As far as I can tell, from both sides, "fair and balanced" means "agrees with the watcher's world view".
Anyone who thinks any American media reports news and not ideology is foolish.
I recall an interesting bit of lore on media law. A couple of Reporters where doing some in depth investigative journalism on the company Monsanto and felt that had a real good piece - full of sensationalism and all sorts of the scary stuff that is so good at selling papers. So they send it to their editor who basically sends it back and tells them to edit out all the juicy bits. They get into a big fight with their editor and end up getting fired, somewhere in there they try using the 'whistle blower' clause because they believe that there is a cover up going on.
So the whole thing goes to court where the reporters get disabused of their beliefs. The court finds that there is no requirement for the media to report the truth or anything resembling the truth. There are laws meant to protect citizens from being defamed by a newspaper etc. but no requirement for truth from the media.
So yeah - take the media with a few grains of salt. Even beyond bias its perfectly possible that any given media source is outright lying to you - telling you something that they happen to know as a fact is false.
I usually remember/repeat that story as: "Fox News went to court to fight for their right to lie to you."
Hey, if they can be "fair and balanced" so can I :)
We knew the claims of deficit reduction were a lie. My only surprise is the CBO correction came so soon.
This again? Smurfing why?!?!?
Isn't applying the cat 'o' nine tails to a deceased equine an Olympic sport? Maybe they are are getting in some practice.
That'll just have a lot of Liches running around, animating all the shot necromancers who weren't high enough level/thinking far enough ahead to become Liches when they died.
Then they'll have DR versus piercing and shooting them won't be very effective.
"Since the law's passage, the news about it has been been unrelentingly bad. With each passing it day, it looks more likely that costs will go up, businesses will face new bureaucratic burdens, and many individuals will lose their current health care plans—just as the law's critics predicted before its passage. Already, businesses small and large are warning of the ill effects of the law's changes to the tax code."
Sorry, but repeating the same old doom and gloom predictions -- which as noted we had plenty of before the bill ever passed -- is not the same as evidence of failure. Do I think it will work? Nowhere near as well as claimed. But I'm not dishonest enough to assume the worst, and then use that assumption as "proof" that it is "already failing."
That's a good example of logic failing -- which, in your favor, BT, is something you very rarely indulge in -- most of your other arguments proceed with rigorous logic from your starting points.
"Since the law's passage, the news about it has been been unrelentingly bad. With each passing it day, it looks more likely that costs will go up, businesses will face new bureaucratic burdens, and many individuals will lose their current health care plans—just as the law's critics predicted before its passage. Already, businesses small and large are warning of the ill effects of the law's changes to the tax code."
Sorry, but repeating the same old doom and gloom predictions -- which as noted we had plenty of before the bill ever passed -- is not the same as evidence of failure. Do I think it will work? Nowhere near as well as claimed. But I'm not dishonest enough to assume the worst, and then use that assumption as "proof" that it is "already failing."
That's a good example of logic failing -- which, in your favor, BT, is something you very rarely indulge in -- most of your other arguments proceed with rigorous logic from your starting points.
I thought it was an interesting editorial.
I'm curious to learn more about the DHHS regulation and tax enforcement.
Of course I think Obamacare is a train wreck already, and I think it will get much worse, but I'm a pessimist by nature.
(edit) everybody calls me a pessimist, though. Then they get out their butterfly nets and frolic in the firefight like good little eloi.
And then you eat them, yes?
I'm a realist.
I'm going to go get some more f&@!ing water.(edit) everybody calls me a pessimist, though. Then they get out their butterfly nets and frolic in the firefight like good little eloi.
LOL! I would consider myself a realist too, but then who doesn't?
(edit) everybody calls me a pessimist, though. Then they get out their butterfly nets and frolic in the firefight like good little eloi.And then you eat them, yes?
The butter flies or the optimists?
The butter flies or the optimists?(edit) everybody calls me a pessimist, though. Then they get out their butterfly nets and frolic in the firefight like good little eloi.And then you eat them, yes?
Whoever he's calling Eloi. The Morlocks ate them if I remember the book right.
LOL! I would consider myself a realist too, but then who doesn't?I'm a realist.
I'm going to go get some more f&@!ing water.(edit) everybody calls me a pessimist, though. Then they get out their butterfly nets and frolic in the firefight like good little eloi.
F+!*ing dreamers.
Whoever he's calling Eloi. The Morlocks ate them if I remember the book right.The butter flies or the optimists?(edit) everybody calls me a pessimist, though. Then they get out their butterfly nets and frolic in the firefight like good little eloi.And then you eat them, yes?
Time machine! Now I'm catching up!
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I'm a left wing progressive who supports healthcare reform, among other things; but, I still don't quite understand this:
For example, I'd prefer to see labor rewarded more and ownership of capital rewarded less, which (imo) would encourage economic mobility.
I don't quite understand it since the rewards of labor are the ownership of capital, and the ownership of capital is the precondition for creating labor opportunities (jobs). Even if I'm a trust fund baby (which I'm not), the trustifarian's capital is at work, helping to create jobs, even if its just invested (loaned) to public companies. Further, I'm not sure why if someone's great grandfather exerted a lot of labor to acquire capital then handed it down, and they exerted a lot of labor to preserve or grow that capital they are somehow worthy of punishment? I'm jumping in mid-stream, so you probably don't mean that.
On top of it, most labor seems pretty alienating to me. And the non-alienating labor doesn't seem to pay enough, generally, for survival. So whats so holy about labor? If by labor we mean, creative inventive ground breaking developments that found new industries and employ generations of people, well doesn't that R&D require capital?
Don't get me wrong, I'm not blind to exploitation. Or the frequency and prevalence with which it happens, or the human tendency to make a buck and somehow not care it's made on the death, maiming or poisoning of others. Or even just the suffering of enforcing a marginal existence on others.
I am equally disdainful -- enraged often -- by those who willingly spend their money to influence politics such that they will not have to pay their fair share into taxes. Or spend their money bilking the masses into supporting political positions that deny them advantages while keeping open the illusion of the opportunity to grow wealthy.
Instead of just paying that money in taxes.
I'm equally and personally conversant with the flip side: where government invents every weird piece of trickery and sophistic device imaginable to bilk us of our hard-earned money (the mortgage transfer tax comes to mind), even or especially when we operate invested capital to make that money. And I'm enraged when those wealthier than I can afford better accountants or lawyers -- or whatever it is, I wish I knew -- to earn more and pay less tax than I do. In our "income tax" system (bah - that's a joke!). And what a nasty, heady brew it all becomes when we toss in social politics. Why on earth we've allowed the construction of a taxation system the lends itself to being gamed, I'll never know. Gah. That's disingenuous. Fear, filthy greed and the willingness to take advantage of the less educated explain it sufficiently.
All that said, I think the distinction between labor and capital is yesterday's dichotomy, inherited from the horrid inequities of the industrial revolution, and a false dichotomy at that. Labor and capital are two sides of the same coin, and we should be attempting to organize our society to support that fact.
Gah. Give me a flat or VAT tax and companies where employees participate in ownership, please.
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I get that guys like you and Kirth and most reasonable people want to find some kind of sane middle ground. I'm just not sure that moderate solutions can fix the epic quagmire we are in."Meet the new boss, same as the old boss."You've hit the nail on the head there, maybe without realizing it. If we trade government masters for corporate masters, we're no better off -- the company becomes the new de facto government. Only when they're kept busy fighting each other are we most free.
I'd argue if we traded government masters for corporate masters we'd be much, much WORSE off. There is at least a mechanism in existence and to which we have reasonable access for trying to control government; ie - firing politicians.
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I'd argue if we traded government masters for corporate masters we'd be much, much WORSE off. There is at least a mechanism in existence and to which we have reasonable access for trying to control government; ie - firing politicians.I get that guys like you and Kirth and most reasonable people want to find some kind of sane middle ground. I'm just not sure that moderate solutions can fix the epic quagmire we are in."Meet the new boss, same as the old boss."You've hit the nail on the head there, maybe without realizing it. If we trade government masters for corporate masters, we're no better off -- the company becomes the new de facto government. Only when they're kept busy fighting each other are we most free.
Just not enough firing squads....
Im sorry did I say that out loud?
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All this got me thinking. For all that i have argued for Heath Care reforms, i still don't really understand the other sides view point.
I would say my biggest issue is because the government hasn't been faithful with the $5 I pay them, then why do I want to pay them $10?
Case in point: In Arizona the big push right now is to increase the sales tax by one cent per dollar. I'm TOLD this is for education, how it's going to save our schools etc etc etc. In the meantime, every single year we are voting a school budget override that is supposed to "save our schools and programs etc etc etc. This latest tax is supposed to be temporary - as well as the past five years of budget overrides, etc.
So, what happens when the temporary raise in taxes for what's advertised as education funding (but we all know is going to go to other things) is over, but we're still in the same boat as before?
Somewhere in this process monies are not being used appropriately.
Also, the right wing are NOT against health care reform. They're for reform that doesn't require the government to administrate. In other words the system needs to be self-correcting. To bring costs down, the right recommends a two-part plan - 1) stop burdening the health care system with lawsuits that tie the hands of the administration and the doctors and raise prices. 2) Insurance "free market" to allow states to offer products across state lines in hopes it will drive costs down. Its that or let the guys that can't manage what they've been given in the first place have even more power. Case in point - the medicare plan has what, $600 million, or was it billion, in fraud and waste. Guys! If you KNOW THIS - WHY THE HELL IS THAT STILL THERE? That's one of those loopholes that our lovely legal system has created.
Then finally, the underhanded methods that hae been used to shove these laws though the system. It shows that those in power are going to do what they're going to do, regardless of you or me.
So no. I don't want to pay $100 a month in health care for a health care program I'm owed as a vet. I don't want my $100 a month in insurance get me $10 of health care, because I'm not taking care of my own, I'm taking care of these other six people too. Now all of us have crap health care. But we need more taxes to fix this ...
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I'm a left wing progressive who supports healthcare reform, among other things; but, I still don't quite understand this:
For example, I'd prefer to see labor rewarded more and ownership of capital rewarded less, which (imo) would encourage economic mobility.
I think his point is that you should be rewarded more for being productive as an individual that being productive as an owner of capital. Wages v corporate profits as a share of GDP has declined up to the recession, so you have the situation where the "rich" owners of capital have benefited more than those who generate money through their labour, who have been squeezed. And I also suspect he is alluding to the fact that a lot of financial services, particularly the high-paying kind (investment banking and so on) has serviced this sort of capital accretion while not doing anything very socially useful (other than rewarding themselves with huge wedges of capital). I don't want to put words in Bugley's mouth but I think that is what he means. I agree with you that the issue is a bit more nuanced than that (most of us also own capital in our personal pension funds, for example) but he also has a point that "workers" have been less rewarded than the rent-seeking classes at the moment.
Anyone who wants to value capital less and labor more has a very easy way to do this.
Found a small business. Hire employees. Pay them a living wage in your area.
Now, try and stay in business.
One of the lovely things about Health Care Reform:
AT&T, following the Federally mandated transparency regs warned investors of a potential write down and loss in revenues when the Health Care Reform Act passed.
Senator Waxman was ALL SET to bring those evil CEOs into session before Congress.
The slides that AT&T prepared for that meeting leaked. Did you know that AT&T can save 4.1 billion dollars per year by cancelling all health and drug benefits to current employees and pensioners...even after paying an annual fine to the US government of 0.6 billion per year?
We got health care reform designed by the insurance industry. We'd've been better off with a public option. And I'm speaking as a Libertarian/Rethuglican.
My health insurance reform option is the Chinese Restaurant Plan. Before any doctor performs any procedure on you, the patient, you will be presented with a menu of choices, including their probable benefits, their actual costs to be paid, and available payment options.
Fascinatingly, in the areas of medical practice where this is the NORM (generally areas insurance doesn't cover or doesn't cover much of), doctors compete on price, and their skill in handling the procedure.
They also have fewer non-medical staff in the office, have lower operational costs, and generally have better job satisfaction and take home pay.
These are, generally, plastic surgeons and LASIK and opthalmic specialists.
In other words the system needs to be self-correcting.
I don't think any system is entirely self-correcting, at least not in the way you mean it (a herd of elephants is "self-correcting" inasfar as when they eat all the food, they starve to death, allowing the food to re-grow).
A lot of them claim to be, but talk is cheap.
In other words the system needs to be self-correcting.I don't think any system is entirely self-correcting, at least not in the way you mean it (a herd of elephants is "self-correcting" inasfar as when they eat all the food, they starve to death, allowing the food to re-grow).
A lot of them claim to be, but talk is cheap.
I think free markets are going to be more responsive or self correcting than state bureaucracies.
It's too bad we don't have something closer to free markets.
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In other words the system needs to be self-correcting.I don't think any system is entirely self-correcting, at least not in the way you mean it (a herd of elephants is "self-correcting" inasfar as when they eat all the food, they starve to death, allowing the food to re-grow).
A lot of them claim to be, but talk is cheap.
I think free markets are going to be more responsive or self correcting than state bureaucracies.
It's too bad we don't have something closer to free markets.
LMAO
bump/raise dead