[ExI] Warren Buffett is worried too and thinks Republicans are "asinine"

[Omar Rahman]

> Date: Wed, 23 Oct 2013 07:52:30 -0700
> From: "spike" <spike66 at att.net>
> To: "'ExI chat list'" <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
> Subject: Re: [ExI] Warren Buffett is worried too and thinks
> 	Republicans	are	"asinine"
> Message-ID: <01d901cecfff$804c0980$80e41c80$@att.net>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
>> . On Behalf Of Omar Rahman
>> .Gates is an interesting case for me because I can remember back in the old
> anti-trust days when Microsoft was making serious moves to be the only
> viable OS and I thought that Microsoft was a company that really needed
> reigning in.
> 
> 
> 
> So I recall, but I had an alternate spin on that then, based on an
> extrapolation of some comments Eugen made.
> 
> 
> 
> If one guy gets a corner on the word processor market as Microsloth did back
> in about y2k, his failed competitors say that this one guy might as well
> have a patent on the English language.  Once one word processor gets
> established, it forever eliminates any possibility for anyone else to come
> along later with a viable competitor.  But this is OK, for what ended up
> happening is that Java Open Office came along, which is free, and is
> compatible with Word.  Over the years I have noticed that Microsloth never
> did make Word incompatible with existing Open Office Writer.  So now if we
> want all the bells and whistles of Word, we have that option.  If not, we
> have that option.  So the market did reign in Microsoft in that sense.  It
> created a very competent free alternative, which can open Word formatted
> documents, but not write Word formatted documents.
> 

I think that if MS had indeed engineered incompatibilities with Open Office, it would have been conclusive proof that it was a harmful monopoly that needed breaking up. Someone somewhere in MS must have convinced the rest that if you can't tolerate even a free 'competitor' you really must be 'anti-competitive'.

> 
> Ja.  The argument goes that no one can take over the computing world, for
> any attempt creates a market for free alternatives, some of which are really
> good, as we saw. 
> 

Ah, so that's what 'free' market means. =D Seriously though, when your competitors can only 'compete' by giving away their products it's a pretty bad sign.

> 
> 
> Our current USA medical struggles suggest that we need a parallel competing
> system of some sort, analogous to Microsloth competitors such as Red Hat,
> arguably less capable but at much lower cost.
> 
> 
> 
> spike  

In the end I basically agree. If a not for profit insurance company and not for profit hospital system were to be established through some means we might see it grow into a national sized program in a 100 years or something. I would prefer the Federal government to implement an insurance policy that MUST be accepted at all hospitals and only pays a FIXED cost for procedures. Comparison shopping doesn't work well in health care because there is a too much time pressure and you don't have time to move to Arizona/Hawaii/etc where procedure X is covered and/or cheaper than where you live in a 'State Model' situation as you have proposed.

Regards,

Omar Rahman


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