President Trump: The NEW one and only politics thread

I took the liberty of doing a bit of trimming to help you toward a more complete telling of your story.

 

Picked up a copy of The Atlantic at the airport this weekend, which included a globe-critical piece on North Korea by their best writer, Mark Bowden. Also a second globe-critical piece on the future of the Democratic Party in America.

I was appalled to learn that I was being charged for this globe-critical work. Because profit.

Surely the writers at the publication at least work for free, no?

 

Here's the thing. There would be very few innovations in medicine if U.S.-based R&D did not have a profit motive. Most of the world gets to free ride on the evil U.S. system.

 

I don't know if they still do it but the Atlantic got in some controversy back in 2013 over this very thing. They were asking established writers to contribute to them simply for the exposure.

If Our Lord and Savior can buy a little into capitalism - render onto Caesar, etc etc - so can the center left, I suppose.

 

I think that was for the Web site, correct?

 

Yes, because doctors and nurses and everybody else who works in healthcare in every other Western democracy on Earth do so for free. That's exactly what I'm saying.

R&D, prescription medications, yes, I understand that the profit motive might lead to improvements in those areas.

Hospitals shouldn't be profit-driven institutions. It's immoral.

But you're right, and every other Western democracy on Earth is wrong. Because America.

 

Profit bad! evidences such an elementary understanding of policy that it should be written in crayon. The last time we tried to have this discussion - it got locked - an esteemed poster accused me of being a troll or at least ridiculous for asking if doctors were to be included among those who should provide health care for free. Of course not! See, that makes little sense to me. It's OK for doctors to make money because we must incentivize smart people to become doctors. But the R&D that provides them their tools of the trade? That is supposed to appear by ... magic? I really don't know. And I don't grasp the principles difference.

 

Is it immoral for the New York Times to make a profit? Is it immoral for The Atlantic to make a profit?

There are a lot of areas where the U.S. is on an island and also dead nuts correct, by the way. Start with free speech.

 

Coming back from D.C. a couple of months ago, I scanned the magazine rack. The Atlantic had the "My Family's Slave" cover article. I really wanted to read the article, but like every other magazine, the Atlantic was as thin as a pamphlet, and cost something like $7.99. (And, I know the thinness is due to a loss of advertising among other things.)

Knowing I could read the article for free online, I passed on buying it, or any other magazine.

I don't get it. Magazine articles like that are unique. Who, except maybe a traveler, stuck at an airport without reading material, is going to buy something they're giving away for free?

 

The Atlantic Wire, right?

Their own version of the Huffington Post. A horrible collection of aggregation and poor, free writing.

They shut it down in 2014. The (Atlantic) Wire Is Shutting Down

 

I don't know. I didn't make it in that industry. It's come up a time or two here.

 

The bill for my recent appendix cutting outing was more than $15,000.

Because we have my wife's university insurance, and we long since met out family deductible, it cost us less than $300, total. We'd be bankrupt without the insurance, many times over. I understand that doctors and nurses need to make a fair wage -- and I don't begrudge them that because my health is in their hands -- but the costs for a one-night hospitalization are unconscionable.

I'm firmly in the camp that hospitals should be non-profit enterprises. I'm firmly in the camp that will never happen in the United States.