OT- North Carolina and Duke in a mess Topic

Posted by ike1024 on 10/22/2012 10:15:00 PM (view original):
"I want to cut my losses now, pull my money and put it into something that at least I know my share will be there if I need it. the problem is the government is continuing to force me and others like me to subsidize a system that won't be there for me. Whatever I'm putting in might as well be flushed down the toilet as far as I'm concerned, so while you're worried about people on the system now being cut off, I think it is inevitable someone will be cut off and I'm saying it shouldn't have to fall all on my generation - the older generation should have to take some cuts too, but they don't want to do that because they don't care about anyone but themselves."

So how does that make you any different from them?

This should be interesting.
10/23/2012 1:02 AM
Hey neat!

Some random thoughts: It was kind of sort of the generation in the foxholes 70 years ago that saw the benefits of Social Security and stuff like the GI Bill. 

Even if nothing is done at all for Social Security then in 30 years "going broke" means payments out will be above 70% current amounts. And this is after the worlds worst economy since the great depression 70+ years ago. 

Saving rates suck. I can't make people save. You can't make people save. Social Security was designed to be a hardly barely negligible level of subsistence where you didn't have to eat cat food because you don't have family to move in with which is what the world was before. And would be again without Social Security because, um, saving rates suck.

If you are able through work or elsewhere there is nothing to prevent anyone from saving for older age what with IRA's and "stuff".

The reason it's called Social Security Insurance "SSI" is because it's insurance for the worker and the workers family. It is difficult for a twenty something to cash in their IRA or 401k to help provide for their children until the age of 18 after unexpectedly getting dead.

The idea that because people are living longer is a problem for Social security is incorrect. They actually did good forecast work and every so often rates have adjusted to reflect age stuff. If anything, it isn't life expectancy that the original designers missed, it was child death rates. Most of the increase in life expectancy the last 80 years has not been due to people living longer (yeah, a bit), it's we don't die from children's diseases. That means more people make it to retirement age. Of course, that means more people are working and supporting the Social Security system. 

Also, does anyone really know if Internationals are included in the recruiting result rankings?
10/23/2012 3:06 AM
Bistiza - you're incredibly short-sighted in your views on this subject.  Not surprising, since you're obviously stubborn to the point of being ignorant of reality.  As an illustration, here's a personal story:

My parents and my mom's sister are all physicians and run a small practice together.  When they started their practice my mom's other sister was the office manager.  She quit that job after a few years to spend more time with her children.  My parents then went through a number of office managers for over a decade.  Only 2 of them stayed for any significant period of time; it turned out that both of those 2 were stealing from the practice, one on a very large scale.  After the 2nd of those 2 left they rehired my aunt.  I can guarantee you that not only did my aunt receive preferential treatment in this case, noone else was interviewed at all.  No resumes were collected or looked at.  Was that wrong?

The reality is that for many small businesses hiring of acquaintances or acquaintances of acquaintances is by far the best option.  How many people do you think are lining up to be office manager of a 3 doc practice?  I've got news for you - it's not a lot.  It was always very hard just to find someone willing to do the job.  It's not like small businesses can just advertise on a college campus that they have an opening and expect the resumes to flow in.  Everyone always wants to get in on the ground floor of a big corporation, where the potential exists for advancement and ultimately a big salary.  Most new graduates view small business as a dead end.  You're just trying to find someone willing to do it, and frequently that happens through connections.  The reality is that most businesses would rather have a slightly lesser employee they can trust than an incredibly qualified employee they can't.  You can't rant and rave all day about how unfair and wrong that is.  Frankly, it probably means you lack the social skills to develop the connections that the average person has, so you're jealous that the people who may seem less qualified but have better social skills seem to get better jobs.  Suck it up.
10/23/2012 5:27 AM
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Posted by jenningss on 10/23/2012 3:06:00 AM (view original):
Hey neat!

Some random thoughts: It was kind of sort of the generation in the foxholes 70 years ago that saw the benefits of Social Security and stuff like the GI Bill. 

Even if nothing is done at all for Social Security then in 30 years "going broke" means payments out will be above 70% current amounts. And this is after the worlds worst economy since the great depression 70+ years ago. 

Saving rates suck. I can't make people save. You can't make people save. Social Security was designed to be a hardly barely negligible level of subsistence where you didn't have to eat cat food because you don't have family to move in with which is what the world was before. And would be again without Social Security because, um, saving rates suck.

If you are able through work or elsewhere there is nothing to prevent anyone from saving for older age what with IRA's and "stuff".

The reason it's called Social Security Insurance "SSI" is because it's insurance for the worker and the workers family. It is difficult for a twenty something to cash in their IRA or 401k to help provide for their children until the age of 18 after unexpectedly getting dead.

The idea that because people are living longer is a problem for Social security is incorrect. They actually did good forecast work and every so often rates have adjusted to reflect age stuff. If anything, it isn't life expectancy that the original designers missed, it was child death rates. Most of the increase in life expectancy the last 80 years has not been due to people living longer (yeah, a bit), it's we don't die from children's diseases. That means more people make it to retirement age. Of course, that means more people are working and supporting the Social Security system. 

Also, does anyone really know if Internationals are included in the recruiting result rankings?
So you think the average person still dies in their sixties, do you?
10/23/2012 9:59 AM
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this is definitely true (bistizas comment about the 10-20 extra years at such high cost). we all **** and moan about how ****** things are today - and i agree i mean, people have to have jobs. but lets just think for a minute how the "greatest generation" had it. you had 5 kids sleep in a room - if you were lucky enough not to have 3 families with 6 kids each sharing a 1 room cabin. today its like, man this is so horrible my 2 girls have to share a room. if only they could be so lucky! your kid had polio? they lived or they died, often without much medical care at all. we have it *SO MUCH BETTER*, even people on welfare and food stamps live at a lot higher standard than people 100 years ago.

and health care is another thing. in the olden days, if you got really sick, and there was a procedure, and you didnt have mass money - you died. now health care has like 10 MILLION dollar maximum policies. im sorry, but if we want to take 100 really sick people and spend a billion dollars keeping them alive - we are going to haev to pay for it somewhere. you could save tens or hundreds of thousands of poor kids in africa for a billion dollars easy. but we now have this sense of entitlement - "im so important, i need a 1 million dollar treatment, which i couldnt repay in the next 30 years - but i deserve it". back then, you died, plain and simple. the standard of living has gone up SO MUCH its insane. and then of course we just get ridiculous, its over 20 grand AVERAGE now to have a fricken baby. JUST TO GIVE BIRTH, im not talking raising the little bastards!

i heard a stat like, americans spend 3x the money on care for a single birth than all the developed western nations, and we have the WORST infant and mother mortality rates. we are just ridiculously entitled. my wife had to go to the dr TWICE a week for the last two months, just to monitor the baby's heart rate. thats fine, its free, and the doc said to come and there was a legit concern, so we did it. but it probably cost the insurance company (and thus, all us paying) a couple extra grand. and everything was fine, well, until we decided magically 1 week before the scheduled C section that we had to go in a week early. and you know what it cost us extra? nothing. not one red cent. it just shouldn't be that way.

we just can't have it both ways. im not really referencing any post just saying in general. if we want to spend an extra 10 grand on preventative care, it should cost us. set up a payment plan. it gets to the point after our 3500 deductible, which we knew we'd hit anyway, that we could spend an extra MILLION and not pay a penny more. thats just retarded. the whole free market system breaks down. you are supposed to make tradeoffs based on cost. if it cost me an extra 5 grand to be very slightly safer with the baby, with all the insane amounts of checkups and **** (that we didnt do 30 years ago and see NO benefit from in terms of mortality rates), then i should have to make that decision with my money. but if its free, why not?

my cousin had a hernia. so did i. they were similar. his doc gave him the choice to do the scoped version, at a 10 grand higher price tag. my doc didn't. in the end, same results. in the end, he paid 0 extra for his 10 grand higher price tag. ITS NOT SUPPOSED TO WORK THAT WAY. as a culture, we are so entitled, it makes me sick. if you have the 10 grand to blow on a procedure like that special hernia, *that medically there really is no basis establishing it as a superior or safer procedure*, fine, thats your choice. but you shouldnt get to chose at a 0 dollar price tag, EVER. some board of smart *** doctors needs to come in, its a tough call, and decide between NECESSARY and cost effective proceedures and "luxury" proceedures. i mean god forbid we only have 5x better health care than people 100 years ago, not 10x at an addition 5x the cost. it just doesn't add up. american greed is uninhibited and no politicans are willing to stand up and say, enough already - or at least, if they do (see: ron paul), they just don't get listened to! we need to man up already and make the tough decision about what is a realistic standard of living and what is not. its really just that simple, if you ask me (of course, the details are tough, but i can't see at a high level, i cant see it any other way). if you have an illness and can spend 5 million to add 5 years to your life, unless you have the 5 million - i think its just tough luck. nobody likes to say it and we are always like "you cant put a price on life" - but we do it every day (you can save a kid in africa for like a buck a day, and we send troops out for oil wars - whats the cost/benefit there? there is a price on life, and we make those decisions all the time). as i said - we just need to man up already and finally put a price on life. maybe its a million bucks (of money that isnt yours). maybe its 500K. maybe its 100K per year of life we expect to extend you by. but at some point, its just too much. if you are bill gates fine, do what you want. but for us normal folks who never could pay 5 million to keep us alive 10 extra years, sorry, we just need to suck it up and die for the good of man kind.
10/23/2012 5:36 PM (edited)
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We need a new plague.
10/23/2012 6:57 PM
Posted by bistiza on 10/23/2012 6:19:00 PM (view original):
but we now have this sense of entitlement - "im so important, i need a 1 million dollar treatment, which i couldnt repay in the next 30 years - but i deserve it"
I agree with that people do seem entitled, but I also think there is no point in having modern medicine, technology, and people who understand and can use it if we're not going to actually use it - and NO ONE is any more important than anyone else. By that I mean the rich shouldn't get any better healthcare than the poor in this country.

Instead we've got rich people able to buy the best in health care while other people die. maybe they would have died a hundred years or more ago, but there is no need for ANYONE to die when we have the ability to save them. The costs should be shouldered evenly among everyone. If you spread the costs that way, no one gets an advantage, and no one pays more than they should. By the way, when I say evenly, I mean you should pay a tax for health care and  it would be based upon your income (and perhaps your net worth too but that's another issue). This way, the rich are paying what they are able while the poor are doing the same.

Now on the issue of people costing extra for (perhaps debatable) procedures and the like, I think there should be a panel of actual doctors and health care professionals (not government people or tax men) who decide what is and is not warranted for everyone with a set of standard procedures and adjusting if necessary for individual cases so that it is fair. This way no one gets treatments they don't need, but everyone gets the same access to care and no one is told they can't get care becasue they don't have money.

It would essentially the same thing as now, but instead of your insurance (if you even have it) telling you what you can or cnanot do, an independent panel would do so and would treat everyone the same. No decision woudl be based upon costs at all, ever. It would only  be based upon the necessary actions medically with no regard to cost, which wouldn't be as much anyway because everyone would get teh same rate so no doctors or others could gouge the prices.

In the hernia example, the way I would like things is  technically a panel of doctors woudl review that case the same as any other and determine which procedure was medically necessary and offered the best chance for a full recovery and that is what would be done (or you could opt not to have it done). Again they would not make any decision based upon cost but merely on what is medically necessary. Costs should be irrelevant in health care - what is necessary is what should be done, with no regard to cost and with everyone getting the same treatment.

In your example about five million to extend yoru life five years, i don't think it should ever come down to whether you personally have the five million. I think it shoudl come down to everyone gets the same treatment without regard to cost, and everyone foots the bill for society based upon waht they can afford to pay. That way no one pays too much, we all get the same care, and it's a fair system.

no one should get to live longer because they can afford a procedure adn someone else cannot.

You say if you are bill gates fine do what you want, but I say if you are bill gates then you should be contributing a huge amount of tax toward the health care of society in general so that the rest of us suffer less and live better lives.

I will never say anyone should suck it up and die for teh good of mankind because they are poor. I say the rich people should suck it up and pay for other people to be able to live a decent life in terms of health care. Everyone pays their fair share, not I'm rich so i'm better and more entitled than you to everything including life and health. That is true entitlement - the entitlement of the wealthy. They're not better than anyone. In fact, most of them are more entitled than anyone else in the world.  
you start out sounding like a communist. people simply are not of equal worth, sorry. i mean, just because im smarter than someone, it doesnt make me a better person. but if im a businessman who has created 50K jobs and has ammassed a worth of 100 million, and i get some horrible cancer that has a 100M price tag to treat - why shouldn't i get to live, while a guy who is capable of working but instead just sits on welfare his whole life gets the same cancer and dies? what about in the middle of ww2, you don't think we should pay more to keep FDR alive than a 90 year old woman who has aids, a brain tumor, diabetes, hepatitis, and syphallis? it just doesn't make sense.

its a sad reality but thats the way it is. NOBODY, IMO, is so important that they should be able to take 5 million dollars of tax payer or health care funding money to prolong their life by a year. but if you worked your *** off and created the first automobile, improving the lives of millions and millions of people, and you have the 10 million, its your choice. im not sure how you can disagree with that.

if you want to live in your dream world where costs should not be a factor in health care - then get used to living in a system that is financially unstable and collapses. its inevitable. its mentally retarded that we spend millions in uncompensated care treating guys who blow up their meth labs and the real workers out there pay the bill. you spoke out against entitlement, really talking down to those people, and now you are basically putting your picture in the dictionary next to the word hypocrite. of course cost has to be a concern. if we can spent 5 trillion dollars to maybe save a single life, should we do it? **** no. are you crazy? with all due respect... are you fricken nuts?

heres the reality bub - your system doesn't work. you want to bankrupt the world? then for your sake, i hope your ideas succeed. but for the rest of the world, god, i hope they don't. you are totally going against the free market system here. bill gates shouldnt be able to get better health care? are you out of your mind? i have a place you should live.... the communist USSR 50 years ago. seriously, that is the only place in the world where you can talk like this and people won't look at you like a 1) idiot, 2) whacko, and 3) person who is completely and totally delusional. the free market system is a cornerstone of this nation and a huge contributor to our prosperity. you want equal health care as everyone? go live in super poor african areas where people get diahreah, and get the same health care - none - and die from it. then you can be happy.

10/23/2012 10:01 PM (edited)
You know,Mathis should likely move out f the basketball forum. Yah?
10/23/2012 11:23 PM
Careful billyg, bistiza can get very touchy when you point out how out of touch he is with reality.

Bistiza, I note that you responded to the part of my narrative about finding qualified applicants who wanted the job other than my aunt, but you ignored the part about how the last 2 long-term employees in that role stole money from them, one on the order of hundreds of thousands of dollars.  Maybe because it doesn't fit into your idealized world for employers to have to worry about how much they trust their employees.  But in the real world issues of trust and how well people work together are not only real but significant.  My dad is now 68, works a second job on the weekends, and is nowhere close to being able to afford to retire.  But you think they should take a flyer on someone else who may or may not steal from them because it fits your narrow-minded perception of what is "right?"

Are you going to tell me it's wrong for a guy who owns his own restaurant to hire his children as waiters or buspersons in the summers during high school and college instead of taking applications and hiring the other high school kid with a summers' worth of previous waiting experience?  Or is that one ok because it's in their personal interest to have that money stay within their families if they're going to be paying someone anyway?  Aren't they still taking a job away from someone more qualified?  Where do you draw the line?  Your moral stand on this is all well and good, but without a bright line it doesn't work in reality.

Really, it's not all that different from your theory that your players should work harder if they don't play them.  In Bistizaland where everyone is perfect and nobody has any negative character traits maybe these things work, but in the real world they just don't hold up.
10/23/2012 11:34 PM
And to think I started this thread about basketball. LOL

I suppose the discussion is appropriate, though.  The annual tuition/fees at UNC is $22,500. At Duke, it's $56,000.  

North Carolina is supported by average working folks in the state who, apparently, need help with the simplest of school assignments. . Duke's main support is Big Tobacco millionaires, some of which probably have connections to jewelry stores. 
10/24/2012 5:42 AM (edited)
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Got busy but looking forward to reading up and commenting-- I do disagree with the idea that S.S. is looking good for the future-- S.S. is actually split into different sections so while S.S. for retirement might be in the best shape, S.S. for individuals with disabilities is surely not.  In seven years, when that fund does run out of money, how do you think they will make those payments.  Most agree it will come out of the S.S. for retired, thereby making that stressed.
   It is also not true that the reason for the issues are tied to less deaths in birth.  Sounds like you got  your information from one source and I assure you that people actually living longer and the high cost of their medical care during eligible years is what is driving the system into bankruptcy.  Hate to sound crazy and again, not a personal attack on a single baby boomer, but ask them who pays for their medical care, surgery, etc, and they'll say "the government".  My point has been that we all need to wake up to who is paying for that and that really is our granchildren and great grandchildren. 
10/24/2012 10:25 AM
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OT- North Carolina and Duke in a mess Topic

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