Y2HH

QUOTE (mr_genius @ Nov 23, 2012 -> 07:52 PM) Riot breaks out during unveiling of the new free Obama phone. http://radio.woai.com/cc-common/news/secti...rticle=10591459 Anyone that does that is an animal, plain and simple. Haven't any of these people heard of the f***ing Internet? Even if you don't have Internet access, go to a f***ing library and use it for free to order your stuff online...and then you don't have to deal with douchenozzles like this.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Nov 19, 2012 -> 10:47 AM) Here's the view of somebody that worked for Hostess: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/11/18/1...Hostess-Bankery This was a lose lose situation for quite a while now. Horribly managed company in a market of terrible margins. Everyone lost in this, from the company itself, to the union, to the workers. In this story, for example, he goes on about his falling wages due to union concession, which sucks...but it is what it is. So they were going to cut his pay from 34,000 to 24,000 over 5 years. Talk about a s*** situation. Well, instead of taking a cut of 34,000 to 24,000 over 5 years, he took a cut of 34,000 to 0 inside of five minutes. Which is better in a terrible situation? In either case, it serves as ANOTHER reminder to the youth (and you college kids), that you'd better be learning something that's useful to the world around you. Very few people get paid really well to do what they love doing. Very few. Odds are you will not be one of them. So, get paid well for something you don't mind doing...and use the money you make to do the things you love doing on your own time.

QUOTE (kjshoe04 @ Nov 26, 2012 -> 12:38 AM) Can anyone tell me what a Keurig does that makes it so expensive? I've started to get into coffee a bit and live on my own so I'd only want to make a cup at a time but I can't figure out why these things are over 100 bucks. Pretty much what others have touched on. Time. You are paying for time.

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Nov 25, 2012 -> 08:56 PM) Rock, I'm confused, you got a Keurig but that's a single cup coffee maker? I think I missed bmags - you don't like it? Just bad flavor or haven't ran across one you like yet? Could you put another "cup" in there? Y2HH? Same thing? Reason I bring this up is I am inheriting one of those in my office... I had one cup and it seems like it wasn't too bad. But then again the coffee from my old place was absolutely craptacular. It was like drinking water that was brewed through a s*** strainer or something, if that's what s*** tastes like. Can I get other containers for that brewer somewhere (I haven't the googled yet). It's not the worst coffee I've ever had in my life, don't get me wrong. It's just not very good, either. It's average. I'm a coffee drinker that prefers french press coffee (IMO, one of the only pure ways to make coffee left in a world of Keurig's and crappy auto drip makers). First, coffee has to be stored properly, as beans, and ground before you make it, or it dries out. If you've ever seen truly fresh coffee beans, they look greasy...grinding those up and french pressing them releases those oils...and it's amazing. Second, coffee has to be brewed at a temperature very few coffee makers even come close to reaching, which is around 200 degrees F. Most auto makers hit about 160. So, when it comes to coffee makers, I'm not going to be happy with most of them. If I was basing this on the average coffee consumers tastes, however, I'm sure the Keurig and others are just fine.

QUOTE (bmags @ Nov 16, 2012 -> 12:40 PM) I'm not sure why you guys believe there is a complaint. The complaint is that democrats should perhaps stop sitting on their asses during midterms. Contradictory post is contradictory. "There is no complaint...the complaint is..." Didn't the democrats do exactly this in IL and win a few seats by doing so?

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Nov 16, 2012 -> 11:37 AM) More on this: http://themonkeycage.org/blog/2012/11/15/n...t-the-congress/ I'm not sure I get the complaint. So when gerrymandering works in the Democrats favor, it's ok, but when it doesn't, it's not?

QUOTE (mr_genius @ Nov 16, 2012 -> 11:16 AM) the Hostess outlet store is was awesome Fixed.

QUOTE (Iwritecode @ Nov 16, 2012 -> 11:04 AM) Along these same lines, I worked at an Osco one time. As an employee discount we were allowed to buy things at cost + 10%. One of the first things that was pointed out to me was that I could buy a bottle of asprin for about 47 cents. I don't remember the retail price but I'm sure it was at least 2 or 3 dollars. Same experience, I also worked at Osco for a spell. Many times you could buy products for almost 80% off retail.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Nov 16, 2012 -> 10:27 AM) I'm not defending overpricing. I'm criticizing Reason's solution: price-information-driven choices. As long as my insurance company is bearing the burden above my deductible or co-pay, I have no real incentive to price-shop my medical procedures. That clip was posted along with my own comments highlighting the overpricing. I wasn't intending to say this is exactly how we should do things across the board, my intention was made clear by what I said before the video. You ignored that, and it was pretty important to NOT ignore that.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Nov 16, 2012 -> 10:26 AM) If we're relying on insurance, then there's no incentive for us to give a s*** about prices because we're not paying them (at least directly). For this sort of consumer-pricing model to work, you need to have unique situations like what was described in the video: someone who will simply foot the bill directly (or their company will do it for them). As long as Blue Cross Blue Shield (or Medicare) continues to pay for my procedure beyond my $500 deductible, I don't have incentive to price-shop my care. Nor is it always practical or possible to price-shop some of the most expensive care. It's pretty common to see people in libertarian circles arguing against how we currently use health insurance, anyway. The general argument would be that we should be paying for all but catastrophic costs out-of-pocket, analogous to car insurance paying for crashes but not oil changes. But as long as every medical procedure and prescription cost continues to be obscured from the consumer by insurance, we don't have the incentive. I pay $30/month for my medication regardless of whether I take the name-brand or the generic. And, even when consumers are paying for it, there's still huge name-brand power. Advil still dominates the ibuprofen market despite there being numerous generics that are significantly cheaper. Health has its own unique incentives of everyone always wanting the absolute best care because, hey, it's your body and your life. I might be okay with bargain-shopping at Kohls for sweaters instead of paying $200 at Nordstrum, but I probably wouldn't carry my frugality over to my choice of heart surgeon. The fact is, even if you wanted to "price shop", you couldn't do it. It's general practice in that industry to not post prices until after the procedure was completed.

The point wasn't to advocate that everyone pay for their own health care, as SS tried to imply. The point was to highlight that doctors/hospitals, with the enabler that the insurance companies have become, are jacking up costs an amount that can only be considered "insane". I understand having a profit margin...but selling a drug for 600$ that you paid 1.50$ for is just astounding. It's not like we're talking about a drug the pharmaceutical company is charging hundreds of dollars for that's still under patent protection, but generic drugs that cost hospitals pennies, and they're turning around and charging their patients up charges of 50,000%, and getting away with it. It's the same reason why, when my wife was in the hospital having our first baby, that multiple line items of : Doctor visit : 300$, which constituted a nurse poking her head in the room and asking if she was feeling ok is something they get away with doing. Yes, this happened. Yes, the charges were 300$+ per time she was asked, "are you feeling ok", because apparently, in that world, that's what constitutes a "doctor visit". It's patently absurd. Don't defend it.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Nov 16, 2012 -> 09:42 AM) "As Obamacare drives out whats left of markets in medicine [...]" It also seems odd to have nurses in charge of building maintenance and HR. Does double-tasking a nurse really prove more efficient in the long-run? These surgery centers are great for certain types of patients, but they don't serve the same clientele as full-service hospitals, nor do they generally have the ability to handle a major event during surgery (such as you going into cardiac arrest). Reason.tv seems to be arguing against the very concept of insurance risk pools in that video, instead advocating that we each foot our own bill every time. Wow. It's astounding to me that out of that entire video, that's all you take from it. That a nurse poses double duty and cleans, too, and perhaps those specialty clinics cannot cover all the needs of every patient. The sky is blue, too, in case you weren't aware. Never mind the highlight that a surgery that should cost 5600$ costs 40000$, instead, because waste is not only justified, but encouraged. Never mind that a drug that costs 1 dollar is billed to the patient for 600$. No, let's talk about nurses that have to clean, or the more obvious, that those types of hospitals cannot serve every patient. You baffle me at times, SS...seriously.

I thought this was appropriate for this thread as one of the things I've been saying for a lonnnnng time is that hospitals are the majority of the problem when it comes to pricing, and how they use insurance companies to skyrocket prices, and then hide behind them when the blame game begins. Some of the price markups they show in this video highlight exactly what I've been saying for years now.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Nov 14, 2012 -> 02:54 PM) It's a short-hand dismissal of a bad argument that's been made for years, yes. There's no reason to point out in detail that it remains a poor argument every time it's brought up. I hope when hyperinflation hits, it only affects you. How do you like that?

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Nov 14, 2012 -> 02:48 PM) conservative economics has been decrying that hyperinflation is right around the corner literally for years. Saying "any year now" is not saying that it'll never happen, it's saying that it's not going to happen when the economy is still s*** and we have more pressing issues to worry about. I disagree, and apparently so do others. So maybe it's not them/me/us, but you. Now, let's cut through the PC bulls*** and I'll tell it like it is: Saying, "any year now" as a reply to people banging the hyper-inflation drum, is a condescend, snarky way of saying, "shut the f*** up you've been saying that forever and it still hasn't happened you ignorant f***ing morons". However, saying, "It's not going to happen when the economy is still s*** and we have more pressing issues to worry about.", is saying, "That it's not going to happen when the economy is still s*** and we have more pressing issues to worry about." One is open for interpretation, one is not.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Nov 14, 2012 -> 02:44 PM) That's not the point I'm making, and it's pretty silly to take it that way. The point I'm making is an anti-austerity point that we should not be obsessed with budget deficits in the middle of a recession precisely because unemployment (much more important) is low and interest rates are essentially free for the government. Now is the time to borrow to get our economy going again and to do things we should be doing anyway like infrastructure. Nowhere in that argument is the claim that interest rates will never rise or that we should run deficits in perpetuity (though Modern Monetary Theorists would argue that we should). It is an argument about priorities. Absolutely there is. When you say things like "any year now", you're saying it'll never happen. Contrary to what you're saying now. Goal posts moving. But my kick was still good. Edit: If you don't want people to take it that way, then don't say it that way. But repeatedly saying things like "any year now" is you saying it's never going to happen. EVER. And that's simply not true, and it never will be.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Nov 14, 2012 -> 02:34 PM) Did you bother to watch the video to see his point? edit: "any year now..." is my standard response to ss2k5 and the general "bond vigilantes" argument that has been predicting hyperinflation for years now. Because the economy, and the overall world economy is in the tank right now is the ONLY reason inflation hasn't hit. It won't stay like this forever is the point they're making, the opposite of the point you're feebly trying to make, over and over, that the world will stay in the tank like this forever. I beg you to stop making that point, because it's not a point at all. It's ignorant and wrong.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Nov 14, 2012 -> 02:34 PM) Did you bother to watch the video to see his point? edit: "any year now..." is my standard response to ss2k5 and the general "bond vigilantes" argument that has been predicting hyperinflation for years now. Ignore the fact that I replied to your video post...my post wasn't about the video, it's about you and the way you talk on here.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Nov 14, 2012 -> 05:52 AM) Once unemployment is crushed, we can begin worrying about future bond rates. Again, it's a f***ing inevitability that at some point in the future, unemployment will go down and bond rates will rise. Whether than be 5 years or 10 years, or even 20 years...in the grand scheme of an economy, that's a very short period of time. Sticking your head in the sand and ignoring it because it won't happen in a week is lunacy...and it's part of the kick the can down the road game politicians play that's gotten us where we are. I have some news for you. All of that will happen, and there is nothing wrong with discussing it, or thinking about ways to curb it BEFORE that time arrives.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Nov 14, 2012 -> 06:45 AM) Chris Hayes explains that no one actually gives a s*** about the deficit: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46979738/ns/ms...hayes/#49778279 The way you talk, especially when you say things like 'any year now', you pretend that inflation and interest rates will never move again. And this...I don't even know how to word this without sounding condescending...but this is just absolute and total insanity. That's like predicting the stock market, or unemployment, or the temperature, will never go down, or up...ever again...but stay exactly the same forever. To even say something like this means you need to remove yourself from the conversation. Because you're doing nothing but detracting from it. If you don't want to have a serious conversation, don't have one. And when you say things like "any year now", like you've been saying, it means you don't want to have a serious conversation. So again, don't have one.

QUOTE (bmags @ Nov 13, 2012 -> 02:14 PM) I understand that people like Keurig. I can't stand it. I've started using those Chem-ex filters when I have time on the weekends. Coupled with dark matter coffee, damn good cup. But, yep, can't stand Keurig. My brother has one, I also can't stand it. I think they make s*** tasting coffee.

QUOTE (bmags @ Nov 12, 2012 -> 02:27 PM) I think this "tax hikes only for the wealthy" is a dangerous path to go down. If you want to argue that these important services are important (they are), then you can't also argue "but someone else should pay for them". It's also largely a political ploy, whether some of us agree that the wealthy can afford to play more taxes or not, the fact that raising their taxes equates to about 4 days worth of spending shows how political it actually is. Much more needs to be done than simply raising the top rates and pretending all is well. They need to reform and simplify the entire tax code, both for regular people, rich people and last but not least, corporations. While we have one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world, the fact is, none of these corporations pay anywhere near that rate, showing that once again, these rates are mostly political pandering, but don't actually mean much. If you tax someone at 30%, but give them an endless amount of deductions, and in the end their actual tax rate is 11%, it doesn't matter if you raise it from 30% to 39%...in the end they'll probably only pay 11.3% despite that bump from 30 to 39. What they need to do is attach deductions to your income rate (regardless of how you make that income, be it via interest, dividends, etc.) If you make 500k a year, you don't need the same amount of deductions that a person making 60k a year with a family of 4 does. But if they want to make an actual dent, keeping everything as it is, but raising the top end rate a few percentage points isn't going to do it. It's as much of a false play as pretending that cutting taxes across the board will somehow pay off all of our debt.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Nov 9, 2012 -> 05:56 PM) I actually meant to say interest rates, but essentially the same line of thing with inflation, which is much higher here in China than the US. The price of a combo meal at KFC has gone from 20-21 RMB in 2007 to 27-28 RMB five years later, roughly. And yes, the likes of Mike Castle and Richard Lugar and other moderates have been wiped out by the Tea Party, the ones who might actually have been willing to compromise. They'll talk Lindsey Grahan in SC as well if he shows any willingness to cave again. The problem is the GOP only is open to an increase in tax revenue (overall) and not any act tax rate increases. So they expect to once again GROW the economy and balance the budget by doing WHAT exactly? Miracles? I get it, they're afraid to cave on raising the rates from 35 to 39.6 again for the highest tax bracket. Maybe they'll compromised at 37, maybe they'll compromise at defining "rich" as $500,000 or more per year, who knows. The point is, that the US economy did just fine under Clinton with higher tax rates AND capital gains taxes...and small business owners weren't complaining back then, so why would it be "patently" unfair now when our country's on the verge of going over a financial cliff and EVERYONE needs to sacrifice in some way, shape or form? Logic alone dictates cutting in some places (defense, tax breaks to oil companies that are bringing in billions in profits), but you have to increase revenues SOMEHOW/SOMEWHERE. Theoretically, you can save by pooling health care costs as well. Don't get me wrong, I have zero intention of defending the republicans. Zero.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Nov 9, 2012 -> 11:42 AM) But wait, inflation is still at historical lows. So maybe this financial cliff thing isn't quite the boogeyman it's being made out to be. First, if Bush the Democrats and Republicans had not passed TARP, or bailed out the banks, Obama the same Democrats and Republicans still would have. It didn't matter who was in office at that point. While it's obviously convenient for your arguments to ignore this reality, it just isn't so. And having said that, people pin things like this on Bush or Obama and exonerate the Senate/Congress every time they repeat these lousy fallacies. Bush and Bush alone, nor the republicans and the republicans alone created the perfect storm of events that plunged us into the recession we were in, the housing collapse, which was the single biggest factor involved, was created over decades by BOTH parties. The sooner people accept AND understand that the better. Inflation IS at historical lows, but if anything is a fantasy/boogeyman, it's that. Inflation SHOULD BE skyrocketing, and the only reason it isn't is because most of the rest of the world is worse off then we are, fiscally. But if that debt keeps building, we will reach a tipping point where it simply cannot be paid back. One thing modern Republicans and Democrats need to learn, which they once understood, is that "meeting in the middle" does not mean one side coming all the way over to the other side. No one side is right on every topic, and both -- if anyone was to bother listening -- can sometimes make very valid points. The problem is, politics has become a near all or nothing zero-sum game...and the people caught in-between are what's at stake. Both parties blame each other for this, of course, and so do the people that follow these parties. It's hard for them to truly care when they're all rich, out of touch, and forget that people barely making it by right now CANNOT afford more fees or taxes to bail them out of the problem their carelessness helped cause, be it on a federal or local level.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Nov 8, 2012 -> 09:03 AM) Have you ever seen anyone use the "I moved with my family to South Dakota to have a stronger impact with my vote on the presidential race" excuse? Maybe they would mention lower or no property taxes, haha. But seriously, the Constitution didn't anticipate the primary or caucus system either. And yet how many people are moving to Iowa, New Hampshire or South Carolina, for example? Will people leave Florida since their state didn't count at all this year, essentially? If hurricanes and other natural disasters cannot get people to leave Florida or other areas where this sort of thing happen...I HIGHLY doubt their vote meaning more would be the thing that does it.