Your own link [1] says "Ob/Gyn about $30,000- $35,000". The OP said "an Ob's ins CAN COST 71k a year" [emphasis mine] so doesn't sound 'flat out wrong' to me.
Next - could you explain why you are bringing in malpractice CLAIMS data in a conversation about PREMIUMS?
> Your own link [1] says "Ob/Gyn about $30,000- $35,000". The OP said "an Ob's ins CAN COST 71k a year" [emphasis mine] so doesn't sound 'flat out wrong' to me.
And that's in California, while a chart lower down shows doctors in New York pay 7 times as much on average, and $35k on average across all specialities.
First, the vast majority of OB/Gyns practicing are employed by hospitals. The hospital covers the malpractice costs for the Ob/Gyns / any other physician's employed [1].
OB/Gyns are making $336k total comp on average in 2022 (including salary, bonus, and profit-sharing contributions) [2].
I am confused as to what your problem is? What exactly are you trying to articulate here? OB/Gyns are well compensated, and their insurance premiums are covered by the hospital. They are making above $300k/yr. :)
You claimed that the annual malpractice insurance cost for OB/GYNs comes to around $5k when the true value (according to your link) appears to be several times higher. This is orthogonal to whether OB/GYNs make enough money to cover premiums or whether the hospital covers those premiums.
But the vast majority, as I stated above, are hospital employed and so it is covered by the hospital. It isn't considered as part of the TC (total comp) that is reported by Medscape [1]. If it was, then the TC for Ob/Gyns would skyrocket to nearly $400k per year.
I'm very nearsighted (I can't see distant objects clearly without glasses), and I know people's ability to see close objects or read diminishes with age. My plan has been to remain nearsighted in hopes I can always read without glasses. Many people have their far sight improve as they approach 40 or 50.
I’d assume it’s some combination of the cops being racist, or actual differences in crime rates among demographics. I see no reason to conclude it has to be one or the other, not sure if there’s any actual way to determine how much each cause contributes though.
This distinction is critically important and is almost never even mentioned in popular media discussions of police racism.
Yes, policing and criminal justice in America fucking sucks (especially if you have dark skin) and needs major reform no matter what. But I don't want to start seeing ghosts where none exist, and chasing after them instead of focusing on other problems.
This is vague and leads to confusion. We shouldn't imagine we can learn anything simply by judging the characters of individual officers. If our laws and police practices are racist, the beliefs and actions of the officers themselves won't matter. Of course, there are racist officers, just as there are racist judges, legislators, grocers, veterinarians, etc. I doubt that Newark has a high concentration of racist police officers relative to the rest of the nation, however.
A disparity that high is unlikely to be rate of crime. It is hard to study rate of crime, obvious reasons, but when you slice drug use by race, blacks use more, when you investigate drug contraband found per traffic stop, the is not a high racial bias. I tend to believe the crime rates aren't effected much by race, it seems really unlikely a difference that high is race.
Here is the best argument in favor of the change:
>> if the rule had kicked in, some two-thirds of borrowers wouldn't qualify for a payday loan
If the above is true (and not fake news), I would like to understand how the industry was expected to survive with 2/3rd of its customer base taken away in an instant; and what alternative services these customers would have been routed to...
What do you think "fake news" means, and how would this statement qualify?
"[...]the official, who spoke to journalists on condition of anonymity, said that if the rule had kicked in, some two-thirds of borrowers wouldn't qualify for a payday loan."
Unless you want to insinuate that NPR completely fabricated this story to drive engagement, you should probably just say "incorrect" or something like that.
It wasn't expected to survive in its current form. Most payday lenders shifted to installment loans (and/or lines of credit) in anticipation of the rule becoming final. The lenders with an existential problem were in states that have legal payday (i.e. short-term balloon notes) but no legal high-APR installment options.
But there still exists a credit system for those borrowers. It's called paying late.
It might be mean to landlords to make them, essentially, the lenders of last resort. But just because you accounted for something more accurately, by forcing people to take payday loans to not get evicted, doesn't mean you have achieved a normatively positive thing.
Because that's what shares represent. I 'give you money' to try to add wealth to the economy. If you do anything illegal, you burn. Not me.
Economics and law 101
Edit - just want to clarify - if the company execs do something ILLEGAL, they should go to jail. Shareholders WILL get punished beause shares will get a hit. But how is it fair to start punishing the company overall with consumer activism just because there are allegations of misconduct?
Because as a shareholder you own and share part of the well or ill-being of a company. You can pressure the CEO directly since the shareholders control the company. So shareholders can and should set the ethical framework in which the company acts. If that framework doesn't attract business, then that's their loss.
If shareholders were held accountable in a much more direct way, perhaps they would spend more effort ensuring that the companies they invest in didn't break the law?
It could be. Consumer action affects the company which affects shareholders, so when there's consumer action over what are at the very least unethical practices, shareholders are affected. Both the company and the shareholders get punished - the company for what it's done, and the shareholders for funding the company without a care for its practices.
Point taken. That's why I am here to sort of point out a counter argument to DHH. He seems to be calling for consumer activism without making a serious case (at least for me) so as to WHY.
There have been allegations of misconduct, fine. Latest there is a sexual harassment claim... Those are VERY attractive to certain class of lawyers. Why not let law take its course? Why do WE, who know nothing of what happened, have to PRE-JUDGE and punish the company upfront?
Note that innocent until proven guilty is, largely speaking, something that only applies to Government interactions, like most rights - specifically because the Government can unilaterally do something, but the people need to organise in order to have any significant effect. Or, in other words, judging someone is probably fine since a significant chunk of society would have to come to the same judgement in order to effect any sort of punishment without doing something illegal themselves.
Additionally, innocent until proven guilty isn't even a thing in civil court - all outcomes are on the balance of probabilities. So we still wouldn't know what our Government has to say as to whether it happened or not, just that it more likely happened than not. Even if you have complete trust in the court system to make the right choices, you still have to make your own judgement as to whether or not you think it actually happened (since the court hasn't actually decided that), and then as to whether additional consumer action is necessary.
And this is making the assumption that Susan wants to take it to court, and go through that whole rather horrible process, and have all her dirty laundry dragged out in public for people to spend the next couple of years harassing her over. Uber, of course, being an amoral company with plenty of cash, will be fine whatever the result.
There's ample evidence of what kind of company Uber is and consumers are under no obligation to give them the benefit of the doubt yet again, even if it does negatively affect selfless attempts to "add wealth to the economy".
I think the point of the article is to ask yourself: Are you really 'paying more' for not using Uber, or are the rising moral/ethical questions of their operations a greater cost to humanity as a whole (which includes you)?
Careful there. If you start really thinking about long-term tradeoffs and the real costs of externalities you might fall into a bottomless pit of despair and rage. (And not just at Uber.)
But this is exactly why I do use it (or did, until this latest stuff came out) -- if some clueless VC wants to burn their unicorn giving me subsidized rides, I'm more than happy to supply the fuel. And let's be honest: the taxi industry is/was just terrible.
No, not all taxi industry is/was just terrible worldwide. That might be the case for some regions or even large countries, but you're oversimplificating things.
So isn't the right move then to keep using Uber, forcing them to absorb a loss with every trip you take, bringing their day of apocalypse nearer with every ride you take? Investor money is not infinite.
sure, that is a valid choice. I personally think deleting the app etc is an overreaction, and I intend to continue using Uber till there are comparable alternatives. (I'm not in the USA). If doing so helps deplete their funds, I can live with that.
Your argument has no core. It's a bunch of dots. If you want to participate in the discussion, take five minutes of your ultra-important time and RTFA.
They have allegedly repeatedly discriminated on the basis of sex, and caused a hostile work environment. Both are civil complaints, not criminal - this means that in order to pursue it, Susan J. Fowler would have to find a lawyer willing to take it, and likely pay that lawyer. And all she could get out of it would be money.
If she took it to court, here's what would happen: the company's lawyers would go through all her online communications, track down all her exes, and find anything at all to do with sex or relationships, with the intention of finding something to paint her as an untrustworthy slut. Court cases are public, and a court case against Uber would have significant media interest, so some significant amount of people would hear about this and believe them - to the point of harassing her online. Once the court case is over, she'd have significant trouble finding work, since she's proven herself willing to stand up against her employer.
Alternatively, she could move on with her life and write a blog post about it which'll be forgotten in a few months. Companies are willing to give a little more leeway when all that falls out of it is needing to write up some PR, and you don't get your irrelevant dirty laundry dragged up in public. I know which one I'd do.
A couple of thoughts come to mind when I read this paragraph:
1. If there is meat in her story, I am sure there are multiple lawyers who will be willing to work for a share of the settlement - i.e. she never pays out of pocket.
2. It seems we have a society where the "plaintiff" is wronged bad enough to go to court, but is wronged enough to complain about it and have society decide and punish on her behalf! Even when society doesn't know enough about the case.
This reminds me of the doctor who shot that lion in africa... society punished him really really bad - he lost patients, lost ability to work, and what not. Later, it turned out he had done everything by the book, and is not slated to be punished/held accountable either in US or zimbabwe. Same thing here... idiots on the internet feel they KNOW uber is wrong, and they are willing to punish the company by #deleteuber, and willing to go on a downvote spree towards people like me on online forums.
What happens if 6 months later it turns out Susan was lying? Will all of you come back to upvote me?
That would open them up to discovery, which all companies -- and Uber in particular, if half of what she says is true -- go to great lengths to avoid. No, Uber's lawyers would dig up whatever dirt they could find, present it to her legal team, a pre-trial settlement would be reached, and none of this would ever see the light of day. I actually find it quite noble what she's done here; she passed up an easy five- or six-figure payday for the opportunity to tell her story.
I didn't mean to imply that the company did something illegal. Supporting Trumps of this world isn't, and the CEO's response to harassment allegations was positive.
On the other hand, the legislative system is slow, and the application of law can be subjective. That's why we have civil disobedience and protests.
