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Politics : High Tolerance Plasticity -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: cnyndwllr who wrote (21887)	10/15/2004 5:56:55 PM
From: Bruce L	Respond to of 23153

Hi Brother: Re: << The "vaccines" issue does not lend itself to easy answers.>> Excellent thoughtful anallysis of the problem. I am sure we would disagee on the details of a solution, but again your framework was excellent. You did not address one of the contentions of the article, to wit, that the government itself being the sole (or primary) buyer of the vaccines, affects the number of companies willing to build vaccine plants. I myself had not thought of this as being part of the problem, so it's not surprising you didn't address it. It makes sense: If there are 2 companies with facilities each capable of producing enough of a vaccine for the demand, each company is going to be under almost extortionate pressure to accept prices only slightly greater than the marginal cost of production, never mind a return on the investment in the plant. Of course, the government could buy one plant and operate it itself. By so doing it would take the liability issue onto its own shoulders. But this would in the long run be the most expensive solution of all given norms of governmental efficiency. Anyway, thank you again for your thorough and insightful response. Bruce

To: cnyndwllr who wrote (21887)	10/16/2004 2:52:20 AM
From: Libbyt	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 23153

...and every bad, or made to appear bad, instance of a silly result at jury trial, settlement or judicial decision is exaggerated and then publicized by the insurance industrie's paid public relations people. I disagree with your statement. The problem IMO isn't due to a "bad,...a silly result at jury trial, settlement" that is exaggerated. From what I've observed there is no need to exaggerate some of these claims, and especially not by "paid public relations people"!!! The problem with medical malpractice lawsuits is IMO the fact that no one is accountable for baseless lawsuits. If the result of a malpractice lawsuit were to be that the side that lost the lawsuit was liable for all of the costs of the trial, then IMO fewer cases would be filed. An attorney would completely research a case before considering taking a case to trial. IMO, some of the better firms who deal strictly with medical malpractice, already follow this process. They want to make certain that they have a clear case that they can win (or a case they can defend), before they commit to the undertaking in time and significant expense of a complicated trial. By not having any accountability for filing a malpractice lawsuit, anyone can file a lawsuit...even if there is no basis for the suit. Often a malpractice insurance company will force a physician to settle out of court (even if they feel malpractice was not an issue) because it can be less expensive to settle a worthless suit, than to defend the case. Maybe you have heard of settlements that didn't make sense, but what you don't hear mentioned are the thousands of dollars and hours spent fighting baseless malpractice suits. The result many times is that there is not an award from the trial...but the physician and the insurance company may spend a minimum of $200,000 or more fighting the lawsuit. The practice of defensive medicine IMO is another result of baseless malpractice lawsuits.

To: cnyndwllr who wrote (21887)	10/19/2004 11:22:19 PM
From: Bruce L	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 23153

Re: Weak States and the Violation of Sovereignty Hi Brother: This post is for you and Suma in that you both have expressed indignation AS A MATTER OF PRINCIPLE at the violation of Iraq's sovereignty. What follows are selected quotes from Francis Fukuyama's new book, "State Building: Governance and World Order in the 21st Century." p 92 ..."Sovereignty and the nation-state,cornerstones of the Westphalian system, have been eroded in fact and attacked in principle because what goes on inside states - in other words, their internal governance - often matters intensely to other members of the international system. But who has the right or the legitimacy to violate another state's sovereignty, and for what purpose?...... ....Since the end of the Cold War, weak or failing states have arguably become the single most important problem for international order (cit. omit) Weak or failing states commit human rights abuses, provoke humanitarian disasters, drive massive waves of immigration and attack their neighbors.... The 9/11 attacks highlighted a different sort of problem. The failed state of Afghanistan was so weak that it could be hijacked by a non-state actor, the terrorist organization al-Qaida, and serve as a base of global terrorist operations. ....... pg 95 "Many people critical of the Bush administration's new doctrine of preemption and war with Iraq see it as a radical shift from earlier policies that emphasized deterrence and containment, precisely because it depends on the periodic violation of sovereignty. (cit.omit) In fact, the grounds for the erosion of sovereignty were laid much earlier in the so-called humanitarian interventions of the 1990s. The experience of Somalia, Haiti, Cambodia, the Balkans and other places has generated a huge literature on external intervention (cit. omit) ..... In the debates over humanitarian intervention, the case was made that the Westphalian system was no longer an adequate framework for international relations.....The end of the Cold War, it was argued, brought about much greater consensus within the international community over the principles of political legitimacy and human rights than before. Sovereignty and therefore legitimacy could no longer be AUTOMATICALLY CONFERRED on the de facto power holder in a country. State sovereignty was a fiction or bad joke in the case of countries like Somalia or Afghanistan, which had descended into rule by warlords. Dictators and human rights abusers like Serbia's Milosevic could not hide behind the principle of sovereigny to protect themselves as they committed crimes against humanity...." p.98...Some people like to draw a sharp distinction between interventions for the sake of promoting human rights within a country and interventions to prevent security threats to other countries, and say that only the former are legitimate grounds for the violation of sovereignty. THIS DISTINCTION IS QUESTIONABLE BECAUSE IT PRESUMES THAT SELF_DEFENSE IS SOMEHOW LESS LEGITIMATE THAN THE DEFENSE OF OTHERS.... This point should NOT be interpreted as making a brief for the Bush administration's war with Iraq. The pros and cons of the case were very complex....." XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX This then is the theoretical basis for our violation of Saddam's Iraq. Do you wish to enter this intellectual discussion? Bruce