General CE Chat

More bad news...

 
Not like you'd want to give it a dry run on a book by itself first either.
 
http://democracyjournal.org/arguments/keep-it-simple-and-take-credit/

Keep It Simple and Take Credit
As background, George W. Bush signed a tax cut in the first year of his term, during a recession, and sent out a rebate check of up to $600 to taxpayers, along with a letter saying that he and the Republican congress had passed the law providing that check.

Barack Obama also passed a tax cut in the first year of his term, also during a recession. Did he send out a similar letter and check, crediting he and his Democratic Congress? Let’s go to The New York Times:




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Very high-minded. Let’s see if Franklin Roosevelt had similar qualms about sending checks:

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Wasn't sure where this goes.
https://medium.com/insurge-intellig...nce-on-1-800-movies-and-tv-shows-36433107c307

Amazing effort. I would say trivial, but obviously the CIA and Army had reasons to do this.

Highlights:
Vietnam is evidently another sore topic for the US military, which also removed a reference to the war from the screenplay for Hulk (2003). While the military are not credited at the end of the film, on IMDB or in the DOD’s own database of supported movies, we acquired a dossier from the US Marine Corps detailing their ‘radical’ changes to the script.

This included making the laboratory where the Hulk is accidentally created into a non-military facility, making the director of the lab an ex-military character, and changing the code name of the military operation to capture the Hulk from ‘Ranch Hand’ to ‘Angry Man’.

‘Ranch Hand’ is the name of a real military operation that saw the US Air Force dump millions of gallons of pesticides and other poisons onto the Vietnamese countryside, rendering millions of acres of farmland poisoned and infertile.

They also removed dialogue referring to ‘all those boys, guinea pigs, dying from radiation, and germ warfare’, an apparent reference to covert military experiments on human subjects.
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The movie Countermeasures was rejected by the military for several reasons, and consequently never produced. One of the reasons is that the script included references to the Iran-Contra scandal, and as Strub saw it ‘There’s no need for us to… remind the public of the Iran-Contra affair.’
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This ‘soft’ censorship also affects TV. For example, a planned Louis Theroux documentary on Marine Corps recruit training was rejected, and as a result was never made.
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The CIA has also managed to censor scripts, removing or changing sequences that they didn’t want the public to see. On Zero Dark Thirty screenwriter Mark Boal ‘verbally shared’ his script with CIA officers, and they removed a scene where a drunk CIA officer fires an AK-47 into the air from a rooftop in Islamabad, and removed the use of dogs from the torture scenes.


In a very different kind of film, the hugely popular romantic comedy Meet the Parents, Brandon requested that they change a scene where Ben Stiller’s character discovers Robert De Niro’s (Stiller’s father-in-law to be) secret hideaway. In the original script Stiller finds CIA torture manuals on a desk, but Brandon changed that to photos of Robert De Niro with various dignitaries.
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It is not quite an official censor, since decisions on scripts are made voluntarily by producers, but it represents a major and scarcely acknowledged pressure on the kind of narratives and images we see on the big and small screens.
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RedTiger said:
Wow, never knew the US military and IC had influence over these types of things.
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Really? Thought it was common knowledge.

Same as with sensitive matters regarding journalistic investigations, though those are far more serious for obvious reasons.
 
berbatrick said:
Wasn't sure where this goes.
https://medium.com/insurge-intellig...nce-on-1-800-movies-and-tv-shows-36433107c307

Amazing effort. I would say trivial, but obviously the CIA and Army had reasons to do this.

Highlights:
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Interesting to read some of the more unusual films they've influenced but you can see why they do it - films referencing torture at the hands of the government for example.

Also saying films like Top Gun and Act of Valor couldn't be made without military cooperation is a bit pointless. Where else are you going to get F14s and Navy Seals from?
 
11101 said:
Interesting to read some of the more unusual films they've influenced but you can see why they do it - films referencing torture at the hands of the government for example.

Also saying films like Top Gun and Act of Valor couldn't be made without military cooperation is a bit pointless. Where else are you going to get F14s and Navy Seals from?
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The ties go back at least to WW2, when the government and military worked with/urged/coerced Hollywood to make movies/documentaries supporting the war effort. Some like "Why We Fight" were I believe originally intended for internal use, to be shown to US Military personnel to show them the reasons why our involvement was important (ie not just because Pearl Harbor was bombed). Later on they were released to the public.

Some films obviously can't be made without the cooperation of the Military. Which may range from getting stock footage of military assets to actually being able to use assets in the film, film on bases/ships , use military personnel as extras, etc.

Going back to the 60's films like "The Longest Day" used active duty military personnel for some scenes. Then movies like "The Green Berets" were complete propaganda pieces the military worked on to get their message across.
 
@SwansonsTache
@langster

Swanson, I know I asked you this before, but I can't find where I put the answer... And Langster, I figure you could help me out with this on the NHS side of things...

Unemployed - how do they contribute to your healthcare systems?

I'm in a debate with someone about single payer caused by them raging on it due to Charlie Gard.
 
@Carolina Red

Everyone in Norway, either living abroad or in Norway or employed or unemployed must pay 8,2% of their yearly wages in healthcare\benefits\social taxes.

Of course for the unemployed that is 8,2% given to them from the state in the first place, but it still gets reserved for the healthcare\benefits\social fund.

Pensioners pay something like 5,6% of their pensions.

That fund covers everything from health costs, unemployment money, welfare etc.

Norwegians living abroad and working in another country can choose not to pay, but then they'll loose their rights covered by the fund as well.
 
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Carolina Red said:
@SwansonsTache
@langster

Swanson, I know I asked you this before, but I can't find where I put the answer... And Langster, I figure you could help me out with this on the NHS side of things...

Unemployed - how do they contribute to your healthcare systems?

I'm in a debate with someone about single payer caused by them raging on it due to Charlie Gard.
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The Unemployed have their National Insurance contributions paid separately by the government as part of their benefits. National Insurance goes towards pensions, funnily enough - unemployment and sickness benefits and the NHS.

The single payer system has absolutely NOTHING to do with the Charlie Gard situation. The fact someone is using that as an example against UHC shows how uneducated about the system they are. Poor Charlie's situation is down to ethics, morals and the rulings that have decided that the poor lad has suffered more than enough already and any treatment will not be able to improve his quality of life which is the absolute goal when these decisions are made. There is a chance his life could be prolonged but in doing so the lad will suffer unimaginable pain and discomfort for him to do so. The judges weighed up the options and decided Charlie couldn't be helped and he would only suffer more in the long run. Obviously pro-life nutters wont be able to understand that distinction.
 
@SwansonsTache @langster

Thanks guys! The fact that the two systems use two different methods of funding for the unemployed is gonna shock this guy.

Also, Langster, that's what my wife was saying when I told her about this case. She sees stuff like this in the ICU. People are taken off life support for ethical reasons in the United States, but people are so ignorant that they think it only happens in a place with "socialist medicine"

If you're interested, here's my comment back to him. He'd made the comment that "you don't see people going to socialized medical systems for healthcare, you see them coming to us", so part of my response is about that...

So if you ignore the hundreds of millions of people who live within the European Economic Area, then it doesn't happen...

Also, consider the fact that going to a hospital in the U.K. at 150% cost in the charge book is cheaper than the normal cost in a country like the US. Procedures and medications in countries with nationalized healthcare are cheaper than in the US because it is the government doing the price setting/negotiations and not a private company.

Example... A coronary angioplasty (heart stent) in the UK Tariff book is $4000 - the same procedure in the US can go above $30,000. You bet your bottom dollar that someone without health insurance or someone with poor health insurance in the US would be (and are) lining up to pay $6000 for that heart stent vs. what they'll end up paying for it in the US with no or poor health insurance. Now, ask yourself... should the same procedure be 8x more expensive in the US than the UK?

And yes, Gard's hospital stay is free at the point of use, the prices in the Tariff Index aren't paid in the form of bills by U.K. residents... and I even made the caveat earlier that it is free (except for the small amount of tax paid yearly by his parents)... I would gladly pay $5000 per year (around what my wife and I would pay combined in the U.K. for NHS) in healthcare tax to get 11 months of ICU care without a bill.

You're kidding yourself if you want to call unethically flying the child across the Atlantic and subjecting him to further unethical experimental trials "opportunity".
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@Carolina Red

That's a decent reply, but I guarantee it's falling on deaf ears. People have been brainwashed against UHC with horror stories and falsehoods and to be fair, some true stories too. Obviously mistakes happen but you get that with free healthcare or with private healthcare. The point is that it's in your Congressmen and women's benefit to spread these stories, as it is for the health insurance companies too. From the way I see it, it's now become like a stereotype that UHC = shit healthcare, akin to the belief all Englishmen carry umbrellas and wear bowler hats. Once a belief has spread like that it is going to be near impossible to change it.

You know my story, you know the NHS saved my life last year, and I have told people this yet they don't believe me, or even worse they say that I was a lucky one and that i'm not an exception to the rule. It's infuriating really. However the facts support the argument. The vast majority of the world has a form of UHC and it works. Yes it has problems, but so does private healthcare. It's really quite simple, everyone contributes towards it, and if you can afford it and don't like it, then you are free to go and pay privately. Even if you choose to do that, then it would STILL BE CHEAPER than what most people are paying now. All people are paying for at the moment is for insurance companies and their shareholders and the people they bribe (congressmen and women etc) to get rich. It really is that simple. Morally and ethically there is literally no argument that stands up to scrutiny. If someone says "I don't want to pay towards someone else's healthcare" then I can respect that, I might not like it but at least they are being honest and not using lies and propaganda saying that UHC doesn't work, when it clearly does.
 
Here is the gist of the study: https://fee.org/articles/seattles-minimum-wage-has-been-a-disaster-as-the-citys-own-study-confirms/

Here is criticism: http://www.epi.org/publication/the-...s-new-analysis-of-seattles-minimum-wage-incr/

Here is a very informative article that shows how policans deal with results that they don't like. It is a great read: http://www.seattleweekly.com/news/seattle-is-getting-an-object-lesson-in-weaponized-data/

Here is informative commentary for the layman (I haven't fully read both parts, just skimmed over them): part1 + part2

I could post more links to useful commentary but that is a decent place to start. I doubt that anyone reads all these links anyway.

So last but not least my own remarks:
As always with economics we have noisy data that create complex results. Anyone can find confirmation for his biases/views. There is no methodological approach that one can't criticise severely. The consequence is sadly exactly that: most people judge studies depending on their biases and not on their quality. Even a method that helps in other instances to decide what's true and not - meta studies - doesn't help when it comes to the minimum wage. Additionally nowadays minimum wage research is also getting politicised. So questioning the honesty of authors is sadly necessary.

There are convincing arguments that this new study uses much better data and better methodology than almost all other MW studies. That makes this study relevant. There are also good arguments that despite the quality of the study that there are enough shortcomings, unique circumstances and open questions to question the results. That is entirely appropriate. That said, when you criticise the methodology of this study, you shouldn't point to other studies that are inferior (e.g. card&kruger1994). That's a good indicator for bias.
I have extensive knowledge of the literature and a strong opinion. Here is another study that is imo more important and informative than the Seattle paper, but anyone who doesn't like the results will find holes as well. I understand why people want to support the MW and I understand how knowledgeable people can come to a balanced opinion that is in support of the idea. Sadly these are not the leading voices who push for a MW. Most supporters are just ideologies who don't understand the issue at all.
 
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