Frivolous lawsuits are actually rare - particularly in medical malpractice. They are rare across the board, however. The system is pretty good at weeding them out and lawsuits are expensive to bring. There seems to be a belief that companies and insurance companies gladly settle frivolous lawsuits. They don't. I practiced insurance defense law and know many who still do. We saw very few frivolous law suits and did not settle the ones that were. We just delayed and papered the other side until they went away. It doesn't take long. When I practiced, we also papered and delayed many legitimate law suits, in which people were seriously injured. We were good at it and paid well for it. Insurance companies will spend tens of thousands of dollars to defend a case they could settle for 10% of that.
Research has shown that the vast majority of people injured in medical malpractice do not even sue. Many cannot find an attorney to take their cases, because a med mal case is very expensive and there is no guarantee of any recovery. Most plaintiff attorneys turn away about 80% of the people who come to them with med mal cases for example. Only successful plaintiff's attorneys can afford to take on a sophisticated case that will drag on for years, absorbing the thousands of dollars in expenses all along the way. Successful attorneys do not file frivolous lawsuits. If you add "loser pays" to the already exorbitant expenses to sue, fewer and fewer legitimately injured people would be able to sue. The expense of taking care of them would fall to the rest of us. Those at fault would be the only winners. The cost would just get shifted.
What kind of society trains more lawyers than physicans?
Law Schools are easy money for educational institutions.
If tort reform were passed so that "loser pays", the glut of ambulance chasers would shortly be abated.
When everybody and his idiot cousin is one, the status of "learned profession" becomes questionable. There is already starting to be a recognition that "diploma mill" lawyers are inferior.
Right now we are engaged in a "trial by combat" or at least an economic competition to see whether free/cheap technical education or pay to be a lawyer, etc. is better for a countries economy.
It is an experiment that is underway. The results will be known in 20 to thirty years.
How does just spitting out more engineering grads create jobs? How do physicists create jobs? Are doctors value added or service? Not all engineers create things. How is a mechanical engineer who creates a plan for a mechanical system for a new building any more valuable than the lawyer who gets the zoning changed so the building can be built or the accountant who handles payroll for the developer and the contractor? The problem is the freeing up of money so all these things can fall into place.
God you guys are stupid. Simply make technical education free (BS/MS/PhD). Flood the market with engineers. It will depress wages for engineers, but at the same time spur overall job creation within the economy. The point of this is to push the best and brightest into value creation fields (ie: not service industries like law/accounting/finance).
The East Asian economies have already figured it out. You want the highest per capita amount of technical professionals possible within your economy. No joke, it should probably be the single largest goal of the US domestic economic policy.
Raises the wealthy and middle class in foreign countries which means the new wealth buys more US taxpayer subsidized corn.
And if they are really well off, they will visit USA's National Parks (Taxpayer supported) and to the tax abaded, outlet-discount malls where they can buy better quality stuff made in their home countries but unable to buy there.
Lower the corporate tax rate, and you bring jobs back home
BUT the foreign tax rate is less than USA because those countries wanted to bring jobs to their country. So if USA lowers the tax rate to match foreign countries' rates, Will those countries again lower their tax rates? Much like the tax abatement race that states have to attract business development. ?
-- Edited by longprime on Thursday 26th of May 2011 10:21:04 AM
What bothers me now is that I am getting marketing phone calls from India. I flat out ask them are you calling from India, and I always get, yes, Mam I am. I than tell them to remove my name from the list. You can tell on caller i.d. because it comes up with an extremely long phone number. Here's my question. Can companies that do this skirt the Do Not Call law since they are calling from overseas, or do they have to adhere to our law and pay a fine if they do it?
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Raising a teenager is like nailing Jello to a tree
If all the outsourcing that has been done were such a great deal for business, why has the stock market been in the dumper for a DECADE?
It is almost as if outsourcing gave only transitory benefits. These allowed key executives to "cook the books" for a quarter or three to collect bonuses. Then the longer term degradation of the American economy "bit" and reduced business prospects.
The American worker IS the American consumer. Degrade the worker , degrade the economy.
What advantage would a domestic company have to outsource, if the outsourcing company had to pay local/domestic wages and benefits?
I wondered when this would happen. Likewise many public agencies want to outsource building maintenance-I wonder if those companies have 'employees-contractors' who are less than desireable?