aerius

It's a long-term historical trend. Link Excerpt: The 2:1 marketing to R&D spending ratio has held for at least the last 15-20 years, and I wouldn't be surprised if the trend goes a lot further back. I don't have the time to dig up SEC filings for pharmaceutical companies going back 50 years, but someone else has probably done the research already. We do know for a fact that over the last couple decades at least, drug companies have spent around twice as much on marketing as they have on R&D.

A lot of R&D costs are tax write-offs anyway, so the actual cost to the company will be significantly lower than the dollar value, how much depends on how good their accountants are. But guess what the fun part is. Drug companies spend twice as much on marketing as they do on R&D. Because pimping Viagra on every fucking media outlet will improve the health of Americans.

Suck it down, suck it down hard Administrative costs of the Canadian government run healthcare system is less than 1/3 that of the privatized US system. Our government run system is over 3 times as efficient as your private enterprise insurance system.

Contrary to the claims of liberatarians and republicans, private insurance is actually less efficient. As I pointed out earlier, private insurance companies have to make a profit, pay out dividends, and meet the income expectations of their shareholders. This all results in money being diverted away from providing healthcare services. Furthermore, a national system can realize large economy of scale savings, it's pool of customers is effectively the entire country's population, whereas private companies have a much smaller pool and can't have the same savings. Bottom line, the private enterprise model, no matter how it's run isn't as efficient as single national system.

Maybe you'd like to explain why Canada successfully runs a socialized healthcare system and furthermore, has had a budget surplus for the last decade.

Between my job and my investments, I'll likely be retired by age 40 with a fully paid off home and be set for life, so no, I don't have class envy. I believe in social responsibility, I have a debt to pay back to the society which has allowed me to get to where I am, that means the social, healthcare, education, and 1001 other things which keep our society whole and functional. However, I also recognize that people, including myself tend to be selfish pricks, and that left to own devices we sure as hell ain't give back to society nearly as much as we take from it. And that's what taxes are for, I have no problem with paying my taxes to ensure that some kid with diabetes gets the treatment he requires to lead a good life and become a contributing member to our society. We sink a few thousand bucks into him now so that he can earn & produce many times that amount during the course of his career. Instead of marginalizing his healthcare, dicking over his quality of life and turning him into a net wealth sink as his health suffers, we have him become a positive wealth contributer. Think of it as preventative maintenance and planning for the long run. We spend a few bucks to tide him over till he starts earning, then we rake in craploads of bucks when he becomes a productive citizen. By the way, with the drop in value of the greenback in recent times, the median income in Canada is now more than the US median income, and after cost of living and purchasing power is factored in it's skewed even more in our favour. I'd also note that there's a nice correlation between tax cuts for the rich, cutbacks on social spending, and the decline in health of the US economy.

I'd argue that the divide is caused by your country's dumbass social & economic policies more than anything else. The system is setup to fuck over the poor and middle class citizens while giving rich people everything they want for very little cost.

In your own words, with regards to people who can't afford healthcare coverage, In other words, tough shit for those poor people, it's my fucking money so too bad for them. So I guess someone who's born with diabetes, a heart murmur, allergies, asthma or ends up with leukemia is just shit out of luck then since their pre-existing condition will either disqualify them from healthcare coverage or result in exhorbitantly high rates? I'm sure all those kids just chose to be born that way. But in your world, it's just fine to deny them care and hoard your money for yourself. Fuck those kids, it's my goddamn money and I have no obligation to help them in any way. And you wonder why the US ranks dead last among OECD countries in infant mortality rates.

No thanks, a death rate approaching 10% is not something I want to gamble with.

So to put it bluntly, it's my goddamn money, and fuck everyone else but me.

You have Etys, I doubt screaming babies will be a problem for you.

Hitlery isn't exactly a fast learner to say the least...

As I recall the round trip ticket price for Toronto to Tokyo is around $1000 or so, $1200 is still a pretty good price for the set. I should fly there and grab the set, then sell it at a nice profit.

Of course I am, that's what taxes are for, to gather money for providing services. I view healthcare as a basic essential right for all citizens and have no problem with my tax dollars going towards providing this service. Others may disagree. As a sidenote, Hiltlery Clinton's nationalized healthcare proposal is the biggest crock of shit I've ever heard of. Her plan forces you to be insured by a private sector insurance company, and then fines your ass if you can't or refuse to get insured. Because fining people who can't afford insurance is really going to help them, stupid fucking cunt.

Think of it this way, in the American system the insurance companies and HMO's need to show a profit and pay out dividends for their shareholders as well as shelling out multi-million dollar salaries for their senior executives. All of that takes away from the money that's actually being spent on providing medical care. In a national system such as the Canadian or European model, almost every dollar that comes in can be spent on providing medical services. There's no need to show quarterly profits, no shareholders taking dividends, and no board of directors taking their golden parachutes. All you have is the the administrative system taking a slice, but that's also there in the American system. It's a more efficient system, and it's reflected in the costs and results, we pay less while enjoying better life expectancies, lower infant mortality rates and so on.

Remember, they're all fair game as long as they satisfy the "half your age plus seven" rule.

Let me spell it out for you since you obviously don't get it. You're not welcome. You annoy us. Leave and stay gone until your balls drop or you grow a brain, whichever comes first.

Enough so that a stupid dipshit like you won't be able to afford one.

You know, I see a PS-1 Pro in your future...

I'm offended by your presence on this forum. You should stop posting for the next 5 years.

I haven't heard it yet, but a guy in our local audiophile group has and he was less than impressed. Our audio tastes are pretty similar, except he prefers a more neutral sound with more highs than I do, I lean towards warmness and don't care all that much about the treble, as long as it doesn't hurt my ears it's good. In his words, roughly paraphrased, "I'm pretty sure the reviewers were listening with their eyes". For $5-8k sure, why not, but it certainly isn't worth the market prices. He prefers the Wilson Benesch Discovery speakers which we've both heard a fair bit at our local dealer.

In that case use large TV damper diodes such as the 6CJ3, they're quieter and can handle more current than traditional tube rectifiers like the 5AR4 without arcing over or doing other bad things.

It's not just you, Merlins just suck the life & joy out of music and leave you with bland cardboard cut-out "hi-fi" crap. They're highly overrated pieces of crap in my opinion.

No room in my apartment, plus the acoustics really suck ass making it a complete waste for me to own them.

Fab Audio Model One Review Comments: Still in the top 3 of all the speakers I've ever heard, and I've honestly lost count of how many speakers I've listened to over the years. The Living Voice Avatar & OBX-R are slightly cleaner & less coloured, those two are my benchmark in that area. However, they can't match the resolution & detail of the Model 1 and can't come anywhere close in dynamics, especially if you want to crank the volume a bit. Model 1's are a bit faster as well and they soundstage just as well as the OBX-R, which is to say about as good as I've ever heard. You can also drive them cleanly with a 3W tube amp so the really nice tubes like 45's, 50's, and AD1's can be used, hell, I drove a friend's pair with a 1-2W tube headphone amp. As for amplifiers, sticking with EAR products, I'd much rather go with the 869 rather than the V20. I've heard both at the local dealer, the V20 looks cool but it's too much of a pain in the ass with all those fucking tubes and to me it doesn't sound any better than the 869.