This is like asking "is a relationship code for abuse?"
A relationship done poorly can be abusive. Similarly, public private partnerships done poorly can lead to enrichment of politically connected cronies. But that is not the only way.
It also puts assets with positive rates of return out of the hands of the common person. Kind of like how an overheated housing market makes it so you'll never own a home and are stuck paying rent forever. If you ever wanted to own a piece of America's economy and get dividends in the future, now it's priced out of reach. This inflation in investment assets further cements the division between those that have to work 9-5 for a living, and those that have enough investments to live off their returns and not worry about becoming destitute. Jumping that gap between renter and owner is harder than ever.
That's why printing cash (whether in the form of UBI or any other cash printing social program) is not a sustainable solution for lifting people out of poverty or building a healthy economy. There are always negative long term effects that end up hurting the poor and middle classes even more. Even if there's not inflation of consumer goods, there's inflation of investment grade assets.
I don't think this is a sound argument for further enriching the rich and leaving the common person to struggle. An oligarchy is not a desirable model any more than a monarchy is.
it doesn't save us from inflation, it just changes the path it takes. Rich people buy stuff too, which employee us peasants. But by the time us peasants see the money, its already inflated so we don't get the benefits.
We can't wait for markets to sort themselves out while a few executives and their well connected friends control and decide the information we get to see and hear. The stakes are too high to wait for a market solution here.
Why do I need to see a doctor to get a mole or skin lesion checked? Why is it necessary for someone to go through 4 years of undergrad, med school, etc etc just to examine a mole and remove it with a scalpel?
Are you trolling? Are you legitimately asking why you need a doctor to check something that might be, amongst the million other possible complications, Cancer?
In the 19th and early 20th centuries there was in the US a proliferation of medical schools -
many unaffiliated with Universities - with very few entrance requirements, extremely uneven quality of education and little standardization in curriculum. In fact many people became doctors through apprenticeship right up through the turn of the 20th century. Many states had extremely lax or nonexistent licensing requirements. It was quite chaotic and unregulated.
In light of this, Abraham Flexner was commissioned by the Carnegie Foundation to produce a report on the state of medical education and to make recommendations.
The Flexner Report was published in book form in 1910 and set forth a programme of reform for medical education and the broader healthcare system in America. The structure envisioned by Flexner largely remains with us to this day.
The crux of the problem is that in response to a very chaotic system, order was imposed in the form of strict licensing and educational requirements which made sense given the problems of the time but have contributed to new problems in our time. Outdated regulations, standard practices and conventions have artificially restricted supply of qualified medical personnel in America and it's time we address these structural issues.
Targeted reform of the system is the best solution for American healthcare.
The number of physicians per capita in the U.S. is greater than Canada or Japan, both of which have cheaper healthcare. Yes, apparently most European countries have a significantly higher ratio. But, interestingly, all the Anglo countries (UK/GB, US, AU, IE) seem to cluster together.
The issue seems more complex than something simple like number of physicians. A high ratio is unnecessary for cheaper, quality healthcare (e.g. Canada, Japan), and whatever dynamics control the ratio in the U.S. (schooling, licensing) probably also exist in other countries with similar legal systems, but with different outcomes.
EDIT: Looking at the ratio of GP to specialists for Canada (~1:1) and California (~1:2), it's more likely that the problem (such as it relates to numbers of physicians) is that we have too many specialists in the U.S. See https://www.cma.ca/sites/default/files/pdf/Physician%20Data/... and https://www.chcf.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/CAPhysicianS... And that probably has to do with 1) how we consume healthcare in this country and 2) the career expectations of medical students. And arguably this is a typical pattern of American culture more generally and in all our industries. Everybody wants to push the envelope and everybody expects the products and services they consume to be bleeding edge, both as a cultural expectation and in pursuit of higher profits--as consumers we tend to assume more costly services are more advanced.
The regulatory restrictions don't just apply to the doctors themselves, but have expanded to stifle innovation in every part of the system, from hospitals to equipment to drugs to administration. Each takes its toll.
While I don't see any examples of on this list, except perhaps for Pula, emerging archaeological evidence indicates that in the Balkans region around 7000 years ago massive towns (cities?) began emerging with up to 40,000 people living in some settlements. The homes were arranged in tight lots next to one another, with evidence for some homes even being 2 story structures.
The inhabitants of these communities were the same Neolithic farmers who crossed from the Near East, over Anatolia into Greece and then up into the rest of Europe around 8000 years ago.
They not only introduced farming to Europe, but also herding and domesticated cows and sheep. There is some linguistic evidence that the word Taurus (representing the bull in the Zodiac) is a remnant of the language these people spoke, which would make sense as they were the ones to introduce the bull to the ancestors of the Proto-Indo-European speakers.
We will never be able to rid ourselves of the virus at this point. The only thing we can do is get healthy people out into society to build up immunity and eventually herd immunity. An additional benefit to this is we will have many people whose plasma we can use for antibody therapies.
The point of lockdown was never to completely eliminate the virus, it was to buy industry, academia and government time to prepare to deal with the virus when we begin reopening.
Ida Tarbell's father was an oilman who was ruined by Rockefeller and Standard Oil while she was a girl, which is important to keep in mind when contextualizing her work. She lived her life in part as a crusade against Standard Oil and Rockefeller. Obviously she was heavily biased, this being instilled in her early on.
For a less biased look at the history of the American oil industry by way of Rockefeller and Standard Oil, I strongly recommend Titan by Ron Chernow - author of Hamilton - which is an excellent account of Rockefeller and Standard Oil, both the good and the bad.
It still appears more significant by the way futures trading works and the way it all bulked up to the last trading day, since there was no buyers after a certain point - because (certain) buyers were incentivized to wait until the last minute to submit orders, to get the cheapest price.
In a "real" market with physical oil wells + storage, wouldn't that decline in consumption -> storage normally happen far more gradually over time? (A drop over a week is less exciting than a down spike within 24hrs) I know it's less efficient that way and all of that, but this seems to make it appear like this drop in the market happened all at once.
A lot of non-experts will see the news this way regardless - it's slightly less exciting in context but still historic.
Futures prices were indeed negative, specifically the soon-to-expire May contract. June and beyond stayed positive, but this is the first time in history that the contract (any expiry) has traded at negative prices. This is a noteworthy event.
A relationship done poorly can be abusive. Similarly, public private partnerships done poorly can lead to enrichment of politically connected cronies. But that is not the only way.