JayB

I'd still say the overall package is reasonable. That said - there has been an increased tax burden over the past 25 years on the individual vs. the corporate entity. Combine this with the restrictions placed on state and local governments regarding Tim Eyman's wako-ness and there is little wiggle room. The idea that there is some bloated bureaucracy living off the public dole is baseless. Spend any time with federal, state, or local employees these days and you will quickly understand what they are up against. They are stuck in a difficult place - and floating bond measures, as unpalatable as it is during a recession, seems to be the only choice. Unless of course you don't mind 50 kids per classroom, parks closed, and services curtailed. It's a big hole and one that has been dug over a couple decades. Foreign adventures, unprescedented flow of capital to the upper class, and reducing of corporate taxes - that's were our money has gone. Have you looked at the trends for public sector vs private sector job-growth for the past 40 years (e.g the ratio of goverment employees to private sector employees)? Do you really think that the stats will bear out the claim that we spend fewer inflation-adjusted dollars per capita on government services than we used to, or that the ratio of government employees to private sector employees has decreased over the long run? Once again, the first thing that happens in a budget crisis is talk of socking it to the most vulnerable parts of society, and no mention of making any structural adjustments to compensation schemes for public sector employees.

IMO "airless utopian calculus of the cocktail napkin" is much a much more apt description of the mainstream, highly formal Kenneth Arrow, Paul Saumuelson crew than folks in the Menger-Mises-Hayek camp, but I wouldn't expect you to know that. That's not intended to be a slight - it's just not something you'd know or appreciate unless it happened to be a hobby of yours. Just google "Samuelson - Revealed Preference Model" if your actually harboring any doubts about which camp is more enamored of utopian calculi. The Chicago school sits somewhere between the two. I think we've covered the deregulation bit before and I don't think you can make a credible claim that any of the deregulation that transpired under Ford-Carter-Reagan had a material effect on the present crisis, unless you think that allowing truckers, airlines, and oil companies to set their own prices, or the changes in the telecom market had a material effect on the present crisis. The only bit of de-regulation that you could reasonably implicate in the crisis is the repeal of Glass-Steagal, and the decision not to have credit-default swaps traded on an exchange. If you take a look at the rent/mortgage, mortgage/income, etc, etc stats all over the world you see even greater price inflation in countries that didn't make major regulatory changes between 1998 and 2005 so it'd be hard to make a case that the repeal of Glass-Steagal in the US is sufficient to explain the global property bubble and subsequent collapse. I also think that we've covered the said crisis before. My conclusion is that the Austrian explanation - interest rate distortions by a central bank leading to an unsustainable credit expansion leading to colossal malinvestment in credit sensitive sectors which eventually implode - is way closer to the mark than anything that the Keynsians have to offer. All of the other political distortions that generated a massive overallocation of capital into housing - FNMA/GNMA, CLA, mortgage interest deduction, capital gains exemption, property tax exemption - etc just got us where we were going faster. I'm not terribly concerned about the long-term trajectory of "neoliberalism," since the alternatives will inevitably fare worse.

Debatable. I'd say the impact on political discourse has been far more profound than it's impact on policy, which has remained a mercantilist-keynsian ghoulash. Just take a look at the latest farm-bill, or better yet - the federal budget for a concrete demonstration of that fact. Not terribly surprising when you consider the political economy of the two systems. Any system that gives its blessing to dispensing vast amounts of debt and inflation fueled patronage is going to enjoy certain structural advantages in Washington. In academic econ circles the highly formal Arrow-Samuelson approach has been dominant for the past 60 years, and folks in the Austrian school have very much been outsiders. Since the characters are attending an econ conference, this portrayal is both accurate and fair IMO. When you ponder what the likes of Samuelson had to say about events that transpired outside the boundaries of his "general equilibrium" models - such as this gem from his 1989 econ textbook "The Soviet economy is proof that, contrary to what many skeptics had earlier believed, a socialist command economy can function and thrive." - that's truly remarkable.

Ahh - stimulus spending. Time for the Keynes vs Hayek Rap Battle... [video:youtube]whGlF-hjCaI

How do you define middle-class, and what data set confirms that it's disappearing? Most of the data that I've seen tells a different story depending on the statistical categories that the analyst chooses. "Households" seem to be a favorite despite the fact that the composition of the average household has changed significantly over the interval being considered, a household for demographic group A isn't the same as an average household for group B, the quintiles being compared don't contain the same number of people, the composition of the average income (money-wages vs benefits vs subsidies vs tax credits etc) differs between groups and quintiles, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc. Below for example, you've got the same data, parsed with different statistical categories. Agree with your sentiments about the current national hardships vs the depression though.

Great boots - just a bit too large. Light use on account of serving a three-year sentence on the East Coast a year after buying them. BSL = 333mm. Fits size L Freeride's or equivalent. Will ship via UPS but expect to pay $10-$25 depending upon where you're located. Will ship immediately to a cc-regular with a reputation to worry about. Otherwise I'll ship after receiving payment via paypal or after the payment check clears. Pricing these to sell but in the event my estimate is off I'll drop the price $5/week until they sell. Manufacturers info: "The new Struktura EVO for men is constructed with all the features that have made its predecessors, the Struktura and Struktura GTX, best sellers. The EVO features a new stiffer tongue and newly designed buckles. Combined with the lightweight Bi-Injection shell, the new tongue design will provide extra support and effortless control for those skiers who spend most of their time on the steep and deep. New buckles, offering the ultimate in durability, are produced from materials currently being used in the new international space station. All three models are equipped with an innovative new lacing system on the inner boot for a more precise fit. The Struktura EVO incorporates key LOWA features: * Bi-Injection Shell for optimum energy transfer and stability. * Bi-Injection Cuff provides a hard frame for support and energy transfer with a softer forward section to allow for anatomically correct closure of the collar around the lower leg. * Precise medial/lateral canting function allows the boot to be fine-tuned to the exact individual requirements of each skier. * Free-floating tongue, dual density rubber outsole and PU midsole offer comfort, warmth and optimum grip. * The LOWA Ski Walk System can be activated with a simple lever making it an excellent choice for coaches and instructors who spend most of their time on alpine slopes, both standing and skiing." Feedback from TGR thread: http://oldschool.tetongravity.com/forums/showthread.php?t=71926

...and when what exists is fucked. There's plenty of nice countries with parliamentary systems that impose fewer constraints on the party in power. Canada, NZ, Australia, England, etc, etc, etc. Given that your odds of seeing the constitution modified in a manner that suits your ideological preferences is indistinguishable from zero, the only choices available to you are to live with it or emmigrate. NZ is pretty sweet. If the political equilibrium and the checks and balances here bothered me as much as they do you I would have emmigrated a long time ago. Really. Funny how you folks are always happy to view our political system as an idealized abstraction created ex nihilo by demigods rather than as how it is actually working in reality. If you can't see "system" for the farce of corporate interests, petty ambitious plutocrats, and thugs that it is and that it's no longer functional in any real sense then you're either entirely happy with that arrangement in that it's working for you, you're playing dumb, or you're walking around in a History Channel-induced state of delusion. I suspect that it's always been the first for you. Too close to home? " in the direction of economic activity, say of transport, or industrial planning, the interests to be reconciled are so divergent that no true agreement on a single plan could be reached in a democratic assembly. Hence, in order to be able to extend action beyond the questions on which agreement exists, the decisions are reserved to a few representatives of the most powerful “interests.” But this expedient is not effective enough to placate the dissatisfaction which the impotence of the democracy must create among all friends of extensive planning. The delegation of special decisions to many independent bodies presents in itself a new obstacle to proper coordination of state action in different fields. The legislature is naturally reluctant to delegate decisions on really vital questions. And the agreement that planning is necessary, together with the inability to agree on a particular plan, must tend to strengthen the demand that the government, or some single person, should be given power to act on their own responsibility. It becomes more and more the accepted belief that if one wants to get things done, the responsible director of affairs must be freed from the fetters of democratic procedure …"

...and when what exists is fucked. There's plenty of nice countries with parliamentary systems that impose fewer constraints on the party in power. Canada, NZ, Australia, England, etc, etc, etc. Given that your odds of seeing the constitution modified in a manner that suits your ideological preferences is indistinguishable from zero, the only choices available to you are to live with it or emmigrate. NZ is pretty sweet. If the political equilibrium and the checks and balances here bothered me as much as they do you I would have emmigrated a long time ago. Really. Funny how you folks are always happy to view our political system as an idealized abstraction created ex nihilo by demigods rather than as how it is actually working in reality. If you can't see "system" for the farce of corporate interests, petty ambitious plutocrats, and thugs that it is and that it's no longer functional in any real sense then you're either entirely happy with that arrangement in that it's working for you, you're playing dumb, or you're walking around in a History Channel-induced state of delusion. I suspect that it's always been the first for you. The grand irony here is that: A) it's only the government's capacity to insulate particular sectors, companies, etc from competition and play favorites and pick winners that enables the very shortcomings that you bemoan above. Neither Congress nor corporations (or any other aggregated economic interest) can abuse powers that they don't have. B)I've got a self-proclaimed "Dialectical Materialist" scolding me for chasing utopias.

And more of the Indians and Chinese doing it for us? And anyway, are you trying to say that fewer jobs is a good thing? Well I suppose for the employers, yes, it could be, if they found cheaper labor somewhere else. No. That part of the post was called "sarcasm"... Read: goods produced by desperately poor workers working for near slave wages in banana republics where the only people getting rich are despots. Oh and oil, which requires making cozy deals with some of the worst violators of human rights imaginable. Like limos for Saudi sheikhs and extra accessories for El Presidente's golden palace, and more jack booted police to stomp on the necks of the populace that dares to speak up. But hey, it works good for us, America first, right? 1. Less jobs...compared to what conditions? It's good for the workers for two reasons. The first because domestic employment in manufacturing would be next to zero if we'd mandated that no new technology could be incorporated into any manufacturing process at some arbitrary point in the past. Higher cost and lower quality doesn't translate into secure employment. The second is that the increased output made possible by the capital investment necessary to bring in additional technology, machinery, etc is the one and only thing that can generate real wage growth for the folks who work in that sector. 2. Sweat shops. Again - what are the alternatives available to them? Would they be better off scavenging, working in subsistence agriculture, etc? Unless you argue that you are in a better position to determine what's good for them according to their own values, preferences, etc - how do you explain their decision to leave the countryside and/or whatever employment they had available to them previously and work in the factories? 3. You could just as easily have pointed to Iranians using iphones to record protests and disseminate the footage via Twitter and Facebook, or other people all over the world fending off AIDS via anti-retrovirals developed in the US, using a CCD (Bell Labs, 1969) based camera to take a family photo, munching on Washington apples, enjoying California Wine or Alaskan salmon, enjoying an American movie or novel, shredding some pow on a pair of Line skis, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, - the total, aggregate consumption of which by people in free countries, who are able to spend their money in a manner that's in their best interest as they know and understand it outweighs the total consumption by the said handful of rich despots by many, many many orders of magnitude. All of which makes me wonder why you focus on the handful of rich despots as opposed to the billions of free people who have had their lives improved via trade with the US....

If economic growth is X percent a year, and total government spending is X+N percent a year, and the value of N is greater than zero.... I don't think you have to be a wing-nut ideologue to be concerned about the rate of government spending growth relative to real economic growth, you just have to understand math. FWIW I like having public services available for the most vulnerable and least fortunate folks in society at any given time, and consequently I'm concerned about maintaining the economic capacity to finance them. Given that there's a finite amount of tax revenue that can be extracted from the economy before it has a negative effect on both output and revenues - it also seems worthwhile to have a discussion about the best use of the limited funds available to the government. At some point - like now - you have to decide whether funding animal shelters, services for the homeless is more important than the Deputy Assistant Diversity Coordinator III in Olympia's right to be insulated from rising health care costs and the responsibility to fund his or her own retirement...

...and when what exists is fucked. There's plenty of nice countries with parliamentary systems that impose fewer constraints on the party in power. Canada, NZ, Australia, England, etc, etc, etc. Given that your odds of seeing the constitution modified in a manner that suits your ideological preferences is indistinguishable from zero, the only choices available to you are to live with it or emmigrate. NZ is pretty sweet. If the political equilibrium and the checks and balances here bothered me as much as they do you I would have emmigrated a long time ago. Really.

Get someone to sponsor legislation that stipulates that all proceeds deriving from the sale of legalized drugs will be used to fund public sector employee benefits and pot will be legalized in nothing flat.

Hopefully we won't be blessed like the eight year f#cking we got the last time the repubs had office. Seems like a strange sentiment from a Democrat when you've got the Whitehouse and substantial majorities in both houses of Congress. If you are in favor of a legislative agenda that can't be enacted under these conditions, it might be time to accept that fact that you are in favor of an agenda that can't be enacted anytime, by any Congress. At least not under any conditions that are actually likely to occur.

Some dude on Huffpo pretty well nailed it last night: "Tomorrow in Massachusetts, the Democrats are set to suffer a stunning defeat in the race for the US Senate; a race that, if lost, will largely be because of lack of enthusiasm by the party base for what a liberal agenda actually looks like when it is forced to abandon its fantasies and instead confront the actual problems our country faces and deal with them using the political process as it exists."

Uh, yeah, lots of luck with that.... What part of 'Republicans don't care about ordinary working people' don't you understand? Plenty of congressional Democrats don't either, as we've seen demonstrated in this session of congress. But trusting Republicans to fix anything other than sweet deals for themselves and corporate fat cats, while mouthing inane platitudes (Scott Brown's campaign slogan "This is about America') about how they care about the working people, is sheer insanity. Oh, it's about America,all right, as in who gets to own and run it for their own profit. Evidently no one has learned a thing from the past eight years, or from any previous Republican administration going back to Reagan. Reagan presided over the largest transfer of wealth from the lower and middle class to the upper 1 or 2 %, in the history of the country to that time. Subsequent Republican administrations have only ramped up the theft of the public treasury and the spilling of innocent blood for profit. Bush has simply been the most blatant. Republicans willingly and gladly helped to break the economy of this country and the entire planet, dismantled the social safety net of some 60 years' standing, and sent thousands to be killed and maimed for an utterly useless war, gave 700 billion of our money to the very people who caused the financial meltdown, with no oversight on where or how those funds would be used-- and now you want them to fix it. HELLOOO!!! THEY DON'T CARE!!! THEY NEVER HAVE, AND NEVER WILL!! Republican politicians do not care about you or me, we're not even on their radar screen. They don't care about millions of people thrown out of work, out of their homes, living in their cars and on the streets. They don't care about hunger, disease, lack of education or medical care for anyone but themselves and their own privileged class. They don't care about whether Obama's health care plan was too expensive, they just wanted it to fail, period, and to hell with the almost 50 million of us who suffer for lack of adequate health care. The Teabaggers are just another clever corporate-funded phony"grassroots" pile of bullshit, ridiculous(yet very sly) bellyaching about "big government" health care, when health care is ALREADY controlled by an immense conglomerate consortium of people WHO NOBODY ELECTED!!!! that is MANY times bigger than the government itself. Ohhh, poor struggwing wittle tiny tender-hearted insuwance companies, dey just trying so hard to help, but nobody want to bewieve dem... What Republicans have shown beyond all doubt, by standing united in opposition to every last single thing Obama has attempted to do, is not that they have a better idea, or that they are in any way some kind of "loyal opposition" trying to save the country from disaster, but that they desire nothing more than to see to it that Obama fails, even if it means shoveling the country right down the drain to do it. The only "fix" there is the huge one we're all in-- if you think THIS recession was bad, you ain't seen nothin' yet. Go ahead, vote Republican, and see an even worse replay of the past eight years. It'll make "Groundhog Day" the national byword. Expecting Republicans to even be interested in what used to be called "the common good" is like expecting a tiger to let the lamb go without harm. Ain't gonna happen, folks, ain't never gonna happen. Actually, if anyone thinks Republicans give a shit-they're right--that's exactly what you'll get from Republicans--SHIT, and plenty of it. Not having the votes necessary to get a bill out of committee and onto the floor for a vote is one thing, not having a plan is another. You can access the text of the bill that the Republicans sponsored in June of last year by clicking on the text below. http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h3400/text PS - I think that Dick Cheney would learn to care about you if he got to know you. George Bush too. sickie

Most likely. Every problem during the Bush years was blamed on Clinton; if/when Obama goes down in 2012, the GOP will spend their entire term blaming Obama. Politics as usual. ...so that we can continue the cycle of hyper partisan politics implemented by corrupt politicians who all work for the same moneyed interests. Oh, but at least the empty promises and talk they offer will be spoken in a language you like to hear. Oh, and you'll be voting for CHANGE! How gay is that? Remember, hope and change are for the naive! Yes, indeed. Gotta love a country that: 1) Is acrimonious and shocked that the new president is actually trying to do the things he campaigned and was elected on. "That's not what we voted for!" (In fact, he campaigned on the public health option which, after public outcry, he abandoned- so much like the Nazis and Stalin, I can't tell the difference...). 2) Has lost patience after 12 months because the new administration hasn't fixed the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. What's taking so long? When will we be back to the days of unlimited credit, consumerism, manufacturing nothing except artificial wealth that we pass off on paper to the next sucker, and living off the backs of the rest of the world by way of the "free" market and the worldwide presence of our military? 3) Is voting for the minority party on the basis of populist anger, only after which time they will ask if said party actually has any ideas whatsoever apart from "taking back America". Well hey, at least the GOP isn't power hungry...! 4) Continues to vacillate back and forth across the political spectrum by mindless enthrallment with slogans, ideology, and a belief that "this time, it'll be different!" USA! USA!! USA!!! @2: A) Manufacturing output has been trending up steadily in the US - with the usual cyclical fluctuations - since forever. There's a difference between output and employment. Same situation as we have in agriculture. Fewer farmers, more output. Our employment trends aren't appreciably different from the rest of the first world in this regard, even those that attempt to insulate their industries from competition even more aggressively than the US does. We still make stuff. There's just less of us doing it. B) Do you really think that millitary expenditures are a net economic plus for the US? Most of the historical evidence from Britain and elsewhere indicates that occupying foreign countries - for whatever purpose - results in economic costs that outweigh the benefits. Usually by a considerable margin. I don't think that there's evidence to support the claim that technology transfers from millitary R&D are a net economic positive either. People find uses for stuff that the millitary invents, but that doesn't demonstrate that those same assets wouldn't have found a more productive use elsewhere if they hadn't been diverted and funneled through the Pentagon. My own conclusion is that the only unambiguous net economic benefit that's accrued to anyone as a consequence of US millitary expenditures have been those societies that became de-facto protectorates and were free to use money that they might have had to spend arming and defending themselves for other purposes. C) How - exactly - are we living off the backs of the rest of the world? They seem quite eager to voluntarily sell us the stuff that they're good at producing when we allow them to do so, and also seem to enjoy using the proceeds to buy the stuff that we're good at producing. Does that analysis include the value of the institutional framework like the UN, WHO, public and private contributions to foreign aid, vaccination campaigns, etc, etc, etc, etc. Seems like the logical correlate of this claim is that the rest of the world would be better off if we'd kept our goods, our dollars, our ideas, and our military locked away from them. Is that really what you believe, or did you mean something else?

"9:13 p.m. -- Coakley has conceded in a call to Scott Brown, according to a Brown aide." http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2010/01/live_coverage_o.html

Are you honestly suggesting that anyone in the West who wants to exercise their hard-won secular freedoms vis-a-vis Islam is guilty of incitement if they violate whatever arbitrary set of religious taboos that violent fanatics deem worthy of enforcing?

"But to the folks here advocating for mandatory equipment, I am telling you this is a very, very slippery slope that, if implemented, will not end with MLUs." Word. Any attempt to substitute mandates for judgment as a means to increase safety will be as futile as it is intrusive and foolish.

Yup. Criminalize what sane adults do to themselves or consenting adults do to one another in private/restricted settings and the cure is invariably worse than the disease.

So many things have become obvious in these threads. Please correct me if I am off base. One of the glaring issues I see is little or no infrastructure on Hood to support climbers. Silcox sounds like it gets used as much by climbers today as when it was abandoned and unused 40 years ago. No one keeping track of who is on the mountain or where they might be. No daily or current on site weather or avi info available. As much as I get annoyed at the NPS on Denali or Rainier , Parks Canada or even climbing in Chamonix all those things are easily available..current weather and avi conditions, a useful hut system for when the mountains flush you out and someone in most cases requires you to register...and they actually keep track of your route and OVER DUE date and time. 10,000 climbers a year on Hood and no support required? No wonder we see an abnormal amount of accidents there. Given the fact that 10,000 climbers a year (is the number that low) attempt Hood, I'm actually surprised that the number of incidents is as low as it is. Given Hood's size, proximity to major population centers, ease-of access, weather, etc - it doesn't seem like there's necessarily an abnormally high number of incidents - at least relative to the traffic on it's slopes. On a related note - this PLB debate seems to be arise whenever there's a tragedy on Hood, but I can't remember it ever coming up when there's been an accident on other peaks in the Cascades. I wonder why that is.

As far as I'm concerned, anyone that wants to try to summit Rainier in the winter wearing only a speedo and ballet slippers should be free to do so for a variety of reasons - foremost of which is that their life/body ultimately belongs to them and only them. Coming from that perspective, I don't think that the state should have the authority to prohibit anyone from partaking in hazardous activities of their own choosing, so long as the only one's that they are exposing to direct risks are themselves. I understand the argument that the state should have this right because rescue personnel are at risk when people make poor choices, but so long as first responders voluntarily commit to careers where they know in advance that they'll have to accept some measure of risk to help people - I don't think that this argument is a sufficient basis for granting this power to the state. Hence, when it comes to technology - I'm all for anyone who wants to bring along whatever rescue/safety technology that they care to toss into their pack, should they choose to do so - and completely against mandating their use on public lands. In practice - I think that the right way to use this stuff is to evaluate risks and make choices the same way that you would if you had no means whatsoever to summon help, and you knew that a rescue was impossible even if you could. I think that's the way that most (but not all) people who carry cell phones, and now beacons play the game.

and if this power belongs to private insurance company it's ok? reality check here, as so far this idolized private system is #1 cause filing for bankruptcies and leaves a quarter of workforce with no insurance! regarding your first question it should be asking if it is ethical, not legal. Bob I'd think that you of all people would realize that it's also possible for the interests of the state to conflict with the interests of the citizens. Both private insurance companies and the state have significant expenses to ration care, but the state's capacity to do so is dramatically higher. This is one of the reasons why I favor a system that eliminates third party payers from the decision making process in as many situations as possible. Medical bankruptcies are a tragedy, but it doesn't follow that a single-payer system is necessarily the best way to reduce or eliminate them. You might also want to look into the effect that lost income during or permanent disability after a catastrophic medical event contributes to bankruptcies. The number of people who insure their homes, but don't even look into insuring what is actually their most valuable asset - their earning power - is always surprising to me.

I participate in medicaid hearings on a regular basis. Today I had a hearing concerning the costs, benefits, and risks associated with a particular course of action. I have also been making my own healthcare decisions for decades and am familiar with the decisions made by friends and families over the years. I have also had a lot of experience with private paid services and private paid insurance coverage. I don't know if you are an expert or not, but I must certainly have had a different set of experiences than you. That's certainly possible. It's certainly not an easy system to negotiate on your own under the current regimen, at least not in those realms where third-party payment schemes are the norm. Not that I expect an answer to any of these questions but, but I'm still curious as to whether you read the entire article, particularly the part with the single-payer mechanism that he discussed, and why it's essential that profits should be eliminated in the medical economy. Most people I know value medical services by considering the impact that a particular treatment has on their health by the cost, and the profit portion of the cost matters much less than how well it works and what the total price is. There are plenty of cases where a more effective, less invasive, less painful procedure with a much more rapid recovery time has supplanted an existing technique that is likely to have higher total costs. Does the fact that the newer procedure generates a greater profit for the practitioner (and would likely have never come into being without the incentive effects of profits) than the older procedure mean that patients would be better served by opting for the treatment that generates the least profits for the practitioner? How about drugs that are both more expensive, and more effective than the treatments that they replaced like, say, Enbrel in the case of a significant percentage of rheumatoid arthritis patients?

Keep in mind that includes inefficiencies and redundancies in each of the thousands of insurance companies which are themselves incredibly redundant in every respect, but especially so in claims processing. I'm guessing administrative and systems redundancies actually run more like 75-85% over a single payer clearing house. And you would be wrong. the inefficiencies you speak of actually run, on average, about 350% higher in the U.S. verses all other industrialized countries who offer some form of public option: about 5% versus our 18%. Look, the 'debate' is over. The experiment's been done since WWII in all industrialized countries including our own. Our employer based private health care system sucks ass: it's a joke to the rest of the civilized world, it's near the bottom overall regarding outcomes and stats (despite JayB's endless stream of 'my wife's fresh out of med school so I'm an expert complete and utter bullshit' and it's incredibly cruel. Witnessing what is happening to a large number of friends makes me an expert on that one. We need a strong, not for profit, public option. The exact form doesn't matter than much: they all work fine elsewhere and herere where they are used. As I said above, I'm more than happy to debate whatever stats and studies that you care to bring into the conversation that pertain to "outcomes and stats." There's lots of health systems in operation around the world, most of which have a mixture of public and private inputs. More than happy to participate in a discussion of their costs, performance, etc. If that's your objective. Is it? Continuously mixing personal insults into an argument as a default is something that I find as persuasive as the next guy, but the insult to argument ratio is such that your principal aims might be better served by abandoning the pretense and leaving the argument out. We've covered the 5% vs 18% numbers before. I've posted links that demonstrate that they don't actually cover the same functions before. I'll leave it at that unless someone decides they want to dig them up. Unless your argument is that administrative costs are the most significant driver of total medical spending, that's an extremely odd number to fixate on. Total medical spending is the product of the cost per-treatment and the total number of treatments. Even if you eliminate administrative costs to zero, you've done absolutely nothing to constrain the primary drivers of spending growth - which boil down to more people seeking medical care more often and being treated with more expensive remedies. Even in a hypothetical zero administrative cost world, an aging, ever-fattening nation filled with people that have their use of medical resources constrained by only by the the weakest of incentives is quickly going to drive medical spending to a level that can't be financed by any method, even the massive borrowing that seems to be the current default. Its an even stranger figure to use as a proxy for efficiency. Unless you are an accountant, the only meaningful measure of efficiency in medicine is the impact of a given treatment on a particular individual's health divided by the price of that treatment. If a person walks into an ER for a chest cold, they get a full workup, and medicare pays the bill the administrative costs associated with that visit are certainly going to be low, but the medical efficiency of that particular intervention is going to be orders of magnitude lower than if they had simply walked into a Bartell's and purchased a packet of Sudafed. The factors that affect the magnitude of the numerator (impact on health) and the denominator (total costs) vary dramatically in just about every case, but the number of cases where variations in the administrative portion of the denominator are meaningful are vanishingly small. Maybe you can explain why your emphatic defense of administrative costs as a principal, or the principal, driver of medical efficiency?