pinions of buddy don: faith-based economick nonsense

thays plenty of diskusshun bout faith-based thangs, witch fer the mos part, seems lack folks is arguin over whuther we should bleeve scientists or preechurs bout thangs lack evolushun vs intelligent desine n so furth. but seems to me lack whar we need to be astin questchuns bout whar we putt our faith is in the follerin bleefs, witch thay aint necessarily so:

• deesire fer profit is thonly motivayshun that innybidy uses in makin inny deecishun in life, witch this leads to simple-minded publicity gimmicks lack:
  • the laffer curve, or
  
  
  • the ackceptants of ceo's makin over 500 times as much as the average blue collar wurker ["Business Week reports that the disparity between the “shop floor and the executive suite” is at an all-time high. In 1980, CEOs made 42 times the average blue-collar worker. By 1990, this disparity rose to 85 times, and by the year 2000 the disparity between worker and CEO climbed to 531 times as much."] (on a counta ifn they wuz only gittin 40 times as much, lack they dun back in 1980 or only 20 times as much, lack them robber barons dun), woodnt nobidy be willin to take the top job at no cumpny


• gummint caint do nuthin as well as privutt innerprize, witch ifn that wuz so, why woodnt we git privutt innerprize to handle nashunull deefents?

fack is, thays other motivayshuns besides the desire to git moren more money. artists lack to create whuther they git paid or not:

• mozart died in poverty at the age of 35:

  Mozart was one of the world’s greatest composers. He was the leader of what historians of music call the “classical period.” In 1781, Mozart left Salzburg to go to Vienna, a musical capital of the world at the time. Mozart went to seek his fortune. Now, Mozart, did not do well. He was no longer a child prodigy, and people didn’t listen quite as carefully. None of the musical activities that Mozart participated in led to a fortune. In fact, he failed to make enough money to support his family. Mozart died in poverty on December 5, 1791.



• emily dickinson never gut a dime fer all the poems she writ:

  Dickinson was unable to submit her poems for publication herself. Only six or seven of her poems were published during her lifetime and without her permission. It was estimated that Dickinson wrote about 1700 poems. On her deathbed, she asked her sister Lavinia to burn all her poems. After publication Lavinia burned all the originals. Her style is somewhat personal and direct. She saw the very essence of things and wrote about as if she does not care for conventional style or traditional format. She often used dashes and capitalization's to emphasize her point in both her letters and poems. Her work was probably so ahead of her time that people then were not yet ready for it. Literary editors of the 19th century attempted to alter her style by changing dashes into basic punctuations, using conventional grammars, editing the capitalization and even assigning titles. It was only through Thomas Johnson's publication of Emily's work in 1955 did people really saw her style.



• franz kafka dint git published durin his life n ast his bes friend max brod to burn all his wurk:

  "Dearest Max, my last request: Everything I leave behind me... in the way of diaries, manuscripts, letters (my own and others'), sketches, and so on, [is] to be burned unread....
  Yours, Franz Kafka"

  
  These famous words written to Kafka's friend Max Broad have puzzled Kafka's readers ever since they appeared in the postscript to the first edition of The Trial, published in 1925, a year after Kafka's death. We will never know if Kafka really meant for Brod to do what he asked; Broad believed that it was Kafka's high artistic standards and merciless self-criticism that lay behind the request, but he also believed that Kafka had deliberately asked the one person he knew would not honor his wishes (because Broad had explicitly told him so). We do know, however, that Brod disregarded his friend's request and devoted great energy to making sure that all of Kafka's works-his three unfinished novels, his unpublished stories, diaries and letters-would appear in print.

point is how folks has motivayshuns othern gittin n spendin. sum folks is relijus n bleeves they orta serve others of gods children or teachurs that knows they wont hardly make a nuff to eat who continue teachin innyway.

but the bleef that tiz profit alone that acks as a motivator leads us to thank gummint is the problem n whut ye gutta do at ever oppertunty (ceptn nashunul deefents) is give yer private corporayshuns the chants to make more profit. one of the mane places this miss take in bleef has horrbull results is in health keer.

ever other deeveloped cuntry in the worl has sum form of nashunull health keer but ourn. so how is that a'wurkin out?

fer one thang, whut gut me started on this post wuz reedin how health keer costs adds $1,400 to ever car generul motors sells, leadin to difficulty compeetin with cars frum other cuntries:

GM currently spends $4.8 billion on its health care plans, which cover 1.1 million active employees, retirees and their dependents. GM's health-care bill included $1.3 billion for prescription drugs.

"What is happening now is that those of us that provide health care to our covered groups, we provide health care to other people, too. When you go to the emergency room and you're not covered, they have to spread the cost of that on the people who are paying. Not only is the quality not great but the costs are distributed in a Kafkaesque fashion. Those who pay get to pay more," Wagoner said.

"Spiraling health care costs and poor quality are not just an issue for old-economy companies or heavily unionized companies. These costs affect a broad range of industries and companies, including those in the technology sector that have been around for a while. Spiraling costs affect our country's competitiveness in a big way.

"In short, the cost of health care is an area where the U.S. is very uncompetitive right now versus our global counterparts," Wagoner said. GM spent about $1,400 per vehicle on health last year, he added.

"Our foreign-based competitors have just a fraction of these costs because they have few retirees in this country and in their own country where the bulk of their people are, their governments pay a much greater proportion of their employee and retiree health-care costs," he said.

so at sum point ye gut to ast whuther twoodnt be better to give up our dogmatick blind faith in privutt innerprize n have a lil bleef in the empiricull method by lookin at whut wurks in other places. heres sum facks to thank bout on that topick (i caint git the lank to wurk, so do a google surch on "u.s. per capita health care costs" to find it, witch tiz the one name of "[PDF] The US Health Care System: Best in the World, or Just the Most ..."):

1. costs per capita of u.s. vs top ten mos eggspensive other cuntries (1998, latest figgers i could find with charts n such, tho the situwayshun aint gut no better since then):
   • u.s. paid $4,178 per person fer health keer (13.6% of gdp)
   • switzerland paid $2,794 (10.4% of gdp)
   • norway: $2,425 (8.9% of gdp)
   • germany: $2,424 (10.6% of gdp)
   • canada: $2,312 (9.5% of gdp)
   • luxembourg: $2,215 (5.9% of gdp)
   • denmark: $2,133 (8.3% of gdp)
   • france: $2,077 (9.6% of gdp)
   • australia: $2,043 (8.5% of gdp)
   • japan: $1,822 (7.6% of gdp)
   • italy: $1,783 (8.4% of gdp)
   
   
2. in access to helth keer, the u.s. is thonly developed cuntry besides south africa in the worl that dont provide it fer all our citizens


3. infunt mortalty ratins: we rank 26th out of 26th top developed nashuns with a rate of 7.2 per 1,000 births, witch this number is much wurser fer sum groups than others bein moren twice as high fer black babies (14.3 per 1,000) as fer white (6.0 per 1,000); check the chart on thisn in the pdf file i lanked to -- tiz shockin we are ded last


4. we rank 24th in disabilty adjusted life eggspecktuntcy

i add vise ye to read the hole thang. thays plenty more, but i bleeve the point has been made. on a counta how we bleeve that privutt innerprize is always bettern gummint no matter whut the facks shows, we gut the mos eggspensive system in the worl but we git the wurse keer of inny developed nashun.

corse, the big differnts is how them other developed cuntries has gut single-payer (nashunull) helth keer systems. in our cuntry, the publicans has dun cunvints jes a nuff folks to bleeve in the dogma n not pay no tenchun to the facks. no matter that ye gut heaps n heaps of exter privutt industry paper-shufflers, witch they cost moren gummint paper-shufflers on a counta ye gutta pay em n pay a lil profit fer gittin em to do thangs fer ye.

corse, the way them publicans runs the gummint cumpard to them dimcrats, ye kin see whar they git the idee that it dont wurk verr well.