A closed mouth gathers no feet.

"Ah ha, Organ Editor, I know you're there and listening. Teaboy is alive and well."

Sandwich twatboy

Man is the disease. Gaia will cure it.
War, famine or pestilence. take your pick.
Capitalism,communism, religions are but tools in Her hands.
Cresece et multiplicorum. Yup, that should do it.
Man is incapable of moderation in anything. Especially breeding and consuming non-replaceable resources.

Ah ha, Organ Editor, I know you're there and listening. Teaboy is alive and well.

I have a modern day example of capitalism vs socialism. On the 15th March the EU will be voting to prevent the use of neonicotinoid pesticides in agriculture. The capitalists (represented by the likes of Monsanto) want to prevent this vote from going ahead. The humanists reightly say that continued use of these neonicotinoid pesticides will reduce the global bee population, which is vital for maintaining world crop production. Speaking as a humble TEABOY let me say that the capitalists WILL allow these pesticides to be used at the detriment to environmental and agricultural methods. In short, the Big Corporations will do their utmost to allow the use of neonicotinoids at the detriment of food production.

WHAT WILL YOU DO ABOUT IT?

"capitalism" and "socialism" must be seen in context. In a global economy where companies are generating billions per quarter (last 7 years) wall street cannot dictate 5000 layoffs because a company made $3.9 billion instead of $3.95 billion. Corporation cannot mandate layoffs to benefit shareholders and turn around and hand hundreds of million in bonuses to executives. As a wise man once said "Once one person worked and a hundred people lived. Today thousand must die so one can gloat!!" Is that your idea of "capitalism" and "socialism" of today and you're saying its good? Then remember flight for the bird is mortal. This attitude will destroy us all.

Greed is the one problem that capitalism and socialism share.

In capitalism, greed is good and should not be controlled, but rather encouraged no matter who gets hurt in the process.

In socialism, greed is simply ignored. It is assume that in such a perfect and more equal society, the basic human emotion of greed will just disappear.

Thus, both systems are flawed by how they deal with greed. It's just a choice of what flavour of Kool-Aid you want.

And, for extra credit, religion makes greed a big no-no. It's one of the sins covered in the ten commandments. We are told not to be greedy, but with no manner of enforcement other than the fear of God, which doesn't seem to do it.

I often wonder what would have happened to Jonas Salk regarding patenting the polio vaccine today? Would he have been laid off? Would his name been omitted from the one who discovered it? Would he have to include others as inventors?
Times have changed. Greed that has consumed the few is effecting the many. I know that there are cycles in life and economy, but greed is one cycle that is very very difficult to break. I hope it does soon.

Yes, it is coming. And already, the critics seem to know every problem that will be associated with it as there are with any new program, public or private. This is the equivalent of holding a funeral for a fetus before it is even born or closing the barn door before putting the horse in the barn. What do you expect for those who are all about emotion and their philosophical agenda and who have no use for facts or reality?

The century's old debate between knowledge and ignorance will continue. Much of it will be filled with lies, distortions, and talking points. Truth will be (or has been) the first victim of this debate.

The OP is right.
Obamacare is coming!

Repent before it's too late.

Then when we retire we can write the gospels,
So they'll still talk about us when we die.

Have you written yours yet? Will it survive the test of time.

(If this doesn't work, take two aspirin and call me in the morning for a more expensive, prescription drug that is still on patent and, most likely, far less effective).

-- A silly cynic from a higher ivory tower of babble (not Babel).

"Dead people pay no bills"

...but you can bet your bottom dollar that some bottom feeder in the insurance business is working out a way that they can legally financially rape a corpse. There is good thieving th be had from the recently alive.

Antibiotics aren't really used to treat viruses, you twat.

Ouch, what a post! We all do seem to be working for a "machine", though, either one that makes money or keeps a certain group in power. If you are the one raking in the bucks or in power, you'll do what it takes to keep status quo.

I was always bothered by the Godfather movies - mostly because it showed a hopeless side of human nature, and it just seemed to hit too close to home.

If humans are too greedy, then nature indeed will run its course and extinguish the race. But humans will innovate and change when boxed into a corner, so don't count us out completely!

http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-03/14/bill-gates-capitalism#.UU...

This is why you will not discover new medicines. Screw altruism, lets pander to rich people's vanity.

then can I seriously suggest that given the whole pointless nature of anything, we should simply, en masse, take our own lives. The impact of our birth, life and death will ultimately be the same. Zero. Or we could spend our fleeting existence in a pointless career, clicking vaguely on a mouse to earn little pieces of paper to then hand them over to others and ultimately make a selected few rich. Every penny you give to alcohol, cigarette and drug corporations feeds the Executive Jabba The Hutts so they can reproduce and make more of the same. We, the American public, are not the brightest in the world, so we elect and promote these obscenities and ultimately find ourselves subservient to them in every way. We are so thick, we get annoyed when someone suggests that the size of our sodas should be reduced. Why we haven't risen and slaughtered this layer of pocket-lining horseshit is beyond me. But then again, whats the point? The graveyard is also full of rich corpses. So, we are rapidly heading into a world of 9 billion individuals, mostly useless, a world where you will have to make a choice between having a child and saving enough to pay for your retirement, a society so dumb it seeks refuge in celebrity, shiny phones and other technological nonsense. Perhaps what we need is to be give antidepressants from birth and book our date at the Dignitas clinic as soon as we've all had enough. What happens in between means nothing. Solyent Green here we come.

Pharma prefers to make drugs which treat people. Forever. Rather than curing them. A revenue stream.
Hence, plenty of statins which poison us and make plenty profit for pharma. Better would be gene therapy to deal with the cholesterol problem permanently but no profit in that.
And no profit either in new antibiotics to deal with the increasing threat of mutating viruses.

What a strange post, and I doubt anyone denies the fact that Pharmas work to benefit the shareholders first. Sell your pharma stock before you start throwing stones!

Despite conventional wisdom, no doctor or drug can save a life. No doctor or drug ever has and no doctor or drug ever will.

Lives cannot be saved. They can only be prolonged. Sooner or later the patient dies and the doctor or drug ultimately has failed.

So Sayeth The Lord.