Knowledge of what is does not open the door directly to what should be.
Albert Einstein
Image of the Day
China and a Gold-Backed Currency?
It's just a matter of time before China removes its peg to the US dollar. And the US is in a world of pain if and when the Chinese currency starts replacing the dollar in foreign reserves. Especially if China backs its currency with gold, which means the Fed can no longer do what other countries can't--print their way out of debt. In the long run, either the Fed starts to back the dollar competitively with China, or we could find ourselves having to bid interest rates higher to attract investors. Raising rates are not only ominous for stock holdings as it hits business on the bottom line, and business try to cut costs (including labor) to maintain profits, but import prices would increase, meaning inflation, a particular invidious attack on lower-income household income
Facebook Corner
Knowing the price doesn't change much if you're not paying the bill. What we really need is an overhaul of the third party payment system.
No. We need a fully deregulated healthcare system, including a privatization of government healthcare.
Often, the answer is "It depends." If a patient comes to me desiring removal of a skin growth, a biopsy may be necessary to determine the diagnosis. If the growth is a cancer, the procedure for definitive removal will depend on the type of cancer, the size, the location, the need for plastic surgical repair or skin grafting, the need for lymph node biopsy, etc. So I can't just stick up a sign in my reception room that says, "Removal of skin growth, X dollars." People are not widgets, and there is too much variability between patients to standardize things. We found that out during the first failure of HMOs, and it looks like we are about to find out again.
Another thing, Mr. Bailey, the last thing "providers" need is another requirement. We are so burdened with requirements now that we have no time to take care of patients. It will be a rude awakening when people realize that they have put doctors out of business.
No, I think the medical profession often thinks it's unseemly to talk about prices: "what is your life/health worth to you?" Obviously the world is complex, but I'm sure the distributions of skin growths are well-known, particularly cancerous ones. But we all know medical services aren't free. Hiding the bill while running up the tab on the patient is hardly fair: it puts all the risk on the patient. Prices can vary all over an area, even for some standard procedure (say, a hip replacement). Even the cost of a routine doctor's visit will vary. (There are a few websites out there which provide some price ranges.)
I am sympathetic to the point about regulations. But I would argue in a free market you would have to be more transparent about prices--not to a government bureaucracy, but to consumers.
A fixed price will help others to self insure, in some cases.
The point about pricing is market competition; it provides more incentive for creative destruction, e.g., much cheaper but effective therapies.
We also need the ability to buy across state lines. The current system restricting providers to a given state is artificial control of the system and part of the reason, apart from the idiocy of Obamacare, driving up the cost of health insurance.
It's partly that, but notice that part of the problem to date where intrinsic barriers to entry based on state benefit mandates, etc. We need to be able to market barebones "real" insurance in and across states.
(Independent Institute). "When is it legal, and when is it politically correct, to refuse to bake a cake to a customer’s specifications? It appears that sometimes it is mandatory to bake a cake to a customer’s specifications, and sometimes it is prohibited, regardless of the preferences of the baker. Cake politics has become quite confusing lately."
The ultimate double standard: apparently Wal-Mart can bake an ISIS cake--when ISIS has been known for throwing or stoning gays to their death--but won't bake a Confederate flag cake (because everyone knows defending your home against invaders from the North is worse than killing unarmed civilians....) But I'm fine with Wal-Mart selling whatever cakes it chooses. And some online bakeries are doing a brisk business selling Confederate flag cakes; the free market meets consumer demand.... Now I'm not gay but it took a split-second to find a gay-friendly vendor locator portal (http://gayweddings.com/vendors/). The point is: why do you as a consumer who can't be forced to buy from a vendor insist on the vendor selling you whatever you want? I am not the employee of a prospective customer; he doesn't have a right to make my business decisions instead of me; he doesn't own the bakery; I do.
Simple solution, baker can bake cakes for anyone. The recipients of the cake are responsible putting topping on the cake, themselves.
They can already do that.
Why does everyone have to conduct themselves in such a petty manner causing them selves to spend money
enriching lawyers in a matter where no lawyer should be needed. Gays looking for a backer for their wedding cake do not need to tell the backer the are gay. They can order a generic wedding style cake and put the final touches on the cake at the catering hall. They could buy their own cake decorations and put their own icing one the cake without the baker knowing the cake was made for a same sex couple. Most chefs at catering halls know how to decorate a cake.Why seek conflict and put money in the pockets of lawyers when you do not have to. Save your money for your wedding celebration.
But they can already do that. This is all about going after straights who don't identify with the gay agenda.
Bake the cake. And put 100% of the profits into a pro traditional marriage organization.
They can already do that. (I suggest they post the policy from the get-go.) That doesn't address the point that it's an involuntary transaction.
I don't think that a gay couple would ever serve at their wedding a cake made by a baker who thinks their relationship is a grievous sin. I think a devoutly Christian should bake a wedding cake for gay couple, thus calling their bluff. The baker is not really violating his religion because the gay couple won't serve the cake.
I do think there's an element of truth there. I do think that gay activists are targeting Christian wedding service businesses using their crony connections to engage in State repression of those unsympathetic to the gay agenda. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the initial couples are not even real couples but an intelligence setup for a later test transaction. But in some cases, one of the gay partners may have been a customer of regular fare from the bakery, they like the products, and they don't like the bakers turning down their wedding business. No, a typical wedding cake costs $450; you don't spend that kind of money to make a point. And if any Christian baker sold substandard product, it would hurt the reputation of their business.
Baker's choice. i wouldn't bake one for any LGBT. They chose to be what they are and i chose to say no it is my business, and have the right to decide who i serve. if this is the case do I have to serve the Boston Bomber. This is what you are saying. i am saying they may not like what i bake in my cakes.
I'm sympathetic to your point, but the problem is whether your cake business is a public accommodation. In essence, your business license may require selling under state conditions--this stems back from English common law. I would argue in today's economy you don't have de facto monopoly in public accommodations.
You continue to confuse the point. Some bakers refuse to bake THE SAME CAKE for a ssm as for a straight wedding. Further this is only in communities that have passed anti discrimination laws that include homosexuals as a protected class. You should be going after the law instead of trying to find a way around it or defending bad players in the market.
YOU are the one confused. So called discrimination laws under the Constitution aimed at State players, not private businesses. E.g., some Jim Crow laws forbade integration of customers, even if a business wanted to offer integrated accommodations. This extension of policy to the private section is a descendant of public accommodation law from early English common law when travel could be dangerous and the public hospitality businesses were essentially monopolies, conditions that don't effect the same industries today.
The hospitality industry today is highly competitive; if I don't want to sell you a cake, that's MY decision. It doesn't matter whether or not I will sell someone the same cake for any or no reason. When you visit my bakery, you do not have an obligation to buy my goods. What this suggests is that you want a double standard: a customer has the right to decide whether to buy my goods; I can't force him to buy something, whatever I chose to sell; but the baker doesn't have the same right whether to sell items to prospective customers. From a pro-liberty perspective, the only legitimate transaction is a voluntary one, for both buyers and sellers.
This was not about not baking a cake that resulted in this action. It was about these bakers instigating death threats against the gay couple and putting the gay couple's information on line so right wing hate mongers could target them for abuse
What's what this ludicrous hypocritical fascist gay agenda thread? This is bullshit propaganda--and an out-and-out lie about the fine: "The former owners of an Oregon bakery have been ordered to pay $135,000 to a lesbian couple who were refused a wedding cake, in the latest front in the battle between religious liberty and individual rights.Oregon Labor Commissioner Brad Avakian ordered Aaron and Melissa Klein, who owned the Sweet Cakes by Melissa bakery in Gresham, Ore., to compensate the couple for emotional and mental suffering that resulted from the denial of service."
One respondent above hit the nail on the head: the names and address are matters of public record; the idea that the bakery owners are a matter of public record, but not the fascist complainants is arbitrary. If someone made threats against the lesbians, it's certainly not Christian. But holding the lesbians accountable for their frivolous complaint is fair game. The bakers are not legally responsible for what, if anything, resulted from publication of the malcontents' contact information; good luck trying to even prove the information came from that website or any of potentially hundreds or thousands of websites who may have gotten the contact information from public information sources.
The Constitution is quite clear that forbidden discrimination is relevant to the government ONLY. The private sector does not have a monopoly of force by law. Whether or not political or judicial whores unconstitutionally extended this policy to the private sector is not really relevant.
(Catholic Libertarians). The Rev. Patrick Henry Reardon is getting out of the civil marriage business. The Orthodox Christian priest on Chicago’s North Side says the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that legalizes same-sex matrimony reinforces his recent decision to no longer sign licenses that make marriages valid in the eyes of the state and now the nation. That doesn’t mean Reardon won’t do weddings. On the contrary, he gladly will bless the union of a Christian man and woman and perform the sacrament of marriage. But those couples must go to a courthouse if they want to be legally bound. He says he can no longer in good conscience serve as an agent of the state.
“The strange situation in the United States is clergymen not only act in the name of the church, they also act in the name of the state,” said Reardon, the pastor of All Saints Antiochian Orthodox Church in Chicago’s Irving Park community. “The clergymen wear two hats. I’m making a political statement in this sense: I’m accusing the state of usurping the role of God. What I’m saying is, ‘I don’t agree with you and I’m going to change the way I do things. I will not act in your name. … I will not render unto Caesar that which belongs to God.'”
The unusual protest has inspired other Christian clergy — Orthodox, Roman Catholic and Protestant — to consider following his lead, a shift Reardon hopes will lead the nation to a different model of marriage, one that no longer deputizes clergy to sign marriage licenses and, in his opinion, effectively uphold the state’s definition of marriage. ...
... "It’s important to recognize we already have a difference between civil marriage and church marriage because of the promises.” Indeed, the government’s view of marriage as a legally binding contract already contradicts the Orthodox Christian understanding of marriage as a sacrament — blessing a union that already existed because it was created by God. And therein lies the problem, Reardon said. “Government has no authority whatsoever to alter that,” Reardon said. “Whence a judge, magistrate or a justice of the peace does the ceremony, that’s just a legal act. As a priest I will no longer step in and serve in that function.” ...
Jacobse said Reardon is the first Orthodox priest to take such a strong a political stand. But the recent Supreme Court ruling has sparked a discussion among other brethren, he said. “It was a bold move on Father Patrick’s part,” Jacobse said. “A lot of priests are wondering and asking the same thing. To remove all conflict between the church and the state is to go the path that Father Reardon has chosen to go on. I anticipate more priests are going to go that way.”
Reardon emphasizes that he does not discourage couples from seeking licenses and legitimacy in the eyes of the law. But having that certificate will no longer be a condition of getting married at All Saints. “If you want the tax advantages of marriage recognized by the state, you’re going to have to do something else about it, like go down to a justice of the peace,” he said. “If you don’t want that, that’s perfectly OK. I’m not going to require that at this parish.” »
I also call on American Catholic bishops to stop giving implicit endorsement or validation to civil marriage now that the morally corrupt State; it's time to make a powerful statement, as Archbishop Chaput suggests, by boycotting civil marriages. http://www.teaparty.org/prominent-protestant-pastors-vow-longer-perform-government-marriages-68273/
In France, there is a law stipulating that no cleric is allowed to perform a wedding if the bride and the groom have not already registered their marriage before a civil officer. You may expect the leftists to pass some kind of similar law in your country as a retaliation to the courageous stand of such American priests. Please be an example of liberty for the world and do not let that happen, do not let the state interfere with religious freedom.
No, that type of law manifestly violates our Constitution, which would have to be amended; keep in mind over 30 states confirmed by referendum traditional marriage. Even if somehow the amendment would somehow pass by the two-third majorities, which would never even get out of committee in either chamber of today's Congress, it would have to be adopted by several red states, which isn't going to happen.
What I think we're likely to see is the fascists try to tie strings to money received by affiliated institutions, like hospitals, like we've seen over ObamaCare, and/or possibly trying to go after tax-exempt status.
Just curious: how do the French justify such a law to prohibit a religious wedding? It's a manifest violation of religious liberty. It's one thing to say you're not going to recognize such a ceremony, a different thing to ban it.
(IPI). Some Illinois politicians continue to claim that without higher taxes, the state will continue to lose businesses and residents.
But Illinoisans already know this argument doesn’t make sense – we witnessed firsthand the damage their state suffered after the massive 2011 tax hike.
And what makes their claim even more absurd is the fact that Illinoisans already pay the second-highest property taxes and 10th-highest combined state and local taxes in the nation.
It's like doubling down your bets when you're billions of dollars in the hole. These political maggots don't understand the fundamental fact that you do not grow your tax base by raising the cost of government. Government has to live within its means; it has to cut its budget; it's what every family has to do in tough economic times.
(Rand Paul 2016). "Paul, a Republican with libertarian roots, received money from 108,205 individuals, who gave an average contribution of $65, according to Breitbart's report."
And yet his GOP critics accuse him of political grandstanding for campaign dollars. It would be a lot easier to sell out to casino magnates and other wealthy individuals rather than the grassroots.
Marriage and Family
Political Cartoon
 |
| Courtesy of Henry Payne via Townhall |
Dionne Warwick (with Barry Manilow), "Run to Me", How can I resist a remake of my favorite BeeGees' tune?
