Hey man. Hope all is well with you as well. Doing good here. Retired last year so life a little less frenetic. Still catch up on the Sift every now and then.

Thank Eric. Hi again by the way. Maybe off, but regardless, incredibly intensive and expensive. People tend to think of the FDA approval as spurious and superficial and it's anything but.

Oops, I used old data. Most recent estimate is 2.8 billion US dollars.

And the average cost of this is just short of $1,000,000,000. So people wonder why their prescriptions cost so much.

3 of my favorites. Probably seen Kottke 20 times, Watson 15 or more and got to see Chet a couple of times. Went to college about 10 miles from where Doc lived. Saw him at the local music store often. Total salt of the earth and an encyclopedia of song. A real loss when he passed.

Been watching people wake up from surgery for 30 years. Never seen a similar reaction in a patient that wasn't suffering from preop dementia. I'd have to say fake.

The notion that diabetes is totally preventable is, of course, absurd. But, because more than 90% of diabetics are type II, and probably 90% of them could prevent the disease through risk factor modification, diabetes is largely a preventable illness. Roughly 20 million US citizens are afflicted by self-induced diabetes.

Do the math folks. Confiscate the total wealth of the 100 richest people on the planet and distribute it to every head on earth. Amounts to less than $300 US per person. It's not going to save the planet. As long as people are free, wealth inequality will exist and the freer the people are, the greater will be the disparity.

No doubt the world would be a better place if Steve Jobs had shared his personal fortune with everyone on the planet. Here's your dollar, spend it wisely.

Unusual in that they have 2 incredible drummers in the band. The lead guitarist can lay down a serious beat.

Yeah, there's no current legal way to cap CEO's salaries. It's a societal expectation, I suspect. Japan has plenty of public companies and their CEOs are paid a fraction of what US CEOs make. I think it's a matter of upper management deciding you're not worth it. Sports figures have the advantage of knowing how much money they generate, which is a huge sum. If the fans are willing to pay for the tickets and TV networks pay for the rights, why shouldn't they make a ton? They're not worth it, IMHO, but can't argue with their drawing power. They're gonna make someone a ton of money.

If shareholders had the guts to vote out entire Boards of some of these public companies that award excessive CEO compensation, maybe things would change. I think they are too afraid of what it will do to the stock price and their own investment. Another conundrum.

I agree with you. I hope no one is out to vilify labor, if they are it's short-sighted. The most successful companies have figured out how to work cooperatively with their labor, offering incentives for performance, and at the same time having the flexibility to jettison poor performers. An advisarial relationship between managment and their labor force is never a good thing in the long run. The "prevailing wage" argument is ubiquitous, whether Union or not. And, it extends right up the management ladder to the CEOs. This has led, IMHO, to compensation committees valuing CEOs at ridiculous levels. "But", they say, "it's the going rate." In the World economy "prevailing wage" will only protect those jobs that can't be exported, and that doesn't include most manufacturing. The "prevailing wage" in China is much different than in California. So, there go the jobs.

No offence taken at these guys. I can understand the individual's desire to get the best wage they can. It's human nature. And therein lies the socialist principle. It's a philosophy contrary to human nature. I work in a field where Unions are illegal, and rightfully so, because it would lead to price fixing, monopolistic practices and it would be generally contrary to the public good. The same is true for labor unions. It's legalized monopoly and price fixing of labor and contrary to the public good as it either increases consumer prices, or makes US products less competitive, either forcing businesses to shut down (like Hostess), or ship jobs overseas. But, Unions aren't the greatest evil for US labor costs. Like I pointed out before, the cost to business of employing people here continues to escalate for the previously mentioned reasons. Healthcare in particular has to be reformed, and I don't mean the new healthcare legislation. It does nothing to rein in costs and, instead, will increase labor costs. Note the number of businesses that are already limiting worker's hours to make them ineligible. That's progress? Don't get me wrong, I'm for healthcare for all, but it has to be affordable. How can we justify spending double per capita on healthcare what the rest of the developed Nations of the World do? Unsustainable and it's growing leaps and bounds by the year.

And so we reach agreement, finally. I'm with you.