Misc stuff that shouldn't be the way it is.......

[1984Echoes]

Errr... no.

[CMRivdogs]

The running earthquake joke on the platform formerly known as Twitter (outside the MTG take) is the fact the earthquake center was only a few miles from DJT's golf course.

Someone rolling in her grave???

[smr-nj]

6 aftershocks already. Most 2.0 magnitude, but the one at 6pm was 4.0.

Fun 🤪

[Tigeraholic1]

14 hours ago, smr-nj said:

6 aftershocks already. Most 2.0 magnitude, but the one at 6pm was 4.0.

Fun 🤪

Glad to hear you are safe!

[1984Echoes]

17 hours ago, smr-nj said:

... Most 2.0 magnitude, but the one at 6pm was 4.0.

That was the one with the Bedminster epicenter I believe...

[gehringer_2]

Some more documented capitalism fail here:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2024/10/17/private-equity-steward-hospital-bankruptcy/

Quote

Last month, Sen. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) released a report detailing what happens when a hospital chain runs out of money: In short, people suffer and die.

The chain in question, Steward Health Care, is headquartered in Dallas but owned more than 30 hospitals throughout the United States and once billed itself as the country’s largest private for-profit hospital chain. Last May, Steward declared bankruptcy, which kicked off congressional hearings and Markey’s investigation. The company announced its intent to sell its hospitals, .....

...

Part of Steward’s financial distress can be traced to a series of deals it made starting in 2016 to sell all of the real estate once owned by its hospitals to a real estate investment trust called Medical Properties Trust, or MPT. From 2016 to 2022, according to a company report, MPT acquired a net $3.3 billion of real estate underlying 34 Steward facilities. MPT then leased the real estate back to Steward. This forced the hospitals to pay rent on land they’d previously owned. As a result, Steward had an annual rent burden of almost $400 million, according to Rob Simone, an analyst at Hedgeye Research who has followed the MPT and Steward saga for years.

That deal was orchestrated by Cerberus, the private equity firm that formed Steward in 2010. Cerberus made its original investment — in Carney and five other Boston nonprofits — amid widespread investor enthusiasm for the profit gusher many thought would come from patients newly insured by the Affordable Care Act. But the expected gusher didn’t materialize, and the hospitals struggled. Selling the real estate allowed Cerberus to pay one of its funds a $484 million dividend, according to an investor document obtained by Bloomberg, thereby extracting a win from an investment that otherwise would have failed.

....

Cerberus finally extricated itself from Steward in 2021, when MPT loaned Steward’s operating team $335 million to buy out Cerberus. In total, Cerberus has said it made roughly $800 million on its investment in Steward, more than tripling its original investment, even as the hospitals themselves were hemorrhaging cash.

..

It would be easy to point an angry finger at Cerberus in this situation. There’s a reason Markey titled his report, “How Corporate Greed Hurt Patients, Health Workers, and Communities.”

But this is simply what private equity funds do. They owe a fiduciary duty to their investors to maximize the bottom line. It’s like the old fable about the scorpion who persuades the frog to carry it across the river and stings the frog midstream. Why? the frog asks as they both drown. “It’s in my nature,” the scorpion replies.

If you let private equity buy a health care business, you run the risk that profits are going to come before patients. That’s the nature of private equity. And right now, private equity firms are buying health care companies in record numbers.

.....

If modern capitalism worked in real life the way it does in beautiful theory, this would be great! Smart investors are betting that their capital can make a business better, and the only way the bottom line should improve is if everyone wins. And if the investors fail, well, they lose their investment. Right?

Wrong, as the Steward example shows. Thanks to modern financial engineering tricks, investors can prosper even if the underlying business is failing. In addition to these real estate deals — known as “sale-leasebacks” — a private equity firm can add more debt to a company it controls to pay itself a dividend — a trick known as “dividend recapitalizations.”

.....

There’s a growing body of evidence that Steward is not the exception — that private equity’s involvement is not making health care better. A review of more than 55 studies cited in Markey’s report found that private equity investments were associated with up to 32 percent higher costs to patients and insurers. Another study found that private equity-acquired hospitals have lower staff-to-patient ratios and less experienced or licensed staff than other hospitals. A recent Harvard Medical School study of Medicare patients at hospitals before and after private equity acquisition found that patients suffered 25 percent more hospital-acquired complications, including 27 percent more falls and 38 percent more bloodstream infections, post-acquisition. And so on.

Policymakers could impose conditions .....Clever financiers will always find a new way to extract money, one regulators don’t foresee.

The only real solution is to pass laws preventing private equity ownership of certain critical businesses. Extractive capitalism should flourish only where it can’t kill people.

 

[smr-nj]

58 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

The only real solution is to pass laws preventing private equity ownership of certain critical businesses. Extractive capitalism should flourish only where it can’t kill people.

This is the most important truth here.

Ridiculous that it has to be said.

[Tigeraholic1]

What the what?

 

[mtutiger]

16 minutes ago, Tigeraholic1 said:

What the what?

 

I mean, an insurance company CEO is probably the worst possible messenger for any sort of commentary, but it seems pretty clear that social media (and the bifurcation of media more generally) feeds an addiction to anger and divisiveness in society.

I personally don't see a lot of it offline... Both at work (which leans slightly conservative) and the town that I live in (Trump 60-40ish), people mostly get along and respect one another face to face at least. But social media media meme-culture and ****posting is all about sowing disunity (and grifting off of it). And it works.

Collin Rugg is a pretty good poster child for it... And to be fair, there is a bipartisan element to it as well.

Edited January 3 by mtutiger

[gehringer_2]

I don't get the logic of the critique. Maybe the guy planning to run a car into a crowd tomorrow did hear him today.

and again  - we can take it back to social media  - it has a way of seaming to make things like Rugg's post -- that actually are vacuous, make no sense or are devoid of logic somehow intelligent just because of the cynical tone, a graphic or a bunch of likes added by equally vacuous people.

[mtutiger]

12 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

I don't get the logic of the critique. Maybe the guy planning to run a car into a crowd tomorrow did hear him today.

and again  - we can take it back to social media  - it has a way of seaming to make things like Rugg's post -- that actually are vacuous, make no sense or are devoid of logic somehow intelligent just because of the cynical tone, a graphic or a bunch of likes added by equally vacuous people.

My interpretation is that Rugg is trying to use the messenger (ie. Insurance Company CEO) to tarnish the message (which tends to run counter to his brand). Gotta think about it in terms of the UnitedHealth CEO being gunned down recently - it's an easy target to go after if they are transmitting an otherwise benign statement about trying to find the common good and shared humanity in others, despite our differences (political, cultural or otherwise). 

The problem is that even a blind squirrel can find a nut... there absolutely are people who enjoy being fed rage all the time on the internet and allow it to seep into how they view people in their day to day lives. And yes, that's bad for society (although probably fine for rage peddlers like Rugg getting clicks)... 

Edited January 3 by mtutiger

[smr-nj]

56 minutes ago, mtutiger said:

…….. but it seems pretty clear that social media (and the bifurcation of media more generally) feeds an addiction to anger and divisiveness in society.

This is a spot on diagnosis.

[chasfh]

11 hours ago, mtutiger said:

I personally don't see a lot of it offline... Both at work (which leans slightly conservative) and the town that I live in (Trump 60-40ish), people mostly get along and respect one another face to face at least. But social media media meme-culture and ****posting is all about sowing disunity (and grifting off of it). And it works.

The one thing I legitimately fear is some cataclysmic event that suddenly shifts the veneer of social interaction from one of restrained politeness masking odious online behavior, to one of open and violent hostility where everyone wears their politics on their sleeve and act out in public against their “enemies”.

I don’t know how close we are to something like that, but we are not immune to it just because we are America, and a climate of fear and loathing is being openly espoused by the people coming into almost total power. So the possibility is not as close to zero as some would want us to believe.

[mtutiger]

8 minutes ago, chasfh said:

The one thing I legitimately fear is some cataclysmic event that suddenly shifts the veneer of social interaction from one of restrained politeness masking odious online behavior, to one of open and violent hostility where everyone wears their politics on their sleeve and act out in public against their “enemies”.

I don’t know how close we are to something like that, but we are not immune to it just because we are America, and a climate of fear and loathing is being openly espoused by the people coming into almost total power. So the possibility is not as close to zero as some would want us to believe.

Most Americans (like 80+%) aren't on Twitter and are generally not engaged politically using Facebook or other apps.

And I don't think that it is a veneer of social interaction in day to day life, its that people tend to like and care about people in their communities and that are living right in front of them. It's easier to hate what you don't see and can't interact with directly

[chasfh]

8 minutes ago, mtutiger said:

Most Americans (like 80+%) aren't on Twitter and are generally not engaged politically using Facebook or other apps.

And I don't think that it is a veneer of social interaction in day to day life, its that people tend to like and care about people in their communities and that are living right in front of them. It's easier to hate what you don't see and can't interact with directly

That’s fine, you can believe it can never happen. You’ll probably be happier that way. I’m not guaranteeing it will happen, so don’t hang that on me. Just remember that present and past results is no indication of future performance, and we can have our peaceful civil society, if we can keep it.

[mtutiger]

15 minutes ago, chasfh said:

That’s fine, you can believe it can never happen. You’ll probably be happier that way. 

This isn't why I believe that.

[mtutiger]

16 hours ago, gehringer_2 said:

and again  - we can take it back to social media  - it has a way of seaming to make things like Rugg's post -- that actually are vacuous, make no sense or are devoid of logic somehow intelligent just because of the cynical tone, a graphic or a bunch of likes added by equally vacuous people.

I was having a discussion recently with someone about civic participation.... like, even 20-30 years ago, there were more people who got involved in groups like the Lions Club, Kiwanis, Rotary, Elks or other civic groups than today. In lesser numbers do we go out and join bowling or softball leagues these days.

In the macro, as we have become more connected to the "outside world", curated by these apps, we've increasingly outsourced our time interacting with others to interactions over screens. And we are more and more walling ourselves off to the lives that our sitting right in front of us.

I suspect that it in the macro, it makes us collectively less charitable, more suspicious of others and, on the whole, less happy. And I think it's a factor in where we are sitting today with respect to our culture.

Edited January 3 by mtutiger

[CMRivdogs]

20 minutes ago, mtutiger said:

I was having a discussion recently with someone about civic participation.... like, even 20-30 years ago, there were more people who got involved in groups like the Lions Club, Kiwanis, Rotary, Elks or other civic groups than today. In lesser numbers do we go out and join bowling or softball leagues these days.

In the macro, as we have become more connected to the "outside world", curated by these apps, we've increasingly outsourced our time interacting with others to interactions over screens. And we are more and more walling ourselves off to the lives that our sitting right in front of us.

I suspect that it in the macro, it makes us collectively less charitable, more suspicious of others and, on the whole, less happy. And I think it's a factor in where we are sitting today with respect to our culture.

Let me take it a step farther. We live in a relatively new subdivision. It's part of a planned development. We were one of the early group of buyers in this particular section. In four years we've only met maybe 15 residents who live around us and only see about a handful of people when we're out and about. 
 

I'm old enough to remember when you knew just about everyone who lived in the neighborhood. You may not have agreed with them on everything, but you knew their names, their kids, and would occasionally share a drink on a front porch. Porches have been replaced by backyard patios that are surrounded by fortress like fences. The local "social committee" has a hard time getting folks involved in activities. 
 

Unfortunately most of us live on social media where it's extremely easy to air our grievances anonymously. And in doing so seldom allow for civil discussion over sometimes trivial issues. Especially ones where they usually have no real insight on the reasoning behind the decisions, only they don't like it.

[oblong]

we're connected but only within our bubble and on our terms.  Think about sports bars.  Even 15 years ago it wasn't uncommon for me to meet up with friends at a bar somewhere to watch a game on a big screen.  Now we've all got big screens and we can text and post to social media, and meet up on sites like this one.  Why would I need to go out and spend money and worry about drinking and driving?

[chasfh]

The “social on our terms” part has occurred to me before, and I have contemplated my own a situation in terms of that.

Social media has been a huge boon for me because it has allowed me to connect, and reconnect, with people who probably would have permanently receded into my dim and distant past. People I went to school with, I used to work with, I used to play ball with, I belong to the same clubs as—it’s so easy now to connect online just to connect. Drop a line, they (probably) drop one back, you’ve caught up.

On the other hand, it’s so easy to do so online that doing more seems like a huge pain. It’s easy to write a couple texts saying hey how ya doin’ for a couple minutes—it’s much harder to get together someplace for an hour, or hour and a half, and have deep conversations with people about every topic on your mind. Plus, working at conversing for 60 or 90 minutes running just sounds daunting, and borderline exhausting. You almost relish bathroom breaks so you can catch your breath for a couple minutes before going back to the table or bar and diving back into it.

So on the one hand, I’m connected to, and on friendly terms with, more people than I have ever been, which astounds me because I was such a reclusive loner as a kid and young adult. On the other hand, I wouldn’t count any of the people I’ve met online as actual friends, people I could reliably call at an odd hour of the morning to help me through a big problem.

I do have a beautiful wife and a good brother close-by I could rely on, but beyond that, if they were gone and something were to go upside down, despite my dozens and dozens of “friends”, I’d really be all alone. I’m in an online community, but I don’t live within an actual community. That’s sad because we have this ideal of a community that I don’t have in my own life. But then, it’s also great because even though I can fulfill my social itch by connecting with people online, I don’t have a whole community of people close by hovering over my business and then gossiping about it all the time.

In the end, I’m not sure whether I’d change anything about it. It’s not perfect, but I’m happy with it, I guess.

[LaceyLou]

I have a couple of online groups where there are people online all the time if I need moral support... but since they're scattered across the country they can't drop on by in the case of an emergency. I do have a brother and my boyfriend in the area, and a lot of acquaintances that I'm friendly with-sometimes I wish I had somebody who would enjoy the concerts and shows I enjoy. I'd also like a bowling league or something like that, but that's another story.

Another issue that I've noticed is that I have trouble sitting around and doing nothing. So I end up on a phone or a tablet rereading the same posts or repeating the same searches even though I know there's nothing new. And when I'm with people we're also all looking at screens. It's harder to focus on things for longer than a minute or two, or to even stay away from screens when watching tv. 

Some of it might be age, I guess. Still, I wonder if the more connected we are, the less connected we are, if that makes sense. 

[chasfh]

23 hours ago, LaceyLou said:

Some of it might be age, I guess. Still, I wonder if the more connected we are, the less connected we are, if that makes sense. 

Sure it makes sense. The more connected we are in one way (digitally), the less connected we seem in others (IRL).

I am lucky in that a few of the people I’ve met over the past few years, I’ve stayed connected with IRL. I’m seeing a buddy I played softball with for years in the 15-20-year-ago range for lunch on Thursday. There’s another guy who was the captain of a hardball team I was on, we get together once a quarter for dinner and a play, and we double date with our wives occasionally. But it has been since college since I’ve had a group of people I’d hang around with most every day. Of course, at my age, a lot of people don’t even want to see their spouse every day, so … 😏

[Tigeraholic1]

On 1/2/2025 at 7:47 PM, Tigeraholic1 said:

What the what?

 

Allstate has since yanked this lol