Protecting democracy across the globe.

Looks like it's more like minor league numbers.

https://www.jpost.com/israel-hamas-war/article-800772



it's almost like Hamas lies...

The mainstream media:

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...9ec5dd489d.png

Joe, I honestly don’t mean to insult your business, but the 75th-rated network is not exactly NBC or The NY Times.

Hah!

No worries my dude. I chuckle all the time when I consider the fact that Nexstar's highest-earning property (WGN) and its highest-losing property (NN) cohabitate in the same building, and yet NN gets all the attention (from a corporate level) despite the fact that WGN (a silly little independent station which can't even afford a fourth letter for its callsign) has a higher viewership than it in absolute terms.

NN likes to brag that it's the fastest-growing cable news channel.But the point remains valid. :giggle:

Ooh, look what I just saw on CBS!

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...1ec6a62c42.png


In all seriousness, though...

Every time we speak of things such as news (or journalism) in the context of broadcast media, I am reminded of one fact:

The highest rated show on all of cable news right now is "The Five."

For those not familiar, The Five is a program which airs on Fox News at 5pm on weekdays. It's a roundtable chat show in which a panel of former comedians and ex-White-House-Press-Secretaries present opinions and commentary about the headlines of the day.

It's not journalism. It's not even news. It's commentary. It's a news-themed entertainment show, in much the same way that Team Fortress 2 was, in all honesty, a war-themed hat simulator.


It's basically the mainstream media equivalent of those Youtube channels where you watch someone react to other people's original content. Neither one creates anything of value, and yet both are wildly popular.


Nearly every other cable news channel has something similar. Usually more than one. And they tend to lean towards the higher-rating end of the spectrum for that individual channel.

There are only two commercial cable news channels in the US I can think of which never succumbed to that temptation. One is Al Jazeera America, which is sadly defunct. The other is News Nation.

They're trying.

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...c979278dbd.jpg

Al Jazeera America actually did a great job of sharing real news that wasn't mentioned by the standard American outlets. Being shut down drives the point home that Joe made to me regarding Americans not being interested in the actual news. They want to be entertained.

Le sigh.

good thing china is building these EVS in Mexico...

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...4c9ca3eb7a.png

(D)emocratic Privilege, must be like what black people think White Privilege feels like.

This is one of those situations which genuinely cause me to think hard about my default position of "free market good, government interference bad."

I still broadly stick to the "government interference bad" part, but what about a situation in which another government (such as China, to pick a name at random) has already tainted the market by subsidizing manufacturers and incentivizing the export of goods below cost in order to eliminate competition as the first step towards establishing a global monopoly?

In such a situation, does the imposition of a tariff not right the wrong done by the foreign power, in much the same way that the imposition of a judgement in a tort claim aims to right the wrong done by one individual to another?

About that...


https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...c7399a5b9c.png

Funny, I actually just created something very similar, and posted it on FB.

You all may take this if you wish:

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...16978ec3fd.png

As if Joe Biden could actually tweet anything himself.

He's already significantly more senile before running for a second term than Reagan was at the very end of his second term. It's a shame they can't find a more capable puppet to be the party figurehead.

Do you know what a PBM is? Neither did I, until yesterday.

Pharmacy Benefit Manager.

Because the health insurance industry isn't complicated enough, it turns out that insurance companies do not actually negotiate directly with pharmaceutical manufacturers.

Instead, they outsource that function to PBMs.

The three largest PBMs are Express Scripts, Caremark, and OptumRx. Those three cover about 78% of the total market, in terms of number of people insured. So they're gigantic corporations.

And if the name Caremark sounds familiar, that's because it's part of CVS Health, the company which owns the CVS Pharmacy brand, which is the largest chain of retail pharmacy stores in the US. CVS ALSO owns Aetna, which is the largest private health insurance company in the world.


Now, the stated purpose of a PBM is to act as an advocate for the insurance company, to negotiate the lowest possible prices for pharmaceutical products. In theory, said savings are then indirectly passed on to the insurance customer. Of course, those prices are never actually disclosed to literally anyone (they're considered a trade secret, and the courts have already rules that that's ok), so that uninsured people can be charged the full sticker-price and have zero recourse, and the insurance company can print the sticker price on your Explanation of Benefits, so that it seems like they are really doing waaay more for you than they actually are.


Now, here's the kicker: CVS recently launched a new company, named Cordavis, which (drumroll, please): is a DRUG MANUFACTURER!

Specifically, Cordavis works to produce "biosimilar" (generic) versions of popular medications. They have already partnered with the Swiss pharma company Sandoz to produce Hyrimoz, a knockoff of Abbott Laboratories' Humira, a wildly popular and extremely expensive (list price $6,922 per month) arthritis medication. And, mind you, there are already EIGHT OTHER generic versions of Humira for sale in the US. So CVS ain't exactly stepping up to fill some shortage in the market.


So, the PBM whose job it is to negotiate low prices on behalf of its owner, CVS, is now part of the same corporation as the very drug manufacturer with whom it is negotiating.


Which, again, is one of those amazing and not-at-all-suspicious coincidences which slightly weakens my steadfast resolve that "Free market good, Government regulation bad."


Not that the US government would likely do anything about it. CVS spends millions of dollars a year "lobbying" congress to keep their operation running smoothly. They own both democrat and republican politicians, and keep paying them more and more every year.



But maybe that will change if we all keep #VotingBlue, or #MakingAmericaGreat.

(No... it probably won't.)

In general, the government should stay out as per Milton Freeman. In the case where a state's private sector company is being attacked by another state it might require state help. Usually, it is in the form of tariffs against the threatening state but sometimes it can be a criminal action. A good example would be huawei vs Apple. The result was,,,,well partly covid, ha. No seriously we held the owner of huawei's daughter on house arrest for over a year in canada. It did severely piss china off and they threatened to retaliate, then came covid.

BTW over the past 4 days I have been dealing with a nice case of covid. Wish I had some of that ivermectin.

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...80def2bf8c.png


Shuiends bought me a Milton Freedman shirt; I tend to wear it when I'll be around libs.

Joe - did you ever take a good look at an Explanation of Benefits and check out the charges? In March, I had an exercise stress test - basically an EKG while walking on a treadmill while 2 nurses made sure I didn’t croak or cheat. I don’t recall the precise numbers, but did notice that the list price was around $3400, the negotiated(with Aetna, presumably) price was about $1600, and my out-of-pocket was $112.
Just the $112 probably covered most of cost of the whole 20 minute test. That’s how morally bankrupt modern healthcare has become - “$1600 provides enough profit, but we’ll look more reasonable if we claim $3400 is real.” Then make bank on the uninsured by charging the higher number.

Of course, the uninsured probably end up largely bankrupt, so those unrecovered costs end up rolled back into that 3400 price, which will be 3600 next year.