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I have a question.  Your guests mention an extensive permitting process.  Has a wind project ever been denied?  I think this is just another gold rush.  This is about money not saving the world. 

posted 2 years, 6 months ago
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I have a question that maybe you can answer.  My understanding of the new law is that If you are unable to purchase insurance for some percentage of your income you are eligible for a high risk pool or you are allowed to purchase catastrophic coverage intended for persons younger than 30.  This would suggest that while insurance companies are not allowed to withold coverage for pre existing conditions they will be allowed to charge different rates for similar individual coverage.  Doesn't this allow cherry picking? Isn't this similar to what we already have in Oregon with OMIP?

posted 3 years, 1 month ago
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Please tell us the name of the insurance company.

Thankyou

posted 3 years, 2 months ago
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A free marketer would say that the obstacles to you being able to purchase health insurance are the goverment regulations that strangle the virtuous insurers from providing a good product to the consumer.  Some people actuallty believe this.  I don't and I don't believe that politicians or pr people that would espouse this do either.  I think there is a lot of cynicism and lawyering in this whole debate.  I hate to say it but I feel like if the economy had really gone into the toilet and un employment was at 25% we would see a populist push for health care/health insurance reform with real teeth.

Good Luck.

posted 3 years, 2 months ago
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Could you tell  us what your premiums are?  I don't think most people realize the cost of insurance.  thankyou

posted 3 years, 2 months ago
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I believe that lifewise is a for profit spin off from bcbs.  If you are a new company you can skim low cost subscribers without having the overhead of a large pool of higher cost subscribers.  You can offer lower rates to people like you and deny anyone who your underwriting tells you will be more expensive.  The private insurance business is really an investment business.  You get money from subscribers and invest it, making investment return before you have to return the premiums in the form of benefits.  If they have to return less in the near term, you are young and healthy, they want you for now.

posted 3 years, 2 months ago
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How about rate transparency?  I'm 46 and I have a portability policy which costs 600 moving to 700 a month for 1000 ded. 20 80 coverage.  I can't get an individual policy because of pre existing which seems like a joke as we are talking about osteo arthritis, minor.  Right now I can tote the note.  If everybody had to pay for there insurance out of pocket I think you would see a political shift that might have some effect on cost. What irks me is I have payed 40,000 dollars to Pacific care over the years and if I can't keep paying none of it will go to my health care and I will be un insured.

posted 3 years, 2 months ago
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Can you give any examples of police officers that have been fired due to mis conduct?  It appears that officers are fireproof.  The city pays judgements or settles cases and their are no consequences for the officers involved.  Do you have any examples that prove otherwise?

posted 3 years, 2 months ago
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There are good cops and lousy cops.  Some people are just not good at there jobs.  Unfortunately there seems to be no way to fire a cop in Portland.  The fellow from the police union is a famously strong advocate for all officers regardless if they are good or bad.  The fear of being thrown to the political lions if your a cop probably motivates the kind of us them thinking that only insures that lousy cops stay on the force to the detriment of all.

posted 3 years, 3 months ago
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Is there any sense of dealing with the devil in nesting this fictional account so neatly within the space of the real events that inspired you.  If you had taken the germ of the story and set in upstate New York for instance wouldn't this book have been spared the chest thumping indignation about, and the marketing opportunities that come from, the confusion of 'real' and fiction.  Would it have been as easy to get published if it didn't have the hook of a true story?

posted 3 years, 4 months ago
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I guess I'm a curmugeon.  I don't really like this phenomena of filmic self- centeredness that seems to be our cultural touchstone. From the Moth to the memoir we seem to be craving meaning in "authenticity."  We become furious at deception, exhault pathos and setimentality, we crave the fusion of fame and self revelation.

This tedious ranking of meaningfullness seems vapid and trivial but for the fact that it is iconic of american pop culture.  If Bernie Madoff had an ironic self revalatory personality, if he could reveal some attractive personal demons or insults, if he had a flair for blarney wouldn't that be a great story? 

For somer reason there is a hollowness in american life, perhaps it is our affluence, we crave meaning.  I wonder if the problem is not an absence of meaning but a craving for love.

posted 3 years, 5 months ago
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Maybe we should be looking at strategies to reduce tuition fees as opposed to "investing" in financial markets and borrowing from private lender high interest student loans.  This is no way to run a railroad.

posted 4 years, 3 months ago
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I would like to know what the capital reserves of banks are made of. My question is has there been or can there be a contraction in the value of the reserves themselves?

posted 4 years, 6 months ago
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I'm curious about the effect of popular culture on these guests. I grew up in the aftermath of the Vietnam war and pretty much it was very easy to be cynical and pessimistic about war in general. I am wondering if "the greatest generation" Saving Private Ryan" "Band of Brothers" the idea of Gulf War I defeating the "vietnam syndrome" had an effect and what that effect is on young people.

posted 5 years, 2 months ago
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I would agree with you except that in the case of the condos the project requires a change from a modest development of camping and cabins to something that really belongs within the boundaries of a city. I don't think that renting condos makes people more protective of nature. Look around the world and see how many vacation resorts have led to the preservation of anything. I think we can't have it both ways.

posted 5 years, 2 months ago
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I think land use would be a topical topic. I would like to know specifically what made the 1970's effort different from to day. I understand that in the 70's there was a great deal of education and discussion to build support and consensus for what Oregon would look like before the land use laws were written. Of course there were also fewer people here and the economy was miserable for 20 years so there was less pressure for development too. I personally am very pessimistic that Oregon will not become like everywhere else eventually. I am dis-heartened at what seems like obliviousness of people here who enjoy the state but don't seem to think that there is a problem. I think if you have arrived here from an Urban locale somewhere else in the country it all looks fine, on the other hand if you looked at southern california 50 years ago it probably looked pretty edenic too.

posted 5 years, 2 months ago
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