicine, and much of it starts with Big Pharma and trickles down. Anyone who's ever seen the liner of a garbage dump knows that what trickles down is NOT good stuff.

As a result of many factors, but all started in WWII to evade wage controls. To me it's simple. If the nation has a right to draft you at 18 and send you off to war, then it has a vested interest in its citizen's health. Regrettably, medicine is a very profit-oriented business, and not necessarily a "healthy customer" oriented one. If it were, the MRSA scandal couldn't possibly exist. But it does because hospitals were making money on second visits treating the horrific infections they gave the patients during their FIRST visit. Now that Medicare won't pay for treatment of iatrogenically-caused MRSA, hospitals are cleaning up their act. Very, very s l o w l y.

Are all Major Med/high deductible policies gone? As I noted before, if you're not in a big plan like Carefirst aka Blue Double Cross or Medicare, you pay full (highly inflated) rates for drugs, DME and medical fees. Many people I know express awe when they see the numbers for "rate charged" and "rate negotiated" on their statements because they are so radically different.

I *is* very astounded. (-: In the light of all the uncertainties most businesses face without fear, the theory just doesn't hold a lot of water. But it's promulgated any time change is threatened.

What stats? That jobs are lagging again? Maybe it's the uncertainty of knowing whether the US will default on its debts that's scaring business. Lack of demand is historically far more likely than either healthcare or debt ceiling uncertainties to keep the job creation rate low. Companies are finding that in a recession they can fire people and get their co-workers to work even harder to cover the gaps for fear that they, too, will get sacked. Now *that's* real fear - seeing co-workers getting the boot, knowing no one will be hired to replace them and that the remaining workers will now have to carry that load. Accounts for that "productivity increase" that you often tout as being a positive economic indicator.

Which causes me to ask, what did tax progressiveness or lack thereof have anything to do with the subject of business uncertainty? That knife cuts both ways. FWIW, I was merely attempting to point out that different nations have very different financial and social structures and any attempts to cross-level them are fraught with as many potential interpretations and problems as climate modeling has.

Having an asset you can't sell (for most people their most expensive asset) is going to effect every other financial decision you make.

Hey, we agree on something. Break out the champagne.

-- Bobby G.

Reply to
Robert Green

On 7/29/2011 2:37 PM, Higgs Boson wrote: ...

OTOH, there's no way to prove the negative, either... :)

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Reply to
dpb

If you refer to Lincoln, many southerners would agree...

Reply to
HeyBub

That's just not true. There were 200,000 witnesses to God's revelation at Sinai (plus countless women, children, slaves, and asses). And an unbroken oral tradition retelling the tale to subsequent generations. As such, that fact is as acceptable and believable as a news story in the New York Times.

No, wait...

Never mind.

Reply to
HeyBub

I dunno. Someone posted an interesting site a while back about why an all-powerful God who makes miracle cures each minute of each day has never regrown a severed limb. I had my (sadly dying) evangelic cousin tackle that and she responded "there have been cases of fingertip regeneration." If there is a God, he/she/it seems strangely limited to effecting cures that random chance could just as easily explain. The fact that there are so many different versions of God tends to prove that there isn't any true one. A "true" God should have been revealed a long, long time ago but just the reverse is happening - religions split all the time, splintering even further the concept of one all-knowing God.

-- Bobby G.

Reply to
Robert Green

GW already happened, didn't you know... it's what eliminated the last 'Ice Age' (12,000 years ago), and it was fast, relative to how long it took for glaciation. The period which follows ice ages are called 'Inter Glacial Periods', the period we are in now. A time line of temperature (with low resolution) since the last ice age (after the fast, large rise), is a flat horizontal line. With resolution... it's up and down with a flat horizontal trend.

You need a better glue on your labels... they keep falling off.

Reply to
M.A. Stewart

for us agnostic/atheists can you provide proof of this?

Reply to
Malcom "Mal" Reynolds

Yes, of course. We'd be much better with volunteer armies, armor, armament. Also volunteer built bridges, tunnels, aquaducts etc would be better.

But then again with the current state of public education, who really cares

Reply to
Malcom "Mal" Reynolds

Actually it was a government expedience, and those hardly ever go wrong (grin).

That is the annual report(s) from the Office of the Actuary on ALL healthcare expenditures in the US of A. Working, out of work, retired, child and man. The whole enchilada.

The way the health care system is

As much as it pains me deeply to say this, I have seen bunches of studies that suggest we are not subsidizing anyone. I have had rather large knock-down-drag-outs with people when I suggest that we are, but studies don't suggest that. They seem to indicate that the pharm settle for less profits elsewhere. What nobody has been able to explain is why that isn't subsidization...

Canada has price controls for brand medicines. They just say what they will pay. Some drugs aren't available in Canada because of this. Interestingly, generics are actually much cheaper in the US than Canada largely because they aren't price controlled in the Great White North.

Not really. It all started in WWII so the government could buy off the workers who were getting restless under the wage and price controls. Paying for health care wasn't really violating these controls (nudge, nudge, wink, wink). Not evading when the government itself gives you the out. Actually the real problems did not really start until the 60s. In

1960 the o-o-p expense for healthcare (from earlier versions of the healthcare expenditures study) stood at 50%. Now it is less than 20% that I actually delve into my own pocket to pay for. As the o-o-p expense from healthcare made that drop, the %age of GDP towards healthcare rose in tandem. Coincidence? I think not.

Yet nobody is on awe of the difference between street price and msrp for cars, electronics, etc. Heck even most of the uninsured don't even pay those prices.

Reply to
Kurt Ullman

Dennis Lockhart, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, has saying that "the lack of clarity about the cost implications of the recent health care legislation" is a prominent factor in the sluggish recovery. "We've frequently heard strong comments to the effect of 'my company won't hire a single additional worker until we know what health insurance costs are going to be,'" the Fed president said.

Reply to
Kurt Ullman

On 7/29/2011 9:57 PM, Malcom "Mal" Reynolds wrote: ...

We do have if you hadn't noticed...

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Reply to
dpb

Actually, the Cheney-instigated invasion of Iraq (neglecting the REAL target, Osama's refuge in Afghanistan) was to put down that insolent rascal of a Saddam Hussein who actually thought he could bust the sacrosanct US.-Saudi oil relationship and replace it with his cartel. Tsk, tsk! And then to have the chutzpah to plan denominating his oil in Euros instead of the sacred Dollar! Man's gotta go...

HB

Reply to
Higgs Boson

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