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A rant on bus stops

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Re: A rant on bus stops

#91

Post by pyuser583 »

verall wrote: post #74
pyuser583 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which industry are you talking about? The pharmaceutical industry is international. Many of the big players are headquartered in UK, Canada, etc. Hospitals are mostly non-profit, and mostly purely domestic.

The pharma-hospital-insurance complex. The same non-profit hospitals in which at least one person you're seen by will be out of your insurance network because it makes more money for the hospital. The same pharma companies which evergreen and lobby for drugs to be ruled unsafe once patent rights run out. The same AMA that limits the number of doctors and ensures they are paid more than any other country while patient…

You’re taking about really different things.

In general:

* Insurers try very hard to keep costs down.

* Unions try very hard to keep labor costs up.

* Drug makers try very hard to keep drug costs up.

* Hospitals just try to survive.

* Medical provider try to keep a decent work life balance while paying off their student loans.

Re: A rant on bus stops

#92

Post by Liquid_Snake »

rippercushions wrote: post #20
Pigalowda wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in an apartment with neighbors who are subsidized, there’s a psychiatric hospital in every major city, and all night movie theaters would exist if there was a market for them. If you think there’s a market and money to be made - start your own

> If you think there’s a market and money to be made - start your own I'm genuinely unsure if this is a parody of the American Way here. "There's no problem here, but if there was, the free market will solve it!"

[flagged]

Re: A rant on bus stops

#93

Post by nine_zeros »

kika wrote: post #79
nine_zeros wrote: post #55

Oh yes, the old, "Everyone gotta have ID because what if there is voter fraud"...even if it eliminates the right to vote for some people. "Everyone gotta get preauthorization from insurance because what if there is insurance fraud"....even if the delay kills someone on the hospital bed. "Everyone gotta carry REAL ID because what if some people are illegal"...even if the delay in getting REAL ID causes legal people to…

Line 5 and 6 seem to contradict each other. From 5 it looks like you want to more "gun licensing" and in line 6 you want not to "deny rights". Whereas gun licensing (any licensing, technically speaking) is the denial of right. And any argument (of which there are many valid ones) for gun licensing is precisely what you're arguing against: "Everyone gotta have The Gun License because think of the children" ... even if…

I think you missed the part where I say: "The only place this "Everyone gotta do XYZ" trope doesn't apply"

This means that the only place where the denial of rights is not applied systematically is in gun rights.

Another way to read it is: Every other right is treated worse than gun rights. And that is unfair to any unbiased observer.

Re: A rant on bus stops

#94

Post by Clubber »

kika wrote: post #79
nine_zeros wrote: post #55

Oh yes, the old, "Everyone gotta have ID because what if there is voter fraud"...even if it eliminates the right to vote for some people. "Everyone gotta get preauthorization from insurance because what if there is insurance fraud"....even if the delay kills someone on the hospital bed. "Everyone gotta carry REAL ID because what if some people are illegal"...even if the delay in getting REAL ID causes legal people to…

Line 5 and 6 seem to contradict each other. From 5 it looks like you want to more "gun licensing" and in line 6 you want not to "deny rights". Whereas gun licensing (any licensing, technically speaking) is the denial of right. And any argument (of which there are many valid ones) for gun licensing is precisely what you're arguing against: "Everyone gotta have The Gun License because think of the children" ... even if…

Rights for me and not for thee.

Re: A rant on bus stops

#95

Post by fbdab103 »

fortran77 wrote: post #39

It's infuriating to learn that LA spends taxpayer money to send bus stop designers on overseas junkets.

On the other hand, I would gladly have paid extra money if the Chicago CTA would take a trip to Paris to see their architecture. It is shocking just how good the signage is there. Even with my pidgin French, I could easily make sense of which trains were going where, and how to utilize the map. In contrast, the Chicago system is poorly labeled and trips up native English speakers regularly.

Re: A rant on bus stops

#96

Post by Clubber »

nine_zeros wrote: post #93
kika wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Line 5 and 6 seem to contradict each other. From 5 it looks like you want to more "gun licensing" and in line 6 you want not to "deny rights". Whereas gun licensing (any licensing, technically speaking) is the denial of right. And any argument (of which there are many valid ones) for gun licensing is precisely what you're arguing against: "Everyone gotta have The Gun License because think of the children" ... even if…

I think you missed the part where I say: "The only place this "Everyone gotta do XYZ" trope doesn't apply" This means that the only place where the denial of rights is not applied systematically is in gun rights. Another way to read it is: Every other right is treated worse than gun rights. And that is unfair to any unbiased observer.

Gun ownership rights are constantly being attacked, I'm not sure what you're talking about. Freedom of speech is also constantly under attack, as is press. Religion is constantly under attack too. Freedom of assembly is almost non-existent. Any government redress is fine as long as it can be ignored. That's just the first two amendments.

Re: A rant on bus stops

#97

Post by ajuc »

pyuser583 wrote: post #91
verall wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The pharma-hospital-insurance complex. The same non-profit hospitals in which at least one person you're seen by will be out of your insurance network because it makes more money for the hospital. The same pharma companies which evergreen and lobby for drugs to be ruled unsafe once patent rights run out. The same AMA that limits the number of doctors and ensures they are paid more than any other country while patient…

You’re taking about really different things. In general: * Insurers try very hard to keep costs down. * Unions try very hard to keep labor costs up. * Drug makers try very hard to keep drug costs up. * Hospitals just try to survive. * Medical provider try to keep a decent work life balance while paying off their student loans.

I could accept these as true if the effect was comparable to any other place in the world. It's not. So either Americans are uniquely bad at trying really hard, or the system is set up with different goals in mind.

Re: A rant on bus stops

#98

Post by ryandrake »

api wrote: post #8

Something I’ve always noticed across the US political landscape: people really don’t like spending money to directly help people (mental health care, institutions, public housing, addiction recovery programs) but are fine with wasting money in weird ways like having this non profit travel the world to learn how to put up a sun shade. It’s like the thing Americans dislike isn’t spending the money but the idea of helpi…

Somehow, we Americans always prefer our government pay some entity to indirectly work towards a goal, than to simply use that money to directly achieve the goal. Direct action is so much more efficient, but we insist on doing it the worse way. Paying some non-profit, with executives, and PR people, and lobbyists, and administrators, and administrators-to-administrators, all soaking up the money that could have been applied directly if we weren't so stupid. Even for things that are not philanthropy. We're always insisting that government hire contractors to do this and that. Contractors whose executives and shareholders soak up much of the funding, who then turn around and hand the work to subcontractors with their own executives and shareholders and administrative staff, and sub-sub-contractors...it's grift and inefficiency all the way down. By the time a dollar gets from the government's hands through all the layers of money-sponges, only a cent or two go to the people who need it.

Re: A rant on bus stops

#99

Post by dragonwriter »

vaidhy wrote: post #85
psychlops wrote: post #26

The US doesn't have a homeless problem, California has a homeless problem.

Here is the top 10 states with their estimated homeless population: California (171,521), New York (74,178), Florida (25,959), Washington (25,211), Texas (24,432), Oregon (17,959), Massachusetts (15,507), Arizona (13,553), Pennsylvania (12,691), Georgia (10,689) In 2022, the U.S. homeless population was estimated to be over 577,000, according to the annual point-in-time count. It looks extremely illogical to me that…

> There is only 171K in all of CA (out of 12 million people).

California’s population is ~40 million.

Re: A rant on bus stops

#100

Post by nine_zeros »

Clubber wrote: post #96
nine_zeros wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you missed the part where I say: "The only place this "Everyone gotta do XYZ" trope doesn't apply" This means that the only place where the denial of rights is not applied systematically is in gun rights. Another way to read it is: Every other right is treated worse than gun rights. And that is unfair to any unbiased observer.

Gun ownership rights are constantly being attacked, I'm not sure what you're talking about. Freedom of speech is also constantly under attack, as is press. Religion is constantly under attack too. Freedom of assembly is almost non-existent. Any government redress is fine as long as it can be ignored. That's just the first two amendments.

They are attacked because people can see that guns are given more rights than humans.
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