Thread: Is This An Example Of Our Country Going Down The Tubes ? Or Was It Always This Way ?

Forty years ago there seems to have been more of a moral commitment to the public good. In the past thirty, forty years it seems like 'the bottom line' dictates policy. Or am I simply naive ?

When the hospital’s drug cabinet is bare - The Washington Post

I think when these items are manufactured by big corporations it's the bottom line. It wasn't always this way to this extent and that's the problem.

Originally Posted by thebigspendur

I think when these items are manufactured by big corporations it's the bottom line. It wasn't always this way to this extent and that's the problem.

I tend to think that is what it is. OTOH, I may have an illusory view of 'the good old days.' It could be that there is just more being revealed nowadays than there was then.

Originally Posted by JimmyHAD

I tend to think that is what it is. OTOH, I may have an illusory view of 'the good old days.' It could be that there is just more being revealed nowadays than there was then.

i have wondered the same on diff topics .. like my kids for example .. when i grew up it was be home by dark or b4 street lights came on !! now my kids are lucky if they get out of site !! i think it is cause of all the creeps out there that we "hear" about that make the modern parent this way and i have often wondered if its the same ppl out there as in the past but back then there was no attention !!

Originally Posted by gooser

i have wondered the same on diff topics .. like my kids for example .. when i grew up it was be home by dark or b4 street lights came on !! now my kids are lucky if they get out of site !! i think it is cause of all the creeps out there that we "hear" about that make the modern parent this way and i have often wondered if its the same ppl out there as in the past but back then there was no attention !!

I would say it is much worse now. It may sound 'quaint', but we really never did lock our doors when I was a kid. I roamed all over the place when I was a little kid. Walked to school, to the public park. No supervision and no hassles.

I hitch hiked all over the country a few times in the 1960s. From coast to coast and back. Rode freight trains, no problems with predators. Even met some nice people along the way. Now people don't hitch hike, and I expect no one would pick you up if you did.

same here , although im in my mid-late 30's we never locked our doors either !! and i also ran amuck !! i suppose having more populated area now may also be the cause of things worse (in our topic ) but other things are just mind blowing and hard to comprehend with all that is going on now !!

Originally Posted by thebigspendur

I think when these items are manufactured by big corporations it's the bottom line.

That's what the article says - too thin margins and they want the government to step in because the market is failing.


I don't lock my door.

One time I was out of town for a few days and a friend crashed at my place for the night because she was too drunk to drive home and didn't feel like waiting 30min for the cab when she could walk 3min from the bar to my place (yes, I live in the most urban part of the town).

I think the paranoia is largely self-inflicted - people are the same. If anything history would suggest that they've gotten better over the last few hundred years - far less violence these days but we compensate for it by staying on top and getting engaged in larger amounts of it from places far away from us.

Just a quick disclaimer that I haven't read the study she is using as evidence, but a couple of things strike me about her use of the study. Firstly Iv doxycycline, I'll let you read this and make up your own mind...oral bioavailability is good. Is it necessary to have iv doxy immediately on hand? JAC

Secondly she has steered clear of the prescribers role in this scenario. She briefly alludes to the chief problem regarding drugs like meropenem, which is that they are often used in preference to first line antibiotics, but then discards the theory without further interest in it.

Regarding profit margins, there is a double edged sword. Yes we need production of cheap drugs but equally the reverse is that in current times the demand for rigorous drug testing prior to use in clinic is often prohibitively expensive (animal studies, phases of clinical trials etc), and if one goes bust it's a huge loss to the pharma sector.
Regarding how this reflects on society as a whole, I'm not sure I've formed an opinion

I think the general population is filled with good decent folks who want to do the right things and that hasn't changed over time. The issue are the miscreants. Their numbers have increased and the violence they subscribe to has increased also. Mixed in with that is the media and the constant flogging by news stories that sell which just makes us aware of all the bad stuff going around.

I grew up in NYC and even there folks left their doors open and there were no issues. In those days cops walked a beat and they were big fellas and they knew everyone on their beat and if you didn't belong there you had to explain yourself and if he didn't like what you said you had better keep walking. Justice was dispensed with a nightstick. These days that would not be tolerated besides the bad guys all carry guns.

These days the "in" crime is if you think someone disrespects you or gives you a hard time you just get a gun and take care of business and make sure society in general pays for your distorted perceptions. 30 years ago something like that would make world wide headlines. Now it's common place.

It is a curious phenomenon. I'm in my mid-40s, and like you all, I was gone in the morning and often times didn't come back until supper riding my bike with my buddy all over the country and into town. I don't recall ever having any predator confront us.

I do not watch the news and have not for years; but each time I overhear it or see it at someone else's house, the prevailing message is undeniably fear, fear, fear. Add that to the prevailing fact that most people do not know or talk to their neighbors and you have fear of each other. When my parents grew up in Minneapolis in the 1950s, every neighbor knew every neighbor. They would not even think to lend a hand, watch each other's kids, play cards and stick together. In large part none of that even comes close to existing anymore.

Whether there are the same number of nut jobs today as there were in the past, who knows? However it is also undeniable that never before in history did such people have access via the Internet to an unlimited amount of filth to stoke their criminal proclivities into a frenzy. I certainly don't know the statistics, but my guess is there were nowhere near as many sexual predators several generations ago as there are now.

A lot of this is reversible in my opinion. Make friends with your neighbors. Have a neighborhood barbecue at your house. Force yourself to talk to other people around you. As a rule, it seems like we are all too lazy or too afraid to do that now or too wrapped up in our own lives.

Think about that: a few generations ago a family in a neighborhood that kept to themselves and did not interact with others on the block were looked at as abnormal. We have a 180° shift. What was abnormal is now normal in this regard as well as in other things today. I don't think anyone could argue that this particular reversal is good compared to the way it was.



ChrisL