JayB

Well - depending on your perspective I suppose you could see the current state of affairs as an indictment of the market, or the government/policy - or both. I don't have the time to debate the matter either way, but I think people who take either position will find plenty to chew on in the article.

Starring our very own Aberdeen: http://apps.npr.org/unfit-for-work/ "There used to be a lot of jobs that you could do with just a high school degree, and that paid enough to be considered middle class. I knew, of course, that those have been disappearing for decades. What surprised me was what has been happening to many of the people who lost those jobs: They've been going on disability."

Love it.

LOL! You really think "most participants of this forum" are actually communists who think North Korea just didn't "get it right?" Too funny. Nope - just people who have an instinctive hostility to and suspicion of markets and lingering sympathy towards the idea that the vast litany of desolation and suffering under communist regimes doesn't represent a definitive verdict on that mode of collectivism. In your case - I don't actually detect much in the way of an informed understanding of either markets or collectivism, or history, or an interest in any of the above so I suspect that all you'd take away from the book is "LOL," so I'd recommend staying away from it and recycling quips here instead. LOL.

Ineffective compared to what? It's hard to read more than a few pages into any book on North Korea and conclude that North Korea's isolation from the rest of the world is absolutely deliberate and almost completely self-imposed. They'll gladly continue to take whatever they can beg, steal, extort, or counterfeit away from the rest of the world but there's zero indication that they're interested in the kind of engagement with the rest of the world that would lead to a meaningful change in the country's internal dynamics, which is what it would take to bring about any real change in their external relationships with the rest of the world.

THAT, was a grim read. Basically on the verge of starving - always - and the constant betrayal by friends and family because they were so scared. And that is just a peak behind the curtain. No, that country's rulers are wacked. If you can stomach it, you should read "Nothing to Envy," as well. It read like a dystopian sci-fi novel, but was many times as horrifying for being real. There were quite a few elements in the stories that were equally captivating and awful at the same time, but the most striking parts of the individual stories they collected were individual people's recollections of their perceptions when the whole thing started to unravel - starving children being sent to school despite the fact that they're incapable of doing anything other than mutely slumping over in their desks, teachers going on with their lessons in front of ever-dwindling numbers of comatose children, regiments of textile workers assembling at plants despite the fact that the raw materials were no longer arriving and the plants had no power, etc, etc, etc. Since the stories are taken from defectors who survived the ordeal you also get to read about the changes in outlook and behavior that allowed them to survive and eventually get out, which is also pretty fascinating. The spontaneous emergence of markets, prices, and exchange dynamics that attenuated the suffering and allowed people who would have otherwise starved to death to survive - even amongst people who had nothing but their instincts to guide them - was also something I took a personal interest in, but that's a theme that I expect most participants in this forum to be either disinterested in or actively hostile to so I'd recommend ignoring that aspect of the book if you happen to be reading this and want to continue believing that all of the suffering you've read ensued because Kim Il Sung and co got the the technical details of communism wrong.

Talk about unfair - we totally excluded the Third-Reich and imperial Japan from the Manhattan Project. Way unfair. Speaking of North Korea, I read a couple of good books on the place not too long ago: "Nothing to Envy, Ordinary Lives in North Korea," by Barbara Demick and "Escape from Camp 14" by Blaine Harden. http://www.amazon.com/Nothing-Envy-Ordinary-Lives-North/dp/0385523912 http://www.amazon.com/Escape-Camp-14-Remarkable-Odyssey/dp/0670023329/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1360709001&sr=1-1&keywords=escape+from+camp+14

Agreed - but not sure that would necessarily leave us in a worse position than we're in now, where Medicaid patients have little or no incentive (other than wasting their own time) to avoid using the ER for non-emergencies. If even 25% of the Medicaid population managed their HSA appropriately (I suspect the number would be at least 3X as high with the right plan design), the potential savings would be substantial. If you get a chance, find a front-line ER doc that works in a hospital that serves a heavy load of medicaid patients and ask them if they can think of any policies that would reduce the frequency with which Medicaid patients seek care in ER's that would be much better addressed via anywhere from a nurse-practitioners outfit to an urgent care clinic.

Easily remedied by income-indexed transfers into an HSA account. We do more or less the same income-indexed transfers for food via food-stamps, housing via section-8 vouchers, income assistance via the EIC, etc. Until this year I had a high deductible plan with a 3K deductible into which my employer contributed $1500 - and the balance accumulated year after year. Replicating that model and indexing the annual contribution into the HSA account to the recipients income wouldn't be difficult. Not everyone who lacks the income to adequately fund an HSA or make up the difference between their contributions and their deductible is either chronically ill or financially destitute, or has a medical catastrophe each and every year, so most people would likely be able to accumulate a sufficient balance to cover the full amount of the deductible when they do have a medical crisis. There's a sub-population of people who are perpetually ill and/or destitute that the state would probably be better off just paying for directly.

Interesting. My best friend did two tours in Iraq - in late 02/03 and 04/05, lots of IED dodging in convoys, foot patrols in dense urban areas, etc - and he told me numerous times that negotiating the transition from active duty to civilian employment capable of supporting his family of 5 was significantly more stressful for him than any of his combat duty.

If you're talking about the plot with the gun-homicide rate versus the gun ownership it's not authoritative but it's pretty consistent with all of the other representations of the same data I've seen. All that seems to vary is the R^2 coefficient based on the curve/line that various people attempt to draw through it. FWIW I think that the literature at the link you cited is credible and there probably is a statistically significant link between higher gun ownership and more deaths by guns, even after you correct for race, income, education, etc. I also think that the magnitude of the association varies dramatically enough from state to state (and probably from county to county and zip-code to zip-code) that it's difficult for me to draw any silver-bullet type policy conclusions from the data. Lots and lots of guns in ND and UT and hardly any murders, lots of guns and lots of murders anyplace where there's a preponderance of Baptist Churches. Anyhow - if there's a better plot of the same data out there, I'd be interested in seeing it.

I'm not sure what question you're asking, but as far as comparing "violent crime" rates, I think it's a very hard thing to do from country to country because countries vary on what types of crime constitute violent crime (some countries county burglaries, some do not), and when they are reports (i.e. some countries only report violent crime convictions, while others report unsolved violent crimes). Comparing statistics is very problematic when there is no standardization in reporting. It sounds like the point you are trying to make is that actually, nothing is wrong. Am I misunderstanding you? Could you rephrase your question? Quoted the wrong guy while I was scrolling and probably misread the original post. I thought I was responding to someone saying that Americans were becoming more violent over time and American society was categorically more violent than Europe - but after re-reading I'm not sure if anyone actually said that. So...nevermind. To reply to something that you actually said and relate them to the graphs above, I don't think everything is okay and if I were asked "Is this what gun ownership laws would look like in your personal utopia" I'd definitely say "No," but I think it's worth placing today's level of violent-crime in particular and murder with guns in particular in a historical continuum. Both have been trending down dramatically relative to historical levels and the recent peaks in the period that fell roughly between 1965 and 1985. It's also worth putting the level of violent crime in the US in the context of violent crime rates elsewhere - though your point about being cautious about international stats is well taken. I'm honestly not sure why crime and violence have been trending down in this country but the trend has been very encouraging. Stephen Pinker has a book that's evidently a good read where he speculates about why the violence has been trending down so dramatically over the past few centuries. This paper also looks interesting: http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/history/postgraduate/ma_studies/mamodules/hi971/topics/interpersonal/long-term-historical-trends-of-violent-crime.pdf

Excellent points. But do you think people in Europe are not bullied and humiliated at a young age like they are in America? I think you're right that Americans in general are fairly selfish. Do you think part of the problem may be the dumbing down of Americans? Hardly anyone reads anymore, and video media has become nothing more than short snippets, tiny sound bites, and almost zero in-depth analytic analysis. There is almost no context to anything anymore, and Americans are becoming woefully under-educated about even their own country's history and lack context for current events. America has a severe anti-intellectual problem -- I suspect a well-educated and enlightened citizenry would be less likely to shoot each other up. I wonder how much TV Europeans watch compared to Americans? How do you personally reconcile the speculation above with the data below? "Contrary to common perceptions, today both property and violent crimes (with the exception of homicides) are more widespread in Europe than in the US, while the opposite was true thirty years ago. We label this fact as the "reversal of misfortunes". We investigate what accounts for the reversal by studying the causal impact of demographic changes, incarceration, abortion, unemployment and immigration on crime. For this we use time series data (1970-2008) from seven European countries and the U.S. We find that the demographic structure of the population and the incarceration rate are important determinants of crime. Our results suggest that a tougher incarceration policy may be an effective way to contrast crime in Europe. Our analysis does not provide information on how incarceration policy should be made tougher nor does it provide an answer to the question whether a such a policy would also be efficient from a cost-benefit point of view. We leave this to future research" http://www2.dse.unibo.it/zanella/papers/crime-EP.pdf

seems logical that the same crowd that brought us the magical domino theory, long since swept into the dustbin of history, might have made the soviet boogey-man out to be a tad worse than he really was - that said, i met a chick once who'd grown up in the ukraine in the 30s and ended up in auschwitz in the 40s, and she hated stalin far more than hitler Ironically enough the Soviet union was a far more brutal, ruthless, implaccable, and murderous enemy of the people inside its border than it ever could have been to those outside of its borders due to the "internal contradictions" of communism. The desire was there, the material capacity to do so wasn't, and never could have been. The technical subtext lurking underneath the stories in Spufford's book hints at the reasons why this was the case.

-There's a subtext of economics humming along faintly in the background but it's basically an attempt to capture the zeitgeist in the Kruschev era by following a semi-fictional cast of characters through that time. Scan through this chapter and you'll get a sense of what's in there. You may decide it's not your cup of tea but it certainly doesn't read like a treatise : http://books.google.com/books?id=PioE2EDcuMsC&pg=PT241&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=3#v=onepage&q&f=false -More "misunderstood/misrepresented" than "cool" if I understand them correctly. Not an interpretation I share but the existence of people with viewpoints like Stone/Kuznick's is fascinating. Some back and forth: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/11/21/oliver-stone-defends-his-the-untold-history-of-the-united-states.html

Not according to Stone and Kuznick. Speaking of Stalinism, I read a book called "Red Plenty" not too long ago that you might enjoy. Historical fiction about the attempt to translate great-grand-daddy Karl's assorted musings into a way to coordinate the production of wheat, tires, engineers and vodka without using prices. Highly recommended. http://www.amazon.com/Red-Plenty-Francis-Spufford/dp/1555976042 Economist Review: http://www.economist.com/node/16843647

Soviet family in Siberia cut off from all contact with the outside world for 40 years... http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/For-40-Years-This-Russian-Family-Was-Cut-Off-From-Human-Contact-Unaware-of-World-War-II-188843001.html

"Bob was his company’s best software developer, got glowing performance reviews and earned more than $250,000 a year. Then one day last spring, Bob’s employer, an American infrastructure company, thought its computer network had been attacked by a virus. The ensuing forensic probe revealed that Bob’s software code had in fact been the handiwork of a Chinese subcontractor. Bob was paying a Chinese firm about $50,000 a year to do his work, then spent the day surfing the web, watching cat videos and updating his Facebook page." http://www.theglobeandmail.com/technology/how-a-model-employee-got-away-with-outsourcing-his-software-job-to-china/article7409256/

They certainly don't *all* look alike! Some of them, like your co-worker, evidently commit untold numbers of fashion gaffes and faux-pas that their much more au courant co-workers can store away and make fun of later. BTW - I'm several inches taller than my wife. If I ever feel compelled to follow Galen/Galena's lead, are high heels *always* out or are there special occasions where they'd be okay?

I believe that's how Mr. Harris self-identifies (secular liberal), but perhaps I'm mistaken. Thanks for the comparison to your co-worker, though! The only reason I would disavow the comparison to openly transgendered people is that I've quite honestly never had to summon the kind of bravery and willpower that it takes them to contend with the kind of slights and derision they encounter every day of their lives. I know it wasn't your intention, but I'm quite flattered. As a bonus, if I ever find myself overtaken by the inclination to identify as a woman, I also have several handy fashion tips to guide me. Patent leather purses are *strictly* a situational accessory. Got it.

echoes of thomas hobbes in there... Yeah - just thought the arguments were worth noting coming from a self-described liberal and secularist of the highest order...

http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/the-riddle-of-the-gun

I'm perfectly aware of that fact that the current set of flu vaccines don't provide perfect protection - but they do significantly decrease the probability of infection and subsequent transmission to patients. Health care workers reporting to work when sick is definitely a problem, but you can transmit the infection before symptoms develop and be infected and contagious but asymptomatic, so clearly just having people stay home when they know that they are sick with the flu won't work, even if you assume that people actually have perfect knowledge that they are sick and what they're sick with - which is far from the case. "Most healthy adults may be able to infect others beginning 1 day before symptoms develop and up to 5 to 7 days after becoming sick. Children may pass the virus for longer than 7 days. Symptoms start 1 to 4 days after the virus enters the body. That means that you may be able to pass on the flu to someone else before you know you are sick, as well as while you are sick. Some persons can be infected with the flu virus but have no symptoms. During this time, those persons may still spread the virus to others." http://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/disease/spread.htm More of the same here: http://www.medscape.org/viewarticle/567336 Refusing to be vaccinated and thereby minimizing your chances of transmitting a potentially lethal infection to gravely ill patients isn't any more medically, scientifically, or ethically defensible than refusing to scrub in and stay sterile before performing surgery - or any other imperfect but reasonable and prudent precaution to protect patients you are charged with caring for. Like I said, everyone be free to refuse vaccinations and any institution in the business of caring for sick patients should be able to fire you for doing so.

Again, the ignorance is palpable in the attempt to tie the two issues. You keep just saying about ignorance on my part, yet somehow this is where your argument ends. I asked you directly- what are the health risks for a healthy adult associated with contracting flu, and what are the chances of developing long term complications from this illness by a healthy adult? Please be specific. My point is that we do not know long term effects on things like mutations of these strands. The same way as antibiotics helped to create necrotizing cellulitis, necrotizing faciatis and a whole slew of other fun infections. Are the antibiotics bad? I am not saying that. What is bad was overprescription for mostly viral infections. And for the ending argument- ignorance is having 70% of adults overweight or obese and not doing anything about it. It's not a flu that kills millions a year, it's a cardiovascular disease that kills millions a year. Somehow it's OK, let's panic about the flu. What are the health risks to the gravely-ill, the elderly, the very-young, and the immunocompromised who get exposed to the virus from healthy adults?