For the record... (in Off-topic)

I like the new FS/WTB system. It is more efficient, and making it cost 2k to reply causes people to think before they post.

I'm sorry Ranger is leaving. I just got on and noticed, so I can only guess at his reasons (though I have a pretty strong feeling why), but it is sad to see such a valued member of the community go. Sadder still to see others quitting with him.

I think the admins do the best job they can. Things could be more organized, but they try their hardest to be fair, and they *are* volunteering to do this. They aren't being paid.

The new New Players chat system seems fair to me. I liked it a little better before, but heck, it takes time to adjust to new changes.


If anyone has any thoughts, NOT flames, I'd like to discuss them here. Note: Discussion, not arguments. There is a difference between discussion and quarrel. You can put your opinions here, but if things get personal, I'd like to request in advance that an admin immediately close the thread.


I <3 GL. *winks*
And Pit's strat is the best ever.

My opinion is that this change is bad. But that's just my opinion, and I won't argue it.

And more efficient? An empty hospital is much more efficient than one that is packed with patients, but I highly doubt it helps people anyone nearly as much.

And I am sorry to see Ranger go too.

"I <3 GL."

O_O Me? :D

That made my day OB!

Thoughts Yes,
#1 this is a game afterall. nothing else..it is not a source of income for 99% of us. just something else to do when you run out things to do
#2 people come and go and some come back just to leave again...A.K.A me :) happens all the time
#3 why others are falling out behind Ranger,its a mystery to me why the lemmings jump off cliffs just because the leader leaped 1st
#4 ask me If I care :)
#5 will any of this affect CB? why certainly it will not ..dont get your feelings hurt that you arent going to change the world with your actions here
#6 .......Im still here (V)oo(V) and keep on keeping on :)

empty hospital?? 0_o

We're lucky if we actually HAVE any hospitals in the UK :P

You have hospitals. Just no beds or English doctors

Yup. And no nurses.

I've spent a lot of time in the past three weeks in our local hospital. They've had to do things like split the A&E bays into two by placing a curtain in the middle. When my Nan was first taken to A&E we spent the evening having to listen to the problems of all the patients next to use.

From how to use an asthma ventilator, to needing a rear probe to (and this really wound my parents up) the person next to us possible having a contagious disease...

Yes, but is not healthcare free in the UK?

Like my momma says: "you get what you pay for"

Healthcare free in the UK? It's described as free. But the chunk of my wages every year that disappears as income tax and national insurance tells me otherwise.... :/

True,

But in the US, over 45 million have no form of healthcare other than going the ER with every malady.

The ER is overcrowded, with waiting times are over 12 hours sometimes unless your critical, and then you get a bill for more than you make in a month.

But, however, when you do get healthcare, you get the best in the world.

And somewhere inbetween those two systems is the ideal one. With regards to paying for the service I would rather pay the way I do so that everybody gets access to care. And we do have excellent care in some of our hospitals, and fantastic doctors and nurses too, even if most of the nursing staff these days is agency brought in from other countries. It's the management of our hospitals and medical services that is the problem. You cannot hope to run a hospital to the agenda of an accountant. Not now. Not ever.

But that's off-topic ;)

I hardly ever used the FS/WTB forums. I prefer auctions better. But then I'm lazy...

And the forums won't be the same without Ranger. Hope you have a good Summer of George/Ranger....

"And somewhere inbetween those two systems is the ideal one. With regards to paying for the service I would rather pay the way I do so that everybody gets access to care. And we do have excellent care in some of our hospitals, and fantastic doctors and nurses too, even if most of the nursing staff these days is agency brought in from other countries. It's the management of our hospitals and medical services that is the problem. You cannot hope to run a hospital to the agenda of an accountant. Not now. Not ever."

Couldn't be more true. :)

"in the US, over 45 million have no form of health care other than going the ER"

... 1/3 of whom are illegal immigrants.

I'm part of the 2/3 not mentioned above, and I get tired of bills which add up to more than I make a month, and recently more than I make a year.

Insurance is great, if you are going to use it. Otherwise it is money down the drain once a month. I do not get sick often, most time just 4 times a year when the season changes. Recently this was not true, I was pretty sick and needed to have surgery that they would not perform unless I pre-paid.

I've only met one Doctor who has offered his services for nothing if I needed them.

But, when you need it the most you are ready to kick yourself square in the butt for not having it. Only if I had....

Jon: what possible usefulness did your comment bring? Other than outting you as one of the Xenophobic hoard?

How this ended up a health care debate I've no clue, but while it's here, I'll chime in.

It is criminal, negligent, and vile the way people are allowed to suffer and die because of class warfare, the medical system in this country has done nothing to solve it. Our government is being run by Calvinists who assume that if you
are born anything but a rich white male your parents must have ticked off God.

I'm a self-professed bleeding heart libertarian, while I do not see government intervention as an answer to everything, in a situation like this, where the assitance of the community isn't enough to allow folks access to basic healthcare, the government needs to step in and gets it's priorities straight.

"Insurance is great, if you are going to use it. Otherwise it is money down the drain once a month."

We don't really get the chance not to pay... :( 'm seriously considering private healthcare, but if you get relly ill, they just send you to your nearest NHS hospital anyway... >_<

UK Private, UK National and French systems. I've had surgery and hospital time (stupid skiing) in them all over the last 6 years and I can honestly say that the UK Private is the classiest and most comfortable but I had the distinct feeling the French as a whole knew a little bit more about what they were doing. Scary, but true...

novice, I guess if acknowledging that there are 11M illegal immigrants in the USA who

- couldn't get insurance if they wanted to, because they're, well, here illegally
- raise the costs for everyone else by (mis)using a health care system supported by taxes they don't pay, since they're well, here illegally

"outs" me as xenophobic, then hell yes, sign me up.

As with most of your CB suggestions, the (lack of) depth of your analysis here shows you haven't thought things through but you still get emotionally involved based on your half-baked conclusions.

At least you're consistent.

novice: Hospitals are required to give free health care to those that can't afford it. The costs are then subsidized by the state (as opposed to the federal gov't). So, we essentially have a system where if you can afford it, you _will_ pay for it, but if you can't, someone else will. Now, deciding whether or not a person can afford health care is another discussion entirely...

Jon: Why is it that practically all of your posts are in some way mean? Why are you always so antagonistic? Granted, you have plenty of posts consisting entirely of "fixed", but posts like the more recent of yours in this thread are not uncommon. If you're supposed to be a role model (by your own admission), then what role are you trying to model? There's a right and a wrong way to say things.. to do things.. you seem to often choose a pathway involving belittlement. Ranger mentioned in another post an "Ivory Tower", and I can see why.

Oddbird: The new system is far less efficient for bulk selling and keeping track of bids. Have you ever dealt with getting 20 CM's at once? It isn't easy. The forum made selling giant hordes a cinch.

Oddbird (again): Admins may be volunteering, but that doesn't mean they are being forced. They want to do it. The most talked about issue with the admins is the way they create rules out of thin air, rules that you only find out about when you break. If they were trying their hardest to be fair, the least they could do is send a friendly chatmail advising of the newly broken unwritten rule.

Jon the percentage of illegals paying taxes and never filing returns is likely higher than the other way around. Why else would SS numbers be such a hot commodity? My question to you was regarding what the point of mentioning what percentage of them were illegal, obviously you were saying more than the assumed "people without healthcare are all illegals anyway" argument I get to hear so often in the whackado filled state...

You comment about my consistency was brilliant, and never has a truer word been spoken.

Nightstrike said: The new system is far less efficient for bulk selling and keeping track of bids. Have you ever dealt with getting 20 CM's at once? It isn't easy. The forum made selling giant hordes a cinch.

Surely this is what auctions are perfect for?

NightStrike: It could be improved, yes. I think simply making other players who want to reply pay the 2k fee as well could solve the whole problem so that they can, as I said, think before they post. It is just a different system that we'll have to get used to (though I hate the loss of raffles).

Additionally: I have used (edit: OVERused) these forums for the entire time I've played CB2, and I cannot remember a time that I was fined. Perhaps people should pay a little more attention? Granted, having the rules written down would be a lot more solid, and it would help the new players - but some things are just common sense. Bumping something back to the top every time it goes down under half the other active threads is unnecessary, and that was the point of the original bumping rule. Say the admin were to fine someone for doing that, though there is no rule there, isn't it common sense to know that you shouldn't be pushing your thread to the top of everyone else's every hour? My point is that they enforce the rules as best they can. Perhaps it would be nice if they warned everyone first, but then you have to remember who you've warned and who you haven't....

I do think that there should be some general guidelines set down, but there can't be anything *totally* black and white.

Just a feeling on it.

I <3 GBeee.
Pit's strat is *still* the best ever.

If we have to fine someone for lack of common sense, it gets filed under stupidity tax.

"Jon the percentage of illegals paying taxes and never filing returns is likely higher than the other way around."

It's so obvious you have no idea what you're talking about.

Look, this stuff is well documented. Go read some of it before making yourself look more of a fool.

Sorry, the majority of people I've met who are illegally in the country are currently paying taxes under fake SS numbers, I suppose your illegal friends do it another way? If an employer isn't checking SS numbers, it's the employer at fault.

I'd just like to step in for a word on the whole mess that seems to be infecting CB. I've played alot of online games with countless people. But there's one thing that always rings true. Almost everyone I've spoken with holds animosity to those in charge of development and policing the ranks. Doesn't matter what type of game or on what platform it's played on. It seems in my experience that the best way to handle this situation is to keep a professionalist appoach and only fraternize with gaming population on a need to know, need to learn basis. This seems to work best and doesn't propogate the problems we've seen lately. Although I understand that we may have crossed that line to the point of no return, I'd just like the Admins to keep it in mind when dealing with the CB community.

Way, way too late. J is such a dirty fraternizer.

OK, I feel like some math...

According to this article, illegal immigrants receive, on average, $1,139 of care each year. That data is old, though. Maybe more like $5000 per year per immigrant these days? Let's just say that.

For 11 million immigrants (Jonathan's figure), that means 11 million times $5000 = 55 billion dollars a year. But looking more closely at the article, that is for immigrants regardless of insurance coverage. Some immigrants have coverage. Also, some immigrants probably do pay (at least some) of their bills (I work for a collection agency that collects on medical claims -- hospitals can be ruthless *smile*). Can we say about half of that 55 billion actually gets paid by standard insurance or out-of-pocket? [NOTE: For the past hours I really have tried to find good data and sources, but cannot find the facts I need -- hence some rough estimates.]

Let's go with 20-30 billion in health care costs flat-out lost. Totally uninsured immigrants who don't pay a cent of their bills.

Now we'll consider another aspect of the economic impact of immigrants, purely from a tax revenue perspective. We'll assume these SSN-less immigrants don't pay a cent in income tax. But they do pay sales tax.

Let's say that the average money spent per year by those 11 million immigrants is...oh, $5000? I would go higher, but aren't a lot of those 11 million children? Let's just use the $5000. So, that is 55 billion again in gross sales. Sales tax here in St. Louis is around 7%. I think that's low, but we'll use that. 55 billion times 7% would be about 4 billion in sales tax revenue a year.

These are rough, rough estimates. If I said only a quarter of the immigrants were total deadbeats, that would bring the unpaid health cost burden down to around 14 billion. And if I assumed a lot of the 11 million immigrants spent way more each year, like $10,000 (food, gas, services, etc.), that would bring sales tax revenue up to around 8 billion.

So, I am settling on a sales-tax/health-cost-loss difference of anywhere between 6 and 25 billion. I could use some better figures. But I do know that the defense budget in 2005 was 400 billion. That's 16 times larger than the largest gap I came up with on the health front.

I have no problem with folks having immigration worries. But anyone who thinks we are crumbling due to health cost losses might want to worry about the vast amounts of cash we are spending on defense. In other words, if one is a "xenophobe", I would think that for consistency's sake one would also want to consider being an "isolationist" and pulling back on defense.

If my numbers are way off, please correct me where I am wrong.

Aside from the numbers, the immigration/health-care issue is undoubtedly huge in terms of hospital burden. My reading was replete with stories about waiting for care (two year wait list for gallbladder surgery!!!!). That's not looking so good.

FYI: For 2005, the government budget was around 66 billion for education (the public portion -- overal education expenditures in this country are far greater than that -- more than the defense budget, according to some sources).

As usual, I have zero answers...just more questions. *smile*

I really can't understand where these people are getting work without SS numbers and taxes taken out? Shouldn't we be going after the people making false documents and the employers hiring people who are illegal first?

The endless stream of unenforceable expensive laws continues...

There are a lot of places online where you can buy identities. Usually, they sell between $200 and $1000 per fifty with a minimum order of between one and two hundred identities. The wide range is due to quality and completeness.

Isn't agriculture one of the largest employers? Cash under the table?