Day: May 27, 2006

http://lifesharers.blogspot.com/2006/05/lifesharers-is-not-discriminatory.html

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Anyone can join LifeSharers. Membership is free. We welcome everyone, and we turn no one away. Can someone please tell me what is discriminatory about that?
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http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/14659413.htm

Organ donation club called discriminatory
By MELISSA SÁNCHEZ
STAR-TELEGRAM STAFF WRITER
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But this approach raises ethical questions about how organs should be distributed. The need for donors is overwhelming. In January and February, 4,508 transplants were performed in the U.S., but more than 92,000 people are on the approved federal waiting list.
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By whom? I read this article several times and I can't see who is call it "discriminatory". Is it the reporter?

Walter Williams, my favorite economic professor, wrote the definitive solution:

http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/williams091198.html

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Transplantable organ shortages would disappear overnight if people were permitted to sell organs. You say, "Williams, people shouldn't make money selling organs!" I say, "Why not? Everybody else is making money on the deal."

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The fact of life is that there must be some way to decide which sick person gets an organ. One way to decide is to have a government mandate whereby the most critically ill gets first priority. That could result in waste because a not-so-critically-ill person has a greater chance of survival and a smaller chance of needing another transplant. Another way to decide is to allow the medical elite to put the rich and famous at the top of the list, as they did with Mickey Mantle, who received a liver transplant and died two months later. Allowing the medical elite to decide who gets transplants has already created despicable arrogance. I was watching one show where a doctor refused to give a patient who smoked cigarettes a heart transplant. While it's popular right now to dump on cigarette smokers, tomorrow that same physician might refuse to give a transplant to an overweight person, a low-I.Q. person, a divorcee or whatever suits the whims of a particular hospital physician staff.

We shouldn't allow America's elite to decide who gets what in health and other areas of our lives. We wouldn't begin to tolerate somebody deciding that housing, food, cars and clothing be distributed on a first-come, first-served basis or on a who-needs-them-the-most basis? If we did, there'd be desperate shortages in housing, food, cars and clothing just as there are shortages in organs available for transplant.

There are other benefits from allowing people to sell their organs. For example, I smoke cigarettes and cigars. If I knew that my heart and lungs could become a part of my estate, I would take better care of them. But since my heirs can't monetarily gain, it makes sense for me to die with completely used up organs just like I'd try to die with a zero bank balance if Congress wouldn't allow me to bequeath money to my heirs. 
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I happen to like that solution. Take control away from the gummamint, the elite, and return it to the fairest arbiter of need ever discovered … the marketplace.

One should acknowledge that one becomes rich in the marketplace by satisfying the needs of others. Bill Gates made people happy and they applauded by giving him their greenbacks. If he needs a transplant, why shouldn't he be able to use his "applause" as evidence of being the most worthy.

The poor would not be excluded from the marketplace. I already see charities for that purpose.

AND, even when today the system breaks down, haven't you seen whole communities rallying about an unfortunate case with gigantic fund raising drives?

One advantage of a marketplace solution is that it operates without a large overhead.  

No one has to run the marketplace. There are no government bureaucrats drawing pay and benefits to "decide" who should get this kidney or that liver.

It may sound "ghoulish", but letting people die is REALLY ghoulish.

We have seen what the "current system", or non-system, delivers. Death, suffering, and uncertainty. How about a change?  

Federal Long Distance tax ends….

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Federal Long Distance tax ends….

I think at one point I’ve said that once taxes are put in place they tend NEVER to go away. Well, I must admit I’m wrong. 108 years ago in an effort to help finance the Spanish American War, long distance telephone taxes went into place. The tax will no longer be in effect as of July 31, 2006. Supposedly, we will be able to file for a refund of our last three years worth of long-distance taxes for land/cell phones in the 2006 tax returns. I stand corrected… once taxes are put in place they ALMOST Never go away (and if it’s for a specific purpose, it may hang around long after that purpose is completed.)

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True. This tax final went away. Probably because people were tying the tax and the purpose together. It was making the gummamint look stupid.

Let's look at the biggest tax scam. It's not the Social Security "Insurance" ponzi scheme. Nor is it the Federal Income Tax. Nor is it the Alternative Minimum Tax. Nor is it the National Debt that they keep recapping higher and higer as needed. Now those are all big taxes. Between them, I'd estimate that more than half of your annual earnings are stolen by the gummamint.

No, the bigest scam is inflation.

Don't let the gummamint distract you by talking about price inflation. Get down to basics. What is a "dollar"? That's right, it is just a piece of paper with funny printing that people with give you stuff in exchange for them.

The biggest hidden tax is the inflation caused by the gummmint's printing press!

It is a tax on your savings. It's a tax on anything you accumulate. It's hidden.

It's corrosive. It has turned us from a nation of savers to a nation of debtors. Why save? You can pay back later with "dollars" that are worth less.

Let's assume you have a hundred dollars, inflation is 5%, and candy bars are a dollar each. You could buy a hundred candy bars. Next year, the gummamint inflates the currency 5%. Prices rise because there are now more dollars chasing fewer goods. The candy bar makes raise candy prices 5% just to stay even. That hundred dollars now will only buy only 95 candy bars. Where did those five extra candy bars go? You, right into the gummamint. It's the effect of owning the printing press.

Try it yourself. Play monopoly. And every time you pass go, inflate the money supply 5%. The bank has $15,140 in cash in standard editions of Monopoly. Give yourself an extra $757 everytime you pass go. That's an one orange $500 bill, two beige $100 bills, one green $50 bills, one pink $5 bills, and two white $1 bills. Watch what happens. I bet you'll win. Think the other players will catch on? You'll probably hear the exclamation "That's not fair!" followed by an appropriate punishment for ruining the game by counterfeiting.

So why is it different when the gummamint does it to you in real life?