Great Decisions at Coral Lakes
This tab leads to articles considered to be of interest to Great Decisions members but which have not been included as discussion topics this year. The title of the article is a hotlink to the article itself. Just click on the underlined portion to bring up the full article.
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January 10, 2020
Why Canadian-Style Health Care Would Not Cut Costs in America
The United States wastes so much money on health care administration despite, or perhaps because of, Medicare being the largest single payer of national health expenditures.
Expanding Medicare or Medicaid to cover all Americans would only double-down on the headaches and complexity for which those programs are notorious.
The study does illuminate some alarming facts about American health care. Using publicly available information from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, it calculates that 34.2% of American health expenditures is spent on administrative costs, compared to 17% of Canada’s health expenditure.
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January 13, 2020
Why an insecure internet is actually in tech companies’ best interests
Google, Facebook, Amazon and others make their profits in two main ways: by collecting as much data as possible from us and by controlling what we pay for, says online security expert Bruce Schneier. And what does this all depend on? A vulnerable internet.
Flaws in technology are not the only reason we have such an insecure internet. Another important reason — maybe even the main reason — is that the internet’s most powerful architects have manipulated the network to make it serve their own interests.
Everyone wants you to have security, except from them. Google is willing to give you security, as long as it can surveil you and use the information it collects to sell ads. Facebook offers you a similar deal: a secure social network, as long as it can monitor everything you do for marketing purposes.
This surveillance is easy because computers do it naturally. Everything we do involving a computer creates a transaction record. This includes browsing the Internet, using — and just ...MORE
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March 21, 2019
Palestinians: The Other Peace Deal
Hamas is now accusing the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Fatah of exploiting the economic crisis in the Gaza Strip to call on Palestinians to overthrow the Hamas regime. Fatah, for its part, is accusing the "dark forces" of Hamas of acting on orders from outside parties to establish a separate Palestinian state in the Gaza Strip. ….>> More
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While Hamas is happy to boast openly about their fighters tearing at the border fences in Gaza and hiding behind civilians to evade Israeli soldiers—the New York Times makes no mention of this. Israeli soldiers are portrayed Read more at .....
The New York Times Incentivizes Hamas Violence
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How a Politics of Forgetting Led to Bolsonaro’s Rise
Today Brazil swears in a new president: Jair Bolsonaro, a far-right congressman and former military officer. Bolsonaro is as much an apparition from Brazil’s past as a harbinger of its future. He has expressed nostalgia for the military dictatorship
The Ghosts of Brazil’s Military Dictatorship
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Consider two Latin American countries. The first is one of the region’s oldest and strongest democracies. It boasts a stronger social safety net than any of its neighbors and is making progress on its promise to deliver free health care and higher education to all its citizens. Read more at ........
Venezuela’s Suicide Lessons From a Failed State
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