Mostly by subsidizing it heavily while failing to enforce anti-trust. This one isn’t about insurance, patents, or even unions; it concerns hospitals, suppliers, sole-source contracts and kick-backs. Like most medical stuff, there’s too much money and power involved to expect a good result.
via Naked Capitalism
Florida journalists Robert Block and Mark K. Matthews see it as a conflict of interest that a former Marathon Oil Director, who still owns over half a million dollars worth of Marathon stock, is working to prevent NASA, which he heads, from developing a method of creating oil from waste, algae, and seawater, while absorbing CO2. The scandal apparently is that the suspect, Charlie Bolden, sought advice from Marathon before seeking to delay the project.
Buried deep in the text is the note that Marathon has its own “proprietary microbe” to produce ethanol from wood chips. Whereas, one hopes, that a successful NASA project would produce technology available to all.
I suppose Bolden wanted, not to kill the project, but only to slow it until Marathon’s attorneys can figure a way to monopolize the “intellectual” “property” which it produces. Am I cynical?
btw, I think Tribune Company still owns the Orlando Sentinel, where this article was produced, but there is, so far, no sign of it in on Chicagotribune.com.
One (of several) good arguments for eliminating, or at least drastically scaling back, patents, is the existence of patent trolls, entities whose sole business is trying to hinder the diffusion of innovation. They buy patents believed to have little value, and try to intimidate actual productive individuals or companies into licensing them. If you’re, say, a manufacturer, and a troll offers you a license for a few thousand dollars, you might just pay up to avoid the expense and risk of defending yourself.
Now, we have debt trolls. These are (per second page of this article) “well-funded, aggressive and centralized collection firms, in many cases run by attorneys, that buy up unpaid debt and use the courts to collect.” The reason it’s news is that, in Minnesota and some other states, taxpayer-funded police, jails, and courts are used to arrest the alleged debtor and collect the debt. It’s not exactly debtor’s prison, but it is going to jail because you’ve failed to pay what you (presumably) owe.
via Naked Capitalism.
For just one day (April 1, of course) a UK merchant added to their terms and conditions which every on-line purchaser is required to accept:
…you agree to grant Us a non transferable option to claim, for now and for ever more, your immortal soul. Should We wish to exercise this option, you agree to surrender your immortal soul, and any claim you may have on it, within 5 (five) working days of receiving written notification…we reserve the right to serve such notice in 6 (six) foot high letters of fire, however we can accept no liability for any loss or damage caused by such an act.
Purchasers were offered an opt-out checkbox, but apparently only 12% checked it.
Of course nobody reads the terms and conditions. (Actually, I have met one person who claims to; I didn’t ask him whether he had actually purchased anything on-line.) On more than one occasion I’ve found the link to terms and conditions didn’t work, or made no sense, have notified the vendor and usually received an updated link or a correction.
It’s true that census confidentiality is imperfect and could be used to compromise civil liberties, but I can’t imagine any way that it could be used to steal one’s identity (especially if one is cautious enough not to provide name information on the form). IRS, that’s a different matter. Anyway, Equifax has found another way to sell their protection racket. If it’s “only $4.95” for the first month, how much is it thereafter?
Thanks to Windypundit for this tip.
This broadcast documentary looks at the relationship between income (and other status considerations) and health, including life expectancy. Statistically, your income is strongly associated with how long you’ll live. And recent statistics indicate that Americans’ life expectancy is lower than that of 29 other countries.
One of my favorite points regarding health care is made:
NICHOLAS CHRISTAKIS: But the vast majority of improvements in health in our society over the last century have had very little to do with medical innovation. What really counts is other kinds of things we can do, and those other kinds of things tend to be non-medical things. Like, thinking about the distribution of wealth in our society, or providing public health infrastructure, or better education for people, better housing – all of those things which aren’t medical phenomena. It’s all those that are really material for public health.
Social Security reportedly provides a higher monthly payment, relative to the amount put in, for lower income workers. But because low income people have shorter lifespans, this doesn’t mean that it redistributes income downward.
And any post about income inequality, including this one, should include a disclaimer such as the following:
Any system of taxes and subsidies intended to equalize incomes will do so inefficiently if at all, and is likely to be perverted. An effective solution to the problems of poverty requires the elimination of privilege and the preservation of opportunity for people to earn a good living.
Originally broadcast last year, this seems to be a four hour program, and I’ve only read part of the transcript for the first hour. Thanks to Bob Matter for pointing it out.
Last fall I mentioned a deal between Korean conglomerate Daewoo and the gov’t of Madascar, for the former to get half a Belgium’s worth of farmland at basically no charge. Turns out it was more controversial than I thought, caused a revolution, and the new government has revoked the deal. But, as the linked article explains, similar deals are proceeding in several other countries.
This information comes from farmlandgrab.org (“Governments and corporations are buying up farmland in other countries to grow their own food – or simply to make money”), via Alanna Hartzok.
We have an estimate!
Fraud typically gobbles up around 7% of all big contracts.
This is from Watchdog Over Stimulus Spending Toes a Delicate Line, by Neil King, Jr., WSJ 3/9/09. Altho no source is cited, the implication is that this came from Earl Devaney, who according to the article heads the federal Recovery Act Accountability and Transparency Board.
I guess that’s just fraud. Waste and inefficiency are things entirely different.
That’s one of the names Josh Vincent suggests for New Mexico’s SB333, which would reduce real estate taxes on vacant land and make up the shortfall by raising taxes on homeowners and everyone else who actually owns (or rents) land with a structure on it. I imagine some land speculators find themselves in financial difficulty, but they still have enough to influence a few legislators, and I guess this is intended to bail them out. Perhaps they just want to get legally what owners of Cook County vacant land get in practice.
Maybe I don’t know how to search, but I can’t find anything about this bill anywhere on the Internet.
I guess we could name it the “Housing Prevention Act.”