The Banality of Red Tape: North Carolina Hospitals Barred From Buying PET Scanners

PET scanners are pretty cool. They give a
3-dimensional glimpse of the body’s internal processes, allowing
physicians to diagnose and observe the progress of health
conditions like cancer, heart disease, epilepsy, and Alzheimer’s.
Hospitals are known for wanting to diagnose such things, so it’s
not uncommon for them to purchase PET scanners.

But 19 states and the District of Columbia require health
providers to seek permission from state bureaucrats before buying a
PET scanner. Obtaining this permission can take years and cost
hundreds of thousands of dollars in application and attorney’s
fees—to say nothing of opportunity cost. After all that time and
expense, there is no guarantee that permission, in the form of a
“certificate of need,” will be forthcoming.

North Carolina is one such state that forces health providers to
submit to this kind of micromanagement. In May, two
Winston-Salem-based hospital systems filed PET scanner
applications. Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center already owns a
scanner and uses it for medical research—and needs permission to
convert it to clinical use. Novant Health meanwhile wants to build
a new cancer center. Applications denied.

From the
Triad Business Journal
:

The state Division of Health Services Regulation rejected both
proposals, saying that while both properly identified the areas
that could benefit from the new scanner, there was not sufficient
need to justify the cost of either proposal.

The purchase of PET scanners and other high-dollar diagnostic
and treatment equipment is governed by the state’s certificate of
need law, which is designed to reduce the duplication of expensive
medical equipment in an attempt to control health care costs.

The law may be intended to reduce costs. But does it? The
evidence
suggests it does not
. Many states have repealed their
certificate-of-need laws, but health expenditures have not
skyrocketed in those states, as certificate-of-need proponents
predicted.

Certificate-of-need rules do, however, keep regulators busy.
Each year, North Carolina health planners produce a state health
plan that purports to assess the need for PET scans, among other
services. This year, the planners divined that the Winston-Salem
area needed one more scanner, hence the two applications.

Novant and Wake Forest Baptist each argued that the other didn’t
really need a PET scanner. Apparently, they were both so convincing
that neither application was accepted. If they were located in any
of the over 30 states that do not restrict the purchase of PET
scanners, the two hospitals could focus on competing for customers
instead of competing for state favors. Alas, freedom does not reign
in North Carolina.   

Both providers may appeal the decision, but neither has
indicated if it plans to do so.


Click here
for coverage of Virginia’s certificate-of-need
program, which limits access to CT scanners and potentially
lifesaving innovation.

from Hit & Run http://reason.com/blog/2013/11/17/the-banality-of-red-tape-north-carolina
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Whining for Wine

In a few years’ time we might all be whining because there is no more water left in the world apparently. That’s because according to the World Economic Forum “we are now on the verge of water bankruptcy in many places around the world, with no clear way of repaying the debt”. But, if there’s one thing that the world will not be able to put up with, it’s the growing fear that we will actually run out of wine! Whatever will the banksters do then to celebrate their earnings and what will the traders be drinking to jubilate over their growing bubble on the stock exchanges around the world? We could all be whining over the shortage of wine in the years to come. How are we going to drown our sorrows when the bubbles burst yet again? Turning to drink takes on a whole new meaning, doesn’t it with the price of wines set to increase like never before?

Shortage of wine in the world is getting worse according to a survey carried out by Morgan Stanley Research. If we compare 2012’s figures for supply and demand, then there was only just enough wine to cover demand for that year. The report stated: “Data suggests there may be insufficient supply to meet demand in coming years, as current vintages are released”.

Global wine production has been on the up since the late 1990s and there was only a very short period at the start of the financial crisis when consumption fell (between 2008 and 2009). Otherwise it has always been on the increase.

Global Wine Consumption

Global Wine Consumption
  • The US and China are to blame as they have increased their consumption over recent years.
  • The US now accounts for 12% of global consumption.
  • The US has doubled consumption within the last decade.
  • China has doubled consumption every two and a half years over the past five years.
  • China is the 5th importer in the world in terms of wine.
  • Wine consumption has increased by almost 4% since 2007 around the world.
  • The wine sector will have a total value of $306.6 billion by the year 2016.
  • This alone represents an increase of 17.9% by comparison with figures of 2011.
  • The US will consume 400 million cases of wine in 2016 and China will be doing exactly the same.
  • Global wine production is hardly able to keep pace with the growing demand that is being experienced in the sector.
  • France has decreased its land that is dedicated to wine-growing (from 11.6% (2001) of world total to 10.6% in 2012) since it was largely unprofitable. That looks set to change however.
  • Global Wine Production

Global Wine Production

All of that could be good news for the EU since 60% of the world’s wine is still produced there. They could do with gaining the benefits from their wine, rather than just drowning their sorrows, downing a swift one morning, noon and night and three times on Sundays.

Wine might just be the place to invest in the coming years. Or at least, get the bottle in why you can. They might not be around much longer. Can you imagine we would have wine queues and people would be on the wineline?Breadlines? Never heard of them!

Wine - A thing of the past?

Wine – A thing of the past?

Glorifying and extolling the benefits of drinking wine in hallowed ritualization will become a thing of the past, won’t it if we run out of wine in the world? Painting the town red and kick up one’s heels will be what people did in yesteryears. Drinking a pint of milk down the pub with your colleagues just isn’t going have the same ring about it, is it? Well, probably wouldn’t be able to do that either. Milk is too expensive, these days.

Crack open a bottle of whatever you can get your hands on!


    



via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/YCNTBYWqK-U/story01.htm Pivotfarm

Skip the Sunday Yak Shows and Watch Virginia Postrel Talk About Glamour!

If it’s Sunday, it used to mean the ritual self-flagellation of
watching Meet the Press, Face the Nation, This Week, or some other
routinely tedious yakfest in which Team Red spokespeople faced off
against Team Blue spokespeople for some of the least engaging
theater since Anyone Can Whistle hit Broadway for
all of nine performances
.

So instead of cozying up with David Gregory, Bob Scheiffer,
Chris Wallace or George Stephanopoulos, take a look at this truly
fascinating conversation with former Reason Editor in Chief
Virginia Postrel about her excellent new book, The Power of
Glamour.

It’s about an hour long and covers more territory than a Christo
installation!

Here’s the original writeup:

“If you acknowledge that you find something glamorous it makes
you vulnerable because it says something about who you are,” says
Virginia Postrel, author of the new book, The
Power of Glamour: Longing and the Art of Visual
Persuasion
. “But I want people to think about what they
find glamorous and learn from that.”

Postrel, who served as the editor in
chief
 of Reason Magazine from 1989 to
2000, is an internationally acclaimed writer, a regular
columnist
 for Bloomberg View, and the author
of two previous books, The
Future and its Enemies: The Growing Conflict Over Creativity,
Enterprise, and Progress
 (1999) and The
Substance of Style: How the Rise of Aesthetic Value is Remaking
Commerce, Culture, and Consciousness
 (2004).

She sat down with Reason TV’s Nick Gillespie for an hour-long
conversation about her new book, which is a meditation on how our
perception of glamour shapes our culture, determines the choices we
make, and reveals our inner-selves. The book is an entertaining
romp, analyzing the deeper significance of the glamorous people and
places that have shaped the last century of American
culture.|||

Gillespie and Postrel discuss the glamour of the Tuskegee airmen
(6:45); the glamour of California (9:30); the distinction between
glamour and charisma (14:45); Obama’s glamour vs. Bill Clinton’s
charisma (16:45); Marxist art critic John Berger’s “desiccated”
take on glamour (20:30); Joan Crawford role in “defining the modern
woman to the general public” (25:20); how a “ridiculously
glamorous” image inspired dancer Michaela DePrince (27:30); how
Naomi Wolfe’s projected her “single mother chic” image on Angelina
Jolie (30:45); Oprah Winfrey’s infatuation with the Mary Tyler
Moore Show (32:15); David Bowie’s ever-changing personas (36:30);
how glamour “tells the truth about desire” (38:45); the
democratization of glamour (40:45); the proliferation of glamour in
a capitalist society (45:20); how Postrel’s libertarianism informs
her work (48:30); the “intense glamour” of planning in the early
twentieth century (51:20); how understanding glamour provides
insights into human behavior (56:15); and how the breast cancer
drug Herceptin saved Postrel’s life (57:30).

For more on Postrel’s tenure at Reason, watch a
recent discussion she participated in celebrating the 45th
anniversary of the magazine, and read
Brian Doherty’s oral history
 of the magazine, on the
occasion of its 40th anniversary.

Approximately 1 hour.

Camera by Jim Epstein and Anthony Fisher, and edited by
Epstein.

This originally ran at Reason.com on Friday, November 15,
2013.

For downloadable versions, more links, and other resources,

go here
.

from Hit & Run http://reason.com/blog/2013/11/17/skip-the-sunday-yak-shows-and-watch-virg
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Sheldon Richman On the Universality of Libertarian Moral Standards

Libertarians believe that the initiation of force
is wrong. So do the overwhelming majority of nonlibertarians. They,
too, think it is wrong to commit offenses against person and
property. Sheldon Richman believes libertarians make a
self-defeating mistake in assuming that their fundamental
principles differ radically from most other people’s principles,
and says that libertarians would have an easier time if they
realized everyone else is not so different from them.

View this article.

from Hit & Run http://reason.com/blog/2013/11/17/sheldon-richman-says-libertarians-make-s
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Spot The Striking Similarity

Spot the striking similarity.

Below is the US Employment to Population ratio – a nearly perfect, multi-decade low flatline since Lehman…

 

… And compare it to the NYSE stock index divided by the Fed’s balance sheet: a nearly perfect, multi-decade low flatline since Lehman…

 

Funny how the phrases “improving unemployment” and “record stock market” are so dependent on one’s perspective… and the denominator.

 

* * *

 

In the meantime, here is the propaganda:

 

But even that pales in comparison to the one real winner from the “New Normal”:


    



via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/2GAP1ySOk6Q/story01.htm Tyler Durden

Guest Post: Is It Wrong To Be Anti-Government?

Submitted by Brandon Smith of Alt-Market blog,

It is natural for a society to search for explanations and motivations in the wake of a man-made tragedy. It is also somewhat natural for people to be driven by their personal biases when looking for someone or something to blame. In recent years, however, our country has been carefully conditioned to view almost every criminal event from an ideological perspective.

The mainstream media now places far more emphasis on the political affiliations and philosophies of “madmen” than it does on their personal disorders and psychosis. The media’s goal, or mission, if you will, is to associate every dark deed whether real or engineered to the political enemies of the establishment, and to make the actions of each individual the collective shame of an entire group of people.

I could sift through a long list of terror attacks and mass shootings in which the establishment media jumped to the conclusion that the perpetrators were inspired by the beliefs of Constitutional conservatives, “conspiracy theorists”, patriots, etc. It is clear to anyone paying attention that the system is going out of its way to demonize those who question the officially sanctioned story, or the officially sanctioned world view. The circus surrounding the latest shooting of multiple TSA agents at Los Angeles International Airport is a perfect example.

Paul Ciancia, the primary suspect in the shooting, was immediately tied to the Liberty Movement by media outlets and the Southern Poverty Law Center, by notes (which we still have yet to see proof of) that law enforcement claims to have found on his person. The notes allegedly use terms such as “New World Order” and “fiat money”, commonly covered by those of us in the alternative media. The assertion is, of course, that Paul Ciancia is just the beginning, and that most if not all of us involved in the exposure of the globalist agenda are powder kegs just waiting to “go off.” The label often used by the MSM to profile people like Ciancia and marginalize the organizational efforts of liberty based culture is “anti-government.”

The establishment desires to acclimate Americans to the idea that being anti-government is wrong; that it is a despicable philosophy embracing social deviance, aimless violence, isolation and zealotry. Looking beyond the mainstream position, my question is, is it really such a bad thing to be anti-government today?

Conspiracy Realists

The terms “anti-government” and “conspiracy theorist” are almost always used in the same paragraph when mainstream media pundits espouse their propaganda. They are nothing more than ad hominem labels designed to play on the presumptions of the general population, manipulating them into dismissing any and all alternative viewpoints before they are ever heard or explained. The establishment and the media are ill-equipped to debate us on fair terms, and understand that they will lose control if Americans are allowed to hear what we have to say in a balanced forum. Therefore, their only fallback is to bury the public in lies so thick they won’t want to listen to us at all.

The Liberty Movement now has the upper hand in the war for information. The exposure of multiple conspiracies in the past several years alone has given immense weight to our stance, and reaffirmed warnings we gave long ago.

When we spoke out against the invasion of Iraq, commissioned by George W. Bush on the dubious claim that Iraqi weapons of mass destruction were an immediate threat to the security of our nation, we were called “liberals” and “traitors.”  Today, Bush and Cheney have both openly admitted that no WMD’s were ever present in the region. When we attempted to educate the masses on the widespread surveillance of innocent people by the NSA, some of them laughed. Today, it is common knowledge that all electronic communications are monitored by the Federal government. When we refused to accept the official story behind the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ Fast and Furious program, we were called “kooks”. Today, it is common knowledge that the Obama Administration purposely allowed U.S. arms to fall into the hands of Mexican cartels. When we roared over the obvious hand the White House played in the Benghazi attack, we were labeled “racists” and “right wing extremists.” Today, it is common knowledge that the White House ordered military response units to stand down and allow the attack to take place. I could go on and on…

Events that were called “conspiracy theory” by the mainstream yesterday are now historical fact today. Have we ever received an apology for this slander? No, of course not, and we don’t expect one will ever surface. We have already gained something far more important – legitimacy.

And what about Paul Ciancia’s apparent belief in the dangers of the “New World Order” and “fiat money”? Are these “conspiracy theories”, or conspiracy realism? The Liberty Movement didn’t coin the phrase “New World Order”, these political and corporate “luminaries” did:

 

 

Is economic collapse really just a fairytale perpetrated by “anti-government extremists” bent on fear mongering and dividing society?  Perhaps we should ask Alan Greenspan, who now openly admits that he and the private Federal Reserve knew full well they had helped engineer the housing bubble which eventually imploded during the derivatives collapse of 2008.

Or, why not ask the the White House, which just last month proclaimed that “economic chaos” would result if Republicans did not agree to raise the debt ceiling.

Does this make Barack Obama and the Democratic elite “conspiracy theorists” as well?

It is undeniable that government conspiracies and corporate conspiracies exist, and have caused unquantifiable pain to the American people and the people of the world. Knowing this, is it not natural that many citizens would adopt anti-government views in response? Is it wrong to distrust a criminal individual or a criminal enterprise? Why would it be wrong to distrust a criminal government?

The Purpose Behind The Anti-Government Label

When the establishment mainstream applies the anti-government label, they are hoping to achieve several levels propaganda. Here are just a few:

False Association: By placing the alleged “anti-government” views of violent people in the spotlight, the establishment is asserting that it is the political philosophy, not the individual, that is the problem. They are also asserting that other people who hold similar beliefs are guilty by association. That is to say, the actions of one man now become the trespasses of all those who share his ideology. This tactic is only applied by the media to those on the conservative or constitutional end of the spectrum, as it was with Paul Ciancia. For example, when it was discovered that Arizona mass shooter Jared Loughner was actually a leftist, the MSM did not attempt to tie his actions to liberals in general. Why? Because the left is not a threat to the elitist oligarchy within our
government. Constitutional conservatives, on the other hand, are.

False Generalization: The term “anti-government” is so broad that, like the term “terrorist”, it can be applied to almost anyone for any reason. The establishment does not want you to distinguish between those who are anti-government for the wrong reasons, and those who are anti-government for the right reasons. Anyone who questions the status quo becomes the enemy regardless of their motives or logic. By demonizing the idea of being anti-government, the establishment manipulates the public into assuming that all government by extension is good, or at least necessary, when the facts actually suggest that most government is neither good or necessary.

False Assertion: The negative connotations surrounding the anti-government stance also suggest that anyone who defends themselves or their principles against government tyranny, whether rationally justified or not, is an evil person. Just look at how Washington D.C. has treated Edward Snowden. Numerous political elites have suggested trying the whistle-blower for treason, or assassinating him outright without due process, even though Snowden’s only crime was to expose the criminal mass surveillance of the American people by the government itself. Rather than apologizing for their corruption, the government would rather destroy anyone who exposes the truth.

False Shame: Does government criminality call for behavior like that allegedly taken by Paul Ciancia? His particular action was not morally honorable or even effective.  It helped the establishment's position instead of hurting it, and was apparently driven more by personal psychological turmoil rather than political affiliation. But, would it be wrong for morally sound and rational Americans facing imminent despotism within government to physically fight back? Would it be wrong to enter into combat with a totalitarian system? The Founding Fathers did, but only after they had exhausted all other avenues, and only after they had broken away from dependence on the system they had sought to fight. Being anti-government does not mean one is a violent and dangerous person. It does mean, though, that there will come a point at which we will not allow government to further erode our freedoms. We will not and should not feel shame in making that stand.

I do not agree with every element of the “anti-government” ethos that exists in our era, but I do see the vast majority of reasons behind it as legitimate. If the establishment really desired to quell the quickly growing anti-government methodology, then they would stop committing Constitutional atrocities and stop giving the public so many causes to hate them. If they continue with their vicious bid to erase civil liberties, dominate the citizenry through fear and intimidation and steal and murder in our name, then our response will inevitably be “anti-government”, and we will inevitably move to end the system as we know it.


    



via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/t4tOQcrEB6w/story01.htm Tyler Durden

What Is A Gold Standard?

Given our earlier discussion of Nobel winner Sargent’s comments on Greece and the gold standard, and the ongoing melt-up in asset markets due to the ‘limitless money-printing’ of central banks around the world, we thought it worth a look at what a gold standard is (and is not). Before 1974, U.S. dollars were backed by gold. This meant that the federal government could not print more money than it could redeem for gold. While this constrained the federal government, it also provided citizens with a relatively stable purchasing power for goods and services. Today’s paper currency has no intrinsic value.

It is not based on the value of gold or anything else. Under a gold standard, inflation was really limited. With floating value, or fiat, currency, however, some countries have seen inflation reach extremely high levels—sometimes enough to lead to economic collapse. Gold standards have historically provided more stable currencies with lower inflation than fiat currency. Professor Larry White asks, should the United States return to a gold standard?

 


    



via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/LzunsWxtbEE/story01.htm Tyler Durden