The types of monopolies are: Natural, Geographic, Technological and Government. Geographic and Technological monopolies are self limiting. If the local cable company charges too much, competitors enter the market. When Apple charged too much for the iPod, multiple companies created alternatives. Both cases where a monopoly has or could end naturally. Government monopolies come in two flavors: Coercive and non-coercive. A non-coercive monopoly would be like patent protection on a new drug. Nobody is preventing the competition from creating a new drug that works equally well or better. The only truly offensive type of monopoly is the coercive government created monopoly. Bell System is an example of a coercive Government monopoly.

Antitrust laws often protect inefficient business models that have trouble competing with more efficient and better run businesses. Who knows what new advances we could have made by allowing well run businesses to grow as large as the market would allow?

The free market keeps all other forms of insurance cheaper, why wouldn't it keep health insurance cheaper? The only proven method to actually decrease the price of a product or service is competition. So what makes you think that competition for health insurance would raise prices?

Where was the outrage and phone call to Laura Ingraham when Ed Schultz called her a slut?
Oh wait Laura is a conservative talk show host so it's ok to demean her.

LPDon,

If I found out that were were a Democrat trying to make Republicans look bad, I wouldn't be surprised.

.... auditions and hires actors to call in to talk radio shows and pose as listeners in order to provide shows, carried by Clear Channel and other broadcasters, with planned content in the form of stories and opinions. The custom caller service provided by Premiere Radio assures its clients they won't hear the same actor's voice for at least two months in order to appear authentic to listeners who might otherwise catch on.

What medical reasons do women use birth control for?

Looks like Santorum's winning Michigan!

The actor's work has become a popular source of kitschy fun among Slovaks and a mainstay for local jokes about macho strength and invincibility.

Extra credit answer: Then you're screwed....By.....EVERYONE!!!!

If you are bisexual, life is one big banquet.
However, if you are only gay, you are back with
only half the world's population on the menu.

I don't think so. Who's in charge of the selection process? I have yet to see anything that would convince me there's any sort of system at work in any of this.

I believe there are about 3.5 billion choices.

And that is why you don't manage a radio station. Boredom doesn't attract listeners, shock jocks do.

Except when it's accurate and it spikes ratings.

Just because your voice reaches halfway around the world doesn't mean you are wiser than when it reached only to the end of the bar. -Edward R. Murrow

So much for freedom of speech.

This is not the "libertarian alternative". This is an example of the failure of welfare and central planning. Before the utopian Great Society folks came along, it was normal for people to save for their own retirement. Now, not only does SS money buy less (price inflation and currency inflation) the burden is shifted ever more to future generations.

The libertarian alternative is to let people keep their money (and use whatever they want as money-gold, silver, dollars, euros, etc) and help each other voluntarily. (it used to be commonplace, and let Americans enjoy the highest standard of living in the world, regardless of age)

If you're in a meeting with a bunch of corporate people and you look around the room and aren't sure you can spot the marks? You're definitely one of 'em.

Hornberger makes a valid argurment, with one exception. Social Security is an investment paid for by the people who receive its benefits. It's not a government handlout.

Loss of Safety Net a Blow to Bethlehem Steel Retirees
Bankruptcy deal would end benefits long viewed as a reward for loyal service.

By David B. Caruso, Los Angeles Times

February 10 2003

BETHLEHEM, Pa. -- Some of them went to work in the blast furnaces when they were just 18, then spent half a lifetime handling molten slag and inhaling steel dust in some of the most dangerous jobs on earth.

But for the tens of thousands of Bethlehem Steel Corp. workers who stuck it out, retirement promised a rich reward: a hefty pension and a lifetime of almost free health care for themselves and their families.

"It was capitalism's version of socialized medicine," said James Van Vliet, a retired Bethlehem Steel vice president. "And it was an implied contract. It was the company and the workers saying, 'We are going to take care of each other.' "

It may go down in history as a promise unfulfilled.

Only a shadow of its former self, Bethlehem Steel announced Friday that it was seeking Bankruptcy Court approval to terminate health and life insurance benefits for 95,000 retired workers and their dependents March 31.

The move, seen as essential to the company's bid to sell its assets to International Steel Group Inc., which was approved by Bethlehem's board Saturday, followed news in December that Bethlehem Steel's pension plan was underfunded by $3.2 billion and would be turned over to a government agency.

The sale is subject to approval by the Bankruptcy Court.

Both pieces of bad news were expected. The American steel industry has been in decline for decades, and most of its former giants have been trimming pensions and benefits for retirees for years. Moreover, corporate America largely has shifted the responsibility of old-age provisioning to workers, with self-funded plans such as 401(k) accounts.

But the one-two punch still is a staggering blow for a generation that had been promised a lifetime of comforts in return for a career spent at one company.

Now, some could see their monthly $6 payments for health insurance jump to $200 to $300.

"That's a lot to swallow," said Len Christman, 67, who worked 39 years at Bethlehem Steel's sprawling plant in Bethlehem, about 40 miles north of Philadelphia. "It's a very tough position to be in at this stage in life."

Nearly all retirees will continue to enjoy some benefits. Pension payments, which are being taken over by the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., are expected to continue at about 90% of their former level. For workers older than 65, the federal Medicare program would pick up some health-care costs.

But Medicare, which covers hospital visits but doesn't pay for medications, won't come close to covering all the health problems suffered by many retired steelworkers.

Joe Pancoe, who worked for Bethlehem Steel for 31 years, said that at 81, he has asthma and a hacking cough and uses a slew of pills and inhalers to soothe his battered lungs.

"We, the old-timers, were part of the industrial revolution. And now we are part of the medical revolution. We have the emphysemas, we have the cancers. We have everything," he said.

He isn't positive his illnesses were related to his work as a spray painter in the plant's fabrication division, where he said his spit turned red from inhaling fumes, or in the research lab where he regularly handled bags of asbestos.

But as he sees it, the country owes him something either way. His labor built propellers for battleships and girders for skyscrapers and bridges.

"We helped the country, and the people who helped to build the country should get the benefit of it," Pancoe said.

Almost all workers agree that Bethlehem Steel is in little position to help. When it filed for bankruptcy protection in October 2001, the company had about 12,000 employees, down from more than 300,000 during World War II. Most factories have been closed.

Bruce Davis, a retired Bethlehem Steel lawyer who serves as legal counsel for the Retired Employees Benefit Coalition, said several labor groups were negotiating to extend the retirees' health-care benefits, at least temporarily.

The coalition has asked the company to continue the benefits until May 31 rather than March 31. It also anticipates that it will be able to offer Bethlehem Steel retirees a replacement health insurance package similar to ones offered to retirees at other failed steel companies.

The heaviest burden, Davis said, will be borne by retired workers who are under 65 and do not qualify for Medicare coverage.

"We need to find a way to get them to age 65 without bankrupting their financial portfolio," Davis said. "If we can do that, the pain of seeing this proud company walk away from them, after so many years, will be considerably lessened."

I meant the hatefulness back and forth between those that are so called birthers and their opponents and that I find both sides hateful. It's my opinion and the fact that you are so hateful in your approach and posts proves it as well. Bye. Just saying there are two sides and the evidence opposing it seems justifiable.......other than that its just hate speak on racism.....where is the racism?? esp since Obama is white ya know as well as African-American and BTW African come in many colors!! Just as there are many colors in the US.....so calling or deeming African Americans as black is just hilarious to me.....

Both sides seem a bit demented to me, actually. Those that oppose it with great extremes and those that believe it to great extremes.

If you look at each of the cases.....each case did not enter or present the evidence properly or establish the expertise of those giving and gauging the evidence not one stated that the evidence proves or disproves him a citizen only that those doing the presentating with the burden of proof on them didn't present it properly nor provide the expertise of those bringing the case......when the case is presented properly by the correct experts as in such case as an official investigation by the sheriff on behalf of its citizens of Arizona the outcome may change........I just do find it interest that a hospital that wasn't in existence until 1978 could have been the place of birth for Obama in 1961. Or the fact that Obama's father was born in Kenya on his birth certificate which wasn't an established name of the country until 1963 but states on a birth certificate from 1961......can you or anyone explain this without changing the histories of a country and a hospital??

Just so you know I haven't taken either side just find this information quite intersting enough to research it and find it to be true in Encyclopedia Britannica, the stated history of the hospital itself in contradiction with the released document on the White House government issued document itself......