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Is my advice too mercenary?

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Re: Is my advice too mercenary?

#291

Post by sudosysgen »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #275
LordDragonfang wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The plans simply reflect the cost of healthcare. Anyone who works in healthcare and looks at billing can tell you this is not actually the case, prices are not based on any reasonable metric and are rarely actually paid by insurers anyway. >The companies that sell the healthcare have profit margins in the sub 5% range. Point of contention here, these companies aren't selling healthcare, they're reselling it. Which…

What you are talking about is taxpayer funded healthcare, with the large collective entity being the government. Seeing as how that is not politically possibly, middlemen with sub 5% profit margins was the compromise. Obviously not the best situation, but still better than before.

5% profit isn't the whole story here - If you can't increase profit, increase revenue. These middlemen have a lot of power and an incentive to use it in making the system less efficient.

Re: Is my advice too mercenary?

#292

Post by alexashka »

kbenson wrote: post #276
alexashka wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just because sometimes there were benevolent companies that decided to contribute to their communities doesn't mean relying on that is a stable or desired outcome. You are always going to rely on a few people, to do the right thing, which will become the wrong thing as life goes on, which will require a few more people, to do the right thing again, ad infinitum. That's just how this human thing works. Sometimes it'…

Who said there's a right answer forever? The whole point of what I said is to make sure you use your own power as a citizen to pass laws and elect those people you think will serve your interests best at the current time, and as soon as that's not the case, try to get rid of them. That's the point of democracy and a representative democracy, the power to keep interests aligned with the people. Often that means puttin…

Our difference lies in the axioms.

Your axiom is democracy and what sounds like dozens of other conditions.

My axiom is highly intelligent, capable, compassionate people in power. That's it.

My position is trivially superior, for many reasons, if only because your exact position is just one of many possibilities that highly intelligent, capable, compassionate people in power can choose to implement.

Re: Is my advice too mercenary?

#293

Post by lotsofpulp »

sudosysgen wrote: post #291
lotsofpulp wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you are talking about is taxpayer funded healthcare, with the large collective entity being the government. Seeing as how that is not politically possibly, middlemen with sub 5% profit margins was the compromise. Obviously not the best situation, but still better than before.

5% profit isn't the whole story here - If you can't increase profit, increase revenue. These middlemen have a lot of power and an incentive to use it in making the system less efficient.

All businesses would like to increase profit and revenue, but they cannot just will it. There are at least 7 major publicly traded competing managed care organizations (MCOs, aka health insurance comapanies) plus Kaiser Permanente among many others.

Is there any evidence that these companies are concluding to increase revenue by making the system less efficient?

Low profit margins plus multitude of competitors generally means there is not much juice left to squeeze.

Re: Is my advice too mercenary?

#294

Post by citizenpaul »

No, companies killed collectively beneficial motivations. You could even risk some sort of lawsuit from the company in the form of malicious underperforming by suggesting things at an exit interview.

This was all you needed to write:

>I think many people, especially those newer to the working world, underestimate just how ruthless and sociopathic our late-stage Capitalist working conditions really are.

Re: Is my advice too mercenary?

#295

Post by Karrot_Kream »

Apocryphon wrote: post #289
Karrot_Kream wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes but not in the way I think you're implying. Labor makes a rational decision to make as much money as they can, and as highly paid software jobs have become more common, more labor has entered software. Rather than the past when most people were in software to try something new or start something, most software labor these days is in it just for a living. The distinction between labor and capital itself in softwar…

This take is quite accurate, just a few points: 1. By broader macroeconomic trends, I was suggesting that HN commenters might be criticizing "charge more" simply because consumers in general, who may not be able to afford as much as they used to, would be adversely affected. Of course, tech companies who monetize by pursuing any number of alternate policies (adding ads, selling data, F2P loot boxes) would be just as…

I think we essentially agree. #2 is an interesting point to think about. Especially as the FAANGs continue to consolidate, while there will be a greatly increased appetite for software engineers as labor, thanks to network effects (and a bit of #3) you end up with fewer opportunities for labor to become capital and vice-versa.

Re: Is my advice too mercenary?

#296

Post by jokethrowaway »

lovich wrote: post #268
roenxi wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The two main differences: 1) Nobody pretends that business skills are especially hereditary. It is common for people to enter and exit the 'class' of business owner. 2) Success as as a business owner requires steady economic activity where people get what they want. Success as a noble ruling a fiefdom requires kneecapping anyone who challenges your god-given right to rule. One big observations: This is what US govern…

> It isn't like people were relying on business then business owners got greedy. Do you actually believe that? That all these business owners were running their factories out of the goodness of their hearts and that they only stopped because the government took all the money they had to give out as charity? If that is the case why do we see ultra profitable businesses returning to this form instead of trying to carve…

Being charitable / good to employees is good for business and for retaining workforce in a world where employees don't have anyone else to care for them.

If I need to give 40% of my profits (and your salary) to the government and there is an avenue for getting some of that money back when you're in trouble, then go and ask for the government for help.

The mistake is in allowing the government to gather more resources and in turn making people dependant on them.

Welfare also destroyed the family unit (especially in the black community).

Indirect democracy is a fancy name for "electing" with your 1/100M vote an elite which gets to decide how to spend half of your salary.

Re: Is my advice too mercenary?

#297

Post by jokethrowaway »

aklemm wrote: post #285
roenxi wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The two main differences: 1) Nobody pretends that business skills are especially hereditary. It is common for people to enter and exit the 'class' of business owner. 2) Success as as a business owner requires steady economic activity where people get what they want. Success as a noble ruling a fiefdom requires kneecapping anyone who challenges your god-given right to rule. One big observations: This is what US govern…

If I overlay that spending graph with quality of life during the same timespan, I might conclude government spending is a miracle. A greater success within 200 years can hardly be imagined.

Correlation doesn't imply causation and the pirates disappearing didn't cause global warming.

I'm grateful to entrepreneurs and companies for innovating so much, while the USA is turning into the largest employer in the world (bigger than China).

Re: Is my advice too mercenary?

#298

Post by jokethrowaway »

danaris wrote: post #160
engineer_22 wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The counter argument, is that relying on benevolent government to ensure a desired outcome is just as naive. In both cases, the holders of power are people . You're just trading one person for another.

You're trading one person who has no accountability to you in particular or the populace in general with a group of people who have at least some meaningful accountability. That's not an even trade.

Accountability?

Who the hell wanted either trump or biden in the last election?

There is simply no choice because the political elites offered us this and we need to vote our guy not to let the other guy win.

The game is rigged and your vote is not worth much.

When you're buying a product instead you're effecting real change and telling society you want more of that. If only we could control law making in the same way we would have a decentralised society which better approximates what people want.

Re: Is my advice too mercenary?

#299

Post by Apocryphon »

nonameiguess wrote: post #250
AussieWog93 wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a lot of responses here discussing corporations vs. the government vs. the workers when it comes to social responsibility, but ignoring the fact that _everyone_ has become less socially responsible over the last 40 years. People in general just aren't community or socially minded in the way they used to be[1], and the bosses of companies or leaders of government are all people too. [1] To be specific, peopl…

Yep. I have no idea what it is, but it's clear there is a broader issue here than any reductive analysis will acknowledge. Same thing with NAFTA. It wasn't a single trade deal. The exact same changes happened with my dad's employer, but he was a plumber for Los Angeles County. They weren't and can't be offshored and they aren't owned by corporate raiders or soulless shareholders, yet exactly what happened to rust bel…

Financialization?

Re: Is my advice too mercenary?

#300

Post by Apocryphon »

sidewndr46 wrote: post #209
dangerlibrary wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A common right-wing criticism of Medicare that I was trying to pre-empt is that it is rife with waste, fraud, and abuse. But to directly answer your question: if you want your dollars spent effectively, you should care about fraud rates in services you pay for (public or private).

Alright, well I guess I'll take your comment as an attempt at a real conversation. But fraud in the medical industry isn't really something that crosses my mind, nor is it part of my concern about the government dictating my healthcare.

It's a concern that affects even startups!

https://www.cfo.com/risk-compliance/2021/03/ubiome-founders-...

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