We’ve already addressed this issue in a different context, but this story is even more amusng. I’ll resist the need for any (additional) awful puns, and I’ll even admit I don’t know for sure that these…um…services are financed by taxpayers (but that must be true since we’re talking about the Netherlands, right?). But is this really such a big issue for the Dutch that the nurses need to mount a national campaign?
A union representing Dutch nurses will launch a national campaign Friday against demands for sexual services by patients who claim it should be part of their standard care. …The union said in a statement Thursday that the campaign follows a complaint it had received in the last week from a 24-year-old woman who said a 42-year-old disabled man asked her to provide sexual services as part of his care at home. The young woman witnessed some of the man’s other nurses offering him sexual gratification, the union said. When she refused to do the same, he tried to dismiss her on the grounds that she was unfit to provide care.
Dear readers,
On a more serious note, I would like to ask Mr. Mitchell or any one of the more financially savvy readers of this blog:
Is there a way, i.e. a financial or other instrument, to short US economic performance in the next 5-10 years and further into the future?
Or, even more to the point, is there a way to bet on the permanent decline of the US in terms of worldwide competitiveness?
In other words, is there a way to profit from my intuition (*) that the health bill will irreversibly take the US into loss of leadership status in worldwide performance?
(*) If, of course, one can call intuition the obvious fact that: Mandated massive transfer of wealth, health and the attempt to legislate substandard capital returns on an industry that represents 20% of the US economy, will permanently knock the US off its current place as the prosperity leader of the world.
This is a serious question, and I would greatly appreciate any suggestions.