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Posts Made By: Mike Hosea

September 25, 2008 05:51 PM Forum: Polls

We (the TAX payers) should......

Posted By Mike Hosea
I think, as virtually all poll questions, it draws us into a false dichotomy. Not many people support giving Paulson a checkbook with a balance of $700 billion to spend however he sees fit. On the other hand, few people know what they are suggesting when they defer entirely to the free market. The free market can be even more cruel to the innocent than the guilty, since the innocent suffer the consequences of an economic depression without having had the opportunity to pocket wealth during the good times.

September 30, 2008 01:59 AM Forum: Polls

Bail out fails

Posted By Mike Hosea
Yeah, I think this "stick it to 'em" sentiment will dissipate right along with economic growth, jobs, and savings. Life's not fair. Checked your retirement accounts lately?

February 18, 2009 06:58 AM Forum: Polls

Obama's Stimulus Package ...

Posted By Mike Hosea
Well, to apply a medical analogy, the crux of the matter is whether you believe the patient is going to die if untreated or ultimately get better (presumably after a long and arduous recovery period) without treatment. If the former, than any kind of risky treatment that has a chance of working might be justified, but if the latter then the Hippocratic oath limits what sorts of things one should be willing to try.

February 21, 2009 10:53 PM Forum: Polls

Obama's Stimulus Package ...

Posted By Mike Hosea
I think the "it's not fair" sentiment resonates deep in the human psyche. It comes from somewhere inside us at an early age. Fairness remains an unrealized ideal. Almost nothing in life is really fair. As George Carlin once said, death is one of the fairest things we've got--everybody get's just one.

Since I have given up on "fairness" in life, I would just like to see that tax dollars are spent well. I think the investment in infrastructure is a good idea. Infrastructure is one of the things government is for. I worry, however, about that forestalling home devaluation is both futile and undesirable. When the growth of home values has outstripped inflation in the past (especially true here in the Boston area since 2000), corrections are not unhealthy things, despite the pain that any homeowner who bought in high must feel. C'est la vie. I think government should focus on doing what government in the US is supposed to do, and that should not, IMO, include trying to manipulate fair market prices of anything.

November 24, 2010 05:55 AM Forum: Polls

Airport security

Posted By Mike Hosea
FWIW, was talking to a Pakistani friend at lunch. He gets "extra security" every time, so it doesn't seem too "random" to him. It's not that he likes it or anything, but he says he doesn't feel any "less frisked" because he knows that some innocent old ladies get frisked, too.

February 15, 2011 05:37 PM Forum: Polls

Egypt

Posted By Mike Hosea
I would say "cautious optimism", my default state of mind. Nothing to do but wait and see. We're so oafish and disrespected in the region that it's not like we can do anything useful.

August 27, 2012 11:11 PM Forum: Polls

Lance Armstrong

Posted By Mike Hosea
I'm all for clean competition, all kinds of testing before and during competition. However, I think two important things are lacking:

1. A violation must also be reasonably believed to have had a performance enhancing effect. People in charge shouldn't be turning off their brains. Due process is a good thing, generally.

2. After the competition is over, it really should be over. It's just sport, and it has no importance beyond what the public gives it, so it's hardly a tragedy of epic proportions if a competitor gets away with something. I do know perfectly well why they try to play the anti-doping side of the game by different rules, but the risk of destroying public interest is significant. I don't know how anybody can care about watching a sporting event where the winner today might be stripped of the title tomorrow. I'll never watch the Tour again.

August 30, 2012 08:30 AM Forum: Polls

Lance Armstrong

Posted By Mike Hosea
I understand, but cheating is prevalent enough that I don't think it's quite tenable to assume that athletes are, by and large, cheating because they are fundamentally unscrupulous, bad people. I think, rather, that they are responding to and adapting to their environment the way successful, highly competitive humans have evolved to do. Rather than respond with moral indignation, we should simply focus on changing that environment as we move forward. What the USADA has done is part of trying to change that environment by monkeying to some extent with the calculus of risk and benefit for the athletes. I just think that stripping titles earned years ago is a treatment worse than the disease, and potentially even a lethal one to the sport.

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