Bobileff motorcars bankruptcy

A bit off topic, but I can't believe how ludicrously expensive medical care has become in the US. It used to be - pick a number you think is reasonable and multiply by 3. Now the multiple seems to be about 10. I can only emphathize with anyone dealing with this. Getting older myself and increasingly conscious of the potential costs.

 

Please read post #30 which I was referring to.

 

Agreed.

 

I must admit to being prejudiced against lawyers. They must prove to me that they're not a-holes before I'll befriend them.

You are obviously not an ****** lawyer.

 

Not getting political but this statement is not stupid, it is a true statement. Yes, he absolutely said that and I happen to agree with that statement 100%. Deals are ok at the time but sometimes become antiqued deals strangling businesses.

A step further.....the commercials, especially during the day, and on the likes of youtube are nothing but meds from the drug companies. The scenes are sometimes pretty funny. But the best is when they list all the side effects (which the same for all of them). Throw the TV on during the day and see, it's funny as hell.

 

That is exactly what p-sses me off, big pharma advertising on TV to goad people who may have some ailment into telling their physicians to prescribe such-and-such a drug. They are spending hundreds of millions of dollars each year on this advertising, plus advertising to the physicians themselves, then defending the pricing of their drugs on needing to cover their costs to discover important new drugs. Congress ought to change the Internal Revenue Code to deny deductibility of these advertising expenses. See how quickly those ads disappear.

 

The disturbing part is that my 10yr kid repeats all these commercials during dinner and had been doing so since she was 6. She goes through the symptoms, list side effects. I just hope kids do not diagnose while in school using their knowledge from these commercials.......but they already do. I've heard them and then they laugh at each other while doing so.
Guess back on topic now.

 

I first met Gary almost 20 years ago and have nothing but good things to say about him. His shop handled the preparation fo a car for Monterey last summer very very well when there was really no time, yet they came through with flying colors. No shop has a 100% satisfaction ratio in the real world.

I also interviewed him for a book a decade ago and having interviewed well over 100 people for various books I can tell who I am dealing with and he came across as a consummate professional and a very good person.

He is obviously going through a traumatic time and spare a thought for the fact that he already lost a wife. His first bride, Swedish like me, passed away many years ago. To lose one wife is awful so to have your second wife have stage four cancer....Godspeed to both of them.

 

Healthcare is not expensive. The administration of healthcare is what has become obscenely expensive. There is already more than enough money spent on healthcare in the US, it's just all being siphoned off to hospital administrators and healthcare insurance executives. The CEO of United Healthcare makes something like 30 million a year and he doesn't provide healthcare to anyone.

 

You do not have enough competition in the drug business. You have a lot of manufacturers. With each name brand medicine it appears only a few companies compete against each other.

Why are only three or four companies producing sterile water, sodium chloride, and lactated ringers IV bags and bottles. (Braun, Baxter, and Hospira). I cannot think of another. The answer - Big Brother does not allow anyone else to enter the market. These products are not some gee-wiz cancer drug that cost 70 million to develop and bring to market.

These simple items have increased in price almost 1000 percent since the first Gulf War. Nobody complains when you have a nationwide shortage which has lasted since the first Gulf War. Complicated material. Sure. Need more examples.

Why does just one company produce MMR and Varicella vaccine. MMR has been around for decades. I can go on and on with more examples. Generic injections. Pfizer made sure this was all but shut down.

B-12 30cc vial. 1980's price - $1.00. Today, it is over $40.00. The medications trend in only one direction. Pfizer owns Hospira !

 

It can be summarized in one simple word, Lawyers! ............what is needed is tort reform, but real tort reform. Go beyond the premise of loser pays, to losing lawyer pays at least equal to the percentage they would have received if they won. You’ll see a dramatic drop in frivolous lawsuits real quick. That alone effects the price of just about everything beyond just the health care industry.

 

Right there.

 

competition has nothing to do with it. in many cases, its the law makers in bed with pharmy. i lived in SD a city known for greasy handshake military contractors and big pharmy. a 20min drive you can go into mexico and get many of commonly used drug for 10 to 20 percent of what we get here. same drug, same manufacturer only difference is one has been FDA approved to tact on superfluous or "administration" cost to the consumer . in Detroit, you can drive 5 mins across the bridge into Windsor and pick up an equivalent of our once $600 a pair epipen for $45 dollars. this epinephrine adrenaline cost literally pennies to produce and was affordable for half a century but thanks to our government, they allowed Mylan to corner the market with a fancy coined auto-injector. the federal government says its illegal to import medical drugs.

no meaningful change will come if you dont stop the conveyor belt of cash flowing into our politician's pockets from the special interest groups. medical like, schools and prisons have become a money making enterprises to the citizens angst .

 

This is all true ^^.

What I wrote about is a different facet of the business which is generally unknown. In other words, a group of investors cannot establish a new drug manufacturing business and compete with the established players, for 'established' proven medicine. The three (3) letter alphabet folks will not grant you the licenses and permits.
,
They can stop you at any interval. Wrong filtration system, research notes are not acceptable, and test subjects are the wrong species. These are powerful people who want their money.

 

Cipro 500mg

Made in Canada, by Bayer.



Off the top of my head, from ten years ago-

Approximate price in Canada - $250.00
Approximate price in the USA - $450.00

Both Bayer items are produced in the same Canadian factory - under the same roof.
The American paper label costs an additional $200.00.

 

that was ten years ago... the difference its probably a lot more today. is this what american capitalism has become today?

 

Twenty vacation homes are not enough for some of the board members. My father went to a Pfizer stock holder's meeting. He was trying to keep his business account with Pfizer - open. Pfizer was not happy with his financial numbers (purchases). He went to the meeting to talk with the board members face to face. ...please just give us your information... My secretary will be happy to take down your information.

One of the board members has six secretaries. I bet he never made it past the first pawn. Seven figure regular orders is not a big deal, with these guys. I know one injection (Depo Medrol) costs about 4 cents, in raw materials.

 

All very intersting and apalling but talk about a thread that went off the rails down a slope and off a cliff...

 

The healthcare conglomerate CEO's are just that but they are a small fraction of the costs of healthcare. I spend a quarter century on the Board of Trustees of a major teaching geriatric institution, was treasurer for seven years, president for four and Board chairman for four. At that time we had 1300 beds at three locations in Manhattan, the Bronx and White Plains NY, and an annual operating budget of $150 million, it's now 2,000 beds and an annual budget of over a quarter billion dollars. While my stomach turns, like yours, at the thought of a 'healthcare CEO' making 3o million a year, it is rubbish to state that healthcare is not expensive or to imply that it would not be expensive but for administration costs.

But then, we've got a bit off topic!

 

Folks....sorry - but get back to cars! I hope that the terrible situation of Mrs Bobileff will become better. I wish her all the luck.

 

Gary worked on my 308, no complaint. I had a good experience with him. I pray for Gary and his wife and wish them the best.

 

I visited last week to check up on murci wheels he's painting vintage gold for the Diablo, he could not have been more welcoming and gracious with his time and the house was packed with cars and my God I think 4 bare bones Muira's, maybe 5 I lost count of the noses down to bare metal on the far side of the body shop.

Last time I was there a few months ago, I took my daughter and her friend to visit and also swing by the coast to see the seals and whales off La Jolla Cove (highly recommend, magical... and free), the low oil pressure light on our '72 XKE (four speed, thank you) went from flashing to solid amber and I was really sweating bullets (2hrs back to Palm Springs....), swung back to Gary's just before he closed, left it for the night and he helped us score a last minute Enterprise rental box to get home that night. Hours of trouble shooting on the phone and 'Net the next morning by Gary and some back and fourth with Bradan who touched it last solved the simple but critical mystery. I was so grateful, he had a house full of customer cars, millions in horses and bulls, and this finicky cat got his immediate help and I picked her up the day after.

Compared to his previous shop, the few times I visited, this one is way more devoted to shop/cars in progress space wise, the other one I recall had a much bigger size storage/display portion of the floor. I didn't count square feet so it's possible I'm completely wrong, but my impression at least is this is more shop and less show space. Somehow that made it way more fun to stand in, half of them hoods open, somewhat naked, and I'm not talking a house full of 355's or Gallardo's (please no offense, I want one of each). An early series Diablo in a shade of dark emerald green I've never seen before, classic red Daytona, milky all white Countach, slick and beautifully black Espada, some kind of crazy work in progress 308 racing car thing I didn't ask about (with a Maser v-8 in the back, I think) and hope I'm not supposed to blog about...

I didn't ask Gary about the thread topic here, but we did very briefly trade family health challenges at home and I wished him the best. I'm near San Diego again in a few weeks, will stop by again and if he lets me will post pics of the most insane thing that caught my eye there, I don't know what it actually is (authentic or not) but somebody has a Jota looking Muira there getting a serious resto and I'm under the impression the final color will be white - the work in progress looked amazing.

Godspeed to Gary, his family, his shop and his customers in the meantime.

 

Would most likely be Benjamin Chen Miura SVJ

 

yes
sweet baby jesus that's it
thanks andrew

 

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