An overwhelming majority of U.S. citizens want deep and immediate cuts in military spending, according to a new poll.

batgirlsings · 10 days

Well, to be honest, the computing systems running those ships are very good for what they do. The problem is, there is no integration with other systems and any equipment failures are exceedingly difficult and expensive to fix.

The difference with the old systems is that they had a computer and OS built specifically for the function it was meant to perform. Today's computers can do a lot more and integrate easily and are far cheaper. But the computers being used aren't bad at what they do.

batgirlsings · 10 days

there is a ton of development that goes into making those things compatible with older systems. Most military vessels have control systems that were built using old code and specialized parts that are now obsolete. When the system was built, the current world of computing was only envisioned by a few people so the systems weren't made nimble.

Also, as was alluded to above, there are ruggedization requirements that need to be met. So most likely there was development in how to make the standard HD meet those requirements. The ruggedization requirements were far more stringent when that system was created. They built things to last and never fail. Today, its more about allowing the failure, but being able to back up the system and use cheap replacement parts.

batgirlsings · 10 days

That has to do with the way they were built and the requirements the government levies on their construction. Most likely the submarine was not built to support Commercial Off The Shelf (COTS) parts. It was most likely built before 1990 (probably the 70s) before there was a ton of commercial computing products. So, in order to retrofit an HD with that capacity the government has to have the entire computing system updated or they create their own HD that is not COTS so they will have to open up manufacturing lines if possible. Or they will have update a portion of the computing system and create a translator and an interface to allow the modern HD to talk to the old computer.

That's where that cost goes. If you are talking a modern system on a newer program designed in the last 10 or so years, it will have the ability to use COTS parts and modern computing language.

Also, military hardware needs to be incredibly ruggedized. That also adds some significant cost. And there is a crap load of verification that has to go into each requirement on the system.

This is why it costs $2000 for a HD with the capacity of a $50 HD.

twolf1 · 29 days

Yes, but saying this doesn't disprove the source... You actually have to show that they're wrong to discredit a source!

I didn't discredit your source. In fact my lower numbers align well with your source. My point was that there are other credible sources that have different numbers. Its possible that multiple sources are correct, they just consider different things in their estimates. Its not like the number you ended at with your source was small.

You don't take medicine because you've generally got a choice

Doctors often have a choice and a lot of times they will give a patient a certain drug if the patient asks for it. There are a lot of drugs that do the same thing. This is actually necessary because people react differently to same drug. One drug may have strong side effects for one person and none for another. And one person may be fine on either drug. Marketing and advertising helps doctors be aware of the drugs and can sway them and patients to use one drug over another.

You need to remember that marketing isn't just advertising on tv or in a journal. The strongest form of advertising is called content marketing. An example of content marketing is a journalist writes a story about a product or puts a product in an article.

Doctors don't scour medical papers for new drugs, they read medical journals. Those journals will have articles on drugs and procedures and devices which then drive the doctor to learn more. Getting in the article takes connections and money usually. This isn't to say its corrupt, but there are a lot of journals and a lot different types of doctors. A drug company would pay a marketing firm to get information about their drugs or devices to medical journalists who may or may not decide to write about them.

This is necessary to get the drug out there in the medical world. That's why drug companies make catchy names and leave pens and key chains. Getting the name out there is important. If it didn't work, no one would do it.

twolf1 · 29 days

Our country provides them with a place to make money from their investments. Single payer countries pay far less because they basically broker a large scale deal. They can say, we will pay you this much for that drug or you get nothing. For a drug company its worth it, provided its more than the cost of production (which is a tiny cost in the creation of a drug) because they can make their profits in the US. If they couldn't do that, there wouldn't be nearly the amount of drug production.

twolf1 · 29 days

The point is that if the US had the same policies as Canada, then the prices of drugs everywhere would have to increase or less drugs would be made.

I'm not saying drug companies are benevolent, I'm just saying they are no different than any company, they want to make a profit. Its the ability to make a profit that drives development. The moment it became too expensive to make drugs, development of new drugs would slow to a crawl.

So the point is that you can't look at the fact that people are profiting from jacking up drug prices and patenting drugs as a bad because it is also what is driving the creation of most drugs.

twolf1 · 29 days

Eventually, the price of that inhaler should go down. I'm sure inhalers themselves were relatively expensive when they first came out.

twolf1 · 29 days

As I said, your source for information matters. A simple wikipedia search will tell you that.

That being said, the advertising wouldn't be done if it wasn't effective. The advertising isn't driving the cost, advertising is used as a way to make more money on a product. So its not accurate to say, if they didn't spend that money on advertising the product price would be reduced. That's not how marketing works. In fact, marketing should work the opposite way in most cases. Marketing creates more sales which drives the cost down.

twolf1 · 29 days

Well, advertising isn't the only form of marketing. I guarantee there is marketing spent on drugs in your country it just might be more directed at doctors and politicians (guessing you have state-run care).

The reason advertising works in the US is because it gets patients asking questions of their doctors. "I heard about this drug...would that help me?" But advertising to the general public isn't what most drug companies spend money on, its the other marketing. Getting the word out to doctors and health care providers, etc.

dimwell · 1 month

This. A thousand time This. I hate these stories. They are bullshit. People don't like you because you make them uncomfortable. Its not all your fault, but you could definitely help the situation if you worried less about yourself and more about others.

twolf1 · 1 month

I agree with you. I am not against legalizing pot. I am for it 100%. Hell I say legalize all drugs, tax them and educate the masses on them. Legalize them so companies are held accountable for its abuse and sale to minors. There is no good reason besides "its bad for you" that drugs are illegal.

Thank being said, the reason pot isn't legal has almost nothing to do with drug companies.

twolf1 · 1 month

Then why are 11 of the top 19 drug companies US based? And why did the US consist of 52.9% of the global drug market in 2000?

Novartis is a Swiss company by the way.

twolf1 · 1 month

I disagree. As you said, they run the risk of drugs not working or not being approved. The marketing is just a necessary step in recouping their costs. It would be nice if they got free advertising and there was some non-profit company that searched out new drugs and got them around to doctors and pharmacies. But that's not reality.

People are too quick to kill the pharmaceutical companies because they make money off of the needy. The problem is, if they didn't make money off of the needy, there would be a lot more needy people out there with no cure.

twolf1 · 1 month

I think you are oversimplifying it. If dishwashing afforded an individual the same respect and societal standing as being a doctor did then sure you could equate the 2 jobs.

People become a doctor for many reasons, only one of them is helping people. I would actually say its rare that a person becomes a doctor because of a deep calling to help people. I would say that is usually just a perk. Not many people would be willing to take on that kind of lengthy education and job stress for low pay.

twolf1 · 1 month

with what money?

twolf1 · 1 month

The problem is, it costs money to make progress. It doesn't matter what system you have, it costs money to do anything. I think the idea is to do what works best and always be tweaking the system. The thing is, society keeps changing and different things work in different places. That's why something that works in Norway might not work in Italy or the US.

People simplify the issue way too much.

twolf1 · 1 month

This stuff is so regulated now its very difficult to even buy a dinner for physicians. Mostly, they just hire hot young saleswomen for the face to face work.

twolf1 · 1 month

Very wrong. There is almost no situation where advertising is unnecessary. In fact, marketing companies are usually the ones that get word out on products and get them in media. Its called content marketing and its the best kind, but its not free. It usually takes a lot of leg work and connections. Very rarely something takes off for cheap.

twolf1 · 1 month

At the end of the day, the advertising is necessary to make a profit off the drug. Its like a blockbuster movie. If you spend 300mil making a movie, you need to spend a few hundred mil marketing it so you can make a few hundred mil off of it. If no one knew about it or got excited for it, then they wouldn't see it and you'd lose millions.

Marketing is a very complex factor when it comes to products. You can't just say its the reason the drugs are so expensive. Without it, companies may not be able to make the drugs in the first place.

twolf1 · 1 month

I don't understand why you think these two need to be connected? If advertising didn't boost sales, drug companies would spend money on them. The advertising is more necessary than it is a cause for the mark-up.

Marketing is a post production cost and is balanced with the price of the product. The reason drugs are marked up has more to do with private health insurance. Why do you think prescription blood pressure medication which is identical to viagra is way more expensive than erectile disfunction viagra?

twolf1 · 1 month

Was this sarcastic? Drug companies would love for pot to be legal, at least medically. Also, the tobacco industry has been pining for pot legalization for years and they aren't exactly a small lobby.

Pot is illegal because of America's religious and puritanical roots along with inertia.

twolf1 · 1 month

Actually, America makes drugs cheaper for the rest of the world. Drug companies will sell at reduced prices overseas because they can sell at such inflated prices in the US.

twolf1 · 1 month

How much is is "much?" Looking at information provided from a simple search, depending on who you are reading, the out of pocket costs for drug companies range from $55mil to $1.2Bil. Neither of those sums are paltry.

It stands to reason that it is incredibly expensive to bring a new drug to market, with part of the reason being appropriate government oversight. Drugs generally take many years to make it to shelves (upwards of 10 years).

So, I am not going to say that this particular case is a drug company looking for its just dues, but lets not be so quick to demonize the drug companies for an incredibly complex issue.

trekkey321 · 1 month

Honestly, you can make Dragons be however you want them to be. Traditionally they have eaten large quantities of food which could be construed as being less energy efficient than an airplane. However, dragons, do not fly in the same sense that airplanes fly, utilizing physics alone. If they did, dragons couldn't fly, they are too heavy and their wings too short.

So, dragons must have some other energy source that allows them to fly. This has traditionally been magic. I don't know if you are allowed to use magic in your report, but I would think, since dragons are mythical, you could.

All that being said, all you need to do is calculate the amount of fuel an airplane uses per passenger. Then you need to estimate how much food a dragon would need to eat per day and how many passengers a dragon could carry.

Since there is no known limit to what a dragon can carry you should be all set, you can pretty much make up what you want.

jt_osmellysalt · 1 month

The fact that medicare pays less for services does not mean it is more efficient and cheaper than private insurance. It simply means the negotiated rates on services are cheaper for the government. A deeper look into why they pay less is important when making this determination. As you said I could talk about various costs being pushed around.

There are many things that contribute to the lower costs in other countries as well. For instance, negotiated drug and device prices are lower because the governments can pretty much set the price. So companies increase their profit margins by charging far more for the same drugs and devices in the US. Also, Doctors are pay far less, which if truth be told, is not a good thing. There is a reason people still fly from all over the world to have procedures and see Doctors working in the US. Obviously this isn't to say their aren't very good doctors and care in a lot of single payer countries, but, in general, the best Doctors are still in the US.

As to your statement about people in other countries being healthier, this has almost no correlation to health care and more to do with societal factors. In fact, it probably has better correlation with education than it does with health care.

lumpy1981

TROPHY CASE

lumpy1981

TROPHY CASE

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