Pfffft, you and your fancy, schmancy facts. :pQuote:
Originally Posted by Subway
Pfffft, you and your fancy, schmancy facts. :pQuote:
Originally Posted by Subway
I can't get away from the principals I was brought up with. My father was a union man and a freemason. He believed in free early education (up to university level), he believed everybody should have basic access to some degree of medical and dental care. He taught me that no man is an island, that the real wealth and health of a society was reflected only by the poorest member.Quote:
Originally Posted by FlashLackey
That is why I favour government control over health and education. The trick is to get good decisions relating to those aspects of society, and sadly, you do not need to be well-intentioned, intelligent, or even honest, to be a politician.
david
You really have been busy.Quote:
Originally Posted by Loyal Rogue
http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/08/...age/index.htmlQuote:
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage was the source who revealed the identity of CIA officer Valerie Plame to syndicated columnist Robert Novak in 2003, touching off a federal investigation, two sources familiar with Armitage's role tell CNN.
The sources said Armitage revealed Plame's role at the CIA almost inadvertently in a casual conversation with Novak, and it is not clear if he knew her identity was classified at the time.
Armitage was not indicted by the federal grand jury that investigated the disclosure of Plame's name to Novak and other journalists. Deliberately revealing the identify of a CIA operative can be a crime.
The revelation that Armitage was the source of Novak's column is somewhat anticlimactic for Bush administration critics who had used the story as a weapon in Washington's partisan battles.
During the run-up to the Iraq war in 2003, Armitage was viewed as one of the more skeptical voices in the administration about the need to depose Saddam Hussein by force.
...
Last month, Plame and Wilson filed a civil lawsuit alleging a conspiracy that "was motivated by an invidiously discriminatory animus towards those who had publicly criticized the administration's stated justifications for going to war with Iraq" and culminated with the disclosure that Plame worked at the CIA. This revelation destroyed Plame's career with the agency, according to the suit.
The scenario described by the sources familiar with Armitage's role, however, appears to contradict those arguments.
...
Novak has said he would not reveal the identity of the original source unless the source came forward. However, he said the special counsel in the CIA leak investigation, Patrick Fitzgerald, learned who the source was independently.
Fitzgerald has said he does not plan to bring any charges against Novak's original source.
...
In September 2003, Fitzgerald, the U.S. attorney in Chicago, Illinois, was appointed as a special counsel to investigate whether any laws were broken with the disclosure.
No one has been indicted for leaking Plame's identity, but Libby has been charged with perjury, obstruction of justice and lying to investigators for allegedly giving false information about his discussions with journalists about Plame.
Libby has denied any wrongdoing and pleaded not guilty.
Fitzgerald notified Rove that he wouldn't be charged in the case, Rove's attorney, Robert Luskin, said in June.
Nobody was endangered. No operations were jeapardized. The whole thing has Nifong written all over it.
Quite understandable. But, the principle, in the end is the goal. The best role for government should be the one that delivers that goal best, no?Quote:
Originally Posted by david petley
Right. But, we could function perfectly well under a monarchy, if only the king (or queen) made "all the right decisions." At some point, don't you have to recognize that humans are not infallable? The people behind government and private endeavor are all equally prone to the weaknesses of men. The main difference is in what happens when each effort fails. Private efforts go out of business when they fail, losing ground to competition. When government efforts fail, they almost invariably end up becoming campaign fodder for politicians, are near impossible to change and become more expensive over time.Quote:
Originally Posted by david petley
What can be worse is if private enterprise doesn't fail. Private enterprise will almost always place profit over performance, no? And as is very obvious in medical coverage, if the top 20% are making them the profits then they don't really care about the lower 80%.Quote:
Originally Posted by FlashLackey
That's fairly common business practice, no?
Hence why having a public health system providing basic essential coverage, with a private system for those who want a little more, would certainly seem to make more sense.
As an example.
Given competition, private enterprise does not have the option to "place profit over performance" because if they do, their competition will take all of their business. That is precisely why free market economies work well. It is also precisely the problem with many government run programs, there is no competition.
The idea that the top 20% makes the profits for the health industry is complete nonsense. Where did you pull that out of? Only 4.5% of the working population is unemployed. Most of them are probably covered by their parents policies. Most businesses provide health coverage for their employees. That includes the vast majority of the country and the "lower 80%". The top 20% is not more profitable than the "lower 80%" because they also cover themselves medically with insurance. Why would they spend more out of their pocket for $150k medical procedures when they could have insurance like anyone else? A person in the lower 23.5% with medical insurance can go and have a $150k procedure done just the same as the top 20% can.
[The people who get screwed most are the ones who have to pay for medical insurance out of pocket. Not that that would be a bad thing if the system wasn't broken. But, what happens is that the health industry isn't under pressure to offer competitive prices because the people incurring the charges don't have to pay for them (their insurance does). Naturally, prices have become inflated and the margin game is in insurance policies with tricky caveats instead of in which hospitals provide the best care for the lowest price. Businesses and the self-employed get stuck with the bill for the inflated prices.]
http://www.google.com/search?source=...=Google+SearchQuote:
Originally Posted by FlashLackey
Fairly well known business principle. I thought you of anybody would have been aware of it.
I probably haven't heard of it because it is practically useless and absurdly arbitrary.
"for many events, 80% of the effects comes from 20% of the causes."
yeah? for many MORE events, 80% of the effects do not come from 20% of the causes.
the existence of this abstract concept does nothing to further the idea that there is any empirical truth that the health industry gets all of their profit from the top 20%.
You're allowed your opinion, however I know of many business folk - and especially sales people - who agree with this basic principle of profit making and running a business.Quote:
Originally Posted by FlashLackey
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principleQuote:
The original observation was in connection with income and wealth. Pareto noticed that 80% of Italy's wealth was owned by 20% of the population. He then carried out surveys on a variety of other countries and found to his surprise that a similar distribution applied.
It also applies to a variety of more mundane matters: we wear our 20% most favoured clothes about 80% of the time, we spend 80% of the time with 20% of our acquaintances etc.
The Pareto principle has many applications in quality control. It is the basis for the pareto chart, one of the key tools used in total quality control and six sigma. The Pareto principle serves as a baseline for ABC-analysis and XYZ-analysis, widely used in logistics and procurement for the purpose of optimizing stock of goods, as well as costs of keeping and replenishing that stock.
In computer science the Pareto principle can be applied to resource optimization by observing that 80% of the resources are typically used by 20% of the operations. In software engineering, it is often a better approximation that 90% of the execution time of a computer program is spent executing 10% of the code (known as the 90/10 law in this context).
In business, dramatic improvements can often be achieved by identifying the 20% of customers, activities, products or processes that account for the 80% of contribution to profit and maximizing the attention applied to them.
And if private enterprise can make a greater profit by directing their efforts to the top 20% who are going to make them the greater profit for effort ratio, then of course they will. Private enterprise by its very nature isn't in it to provide a service, but to make a profit.
For a very simple, real world example, that can be seen with bus services. Where the service is government run and the priority is on the service rather than profit, it means low demand areas still receive adequate services. However where it's privatised that service becomes far less than adequate. And I have plenty of real world examples that show this.
My view is that yes, some services can be privatised, however not all services by any stretch due to this fairly standard business principle. Your view seems to be that all government services could - and indeed should - be privatised.
I perused some of the other links in the google you posted. It seems that this is most often applied to the idea that "you don't have to fix everything to be happy".Quote:
Originally Posted by TheOriginalFlashDavo
The idea that applying an 80% to 20% ratio to anything is going to result in profits or improvements is baffling to me. Surely, if you can deliver your best service to 100% of the customers instead of just 20%, your profits will be even better. Or, how about just 21% of the customers. Wouldn't that be an improvement?
I guess it is just a matter of opinion. If the ratio for something happened to work best at 80-20, I would be embarrassed to try and re-inforce it by claiming the Pareto principle. in my view, that would just be where the right numbers landed.
anyway, this is distracting from the subject and this thread is distracting from work where im working on the Flashlackey ratio of 100% work and 0% fun! :D
Just happens to be a principle that seems to have a lot of believers, and seems to be accurate for many businesses.Quote:
Originally Posted by FlashLackey
TrueQuote:
anyway, this is distracting from the subject...
Sucker!Quote:
...and this thread is distracting from work where im working on the Flashlackey ratio of 100% work and 0% fun! :D
*glances at own to-do list and grimaces.
Private enterprise IS in it to provide a service or product. That is the entire premise behind a free market. That two parties trade things that is seen as more valuable to the other. A private company offers a service in exchange for money. The person buying the service values the service more than the money and thus agrees to the exchange. Profit occurs when lots of people value the service more than lots of money.
Anyway, you're right, I do believe that we would benefit if most things were privatized and that we should always look for ways to minimize the size of government. Very few things really need to be under government control in order for leadership to live up to the responsibilities they are supposed to be limited to.
I think you will agree that we wont get anywhere trading anecdotal examples of getting bad customer service from a private company. Like I said before, humans run government and humans run private companies. They are all prone to the same faults. Private companies can die and new ones can emerge. Government programs have a long track record of staying the same, success or fail.
Private enterprise is in it to make a profit. IF that comes from providing a certain level of service to a wider range of people, great. However IF greater profit comes from providing better service to a smaller number of people, meaning less effort/expenditure on their part, then that is what they will do.
And there is more than "anecdotal" evidence of this happening time and time again.
Anyway, you were saying something about your work... ;)
Are you saying uncle? ;)
Government is more inclined to service...
Like Ma Bell?
How about the DMV? No happy jingles or greeters at the door there.
Maybe your issue is in the government services you have experienced?
So perhaps it's your government that's the issue?
;)
I certainly don't agree that examples of bad government services outweighs the many good examples that exist in many countries around the world, Australia being one of them. On the other hand, the general principle that private enterprise is in it first and foremost for the profit, and that in most cases the greater chance of profit comes from servicing those with the greater capacity to pay is fairly standard globally.
The core outlook that appears to be where we differ is to do with what we each believe are our responsibilities as a well functioning society. You seem to have the principle that everything should be "user pays", whereas I see an underlying facet of a well functioning society is the principle of "shared burden", that the delivery of a basic level of service across essential services (excuse the double use of "services", I'm tired and busy) to everyone in the community is the responsibility of all of us - via taxes - even if it means that those of us in better off, built up areas where more opportunities are available are contributing towards those in less well off, more sparsely populated areas with less opportunities. I see that as a basic underlying principle of a well functioning, democratic society.
And hence why perhaps we'll never agree. ;)
Yeah, i should have said Clinton didn't ACCOMPLISH anything instead of DO since we're hung up on the definition of the word "do" (kind of like the word "is"). I thought at first that you had brought up something that I didn't know, but it turns out it was the bombing of the aspirn factory that actually isn't a great showing of Clinton's effectiveness against Bin Laden ... but hey, he did something. I thought you had brought up an actual strike on Bin Laden's group, not the number of times that they missed him and hit the wrong target.Quote:
Originally Posted by japangreg
And to be fair, it is your job to not spin stuff and go "I have a piece of information that says x" and then I take it and go "oh, he's right, there's something that says x", only to go on later to find out it's actually "z" which is something I already knew about.
I don't know why this is a personal thing between you and I Japan-guy, but you don't have to put to me that Bush is worse than Clinton ... I think I said before that Clinton was a way better president. Because I'm critical of him not accomplishing (replacing the word "do") anything against Bin Laden doesn't mean I think Bush or the Republicans have done a great job either.
I think you answered your own reason why government should NOT be in control ... because they are not informed or intelligent people in that field. They're not doctors, they're not business people, they're not teachers ... they're people who perform to get votes.Quote:
Originally Posted by david petley
America is supposed to be the every man is an island nation. If that's what it is, that's what it is. You succeed or fail on your own steam. The government is supposed to be there to make sure the playing field is even ... although it fails at that sometimes. If they can't even regulate the playing field, do I want them running it?
I think the issue of who has "accomplished" more is just as debatable, imho. There are many who will argue that - security-wise - we are certainly no better off than we were prior to 9/11 (and that includes many non-US countries/citizens, hence why I think I'm qualified to give an opinion). In fact, many would also argue that we are in fact worse of, with a far greater chance of being attacked due to the actions of the current US admin over the past 6 years.
So "effectiveness"? As I said, just as debatable.