By the way, Byron York wrote a piece about how excited Iowa is about Walker. I think it encapsulates Walker. He generated less buzz than Rand Paul but raised more money. Walker could very well be the Cinderella Candidate. It'll be interesting to see how it develops.http://washingtonexaminer.com/byron-york-looking-to-2016-iowa-gop-gets-jazzed-about-scott-walker-of-wisconsin/article/2530881

I've been telling Peter and everyone I know on Facebook & Twitter that I think Scott Walker is the dark horse for 2016. I'm not sure if I've posted something on here about it. He is a refreshing contrast from the 1st term Senators who are being talked about right now. He has electoral success in a blu-ish state, winning election and "re-election" with the recall. He also took on the unions and won, so he has the smarts. Plus, he is not a college graduate, which gives him an "every man" appeal. On the surface he looks as exciting as yogurt but if he can get attention without doing something stupid and gimmicky then he has a great chance.

I think Snowden is an example of the perils of our modern media. A video, a rumor, a blog, etc. can go viral in a short period of time and have a tremendous effect by sparking a national story that leads to changes in law. Unfortunately this can happen before we verify the veracity of what sparked the scandal in the first place. It takes a conscious, critically-thinking public to slow this down and not get caught up in the wave.

Check out my post on the member feed. I think the real scandal here is the handling of it by the administration. We have another case of DNI Clapper lying in public (this time before Congress) to cover up his incompetence. I have a problem trusting Snowden and anything he says. The guy is shady to me. 

The issue is complicated by the fact that we're talking about this program in a vague way, without any details about how successful it was/is. And, of course, that's the catch isn't it? In the normal course of affairs there are going to be clandestine aspects to the way we do national security. We also have to a process of maintaining oversight so that we can assess its effectiveness and prevent/stop any abuses.

By the way, I remember seeing that machine that makes anything you want to eat and I always wished that could be real. Life would just be so drastically different with that gadget.

It'd be the best craft I've ever flown.

However we don't know what the limit is and since the number of people dying, in total, is more than 10x the number of people on the waiting list it seems like we have a good chance to meet the need. I would think the supply would increase much faster than the demand, which is determined by medical need. Keep in mind that more organs come from deceased donors than living donors. We won't know until we have a market in place of course. And I think a financial incentive is likely to get us an answer to this problem much sooner, whether it comes from transplants or some kind of replacement device.

This isn't a rabbit hole. It gets to the heart of the original post, which is about why we have a chronic shortage of organs. The allocation of resources is the umbrella under which discussion of supply and demand takes place. They're not mutually exclusive. There are also problems on the demand side regarding how we match people for organs. I would think the figures are pretty clear when they show that the number of potential donors is more than 10x the waiting list when, ideally, only a fraction of the number of people on the waiting list can meet the need. The organs aren't going to where they can do good by saving lives.

The answer to your original question was no. I'm not making that argument about property rights. My response was meant to deal with the concern that people have that an organ market will lead to the problem of organ harvesting or some other kind of abuse. I was thinking more of the organs that are commonly in demand, such as kidneys. I had mentioned elsewhere that the donation does not have to take place while the donor is alive, barring some medical reason.

Thanks, I'm sure it's because we have the same hair.

If organs can only be donated without financial incentive why should doctors allowed to receive pay for providing care. Surely the financial incentives that influence doctors' decisions, in part, has some effect on the morality of the situation.

Monty, where are you even getting this idea of bodily integrity being a matter of morality? 

Try applying your point to other markets, like healthcare, or houses, or food. They get distributed through transactions, not some notion of who needs it. Socialism/communism was all about distribution based on need but we know that doesn't work. In a free market the people get what they need even though the profit motive is part of the process.

Economics is the study of resource allocation. The waiting list: over 118K. People dying every year while waiting: over 6,000. Lives saved per donor: 8. Total deaths in the U.S.: 2.5 million. That is a misallocation problem. 

You don't provide a phone number to the phone company. In any event, phone numbers are a matter of public record since we have phonebooks. 

The program was put under FISA jurisdiction in 2006 if I'm correct. The change was made because at the time only the president was exercising authority over the program. This "institutionalized" the practice.