>>We're looking at this differently. The credit card company isn't preventing you from buying your product. They are limiting the use of their product. You have the coice to use their product or not.
>
>So un-leveling the playing field is OK if it's done by big corporations?
Shouldn't they be at least criticised for refusing the service only when I want to buy tobacco from the American Americans' company in a reservation, while it's OK if I buy from a retailer?
>
It does seem strange but not unheard of. Most credit card companies refuse to deal with online gambling sites as well.

>>My point was that cable is a service provided by a company that should have every right to charge its customers however they see fit.
>
>Which is why they aren't making more than $9/month from me.
>
>>DirecTV, Dish Network? C-BAND?
>
>And satellite radio as well - I've been to their websites on numerous occasions, and there's nothing but packages. Satellite radio seems to be the worst of them - you need to buy the hardware that you can't use for anything else but their service.
>
>As for C-Band, I had to google it out - and the size of my yard doesn't look like it could accomodate that size of dish :).
>

I remember a friend of mine whose family had one. His dad would get very upset at us kicking soccer balls into it when he was watching tv. :)

>>Then the cable/satellite companies will be forced to compete. Whether they change to a la carte or come other option, only time will tell.
>
>The technology is already available. They only typed a few numbers when I revoked my 50-channel subscription and voila - I lost them immediately. So it's just software, which can be adjusted for a la carte in a matter of weeks. I think that once they're forced to offer it, they'll be able to switch overnight.
>
I don't think they should be forced, I think the market will settle the issue as broadband access continues to expand.

>The trouble then is that the big networks will finally have real ratings data that can't be rigged so easily.
>
Doubtful.

>>>But let's assume I wanted to produce kajmak (cuy-muk - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kajmak) and sell it here. How far could I get?
>>
>>I guess I'm missing something. Is there some big company that already has the market cornered, preventing you from starting a business?
>
>I'm speaking hypothetically. The product is literally unknown here. I suppose it could be a competition to cream cheese and butter. How far would I get?
>

I'd guess you'd get as far as you wanted to. It would depend on how much work you put into the enterprise.

>>I use a credit union and I haven't had a hold placed on any check I've deposited, regardless of the source bank, in years. I think it has to do with average balance vs. deposit amount rather than adhering to a law.
>
>Credit union here too, and I suppose it's the issuing bank that keeps the check as long as it can.
>
That may be.

>>>If your answer is "immediately", get me a link to that bank :).
>>>
>>http://www.schools.com
>
>I meant banks and credit unions, not boarding schools. Or is there a hidden link on the page somewhere?
>
Oops, supposed to be .org
http://www.schools.org

>>>You mean, there wasn't so much spam, ads everywhere...
>>
>>I never have found a problem with this. Spam filtering software works really well and the free email sites offer it as a free service now. I also don't have a problem with advertising. I have access to an amazing trove of information worldwide for the price of my ISP account. I don't have to pay for almost anything I read online because a little space is devoted to advertising. We have enjoyed network television for free for 50 years following this model.
>
>The trouble with the ads on TV is that I have to buy a new remote every couple of years because the mute button gets worn out :). On the web, however, my AdBlock plugin for Mozilla works quite fine, at least for the places where I go regularly.
>

Buy TIVO. I haven't watched a commercial in 2 years.

>The trouble with the commercialization of the web is that when you want to find information about something, you get about 10:1 of where you can buy it against real information.
>
You also are getting the information without paying for it. You don't have to spend your time in a library researching for hours or days. I think this is a fair trade.

>>>Complicated and unfair. I'd prefer to keep paying some always, instead of paying nothing for extended periods of time, then going bankrupt when I really need it.
>>
>>I think you need to change your health plan.
>
>My plan is the best: stay healthy :).
>
That's a good one.

>> Unless someone is chronoligically ill or on expensive drugs, I suggest a high-deductable (catastrophic emergency) insurance plan. For yearly visits I suggest finding a private practice doctor that you like and just paying him out of pocket for each visit.
>
>Do you hear yourself? You already started listing cases, look for this if this, or else look for this if ... there's no comprehensive system. There's cases, plans, programs, but no system.
>

Right. I don't want a "system". I like having choices. As I get older my health care needs will change and I like having multiple options for dealing with those changes. I do not want a single, government-run health care plan that will limit my choices of doctors, hospitals, medications, procedures, etc. HMOs are bad enough.

>At some point I was offered some reimbursement from the employer if I signed up for some plan - they had telecommuting staff in seven to ten states, and couldn't find a single provider of any kind which would operate in all of them (no system, q.e.d.), so the policy was that each of us finds something and they'll cover it to some amount. I started from the government's website which outlines the what and how about health insurance in USA - and I just printed it out, thinking it can't be more than a few pages. Well, it was more than 50 - and that's only the general stuff, for any details, carefully read what each offers, specially the fine print. And the text was rife with red flags - pay attention to this, check that it doesn't have that clause... it'd take days just to get to understand all the ins and outs.
>

Right there are lots of choices.

>>>And there is no system, otherwise vaccinations would be free for everybody, there'd be a comprehensive system of preventive medicine for everybody, and there'd be only patients, not categories of patients depending on their insurance status. There's no overall system, there are programs and shops.
>>
>>There are numerous choices. HMOs, private practice, comprehensive plans, catastrophic plans...
>
>IOW, a total smorgasboard of everything, and they're all primarily trying to make money on you, and give you health protection if they must or if they think you can take them out in court.
>

Again you seem to have a problem with a business making money. I don't. In fact I want my insurance company to make money, that way I know they'll still be around if I have a crisis.

>>I don't want a comprehensive system. I don't want another bloated entitlement eating up more and more money each and every year that cannot be constrained. We already have too many of those.
>
>The American way of doing government is a real obstacle here - it can be done much more efficiently (take the example of just all of the rest of the developed world) and for less money per capita, but somehow this belief that whatever government does will be worse, cost more and take longer, becomes another self-fulfilling prophecy here.
>

We believe it because of experience. The more the government gets involved the harder it becomes to get things done.

>>My doctor has done both HMO and PP and I prefer him in private practice.
>
>My doctor is my wife :). We practice meeting privately, too :).
>
>>If there was a governmental system in place the same would be true. Except that the politicians would have control of even more money. Scary.
>
>Not necessarily. Back home, we had the health/retirement fund which was very independent and efficient. First of all, you paid it through the percentage that went off your salary (but everybody's salary equally), so when you needed to see the doctor, it was all already paid. The vaccines were free and many of them actually mandatory - which eradicated numerous contagious diseases; all the kids from school went annually for a systematic checkup; you were covered even when you were unemployed (as long as you registered as unemployed); ambulance transportation cost you nothing, even if you were going for dialysis every other day. You only had to pay some miserable copayment for each prescription, comparable to a local bus ticket.
>
It will be a mess here. We have a government mandated "retirement" plan here also called Social Security. Originally designed to supplement retirement and the money was supposed to be kept seperate. HAHA! The money is in the general fund and being pillaged every year. The same will happen with a health care "fund". The government gets too much money as it is, there is no need for another 1/4 of our economy to end up in politicians hands.

>It all worked fine, at least in our province (and it did quite fine in the rest of the country, though maybe not as efficiently money-wise). Then Miloshevich came and started looting the fund.
>
>>There have always been bad people doing bad things. You cannot legislate behavior.
>
>But you can provide incentive by punishing it, as was the intent of the huge payments Merck will have to make, right? But then, what about the existing history, wasn't it supposed to have created this incentive already?
>
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thalidomide
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diethylstilbestrol
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methaqualone (aka quaalude)
>or the rest on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_withdrawn_drugs
>
What do you want me to say? Bad people do bad things. Our jails are full of people who kill, steal, rape, etc and they knew the consequences beforehand.

As an aside the American judicial system was not set up to "punish" criminals, it was designed to "deter" others from committing crimes. I always bristle when I hear about a trial entering the "punnishment" phase.

>>However, Vioxx does not erase all the good that has come from the pharmacutical companies. For every Vioxx there's how many liver transplants, or AIDS cocktails or cancer drugs? A quick yahoo search reveals 135 publicly traded drug manufacturers. This doesn't include generics or private companies. How many have created solutions rather than problems?
>
>That's not a point, and I'm not denying they mostly create usable drugs. It's the behavior where they keep pushing a suspected drug to market for years, the one they already knew wasn't safe, until they're forced to withdraw it.
>
That behavior is against the law. If they break the law they'll be held accountable either criminally/civilly or both.

>>I believe that the profit motive is leading the way to these great new things. I have no problem with people being rewarded (profits) for providing goods/services that people need or want. In fact I believe its the greatest system on the planet.
>
>It's OK most of the time - provided they do produce what people need. It's when they do anything for profit, over dead bodies, that the system at least doesn't prevent sufficiently (and I may be inclined to think that the system is tolerating it more and more).
>
I would completely disagree. If anything the businesses are being regulated more each year.

>>>Streets are for people. Pavements are for people in vehicles, sidewalks for people on foot. What do you do when you meet a friend the main street, where every building is someone's shop? You say "Hi... sorry, can't talk here"?
>>
>>Would you mind if I did the same on your porch? How about your bedroom?
>
>Insides of the house are private. However, the pavement in front of my house is a public place. If I can't stop you from walking on it, why should I be entitled to stop you from talking on it?
>
I don't think you can unless I'm creating a nuisence. Which is what you would be doing if your blocking the entrance to a business.

>>>And who's to say that those who insert cycles in the conversation aren't just trying to delay the dispute until the issue is moot?
>>
>>History says. Economic cycles are well known and documented. The shrinking middle class was a "problem" during the industrial revolution, post-WWII, the booming 80s and apparently now. Seems pretty cyclical to me.
>
>This is already taking too long, or I'd find again where I found that the distribution of wealth wasn't so disparate here since the time of robber barons. IOW, if there were complaints about the shrinking middle class in other times, they aren't loud enough this time.
>

I don't know that its a bad thing, after all a great number of people are moving up not down. I just read a report that the number of millionaires has doubled in the last 10 years.

>>>You've just promoted a bunch of rag-tag guerrila bands into armies. They'd never have achieved such importance without that.
>>
>>Not true, if that was so then the captured would be POWs. They are not precisely because they are not soldiers.
>
>Ah, the lovely partial pregnancy... when they attack, they are warriors; when they're caught, they aren't. Nice gray area where the gov't can pick and choose which laws to apply and which not.
>
Spies and guerrilas have never been treated as soldiers, but they are still a part of a country's forces.

>>>The difference between smart governing and cronyism is in how do you reward loyalty. If you start kicking experts out of office just to place someone who helped you during the campaign, no matter how infinitely less competent for the job, that's cronyism. If you have the guts to keep the experts (even if they're not members or sympathisers of your party) and place your loyal guys only where they can really help, that's not.
>>
>>It still happens in all political systems. This says more about human nature than a particular governing system.
>
>So how come the previous governments weren't accused of cronyism?

They were. I think the most famous one is JFK appointing his brother to attorney general.

>How come FEMA was so well managed before?

Florida, Mississippi, Arkansas were also aided by FEMA. I don't remember any complaints. New Orleans was a failure at all governmental levels not just federal.

>How come INS took three weeks seven years ago to do something that takes months now? Has the human nature changed so quickly?

Not sure to what you're referring, but I probably cound't answer anyhow. I have zero experience with INS.

>> Definately get rid of any credit or car debt ASAP. This is always the case though, regardless of the laws.
>
>Got none of these, thanks. I still don't understand why people fall for this credit card trick - it's just plain usury.
>
There is a distinct lack of economic education in this country. People fall for it because they don't know any better.

>>>I know. I read dailyKos, CrooksAndLiars et al.

I hope you read national review also for a little balance. :)