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[Reelyanoob]

This is a financial liability, not a legal one (i.e it's a form of debt). i.e the Feds have pledged to spend $100 trillion (on top of what's already spent or allocated) on medical care for (specific) seniors. But not straight to the senior's pockets, oh no, that would let them shop around! It's an IOU from the taxpayers to the Medical Insurers and Pharm companies.

Lawsuits over faulty medicine is a separate matter.

[Duuvian]

This is a financial liability, not a legal one (i.e it's a form of debt). i.e the Feds have pledged to spend $100 trillion (on top of what's already spent or allocated) on medical care for (specific) seniors. But not straight to the senior's pockets, oh no, that would let them shop around! It's an IOU from the taxpayers to the Medical Insurers and Pharm companies.

Lawsuits over faulty medicine is a separate matter.

So let me get this straight. You are telling me that companies basically have access to a $100 trillion dollar monopoly money checking account that we had to borrow and are paying the interest on?

EDIT: Also, I meant monopoly the game, as in paper money weighted against other currencies instead of gold while gold is still used. Capital would also function as gold in that equation.

EDIT2: Also it's not a separate matter if your boys control the FDA. If you can sue the government for more than the companies lose in the same lawsuit, theoretically you could orchestrate a large profit by manipulating the government. Since it's a class action suit, you could probably have a lawyer team prepped and ready, sign up everyone who took the medicine and also your buddies and your in for sweet individual and apparently legal multi-million dollar payoff. Meanwhile the corps who made the product probably made more than they lost.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/25/us/many-are-surprised-by-bold-decisions-of-the-bush-fda.html <-- 2004

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2009/02/18/62375/watchdog-bush-fda-decision-put.html

[Reelyanoob]

Well it's not borrowed yet, so no interest right this minute. "Liabilities" in this case is money owed in the future. The word "unfunded" means not payed for - yet. Once the unfunded becomes funded, that's when you start paying for it.

[Duuvian]

Well it's not borrowed yet, so no interest right this minute. "Liabilities" in this case is money owed in the future. The word "unfunded" means not payed for - yet. Once the unfunded becomes funded, that's when you start paying for it.

So it's a credit card with an indefinite amount of accumulation time? At which point does it become funded? When new bonds are issued to be able to print more slowly inflating monopoly money to give to whoever goes to enough trouble to loot the government? Doesn't that just make this whole mess one solvable issue if you started investing outside the country like China is doing by buying our Treasury bonds and trying to make a little bit of money at a time so that it's at least a net gain? Except instead of China, you would be giving a practical trade rather than taking advantage of wealthy people into driving their country to ruin. You would do this by investing in capital, in this form the infrastructure that only an advanced economy could provide (exports) in exchange for something we import from them anyways.

[Reelyanoob]

So it's a credit card with an indefinite amount of accumulation time? At which point does it become funded?

It's funded as and when senior citizens need that money for hyper-inflated drug prices and medical care. The health/pharm industry is quite good at ensuring they get as much of the theoretical money per person as possible (hey it's not coming out of your pocket, so people don't question the charges).

'Baby Boomers hitting 65' is when the costs really start to mount up...

[Duuvian]

I see. What do you think is the solution?

EDIT: Also my grandparents have been questioning the charges quite a bit, although I assume they know better than to do it to the doctor.

[Maggarg - Eater of chicke]

Personally, I think we should introduce sandtrout to the Sahara - that way as they spread the water problem will go away and we get spice. Admittedly, ALL the water goes away and we have to obsess over water storage and gathering, but that's a small price to pay.

[Reelyanoob]

I see. What do you think is the solution?

EDIT: Also my grandparents have been questioning the charges quite a bit, although I assume they know better than to do it to the doctor.

Ahh, so you have first-hand knowledge of what I speak. Well the solution was called the 'public option' which would have given US seniors (and others) an alternative choice to the current billing. But lobbyists killed that. That's the 'Medicare' fix you should have had by now.

The second solution was the government bulk-buying generic drugs from the most affordable vendors. That was the 'Prescription Drug Liabilities' fix. Again, Lobbyists killed it.

The other 'solution' is to massively devalue the US dollar by printing a lot of dollars (meaning all dollar-denominated debts plummet in value, and the government gets revenue to spend) this is now the most likely way for the US to get out of debt! And there's a LOT of articles talking about this right now.

[Virex]

The big problem with the Sahara is that it's fucked by nature^tm. It's in what's called the 'desert belt', the area between if I recall correctly 20^o and 35^o where air that has risen in the tropics comes down again, now devoid of water. This means that the relative humidity of the air in the Sahara is 0, completely dry. Bringing water into the Sahara means you're fighting evaporation pretty much all the way, so you're going to need much more water then you would need in temperate regions. All that water that's going to plants could've instead gone to people and you would have tons of energy left over to do something more useful with, like for example improving the farmlands in sub-Saharan Africa, which are generating less then 1/10th of what a western farm of the same size generally produces.

[redacted123]

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[Bauglir]

It seems like a thing that could theoretically be done with modern technology, but, to be fair, you could also theoretically build a "holographic" (probably not really, but use the same tricks as they do for "live" vocaloid concerts) battleground on the Moon for playing children's card games with modern technology.

There's the nutrients problem that's been brought up, and that desalination plants wouldn't be meaningfully affected by a rise in sea level, and that doing this would be massively expensive in energy, and just to add one more, even if you solve all that, you have to deal with the fact that you're trying to farm sand. Even if it's highly nutrient-rich sand, it's too porous for most plants, and the water you bring up will wash away the nutrients as well. So not only do you need to irrigate and fertilize the place in flagrant violation of the climate, you need to mix in preposterous amounts of loam and (possibly) clay to get a good farming soil that can retain the water and nutrients.