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sheeeit

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Everything posted by sheeeit

  1. There really are very big problems with this. Cali is not doing this for the athletes, the politicians are doing it for votes. I typically hate slippery slope arguments, but lets look at a hypothetical that would be completely "legal" under the proposed regulation. Wealthy Stanford alum decides to have a monthly podcast/call in show/whatever called "the lives of stanford football players". Every current stanford player can log on the show and, if they do, they get $1,000. $12,000/year per player. Costs about $1M per year which is insignificant to alum (for that matter you could sell subscriptions to it for $1/month and easily get enough die hards to cover the actual cost). That would be perfectly legal under the proposed bill. Take that scenario and multiply it by anything you can imagine. The potential for harm is even greater in small sports. Maybe some of you have seen Ricky Fowler's golf channel show about college golf teams? Just pay the 6 OSU golfers $20K each for the show season. $120K. Think OSU might get all of the best golf recruits? They already get many of the best and have amazing facilities and if they also get $20K per year for doing what they are already doing- who wouldn't go there? There would be no policing this. Suddenly Harvard and Yale will be relevant in sports again. I think stipends of up to $5K/year are already available for scholarship athletes. I would have no problem with schools offering additional grants to athletes based on need. Maybe another $5K/year. There would have to be a cap.
  2. The short answer, which many have indicated, is cost. It is too expensive to do right and not enough people will use it. Of course there are some that will and I love train travel, but its just not practical. Go to Dallas for cotton bowl. 4 guys or a family or any combination of people, it is so much cheaper to drive. Call it 400 miles round trip costs bout $50 in a car. That is $12.25 per head both ways. There doesnt exist an economic model that works. My hope is that electric cars get better and easier and then we add high speed driving lanes on these routes between cities. At least 100 mph. Little environmental impact.
  3. Spectacular thread. Filet>Ribeye>All other forms of steak. Indian>Thai>Vietnamese>Chinese Eating more than 4oz of brisket at one setting is doing it wrong Baby back pork ribs are fantastic Beef ribs are horrible Raw onions and green peppers should be abolished. Bacon is a side for breakfast and BLTs and should never be paired with any other food. For the margarita snobs (although I agree on the rocks is better): 1 Can Frozen Limeaid then use empty can for the following: 1 Can Tequila 1 Can Beer (no IPA) 1/2 Can Triple Sec Ice
  4. LOL Yes bad term by me. Athletic is not what I meant. Not sure the right word. Skilled? Basically he was just a very poor shooter. Not a guy a team could lean on down the stretch offensively. All the other guys on the list were great defenders as well as the first option on offense and all had the ability to score consistently in the 4th quarter. In an era that had massive scoring (like 118/game and almost 150 possessions per game versus 100 or so now) Russell only averaged about 12 pts per game after they widened the lane. He literally only made 3-4 shots a game that were not dunks or free throws. The other guys on the list averaged that many in the 4th quarter alone. Bottom line, if you could take any player on the list in their absolute prime to start your team with in todays era, very very few would pick Russell.
  5. Love the topic also. My only question is on Russel. I feel like every other guy on the list would dominate in any era. They could all score. I do not think Russel would be great in the modern era. He was just too limited offensively and he was not nearly as athletic as the rest of the list. Every other guy on that list you could feed the ball to late and they would deliver. Not Russel. Certainly one of the very best in his era, but not in my top 20 all time. I also think KD will get into the conversation of top 10.
  6. In the time of chimpanzees I was a monkey. (personal all time favorite opening line) When I get to the bottom I go back to the top of the slide Where I stop and I turn and I go for a ride Till I get to the bottom and I see you again Well you can tell by the way I use my walk I'm a woman's man, no time to talk Bass, how low can you go And now, the end is here and so I face the final curtain
  7. Jordan is best ever, imo. 2 deep starting all great team: Magic, Curry MJ, Kobe Lebron, Bird, KD Duncan, Barkley Kareem, Hakeem, Wilt
  8. Cool topic. Impossible to narrow down to 10 and greatest is so subjective. I would say that these 10 had the greatest emotional (funny, scary, action, inspiring etc.) impact on me personally when I watched them: Rocky Godfathers Star Wars Jaws Shawshank Shining Wedding Crashers Caddyshack Platoon Goldfinger Hoosiers
  9. You clearly can not grasp what I am saying. Whatever oversight we currently have on the police we would have on a private police force. I am suggesting that if Austin currently spends $200M on its police force, that if we bid out the exact same services to private companies, that the bids to perform the same work would be less than $200M. I am saying we have no idea if the police force is run efficiently or not because we have nothing to compare it to.
  10. I agree with most of your post but this part I strongly disagree with. This is not a perfect example but it is quite interesting to consider. We need to remember that the private insurers had no problem covering people currently getting medicaid, they just were not going to do it without getting paid. In 2017 there were roughly 28 M (lots of kids) people that lacked private health insurance. The vast majority were medicaid recipients. Now before people go crazy, I fully support medicaid to those that need it. It is a very good use of govt funds. But in 2017 total spend on medicaid for these 28M people totaled about $560B between state and federal. medicaid provides, essentially, the same benefits that ACA compliant health insurance plans provide. If we take the most basic ACA compliant plan that is equivalent to the benefits provided by Medicaid, the premium for coverage is approximately $400/per month per person (it is actually less for kids but we will use the higher figure). So that is about $4,800 annually. So the private insurance world will insure every uninsured american for $135B. Lets be really generous and say every single person, all 28M, will use their entire $1,000 deductible in the year. That is another $28B. So the private insurance world will insure everyone to an ACA compliant level and we can pay all of their deductibles for somewhere in the range of $163B yet we spend $560B annually on medicaid. Throw in about $20B annually for dental and vision. So the US could simply pay the premium for every single uninsured person, and pay their annual deductible and provide dental and vision care for less than $200B and as a country we save $360B.
  11. As mentioned, I am not championing that we privatize the vast majority of these things. My point has been that it is impossible to truly tell if an entity is efficient when there does not exist any competition within the industry- meaning there is not another entity to compare it to. If you go to your bank and they tell you that they have great service and prices and their fees are really low, how do you know if it is true unless there is another bank to compare them to. How do we know if the post office is well run or not? It very well may be. We just do not know because no one else is allowed to do it. We do know that the USPS had an absolute monopoly on all things mail/delivery for a long time and had built in infrastructure and abilities (largely through military aircraft) to dominate the market forever. Yet, multiple start up delivery services have come into the space and have dominated the marketplace. Start ups with no infrastructure and massive up front costs. And those companies are now worth billions of dollars and the USPS is broke. If the US decided to let those companies bid on providing the exact same services currently provided by the USPS, I would bet they could do it for less money than we currently spend but I have no way of knowing. As for your examples, I would assume the same people would apply and work those police jobs that are working them now? What possible difference would it make if they were being paid by a private company or the govt. You seem to assume that bribery can only exist in the private sector which is curious. It is just really stupid for people to argue that govt is equally as efficient at something as the private sector when the private sector is not given the opportunity to compete.
  12. Another perfect example of why I should not break personal rules. You and Dennison and Wildcat and others are just the perfect example of what debate is like with people that have absolutely zero personal shame or accountability. I mean what sane person could think there is a difference between these 2 posts: A rich man raping a poor man's daughter You are a rich man with a private militia and I am a peasant worker with a family in a little hut in the woods. You come and rape my daughter.
  13. Precisely why one should never break personal rules. I put it right in the post.
  14. Super. Completely unrealistic hypothetical partnered with astounding stupidity. But I am stuck at an airport. The simple answer is that you send in whatever entity your community has decided collectively to hire to deal with crimes. No one even suggested that it would be free. The community would fund the entity in whatever manner they want and agree to. Just like we do now with taxes. That entity signed on for the job to enforce the laws of the community. They will just have to do whatever they have to do. Bring in more people temporarily. Get help from surrounding communities force. If they fail or wont do it, then fire them and hire someone who will. And if you and your daughter happen to live in this hypothetical American community where there is a rich criminal marauding man that the local law enforcement can not protect you from, then I would suggest you move.
  15. I am breaking a personal rule by responding to you but sometimes your stupidity and lack of macro thinking skills is just too much. The answer is the same way they provide coverage now. Health insurers would be absolutely delighted at the prospect of providing lifetime health insurance. Surely you know that people already buy health insurance to supplement what is covered by medicare. Health insurers would salivate over the $700B+ spent currently. I think the private health insurers would cut 30% from the total. I am fine with the "govt" paying the premiums. Let the carriers compete on benefits and price and service. I actually have a total overhaul plan for health insurance that would solve virtually every problem, from a cost standpoint, that we have now.
  16. These are good points but only to a certain point. It is disingenuous to list things that the govt does that, by law, the private sector is not allowed to do. Everyone forgets the basic premise that the "govt" is only allowed to do what the people want it to do. The courts only exist because the people in the community decided that it was in the best interest of the community to have a place where disputes can be resolved. The people have given rights/duties to police to enforce the rules that the people want enforced for the good of the community. The people could decide to eliminate the police dept and fire dept and let private companies bid to do those services for a fee. Virtually every thing you guys posted could, in theory, be done privately. Now we, as a community, have decided to let the govt provide those services. But we have absolutely no way of knowing if they are being done as efficiently and as least expensive as possible precisely because there is no competition from outside entities to provide those services. Now I am not at all advocating to privatize most of those things. But I am arguing that in a debate about the efficiency and quality and cost of certain services/industries, that it is ridiculous to suggest that robust competition for those services would not create more efficient and less expensive outcomes.
  17. First, that is not really the truth but lets just agree that it is. Obviously you think that the health and pharmaceutical companies are writing laws that benefit them over the general good of the country and that our elected officials are enacting those laws even though they know they are not in the best interest of the country. Why do you think that is? Think it might have to do with money from those industries PACs that pour in to their reelection campaigns? Serious question, do you think a majority of politicians would vote for legislation that they know is not in the best interest of the country if they, the pols, had absolutely zero personal incentive in the outcome?
  18. Perfectly stupid post that misses the point by a mile. Having the govt act as oversight on an industry to impose safety regulations and practices is exactly what the govt should be doing. Imagine the govt being the only entity that could build and operate planes. How much do you think it would cost to build with no competition? How efficient would the operations be with no competition? How much would tickets cost with no competition? How innovative would airline travel be with no competition? As this relates to healthcare, the health insurance industry is one of the, if not the most, govt regulated industry in the country. Health insurers have to justify every rate increase they get and have to justify when they deny a claim. BCBS, Aetna, Cigna, Unites etc, they all compete for business based on price. They have built in incentives to keep costs down so that they can charge less than the competition and get more business. And like the FAA, if an insurer denies a claim that should have been covered, the govt can and does fine them and restrict their ability to write more coverage. Which is a good thing. The govt oversees their financial balance sheet to make sure they always have enough money reserved to pay potential claims. Another good thing.
  19. Probably healthcare deserves its own thread. It is a complex and important topic. We should admit to a few right up front if we truly want to have an honest debate about our current system. First, the absurd notion that the US has "poorer" outcomes than other developed countries. This is patently false. Every time someone quotes this it is based on the WHO study from 2000 or so. The rankings were based on a variety of statistics with the greatest weight put on 1) Life Expectancy 2) Infant Mortality and 3) Total Medical Spend. For life expectancy, if you remove murder and suicide and car wrecks from the totals for every country- the US ranks first in the world. Murder, suicide and car wrecks are obviously issues in our society but they have absolutely nothing to do with the quality of our medical care. Total spend, if you remove elective surgeries/procedures and research dollars our spend per person is about equal with other developed countries. When Betty gets a boob job (bless her) it lowers our "ranking" in the WHO study, which is crazy. The US spends more on medical research than the rest of the world combined and, as a result, gets ranked lower by the WHO standard. Infant mortality, even the WHO in the actual report admitted that the only country that provided realistic data was the US. Further, the biggest issue with infant mortality is preemies. Most countries do not even include births that do not reach maturity in the stats. These countries include many that we are currently compared with including Canada, UK, Sweden, France, Germany etc. In fact, there are reports from the National Center for Health Statistics and European Perinatal Health Report that use much stricter definitions and, amazingly, the US ranks 1st by their methodology. Does anyone really think that normal babies born in America have a better chance of dying than other countries? It is absurd. It is also a perfect example of the whole WHO report. A preemie is born in the US with a heart problem. We will deliver the baby, operate on the heart, monitor the baby in a state of art NICU for months and will cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Often the baby does die after all of that and, as a result, the "ranking" of the American medical system goes down because we spent a lot of money and our infant mortality rates went down. If we would just tell the parents the baby can not make it we would improve our WHO ranking. Sorry for the long rant, but it is really hard to have a rational debate when we do not use the truth. I think we should assume that the US has the very best medical system in the world. Meaning, if you need medical care for whatever reason- accident, illness, rehab etc.- the US is the very best place to get it. There are, certainly, ways our system can be improved. I am open to ideas where we have more of a national system. However, only if there are adequate deductibles to keep usage under control and only if funded by a national sales tax. Also, the debates between the efficiency of govt versus private are really silly. There is no question that the private sector is more efficient than the govt. The private sector has to compete. Brisket used the term "commodity" up thread and in some ways he is right. But if we admit something is a commodity, then no one should/could argue that tremendous competition for profit among the deliverers of said commodity is the absolute best way to keep costs down.
  20. You seem like the type of person that thinks mountains and molehills are the same thing. Also, I have no idea what right hand red left foot blue means?
  21. I wont argue your main point but if he really said "she hit me first" and he is in custody then I think we can make some assumptions and that this deal is not at all like the cases people were arguing about before.
  22. No. We have created a system that puts our elected officials in contrast with human nature. In theory, members of congress are to do what is best for their constituents and the country but we constantly put them in position that forces them to decide whether something is better for the country or better for them personally to get reelected. Human nature says self preservation is going to win out. Ask any honest former congress person what their #1 goal was and the answer is getting reelected. The pervasiveness of money in politics has its roots in funding reelection campaigns which have become increasingly expensive. Example (this is just an example and I do not really care one or the other on the issue), Vegas (who everyone loves) has spent literally $100sM on trying to keep online gambling illegal. It is obviously in their interest to do that. But why does virtually every republican continue to support the current law? In theory, if online gambling were legal and taxable locally, then lots of other states would get revenue. They keep the status quo only because they want a chunk of those $$$ for their own reelection campaigns. It is the same thing with unions, NRA, energy etc. They have influence over pols that have nothing to do with their actual issues but they can influence them through money. If no one in congress was running for reelection ever, then the power that those groups have would be drastically diminished. Pols would vote on things based on merit and not on how it affects them personally. And i fully realize that they should be doing that already which is why I talk about human nature.
  23. I still do not follow. My first point was that making it "illegal" for former congress people to be lobbyists is just silly because they can still provide the same influence even if they are not registered lobbyists. Unless you make some law (that would no doubt be unconstitutional and unenforceable) that former congress people can have literally no contact with sitting members, then they are going to have access and people are going to pay them for that access. If I am a former pol and you make a law that says I cant lobby, then I will just set up a consulting company and hire a hot shot attorney to do the actual lobbying. You simply can not prevent it. So if you can not prevent then you need to control it or, at least, minimize the impact. You can only do this by taking reelection/campaign money off the table. And virtually everyone that goes to congress for something is getting paid to do it. It is best if it is transparent.
  24. How so? It seems you are arguing that a pol getting advice or knowledge on an issue from an expert is a bad deal? You also act as if there are issues where the lobbying only occurs for one side of the issue. How it is supposed to work is that proponents from both sides of an issue come and make their case for the piece of legislation or whatever it is. A smart person listens to both cases, asks questions and then makes a decision based on the information provided. Shockingly, they might even make a few phone calls to people in their district potentially impacted. Understanding the "legislative process" takes about 2 days for any smart person to understand. And if you have genuinely capable people in office then they know full well how to build coalitions and get things done. The problem which you unintentionally exposed is that we are electing people that do not have those basic management/life skills. People in congress are not splitting atoms. It is not technically difficult.
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