Avoid Delta and Atlanta

Tchiowa writes:

Funny, but I have several options for local phones in California.

How many local loops lead into your house? And what about other
telephone services?

Steel, Oil, Railroads.

Passenger rail service is a monopoly in the United States, mainly
because private companies refused to provide passenger service. They
refused to provide it because they couldn't make a large-enough profit
on it.

But you can have different electrical providers using the
infrastructure. Which is exactly what we have in California now.

That doesn't help if you have no choice at your incoming electrical
service.

Maybe. But to go back to the original topic, health care certainly
doesn't qualify.

Why not? Illness is a constant in society; the percentage of people
who require medical care is relatively fixed. They have no choice
over their need for care; when they need it, they need it. It's well
suited to government oversight. One must avoid abuse and waste, as
always, but in countries where anonymous ownership of private
corporations makes profit the primary and often the only goal,
government ownership is the lesser of two evils.

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Carole Allen wrote:
On 2 Aug 2006 01:18:53 -0700, "Tchiowa" wrote:
Deficit spending primarily investing in the future through security,
infrastructure, job creation, etc.

Deficit spending due to Iraq. Our physical infrastructure is woefully
udnerfunded, security funding is a joke, and job creation numbers have
lagged far behind what is condiered necessary by financial analysts.

Our deficit spending ballooned in 2001 to help recover from the
recession caused by the tech bubble bursting. It's gone down
dramatically since then. As a percent of GDP it is lower than most
developed countries. In fact, as of the last figures I read, if we were
in Europe we would qualify for inclusion in the Euro whereas countries
like France wouldn't.

Our deficit is not bad at all in the grand scheme of things.

Carole Allen wrote:
On 2 Aug 2006 01:18:53 -0700, "Tchiowa" wrote:
Deficit spending primarily investing in the future through security,
infrastructure, job creation, etc.

Deficit spending due to Iraq. Our physical infrastructure is woefully
udnerfunded, security funding is a joke, and job creation numbers have
lagged far behind what is condiered necessary by financial analysts.

Forgot to add, I don't know where you come up with the comment about
"job creation numbers". In fact we are very close to what most
economists consider "full employment". We can't create jobs much faster
or we won't have people to fill them.

Carole Allen writes:

Drs, accountants, attys. I don' t know how many for others, but attys
in WA state ...

On Thu, 03 Aug 2006 07:53:57 +0200, Mxsmanic
wrote:
Then perhaps you should have said only "attorneys in Washington," and
left out the speculation about doctors and accountants.

There are no continuing education requirements in IT.

I know drs, accountants, nurses, teachers, personally and I know they
have to maintain continuing education credits. Oh, and court
reporters are also required to do so. The fact that I don't
specifically know the exact number of credits for various professions
is irrelevant. I know these people and they are required to take
approved courses on an annual basis.

My landscaper brother is not required to take such credits. Neither
is my niece who manages a retail store. My nephew, the teacher, who
has a Master's Degree, is required to do so.

The fact that they are not required in IT (or at least in your
experience in IT) might explain why your specific skill set (whatever
it might be, since you refuse to divulge any details here) is not
providing you with a job in IT.

Mxsmanic wrote:
Tchiowa writes:

No it's not. A monopoly is when you can only have one
provider PERIOD. You have no choice who to provide your service.

So the USPS does not have a monopoly on first-class mail because such
mail has been delivered by different entities in the past?

Not any more. They used to. But now mail can be handled by several
private entities (like DHL) and service has improved dramatically. For
some mail that the law restricts to the USPS the service is pretty bad.

A monopoly exists when there is no choice of provider, or when
substantial impediments to a change of provider exist. You don't have
much choice about telephone providers if you have to pay money and
have wiring changed just to change from one to another.

You don't have to do that. You just change. New laws in the past
decade. The original phone company that put in the land lines is
required by law to share them with other providers. All I have to do is
ask and my service is changed.

I can
buy groceries from any of dozens of stores. But as I don't have a split
personality I can only buy from one at a time. Does that make them a
monopoly?

It costs you nothing to choose a different store for each trip. The
same is not true for public utilities and other monopolies.

It costs me nothing to change phone companies. It costs me nothing to
change electrical providers. And it costs me nothing to change health
care insurers.

Carole Allen wrote:
On 31 Jul 2006 20:31:37 -0700, "Tchiowa" wrote:
I would guess just from personal experience that by the time people are
25-30 years old, the vast majority are in the job that they are going
to be doing for a very long time. And then they are getting plenty of
vacation. Vacation that they have "earned".

That's in the past. Outsourcing has changed all that. Welcome to the
new world economy.

That's a line that the Luddites like to use. In fact only a tiny
portion of jobs have been outsourced. And the stats I posted showed
that the majority of people over 30 stay in their jobs for long periods
of time and have plenty of vacation available to them.

Mxsmanic wrote:
Tchiowa writes:

Funny, but I have several options for local phones in California.

How many local loops lead into your house? And what about other
telephone services?

Many phone companies have access to the same wires.


Steel, Oil, Railroads.

Passenger rail service is a monopoly in the United States, mainly
because private companies refused to provide passenger service.

And the government service is lousy and losing money.

They refused to provide it because they couldn't make a large-enough profit
on it.

But you can have different electrical providers using the
infrastructure. Which is exactly what we have in California now.

That doesn't help if you have no choice at your incoming electrical
service.

But I do.

Maybe. But to go back to the original topic, health care certainly
doesn't qualify.

Why not? Illness is a constant in society; the percentage of people
who require medical care is relatively fixed. They have no choice
over their need for care; when they need it, they need it.

But they have a choice over who provides it and under what
circumstances. As an example when my kids were in high school I used an
HMO that happened to have a hospital almost across the street from
their school. They had their cards and if they needed medical care they
walked across the street. Now my circumstance has changed and that HMO
is no longer convenient for me so I changed providers.

It's well suited to government oversight.

We're talking about "control" not "oversight".

One must avoid abuse and waste, as
always, but in countries where anonymous ownership of private
corporations makes profit the primary and often the only goal,
government ownership is the lesser of two evils.

So when you think of avoiding waste and abuse you think of the
government????

Which section? The Pentagon? DMV? Post Office? VA? DHS? Which
government entity is your paragon of avoiding waste and abuse?

The word government comes from the Swahili word meaning "waste and
abuse". And "corruption, inefficiency"

Carole Allen writes:

You seem to think every trial is a jury trial.

I made no such assertion.

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Tchiowa writes:

That's a line that the Luddites like to use. In fact only a tiny
portion of jobs have been outsourced.

I work with some companies that are outsourcing essentially everything
except top management. Anything that doesn't require shaking hands
physically with a customer is outsourced. Of course, nobody at or
above the level of the person making the outsourcing decision is ever
outsourced.

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Tchiowa writes:

You don't have to do that. You just change. New laws in the past
decade. The original phone company that put in the land lines is
required by law to share them with other providers. All I have to do is
ask and my service is changed.

How do they change the local loop without any physical intervention?

How do you change water or sewer companies?

It costs me nothing to change phone companies. It costs me nothing to
change electrical providers. And it costs me nothing to change health
care insurers.

So do you choose the cheapest provider each time you make a call, or
each time you plug something into the wall?

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