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merjet

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Everything posted by merjet

  1. Some doctors do on a concierge basis. The structural change I described would push out government interference and employers, leaving the matter between insurer and insured.
  2. Easy Truth, A huge step to a free market for health insurance health would get away from government interference. The the two-part structure of the market for people under age 65 needs radically altered. The individual market suffers because the group insurance market has been made too big, which is much attributable to government intervention. Employer-paid Health Insurance Employer-sponsored health insurance #1
  3. Teachers unions and political power Pre-existing conditions
  4. Aw, shucks. It's not nearby. NASA's Glenn Research Center is only 9 miles away. They open it to visitors occasionally and we toured it a few years ago. There are virtual tours here. We also attended a Science Cafe Cleveland event in February. The speakers were from NASA Glenn Research Center. Speaker David McKissock was hilarious, especially when he talked about working with the Russians. He said the Russians have a very different perspective than Americans. The Science Cafe has not met the latest few months due to the pandemic. We have much missed going when there are topics like these. We attended this one a few years ago. The speaker brought a guest, a client with a prosthetic arm, who awed the audience with what he could do with it.
  5. Thomas Sowell: A Vote at the Crossroads Thomas Sowell: Is Truth Irrelevant?
  6. Income tax for 2020 (2021 tax season)
  7. Another smear of Turbotax and H&R Block Coronavirus - profits from vaccines
  8. Dupin, Heh. Duh! What is the relevance of your article? Of course, a statement might be true, or partly true and partly false, or totally false. The same applies to a set of statements. However, when you start with what is largely false and construe it as largely or wholly true, that’s called voluntary derailment. When you assume that the hearsay of Donald Trump, whose standards for truthfulness are far below average, are true, then your speech acts become irrelevant.
  9. Stephen, did you see the movie Moonlight (2016)? If so, what is your opinion about its portrayal of homosexuality? I liked the movie. It dealt with topics other than homosexuality, and the homosexuality didn't outweigh the other topics.
  10. merjet

    Spinoza and Rand

    "DERIVING AN ETHIC OF EGOISM FROM THE FACTS OF EXISTENCE: THE PARALLEL PHILOSOPHIES OF SPINOZA AND AYN RAND" by Dagney Palmer. https://www.academia.edu/19599757/DERIVING_AN_ETHIC_OF_EGOISM_FROM_THE_FACTS_OF_EXISTENCE_THE_PARALLEL_PHILOSOPHIES_OF_SPINOZA_AND_AYN_RAND?email_work_card=title I haven't read it yet. It is only 5 pages when shrunk and white space galore removed.
  11. Okay. Why the switcheroo? You start referring to "those older ones", then switch midstream to "you", i.e. me. I am not one of those you attack, whether your attack was intended or not. Please show a little more respect.
  12. If a vulnerable person chooses to shun social contact to avoid exposure to the coronavirus, that "self-imprisonment." It is a high cost, but survival is the greater good, I assume.
  13. Please tell us how your driving example is at all analogous to the coronavirus, wearing a mask, or getting Covid. Exactly whom are you trying to defend or attack regarding the latter?
  14. I wasn’t aware of Taiwan’s weather pattern. I was referring to the SARS pandemic of 2003. I wasn’t in Taiwan then, but I did do a stopover in Hong Kong in 2003. All or most Asians I saw were wearing masks because of SARS. I was also referring to the Taiwanese people being wary about the behavior of people of mainland China, such as suppressing info about the coronavirus. Returning to Taiwan’s weather. Let’s accept your hypothesis tying coronavirus risk to colder weather. Per weather.com, Taiwan’s lower temperatures are Nov-Mar. Nov 2019 – Mar 2020 is past. Taiwan did experience a surge in new cases in Mar 2020. Nov 2020 – Mar 2021 is now underway. Taiwan has experienced a surge in new cases in Nov and Dec 2020. Link.
  15. Guessing, you meant “take preventative measures in not increasing (decreasing) risk for others.“ If that is correct, then I can apply it to driving as follows. I will heed the 45 mph speed limit and thereby not increase risk to other drivers or pedestrians rather than drive 80 mph and endanger other drivers or pedestrians. whYNOT’s response makes no sense when applied to my driving example. That’s because "not increasing the risk" means not driving, say, 80 mph in a 45 mph zone and thereby creating liability by driving dangerously.
  16. Per https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries Cumulative deaths and cases as of 12/30/2020 USA: deaths 350,778 cases 19,982,441 population 331,970,957 deaths/pop. 0.1057% deaths/cases 1.7554% cases/pop. 6.0193% Taiwan: deaths 7 cases 797 population 23,838,343 deaths/pop. 0.0000% deaths/cases 0.8783% cases/pop. 0.0033% S. Korea: deaths 879 cases 59773 population 51291276 deaths/pop. 0.0017% deaths/cases 1.4706% cases/pop. 0.1165% Sweden: deaths 8,727 cases 437,379 population 10,130,672 deaths/pop. 0.0861% deaths/cases 1.9953% cases/pop. 4.3174% Taiwan has the best success story. The Taiwanese people are more aware of China, its government, its people, and earlier pandemics than any other country's people are. In my opinion, the Taiwanese people acted in concert akin to a well-informed group of people aware of themselves and others. They knew what they needed to do and acted accordingly.
  17. A posteriori and a priori #1 To all, I hope you had a Merry Xmas and wish you a Happy New Year. Sometime in 2021 maybe 20/20 hindsight will put more light on the world.
  18. While the numerical value of an IRR calculation is true, it may be unrealistic for a short holding period. Suppose an investment returns 10% in ten days. Then the IRR is: 1.10^(250/10)-1 = 9.83470594338839 = 983.47% or 1.10^(365/10)-1 = 31.421492863532 = 3142.00% I used 250 in the first calculation because there are only 250 trading days per year. Suppose an investment returns 20% in ten days. Then the IRR is: 1.20^(250/10)-1 = 94.3962166440689 = 9439.62% or 1.20^(365/10)-1 = 775.453551462582 = 77545.36% It’s easy to see that IRRs get more spectacular as the return rate is even higher (or way negative if the return rate is < 0) or for fewer than 10 days. Thus professional investment people usually look at the simple return rather than IRR for a holding period of less than one year. On the flip side, IRR is the standard for a holding period of one year or many years, and the simple return is abandoned.
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