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Originally Posted by Rekna
filtherton hit my point exactly, just because people are willing to pay X amount of money for a service does not mean one should charge that much. I know I am different than the majority on this one but I think there is a difference between fair prices and demand driven prices.
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Who determines what is fair? If you don’t know what a fiasco government price fixing is, you should look into it.
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I don't think a 3 night stay in the ICU should cost $100,000. I don't think doctors and lawyers deserve to make $300,000 a year. And I know the excuses is well they have spent so much time learning so much more which is BS. If that is the case then we would have phds sitting in the national labs making more than $120,000 a year because they have worked just as hard if not harder than many doctors and lawyers.
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They also have a skill in demand. Its that pesky supply and demand thing again. You are deciding what people should make, what their time is worth? I think you are very arrogant to do so.
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Doctors (or I should say buisness men in charge of the doctors) know they can charge exorbarent amounts of fees to patients because patients need treetment it is an inelastic demand. The same is true for lawyers and drug companies. Sure say well the cat scan machine costs $$$$$$$ but it does because the people who are selling the machines are raking in a tun of profit. We have CEO's of corperations raking in millions while their hard workers who are responsible for the profit are lucky to make $50,000 a year.
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Boy thats a lot of fish in your barrel. I do fully agree that some medical services are over charged, but that is PRECISELY because supply and demand is not followed for those procedures. A consumer with insurance doesn’t care about the cost, there are no market forces. The hospitals do what they can to get patients to go to them, but there is no competition based on price. The doctors in such cases tend to make only a faction of that total bill btw, and often time the surgery itself is not worth their time for the more basic procedures. You want to make it ‘fair’ by dictating what people make, but seem totally ignorant of the consequences. I am a doctor and if you told me that I would be making what YOU deemed fit, I’d have gone to work when I was 21 instead of going to school for 10 more years and do you know why? Because if you are paying me the same then I need to get started a lot earlier on my savings and I don’t do that in school. Your ‘system’ would have the quality of health care plummet. Also ask Ben and Jerry’s how well the ‘low paid’ CEO thing worked out for them.
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Case in point and back to my personal story. I was working as a technition for a guy for a year. It took a little under a month for me to be the lead technition for this company, I would maintain his servers, fix computers, and make house calls. He charged people $100 an hour for me while only paying me $7.50. To me that seemed like a major exploitation of both the customers and me.
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Umm whos fault is that? You, as skilled labor, allowed yourself to be used for a year, didn’t ask for a raise, didn’t go out on your own, and you think its unfair? Did he hold a gun to your head? If you could do it better than he could, and found your own customers, why didn't you?
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So many buisness these days are run by people who rake way more cash then they deserve, honestly I believe buisnesses should be obligated to pass unusally high profits on to either the employees or the customers. Now I’m not saying all profits either because much of it should be used to add to the companies infastructure and even do R&D. But when a CEO goes we had a million dollars in profit this year, it looks like me and a few others are going to get a heafty raise, I get annoyed.
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You are deciding what people should make again? What makes you qualified? Why bother increasing infrastructure or R&D if you don’t make any more money? Are your employees, who get paid the same, going to do this? Is your CEO going to do this? Who is this altruistic soul who will work hard for the same as those who don’t work hard?
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I guess maybe this is my compationate christian side of me coming out.
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You wish to basically destroy the economy and you call yourself compassionate? The road to hell is paved in good intentions, and quite frankly if your thinking was policy I’d be moving to Ireland. There is an element of truth there though, Christians as a rule treat making money as if it’s a distasteful necessity, which is perhaps why Jewish people seem to do better economially. I think its one of Christianities weaknesses.
You want to know the ironic part? I had that very conversation with my CPA computer tech, who just so happens to be Jewish, after work today. He didn’t like accounting and went into business on his own as a IT specialist for small businesses. While what I know what he is doing isn’t that hard, and I could learn it, I pay him so I don’t have to worry about it. I don’t feel ripped off because what is easy for him is harder for me and would require a lot of my time. That is what it is all about, its not a win-lose but a win-win. I get what I need, a three office integrated and mostly trouble free computer system going and he gets paid for it. I am happy because its easier for me to do business, he is happy because he used his skills to make money, which he just used to buy a new home with his wife. This is not a zero sum game.