Holy Sh*T Hot "Iceland on Thames" story (Someone find FRED!)

[Mega]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/n...of-Lloyds.html

Not long ago they said what a wonderful opertunatly it was to "Buy" Hbos!

Now they going under themselves!

Mike

[Mega]

Re: Holy Sh*T Hot "Iceland on Thames" story (Someone find FRED!)

Holy Sh*T another one!
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/to...cle5697765.ece

FRED, i need FRED!!!!!!!!!!
Mike

[Mega]

Re: Holy Sh*T Hot "Iceland on Thames" story (Someone find FRED!)

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b9dc3ecc-f...077b07658.html
Like trying to dis-arm a nuke!

To Me the REAL danger is WHEN China & Asia start to recover, then everyone will race for the doors & "Iceland on Thames" will be sunk!

Mike

[hayekvindicated]

Re: Holy Sh*T Hot "Iceland on Thames" story (Someone find FRED!)

Its like a horror movie which is also comical in the extreme. I don't know which bit stands out more - the horror at seeing the entire country's economy disappear into the ether or the comedy of seeing the sheer stupidity of the "educated" economists blathering about the need to get the banks to start lending to home buyers again.

Rogers and Soros are both funny on the Pound. Soros says that the risks outweigh the benefits of shorting Sterling now. Rogers says that the UK is finished and that Sterling is heading for "parity" with the Dollar. Jeez, if its going to get anywhere near as bad as I think it will, its going to get a whole lot worse than "parity" with the USD.

Having lived in England for a number of years now as a foreigner, I can notice many things about the country that the natives don't seem to notice (or don't want to notice?). The average level of competence in Britain is so low that it is almost painful to watch. People who use the transport system or experience the screwups in NHS hospitals will understand what I mean. Customer service is poor, the quality of manufactured goods unbelievably shoddy and society itself is falling to pieces. There are stories regularly of 12 year old girls getting pregnant in council estates.

That the British produce nothing (other than smug journalists and vain academics who indulged themselves in an orgy of self-congratulation at the supposed "superiority" of contemporary Anglo-Saxon capitalism during the bubble years) is not just a cliche it is a fact.

Rogers is not severe enough in his prognosis. I don't think this country will ever recover from this disaster. Countries can be wrecked by war and destruction but they can recover if there is a functioning civil society - Japan after WWII is an example. The South after the Civil War is another. But Japan had a stable, functioning civil society in existence despite the death and destruction caused by WWII. As did the South despite the loss of a large chunk of the male population after the Civil War.

British society is disappearing rapidly. Teenage pregnancy, dependency on government spending (outside the South East, the state accounts for more than 60 percent of the economy), the incredible decline in the quality of schools, rampant drug abuse and rapidly increasing crime levels - it portends the end of a great nation.

Lest I be accused of enjoying the spectacle as a citizen of a former colony, let me say that seeing all this gives me no pleasure. Not in the least.

[Mega]

Re: Holy Sh*T Hot "Iceland on Thames" story (Someone find FRED!)

http://www.guardian.co.uk:80/comment...-max-recession

Some of us get it!
Mike

[Mn_Mark]

Re: Holy Sh*T Hot "Iceland on Thames" story (Someone find FRED!)

The average level of competence in Britain is so low that it is almost painful to watch. People who use the transport system or experience the screwups in NHS hospitals will understand what I mean. Customer service is poor, the quality of manufactured goods unbelievably shoddy and society itself is falling to pieces.

I'd love to see some documentary filmmaker do a fair, objective, in-depth examination of the British health care system and broadcast it widely in the U.S. before we adopt socialized health care here under Obama. If journalists were truly objective, 60 Minutes would do such a piece. Let's see what sort of hospitals people in Britain get served in for "free", what kind of waiting lists there are, what kind of quality of doctoring and service they receive.

[Mega]

Re: Holy Sh*T Hot "Iceland on Thames" story (Someone find FRED!)

My Brother dropped down with a Brain hemerage in 1980, the NHS operated on him for 6 hours, they put it right. I had my mum in a few times.........they sorted her.

Service, not bad to be honest.............trouble is this IS the high water mark. We simply can't afford the system we have. Labour confused Service ind with wealth creation..........not the same thing.

Mike

[GRG55]

Re: Holy Sh*T Hot "Iceland on Thames" story (Someone find FRED!)

I'd love to see some documentary filmmaker do a fair, objective, in-depth examination of the British health care system and broadcast it widely in the U.S. before we adopt socialized health care here under Obama. If journalists were truly objective, 60 Minutes would do such a piece. Let's see what sort of hospitals people in Britain get served in for "free", what kind of waiting lists there are, what kind of quality of doctoring and service they receive.

That's a too easily biased way to assess differences.

If one wished to be serious about comparing different health care systems I would suggest comparing outcomes. How do national statistics such as infant mortality rates and other objective indicators compare between different national populations? That sort of thing.

That'll probably tell more objectively what the results really are, than any 60 Minutes episode or Michael Moore film will ever reveal.

You might be surprised how good some of the outcomes of socialized medicine in places like France and the UK have been, especially comparing the results normalized by the level of national income devoted to health care compared to the USA.

[Spartacus]

Re: Holy Sh*T Hot "Iceland on Thames" story (Someone find FRED!)

the health insurers have thought of that, Greg.

Last time around in this debate they pointed out that the illegals bring down the US's statistics.

For those who can afford the insurance (and the insurance companies don't find a way to drop you once you get an illness), the US has the best outcome stats.

rephrasing, if you have insurance in the US (and out of sheer benevolence the insurer decides not to drop you), you do better than the klaag-wearers and the cheese - eaters.

Quite a way of looking at the stats, but the public seemed to buy it then & the debate died out.

Lots of people also forget that huge chunks of the US system is already socialized, and the stats are that the socialized portion of the system delivers better care and outcomes for less money. There was a huge thread on this on iTulip like 2 years ago.

here ya go
http://itulip.com/forums/showthread.php?t=968

and of course
http://www.newyorker.com/fact/conten.../050829fa_fact

That's a too easily biased way to assess differences.

If one wished to be serious about comparing different health care systems I would suggest comparing outcomes. How do national statistics such as infant mortality rates and other objective indicators compare between different national populations? That sort of thing.

That'll probably tell more objectively what the results really are, than any 60 Minutes episode or Michael Moore film will ever reveal.

You might be surprised how good some of the outcomes of socialized medicine in places like France and the UK have been, especially comparing the results normalized by the level of national income devoted to health care compared to the USA.

[Mn_Mark]

Re: Holy Sh*T Hot "Iceland on Thames" story (Someone find FRED!)

You might be surprised how good some of the outcomes of socialized medicine in places like France and the UK have been, especially comparing the results normalized by the level of national income devoted to health care compared to the USA.

I think I WOULD be surprised. Because if government can provide health care services better than the free market (and the U.S. has nothing like a free market in healthcare!), I see no reason not to adopt central government control/planning of all sectors of the economy.

There's nothing special about health care that somehow makes it properly the subject of government management in the way that defense is properly managed by government. The defense of a country can't be managed on a person-by-person basis. It can't be divided up. There's just defense for the whole country. So government must handle that.

And there's lots of things more important than health care. Food, for one. Without food you die in a few weeks. Why don't we have the government run all the farms and supermarkets and decide what gets grown and who gets how much? Same with other things more important than health care: clothing and shelter come to mind. Why not have government manage clothing design, production, and distribution? And housing - have government designing, building, and allocating housing.

There are other critical social functions that logically the government should be managing if they are supposedly the best way to allocate something like health care. Everyone needs love and most want a spouse. Without love and social ties people live a barren and shorter life. Why not have government manage who we marry and who our friends are? And we all need some luxuries - toys, vacations. Government should probably be decidiing who gets a vacation where and for how long, who gets the new television sets, etc.

If you think all that is ridiculous, then tell me how health care is any different. Health care is goods and services provided by people and companies who train and specialize in providing those things, just like in every other good and service that exist. There is no fundamental difference between a human being who trains to be a doctor and one who trains to be a car mechanic, yet somehow many people think doctors need to be managed by the government but mechanics don't. Health care is just a certain kind of set of goods and services sold by some people to some other people.

So yes I'd be very surprised to find any fair examination of a free-market-based health care system and a socialist system that showed the socialist system did a better job for society - holding constant the amount of social resources devoted to it, etc. Of course if you compare a system like Cuba's where they artifically devote a disproportionate amount of the society's resources to training a large number of doctors for propaganda purposes ("look how many doctors our society creates! we are so superior!) you can make a skewed argument that a socialist system works better - as long as you ignore all the other things the society has given up to produce all those doctors.

"But look how expensive health care is in the U.S.! No one can afford it. The government has to manage it." But health care became so incredibly expensive in this country AFTER the government got massively involved with regulating and subsidizing it - just like with college tuitions after student loans became available. Not long ago I found a bill my grandfather paid for an in-patient surgery in the late 1940s. He spent two days in the hospital and had no insurance. Total bill? $25. When my mother went to college in the 1950s the total tuition for a quarter was less than $100. How come health care and higher education were eminently affordable then, not requiring people to go deeply into debt, but now it's so expensive that people think the government should manage it?

And once government is managing health care the way it manages K-12 education (ugh), what will be next? I suspect it really will be housing or food or clothing. Those will be the next "entitlements" that the socialists will decide are too important to be left to the private sector.

[metalman]

Re: Holy Sh*T Hot "Iceland on Thames" story (Someone find FRED!)

i love this place.

[GRG55]

Re: Holy Sh*T Hot "Iceland on Thames" story (Someone find FRED!)

i love this place.

Be careful what you say. Or somebody might try to put you in a hospital...;)

[derelict54]

Re: Holy Sh*T Hot "Iceland on Thames" story (Someone find FRED!)

Not long ago I found a bill my grandfather paid for an in-patient surgery in the late 1940s. He spent two days in the hospital and had no insurance. Total bill? $25.

Maybe because we had universal healthcare back then?

The ONLY problem with US health care isystem is that insurance systems runs best when all people pay equal into a system. Unfortunately with a voluntrary health care system the young adults of america who do not need to see doctors often choose not to pay for health care insurance. Therefor the elder have to pay double to pay for their more frequent visits. Then of course when a young adult has a catastrophic auto injury society ends up picking up the bill for the flight for life helicopter and everything else. Or even the self employed in America who have to pay 10k just to have a kid irregardless that they pay 650 a month for basic coverage that does. Couple with that with the imigrants who use the emergency room like a day clinic for their kids ear infection or cough and you got the most expensive high trained doctors treating tummy aches. Hence while emergency rooms are on the verge of bankruptcy across america, they cannot refuse to treat, so in essence we have privatized insurance for the rich, and socialized if you don't pay taxes.

Don't ever bring this argument to this forum again.

When was the last time you saw an insurance company miss third quarter guidance?. They don't, they just cut the number of patients claims they cover. Give me a break, don't even try to argue. 100,000 americans die for no reason each year in America other than that in an emergency they get delivered to a place that is not "in network" and have to be transferred to some other hospital or doctor that is "in network"

Go take a trip down to skid row, then come back and argue your stupid logic.
fficeffice" />
The United States is alone among developed nations with the absence of a universal healthcare system.

The United States spends the most (1^st) to health care with 15% of GDP paid toward health care, yet ranks 22^nd in life expectancy.


http://www.oecdobserver.org/news/ful...fe_values.html

What would 4 or 5% savings of our GDP equal, just to match canada, france or germany who have very good heath care, much less some others. lets see 14 trillion economy times .05 equals 700 billion dollars. About the same as a stiff economic stimulus. What about that stimulus year after year, for the last thirty years since we privatized health care? Where would we be as a nation?

Certain things are not better privatized, take Friedman and your Chicago degree and go start talking to our domestic airline captains and ask them what deregulation has done for that industry. Yes I believe in free markets, but within a neighborhood, maybe a country, but not the world over. At least in a neighborhood, I know I can go break the leg of an asshole who rips me off. Not like the corporate conglomerates that hide profits in oversea jurisdictions, export labor costs, blackmail politicians into tax credits by threat of moving their operations.......Or add in the chinese government manipulating their currency to keep their factories humming or countries that pay high dolar for their citizens to come learn at our schools and take their education back to their country to use their knowledge to benefit their society

Oh and contrary to Special Interest Propaganda our system fails in comparison to other countries, in this first tagged article it is estimated we could save an estimated 100k lives every year with a system that insures everyone. That sounds like 100k uninsured people die needlessly in the ffice:smarttags" />US every year. While yes, we are on the cutting edge in certain highly specialized medicine, I believe with a universal plus one system, meaning we cover all emergenices and regular health care and people can pay a premium for the cutting edge cancer treatment, the experimental, the holistic, the botox, the tits the etc. that makes our treatments cutting edge, maybe we can save a million people from dying in the next 10 years.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22554235/

Try and watch this frontline, take into account the OECD statistics above and then make an educated argument for privatized health care

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontl...roundtheworld/


From Wikipedia:





Is there a connection between health spending and life expectancy? Not necessarily. As the latest edition of the OECD in Figures 2005 points out, the Japanese have the highest life expectancy in the OECD area, but their health spending, at nearly 8% of GDP, is far from being the highest. The US on the other hand has the highest health spending at some 15%, yet it clocks in at just 22nd when it comes to life expectancy–Americans can nevertheless expect to live past 77. The lowest spender is Korea (5.6% of GDP), with a life expectancy also of 77 years.
Six countries now have a life expectancy over 80, including Spain, whose health spending is just 7.7% of GDP. Turkey is the only OECD country where life expectancy is below 70, and its health spending, at 6.6% of GDP, is sixth lowest. Meanwhile, life expectancy is rising in all OECD countries. Another report, Long-term Care for Older People, says that the share of very old people (over 80) in the OECD population nearly trebled since 1960 to over 3% today, and is expected to more than double by 2040. This will put pressure on care services and costs unless informal care expands, the report says.

• In Australia the current system, known as Medicare, was instituted in 1984. It coexists with a private health system. Medicare is funded partly by a 1.5% income tax levy (with exceptions for low-income earners), but mostly out of general revenue. An additional levy of 1% is imposed on high-income earners without private health insurance. As well as Medicare, there is a separate Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme that heavily subsidises prescription medications.
• Canada has a federally sponsored, publicly funded Medicare system, with most services provided by the private sector. Each province may opt out, though none currently do. Canada's system is known as a single payer system, where basic services are provided by private doctors, (since 2002 they have been allowed to incorporate), with the entire fee paid for by the government at the same rate. Most all family doctors receive a fee per visit. These rates are negotiated between the provincial governments and the province's medical associations, usually on an annual basis. A physician cannot charge a fee for a service that is higher than the negotiated rate - even to patients who are not covered by the publicly funded system - unless he opts out of billing the publicly funded system altogether. Pharmaceutical costs are set at a global median by government price controls. Other areas of health care, such as dentistry and optometry, are wholly private.
• Cuba has a government-coordinated system that guarantees universal coverage and consumes a lower proportion of the nation's GDP (7.3%) than some highly privatised systems (e.g. USA: 15.2%) (UNDP 2006: Table 6). The system does charge fees in treating elective treatment for patients from abroad, but tourists who fall ill are treated freely in Cuban hospitals. Cuba attracts patients mostly from Latin America and Europe by offering care of comparable quality to a developed nation but at much lower prices. Cuba's own health indicators are the best in Latin America and surpass those of the US in some respects (infant mortality rates, underweight babies, HIV infection, immunisation rates, doctor per population rates). (UNDP 2006: Tables 6,7,9,10)
• In Finland, public medical services at clinics and hospitals are run by the municipalities (local government) and are funded 76% by taxation, 20% by patients through access charges, and by others 4%. Patient access charges are subject to annual caps. For example GP visits are (11€ per visit with annual 33€ cap), hospital outpatient treatment (22€ per visit), a hospital stay, including food, medical care and medicines (26€ per 24 hours, or 12€ if in a psychiatric hospital). After a patient has spent 590€ per year on public medical services, all treatment and medications thereafter are free. Taxation funding is partly local and partly nationally based. Patients can claim re-imbursement of part of their prescription costs from KELA. Finland also has a much smaller private medical sector which accounts for about 14 percent ot total health care spending. Only 8% of doctors choose to work in private practice, and some of these also choose to do some work in the public sector. Private sector patients can claim a contribution from KELA towards their private medical costs (including dentistry) if they choose to be treated in the more expensive private sector, or they can join private insurance funds.
• In France, most doctors remain in private practice; there are both private and public hospitals. Social Security consists of several public organizations, distinct from the state government, with separate budgets that refunds patients for care in both private and public facilities. It generally refunds patients 70% of most health care costs, and 100% in case of costly or long-term ailments. Supplemental coverage may be bought from private insurers, most of them nonprofit, mutual insurers. Until recently, social security coverage was restricted to those who contributed to social security (generally, workers or retirees), excluding some poor segments of the population; the government of Lionel Jospin put into place the "universal health coverage". In some systems, patients can also take private health insurance, but choose to receive care at public hospitals, if allowed by the private insurer.
• Germany has a universal multi-payer system with two main types of health insurance: "Compulsory health insurance" (Gesetzlich) and "Private" (Privat).^[3][4][5] Compulsory insurance applies to those below a set income level is provided through private non-profit "sickness funds" at common rates for all members, and is paid for with joint employer-employee contributions. Provider compensation rates are negotiated in complex corporatist social bargaining among specified autonomously organized interest groups (e.g. physicians' associations) at the level of federal states (länder). The sickness funds are mandated to provide a wide range of coverages and cannot refuse membership or otherwise discriminate on an actuarial basis. Small numbers of persons are covered by tax-funded government employee insurance or social welfare insurance. Persons with incomes above the prescribed compulsory insurance level may opt into the sickness fund system, which a majority do, or purchase private insurance. Private supplementary insurance to the sickness funds of various sorts is available.

[Uno]

Re: Holy Sh*T Hot "Iceland on Thames" story (Someone find FRED!)

US Health Care is a government backed monopoly mascarading as a "free market"

Just like the legal system and financial system.

These quasi government backed institutions are much MORE EXPENSIVE then both nationalization AND capitalism. This is why both side's arguments make sense and ultimatly the status quo remains.

Nationalization would be an improvement over the current system.

Capitalism would be an even better improvement over the current system.

Sometimes I think we need nationalization (just like for the banks) in order to break the monopoly and then a re-privatization to get back to capitalism.

Same for the legal system and financial system.

[Uno]

Re: Holy Sh*T Hot "Iceland on Thames" story (Someone find FRED!)

1. Try to open a hospital without joining the MD / Big Pharma / FDA club?

See how long before you are thrown into jail. The "alternative" medicine industry has been making some in roads to this monopoly and I try and take advantage of preventative medicine as much as possible.

2. Try to open a law office without joining the bar?

See how long before you are thrown into jail. A few people have tried to provide "alternative" legal services but I believe they are not making much process.

3. Try to start an alternative financial system, currency market?

See how long before you are shut down. A few people have tried and continue to try. Support them if you consider yourself an American.

I hate the "industrial complex" word but there needs to be some new term for this "corrupt corporatism" - mafia - it is not socialist, not communist, not fascist, and not capitalist. Its not liberal and its not conservative.

I think naming it properly would help people identify it and so change it.

Otherwise you get into the US political labeling war of liberals, conservatives, socialism, blah blah ... and nothing ever changes.