Reagan Mania

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Tudamorf
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Re: Reagan Mania

Post by Tudamorf »

Fyyr wrote:
Tudamorf wrote:Don't hold your breath for the day W. is considered a good president in hindsight
Really? He brought down evil Hussein and the evil Taliban. Remember the heads and hands in the stadium. History will reveal itself different than your prediction.
He will be remembered for Iraq and for tanking the economy, primarily.

But secondarily, for crap like this:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/19/healt ... ealth.html
A Bush Rule on Providers of Abortions Is Revised

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration on Friday rescinded most of a 2008 rule that granted sweeping protections to health care providers who opposed abortion, sterilization and other medical procedures on religious or moral grounds.

Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of health and human services, said the rule, issued in the last days of the Bush administration, could “negatively impact patient access to contraception and certain other medical services.”

Federal laws make clear that health care providers cannot be compelled to perform or assist in an abortion, Ms. Sebelius said. The Bush rule went far beyond these laws and upset the balance between patients’ rights to obtain health care and “the conscience rights of health care providers,” she added.

The Obama administration retained and updated part of the 2008 rule that established procedures to investigate complaints from health care workers who believe they have been subjected to discrimination or coercion because of their “religious beliefs or moral convictions.”
Yes, for a while there if you were raped or needed an abortion for medical reasons, and you had the misfortune of living in the South, a doctor could simply refuse to treat you, without penalty, so long as he claimed the old man sky told him to do so.
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Zute
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Re: Reagan Mania

Post by Zute »

Yay! Obama... oh yeah, Bush put a halt to embryonic stem cell research too. Can't forget about that.

He went a long ways towards bringing us back to the 1950's in science.
Formerly known as Panamah
Fyyr
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Re: Reagan Mania

Post by Fyyr »

I believe the ban was on funding.

Actually, I have a problem with public funding of research which leads to patented and proprietary technologies.

If some company wants to make a profit off of something, then they should pay for the research themselves.
It's not the government's role to provide grants to enterprises to profit off of the public. Or at least it shouldn't(of course it is used for this purpose).

All technologies researched or developed with by government aid should immediately become public domain(rather than patented).
That goes for schools too.
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Zute
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Re: Reagan Mania

Post by Zute »

I think government funded research is a good thing, however there should be an agreement about returning the government's investment if a patent results from it, IMHO.

Privately funded research tends to only be in areas where there is a high likelihood of monetary gain. So, for instance, things you can't patent like vitamins or chemicals like DCA, that might be very important to human health or curing cancers are uninteresting to for-profit groups.
Formerly known as Panamah
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Tudamorf
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Re: Reagan Mania

Post by Tudamorf »

Zute wrote:I think government funded research is a good thing, however there should be an agreement about returning the government's investment if a patent results from it, IMHO.
If you mean "if a profit results from it," then there is one -- It's called income tax.
Fyyr
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Re: Reagan Mania

Post by Fyyr »

The government would collect income tax(corporate tax) if the funding were privately or investor paid for.

The investors are making the profit, not the government, in the case of patented publically funded medicines and technologies. They should pay for the research. (and then pay taxes on their profits).

Here is how stem cell would work if investors had their way, government funds a school to research Parkinson's. The produce scientists who figure out how to cure it. Those scientists leave school, and found a company called Parkintech. The company then gets government money for more research, they get it, now the investors step in. Investors don't have a problem with investing in buildings and asphalt, which is very important but with very low risk. But for UNKNOWN stuff like stem cells stuff, they wait until the hard stuff is already done, then they step in to invest. They use the government funds(millions, tens millions, hundreds of millions) to research stem cell to find a cure for Parkinson's Disease. They patent the medicine and technology, price it at 10 times research cost, plus cost of production, plus distribution and marketing, plus future research, plus 20% profit.

I just recently posted about a gout drug which has been generic for EVER, URL Pharma gets a patent right from the FDA, and the price of the drug went up 5400 percent. That is for something already known and used. Stem cell company increases in prices are going to be in the 100,000 percent region.

And then they pass the costs on to you, the taxpayer and insured, through EMTALA, Medicare, Medicaid, Insurance premiums. And then they make the profit from that. And Tudamorf wants the tax on that profit to be called profit.

I guess society wins by getting a cure for Parkinson's. But why do the investors get to use our money for it and then make a profit off of it. What is wrong with the Salk model.

http://www.ucsf.edu/news/2011/02/9370/u ... ng-program

"The $123 million building, paid for with state and private funds, is an outgrowth of California’s effort to advance stem cell research in the face of more than a decade of restrictive federal funding policies."

"Because no federal funds were used to construct the facility or purchase equipment within it, the research is immune to variations in federal funding policy regarding human embryonic stem cell research."

The research has never been prevented. It just hasn't been paid for.

Now keep an eye on the building and those who staff it(paid for with State monies remember). I bet a lot of them go on to found genetics and stem cell companies, and produce patents on our(those of us in the State of California) dime. Watch the companies and patents that come out of this building.

Genetech did it, and is still profiting off of OUR money. It is the present model.
When Humulin was being researched in the 70s, the company's promise was for a less expensive insulin.
Guess what, it's a lot more expensive than the porcine insulin. LOTS more expensive, even today.
(and please don't remind me about porcine reactions, I give porcine heparin to almost every patient I have, with no reaction).
Last edited by Fyyr on Sat Feb 26, 2011 7:17 pm, edited 3 times in total.
Fyyr
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Re: Reagan Mania

Post by Fyyr »

There is NOTHING preventing investors from starting a private company, researching stem cells, and producing cures and treatments.
And making all the profit from that that the market can bear. Except fear and risk.
Fyyr
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Re: Reagan Mania

Post by Fyyr »

Zute wrote:...however there should be an agreement about returning the government's investment if a patent results from it
Then that's a loan, sort off.

You will loan me money for a project, if I finish the project, sell it, and make money off of it, I pay you back what you lent me(without interest).
What if I don't finish the project. I don't even have to pay you back, cool.

F, this is easier that Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, and Maddoff scamming.


THERE SHOULD BE NO PATENT.
The money is PUBLIC, the PUBLIC invested, the PUBLIC RIGHTFULLY OWNS THE RIGHTS.
PUBLIC DOMAIN.

The scientist should be happy with getting his name in the paper, or winning some prize.
She has been paid the whole time doing the research, future profits(or reduced costs, same thing) from that research belong to the PUBLIC.

If you are a scientist or inventor and work for a company, and you design something while working for that company, being paid for by that company, the rights to that something belong to that company. It should be no different with government money.

I am debating with two fricken Commies about social justices, and I sound more Commie than either of them.
erianaiel
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Re: Reagan Mania

Post by erianaiel »

Fyyr wrote: I am debating with two fricken Commies about social justices, and I sound more Commie than either of them.
Actually no. You are not talking to communists and none of you all sound at all like communists anyway. Not even socialist (though that term is generally used as if it is interchangeable with communism in American media and discussions).

The basic principle behind communism (or I should say Marxism) is that since everything is created by the workers it should be considered a communal (i.e. held in common) property. Nobody should have a bigger right to anything just because they were the once issuing orders to those doing the actual work.
Of course personal politics in the early days after the Russian revolution caused a rather large shift from that ideal towards something that was a lot more like: 'As the supreme leader Stalin owned the entire country and handed out small parcels of it for his trusted cronies (in so far he had not had them tortured to death in his paranoid delusions) to control as if they were feudal fiefdoms.'

Socialism, in its original meaning is not the synonym with communism that it has become, but the socio-political movement that emphasised the need to for the greater good of the group, and not for personal gain, first. Early examples of socialist movements were cooperative farmer organisations (where farmers combined for mutual support against the big factories that bought their products to prevent playing against each other) and unions (same but with workers against the factory owners). Of course the existing factory owners had the financial and political clout to make government move against these organisations which threatened their stranglehold over their producers and workers (nothing new here as this happens today still). This then led to the socialist movement being swept up by the communist movement which opposed to the very concept of factory owners itself on principal ground (which in turn led to government opposing even more stringently against both socialist and communist organisations.)

Then there is the social-democratic basis for most of the political centre parties in europe (not to be confused with the national-socialist parties which are a different beast entirely). These are basically de-radicalised versions of the early worker unions. These political parties work from the premise that society has an obligation to provide a minimum standard of living and support for every member, regardless of their abilities and situation. It leads to higher taxes and a certain amount of coddling by the state (it is questionable how much of the oft vaunted by advocates of the American way 'loss of dynamic' effect actually exists and how much a society truly is harmed by or benefits from that affect). The flip side of that coin is that nobody has to go without medical care because they can not afford it, no children need go without education because it is too expensive for their parents (and I am aware that the USA has an extensive grant system in place but those are charity that could be ended at any moment, not rights of the children to the best education they are capable of following). It means that all roads and streetlights are maintained, not only the ones in rich neighbourhoods. It means people do not have to fear losing their job and sinking into homeless destitude with their family quite so much.

In the end it all comes down to what that Carl Sagan said about the famous picture he had Voyager take: the pale blue dot. Not even halfway out of our solar system the earth is nothing bit a tiny dot against a backdrop of myriads of other dots, and here we are fighting nails and teeth over the tiniest fraction of that utterly insignificant dot (on the grander scale even in our solar system, let alone the milkyway or entire galaxy).
Or to paraphrase the words that J.M.Straczynski had G'Kar speak in one of the episodes of Babylon 5: "We are one. Here, gathered together in common cause we agree to recognise this singular truth: That we must be kind to one another, because each voice enriches us and ennobles us, and each voice lost diminishes us."

And that is why I keep giving money to organisations that try to aid to developing countries and why I want my country to keep doing so. Even knowing full well that much of that money is lost here in the organisation and even more gets stolen by greedy rulers and corrupt politicians and immediately leaves the country again to be mouldering in the safe deposit of a Swish bank.
I do so because I know that even if only 100 euros of the 1000 I donate actually make it, it still means that one woman in Africa has the means to provide for herself and her children and no longer is effectively enslaved to husband and custom. Or that ten children can go to school and learn to read and write instead of being reduced to working on the land or to begging or stealing. And even one euro can buy that woman a lock for her door so she does not have to fear every night for herself and her daughters being raped by a drunken passerby. And that if 10 people do the same as I it means that a village somewhere in the sub-sahara can install a pump and no longer has to fear drought and starvation every year and can begin to build up a little money to enlarge their field, or perhaps buy that bike they need to take their crops to the market themselves instead of having to rely on a traveling trader who pays them only barely enough to replace their seed crops, if that (because he has a monopoly and knows it).

Because ultimately, as I am typing this I realise that I am immensely priveledged. I am incredibly rich by any historical standard you could wish to apply. I am ensured of better health than just about any other human in history. I know that my daughter will grow up safe and healthy and free to live her life. Myself I am free of many of the social restrictions that shackled my own mother still (and she was much more free than hers). I can live my life as I see fit and am not sold to a husband I do not know, to live and die by his whims without possibility of escape should my situation become unbearable with even my own mother and father rather seeing me dead than returning to them.
And I believe that indeed we do have an obligation to be kind to one another because if not us, then who will? I can not give away all that I own, but sharing part of my wealth in the hopes that it will help others, even if only one person, that I can do.


Marian
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Tudamorf
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Re: Reagan Mania

Post by Tudamorf »

erianaiel wrote:And that is why I keep giving money to organisations that try to aid to developing countries and why I want my country to keep doing so. Even knowing full well that much of that money is lost here in the organisation and even more gets stolen by greedy rulers and corrupt politicians and immediately leaves the country again to be mouldering in the safe deposit of a Swish bank.
I do so because I know that even if only 100 euros of the 1000 I donate actually make it, it still means that one woman in Africa has the means to provide for herself and her children and no longer is effectively enslaved to husband and custom. Or that ten children can go to school and learn to read and write instead of being reduced to working on the land or to begging or stealing. And even one euro can buy that woman a lock for her door so she does not have to fear every night for herself and her daughters being raped by a drunken passerby. And that if 10 people do the same as I it means that a village somewhere in the sub-sahara can install a pump and no longer has to fear drought and starvation every year and can begin to build up a little money to enlarge their field, or perhaps buy that bike they need to take their crops to the market themselves instead of having to rely on a traveling trader who pays them only barely enough to replace their seed crops, if that (because he has a monopoly and knows it).
You may be assuaging your white/European guilt by buying into these schemes, but you are hardly helping poor Africans.

All that food and money you throw at them just allows them to breed more, which creates more people you have to throw food and money at, worse poverty, more disease, more starvation, and overall worse conditions for the Africans and the world. (Malthus may have been a white Englishman, but he was also correct.)

In other words, you are making the problem worse, not better.

If you really cared about the well-being of poor Africans, you would:

1) Stop feeling guilty just because you live in a superior culture.

2) Realize that starvation, disease, and poverty are symptoms of, and necessary checks against, overpopulation, and stop trying to suppress them independently.

3) Do everything you can to offer permanent birth control to every teenage girl in those African countries that are out of control.

If you do this, your friends may not like you, but you would actually be helping to fix the problem instead of helping to make it worse.
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