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11/08/2006 08:36:48 PM · #51 |
Originally posted by GeneralE:
Originally posted by Flash:
Originally posted by talj:
Believe me, I for one DO NOT praise the system we have here! :o( |
I believe you. Hope Americans are reading. |
Sure, over here we have forty million people who might not get any care at all. |
That is absolutely not true. Everyone here gets medical care. It is quicker if you have never worked though. Sneak over here illegally and we will fix that foot right up.
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11/08/2006 08:39:22 PM · #52 |
Originally posted by routerguy666:
Originally posted by srdanz:
I merely suggested that we remove the middle man. |
An admirable notion I guess, but not what you are recommending. You are recommending replacing, not removing, the current middle-man with either the government, or churches, or other non-profits.
Government makes a lousy middle-man. Witness TSA, how bungled FEMA's response was to managing the Katrina crisis, the social security system, the welfare system, etc, etc. In any situation where the choice is between private industry handling the job or the government handling the job, I'd choose private industry.
Originally posted by posthumous:
The "free market" is a crazy utopian dream that doesn't work, just like Communism is. You're just hoisting yourself on your own canard. |
What reasons do you have for saying this? While no economic system is invulnerable to the human trait of dishonesty, free markets have certainly proven their merit. For instance, I don't have to stand in line for hours hoping to be able to buy food staples. I don't live in a mud hut. I am well compensated for my skills. Skills I developed by choosing to invest time and energy for years in the pursuit of a specific area of knowledge. Skills for which demand exceeds supply, and that no government panel has arbitrarily decreed to be worth X dollars an hour.
Free markets don't work, or don't work as well, when the government gets involved. Subsidizing segments of the economy (agriculture), dictating prices on goods, claiming authority over the supply of goods and services.
Business should be about making money. Government should be about providing defense and handling international relations. What's left, the social safety nets that would make the world a better place, should be the realm of churches (what good are these things anyway) and community group/non-profit organizations.
So says I. |
Now thats worth repeating!
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11/08/2006 08:40:34 PM · #53 |
Originally posted by David Ey:
Sneak over here illegally and we will fix that foot right up. |
LOL I am searching for cheap flights now ;o)
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11/08/2006 09:07:31 PM · #54 |
Originally posted by routerguy666:
It is not a tax issue in the sense of Uncle Sam taking from the have's in the form of taxes to subsidize the needs of the have-not's in the form of entitlements. |
You're right -- it's a ripoff in that you are having part of your income taken away to aggrandize the profits of insurance company shareholders. |
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11/08/2006 09:13:53 PM · #55 |
I blame most of these high costs on attorneys and out courts, not on free market capitalism.
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11/08/2006 09:21:00 PM · #56 |
Originally posted by David Ey:
I blame most of these high costs on attorneys and out courts, not on free market capitalism. |
Do more research -- while malpractice premiums have a major effect on the cost to health care providers, judgements pretty much do not.
Also, just what recourse would you recommend when you've been harmed by a practitioner or drug company? A million-dollar award is no deterrent to a mega-billion multinational corporation -- review the Ford Pinto situation for a classic example. The evidence is pretty much in that Merck calculated that potential lawsuits over Vioxx would not be expensive enough for them to forego the profits they'd reap in the meantime.
Corporations as a rule have no motive except to maximize profit -- their boards get fired if they don't -- and they don't care about the well-being of their customers. The other big problem is that health care "consumers" are a captive population: unlike a restaurant or store which mistreats you, there are few practical alternatives to getting medical care. |
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11/08/2006 09:47:31 PM · #57 |
Originally posted by David Ey:
I blame most of these high costs on attorneys and out courts, not on free market capitalism. |
I came from a communist country, and I thought (as we had a renaissance period in late 80s) that we were screwed up and brain washed.
Now, living in the US for the past 13 years, I realize that this population is in need of similar renaissance.
Free market capitalism!? You are more brainwashed than most of the ex-eastern block population. They realized what was done to them during the past half century, and they corrected that.
You, however, have no idea what is being done to you. You blindly trust the system while hating another one... same thing, really.
Don't take this as an insult, as it is not. Try to take it as an eye opener from someone who has seen it on both sides... |
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11/08/2006 10:18:57 PM · #58 |
Originally posted by srdanz:
Try to take it as an eye opener from someone who has seen it on both sides... |
With all due respect, the Eastern Bloc dumped communism and went for free market capitalism. So if you think the latter is no better than the former, it means you and your countrymen have been fooled twice.
Anyway your other post... I said any economic system is not free from the effects of human dishonesty. Neither are churches, governments, non-profits, etc. I can show you a case where any type of organization you choose has at one time or another been led by a crook. That doesn't mean that some types of organizations aren't better suited than others to certain tasks.
I do not think government would do a good job, even if every person involved were honest. There is no incentive to excel in government work as it is next to impossible to lose your job and the pay sucks. Do you think the people at the DMV are corrupt? I don't, but I sure as hell wouldn't want them handling my healthcare.
As for Enron - the Chinese have the right idea. Corporate executives found guilty of perpetrating fraud on their investors, causing harm to the economy at large - these people should be marched out of the court room and executed immediately. |
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11/08/2006 11:22:16 PM · #59 |
Originally posted by routerguy666:
With all due respect, the Eastern Bloc dumped communism and went for free market capitalism. So if you think the latter is no better than the former, it means you and your countrymen have been fooled twice.
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And this is true. While there are opportunities for a select few to get rich, the population in my country as a whole is much worse than it was before the attained 'freedom'. But that's another story... and it goes along the blindness. What you would have to do to see the world with my eyes is to go and live in former Yugoslavia in late 1980s... you would never go back here. But that country no longer exists. It is a collection of 6 free, democratic countries right now.
I'm telling you, this is the same system with a slightly different constitution and yet slightly different interpretation of it. The basic premise is the same: our system is the best, don't question it, and the other guys are horrible. It would be funny if it isn't dangerously sad.
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11/08/2006 11:24:22 PM · #60 |
Originally posted by srdanz:
I'm telling you, this is the same system with a slightly different constitution and yet slightly different interpretation of it. |
I would agree with you in the sense that this system is the same as the old one in that the guys on top are screwing everyone else and everyone knows it is happening. Just in this system, people pretend its not. |
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11/09/2006 02:06:10 AM · #61 |
Originally posted by routerguy666:
Originally posted by posthumous:
The "free market" is a crazy utopian dream that doesn't work, just like Communism is. You're just hoisting yourself on your own canard. |
What reasons do you have for saying this? |
Because the "free market" doesn't exist. It's not free. It never has been free. You're listing all these benefits that are *not* a result of something that does *not* exist. It did an imitation of being free at the beginning of the twentieth century, but we had to fix it right quick when the Railroads started terrorizing every industry that needed to get things from point A to point B... oh yeah.. and there was that Great Depression.
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11/09/2006 06:10:43 AM · #62 |
Originally posted by GeneralE:
Do more research -- while malpractice premiums have a major effect on the cost to health care providers, judgements pretty much do not. |
Surely the premiums reflect the risk of judgments?
Originally posted by GeneralIE:
Also, just what recourse would you recommend when you've been harmed by a practitioner or drug company? A million-dollar award is no deterrent to a mega-billion multinational corporation ...
...Corporations as a rule have no motive except to maximize profit -- their boards get fired if they don't -- and they don't care about the well-being of their customers. |
I act for some of those corporations of which you talk. I assure you that the kinds of awards made in the US alarms them tremendously. The senior staff are also startlingly aware of their social responsibilities - the people I meet are under pressure to provide a profitable business, but are very aware of the nature of the business that they operate. They are, at the end of the day, people.
My own view is that awards operate as compensation for loss and damages, and they should not be used as a deterrent: deterrence is the job of the government, not the people/court system.
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11/09/2006 08:18:33 AM · #63 |
Originally posted by posthumous:
Originally posted by routerguy666:
Originally posted by posthumous:
The "free market" is a crazy utopian dream that doesn't work, just like Communism is. You're just hoisting yourself on your own canard. |
What reasons do you have for saying this? |
Because the "free market" doesn't exist. It's not free. It never has been free. You're listing all these benefits that are *not* a result of something that does *not* exist. It did an imitation of being free at the beginning of the twentieth century, but we had to fix it right quick when the Railroads started terrorizing every industry that needed to get things from point A to point B... oh yeah.. and there was that Great Depression. |
All you are saying is that government interference prevents free markets from operating correctly. So I'm glad we agree.
Great Depression was caused by a large number of factors. Blaming it on free market capitalism is like blaming global warming on the existence of the sun.
Originally posted by GeneralE:
Do more research -- while malpractice premiums have a major effect on the cost to health care providers, judgements pretty much do not. |
Setting aside that evilllll profit component, malpractice premiums are a function of the risk they are covering - malpractice judgement amounts.
edit: Why is it if some axe wielding maniac comes along and chops my arm off, he gets caught and goes tp prison. If some drunken doctor comes along and lops my arm off, I get to treat him and his hospital like a gigantic cash register - and he will probably just lose his license? Same crime, different punishment? Interesting.
Message edited by author 2006-11-09 08:20:21. |
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11/09/2006 09:10:42 AM · #64 |
Originally posted by routerguy666:
edit: Why is it if some axe wielding maniac comes along and chops my arm off, he gets caught and goes tp prison. If some drunken doctor comes along and lops my arm off, I get to treat him and his hospital like a gigantic cash register - and he will probably just lose his license? Same crime, different punishment? Interesting. |
You could sue the axe wielding maniac the same as the doctor, but the axe wielder probably doesn't have insurance...!
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11/09/2006 09:15:19 AM · #65 |
Originally posted by routerguy666:
All you are saying is that government interference prevents free markets from operating correctly. So I'm glad we agree. |
Yes, and as long as your pipedream has never been in existence anywhere, you can keep saying how great it is.
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11/09/2006 10:03:57 AM · #66 |
| It has worked well in America for years......there has only been problems since government started getting more involved than it should. |
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11/09/2006 12:20:30 PM · #67 |
Originally posted by David Ey:
It has worked well in America for years......there has only been problems since government started getting more involved than it should. |
Okay, I will stop talking to the brick wall now.
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11/09/2006 12:23:12 PM · #68 |
Originally posted by posthumous:
Originally posted by routerguy666:
All you are saying is that government interference prevents free markets from operating correctly. So I'm glad we agree. |
Yes, and as long as your pipedream has never been in existence anywhere, you can keep saying how great it is. |
You aren't talking to a brick wall here, but you aren't offering a shred of evidence to back up your assertion. I've given examples of how it is working, I've given examples of how it doesn't work as well when the government starts to stick its nose in. You postulate that free market capitalism - does not work - so again, why do you say that? What criteria are you using to define it as an abject failure? |
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11/09/2006 12:31:17 PM · #69 |
Originally posted by posthumous:
Originally posted by David Ey:
It has worked well in America for years......there has only been problems since government started getting more involved than it should. |
Okay, I will stop talking to the brick wall now. |
I understood what you meant: the free market is an illusion. It does not exist, because it cannot exist in a place with such limited markets and so full of competing interests as the modern world.
It is a critical role for central government to control the worst excesses of the free market.
Take something like the business market: seemingly free market, but without anti-trust laws it would have collapsed under the weight of monopolies and cartels, insider and secret deals, and a lack of transparency. Instead, we have highly regulated "free" markets, where the regulation is critical to keeping the market free. The freer the market, the more regulation (take, for example, the mass of regulation applied to companies on a stock exchange - the extra regulation is required to keep that free-est of markets operational).
In the healthcare market, the best money is to be made from healthy people. The government has to apply some regulation to ensure that a service is available for unhealthy people - ie the people who need to use the service most.
Regulation is necessary to keep free markets free.
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11/09/2006 01:48:30 PM · #70 |
Here's an interesting article on this topic. Below are the first few paragraphs:
"Here are a couple of headlines for those who haven't had the time to study both economics and history:
1. There is no such thing as a "free market."
2. The "middle class" is the creation of government intervention in the marketplace, and won't exist without it (as millions of Americans and Europeans are discovering).
"The conservative belief in "free markets" is a bit like the Catholic Church's insistence that the Earth was at the center of the Solar System in the Twelfth Century. It's widely believed by those in power, those who challenge it are branded heretics and ridiculed, and it is wrong.
"In actual fact, there is no such thing as a "free market." Markets are the creation of government.
"Governments provide a stable currency to make markets possible. They provide a legal infrastructure and court systems to enforce the contracts that make markets possible. They provide educated workforces through public education, and those workers show up at their places of business after traveling on public roads, rails, or airways provided by government. Businesses that use the "free market" are protected by police and fire departments provided by government, and send their communications - from phone to fax to internet - over lines that follow public rights-of-way maintained and protected by government.
"And, most important, the rules of the game of business are defined by government. Any sports fan can tell you that football, baseball, or hockey without rules and referees would be a mess. Similarly, business without rules won't work.
"Which explains why conservative economics wiped out the middle class during the period from 1880 to 1932, and why, when Reagan again began applying conservative economics, the middle class again began to vanish in America in the 1980s - a process that has dramatically picked up steam under George W. Bush."
Message edited by author 2006-11-09 13:49:24. |
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11/09/2006 01:51:13 PM · #71 |
Originally posted by legalbeagle:
You could sue the axe wielding maniac the same as the doctor ... |
Just ask O.J. Simpson ... |
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11/09/2006 01:56:14 PM · #72 |
Originally posted by GeneralE:
Originally posted by legalbeagle:
You could sue the axe wielding maniac the same as the doctor ... |
Just ask O.J. Simpson ... |
Indeed!
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11/09/2006 02:21:31 PM · #73 |
1. There is no such thing as a "free market."
There is no such thing as a free market in existence right now, due to varying levels of governmental interference. There were, however, examples of truly free markets in the middle ages and before that in the Greek Empire.
2. The "middle class" is the creation of government intervention in the marketplace
Government intervention.
"The conservative belief in "free markets" is a bit like the Catholic Church's insistence that the Earth was at the center of the Solar System in the Twelfth Century. It's widely believed by those in power, those who challenge it are branded heretics and ridiculed, and it is wrong.
Yet we seem to be discussing its merit and feasability here, and no one has yet to be burned at the stake.
"In actual fact, there is no such thing as a "free market." Markets are the creation of government.
Markets are not created by the government. Whoever wrote this needs to retake their entire course in economics. Markets are created by supply and demand, resource scarcity and production efficiencies. A government is not required for any of those things to exist.
"Governments provide a stable currency to make markets possible.
No. Governments force markets to use the currency they provide so that they have a mechanism with which to monitor and tax the activity in those markets. It is entirely possible for markets to exist that do not exchange currency. There are service markets, resource markets, etc.
They provide a legal infrastructure and court systems to enforce the contracts that make markets possible.
Markets existed before the laws that regulated them. This person puts the cart before the horse. you do not legislate antimonopoly regulations if there is not already a monopoly in existence that has motivated the creation of the law and which the law would then address.
They provide educated workforces through public education, and those workers show up at their places of business after traveling on public roads, rails, or airways provided by government. Businesses that use the "free market" are protected by police and fire departments provided by government, and send their communications - from phone to fax to internet - over lines that follow public rights-of-way maintained and protected by government.
Apparently a big fan of big government. I travel to work in a car I bought, a private company made, private companies provide the fuel for, and private companies maintain. At work U use equipment made by private companies, communicate over privately owned telephone infrastructure, and move data around a global network composed of the infrastructure created, sold, and deployed by private industry.
"And, most important, the rules of the game of business are defined by government. Any sports fan can tell you that football, baseball, or hockey without rules and referees would be a mess. Similarly, business without rules won't work.
Government interference. Replace 'wont work' with 'won't work in a way I find acceptable' and then the guy veers backs towards accuracy.
"Which explains why conservative economics wiped out the middle class during the period from 1880 to 1932
Nonsense.
and why, when Reagan again began applying conservative economics, the middle class again began to vanish in America in the 1980s - a process that has dramatically picked up steam under George W. Bush."
Nonsense.
Message edited by author 2006-11-09 14:22:39. |
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11/09/2006 02:28:30 PM · #74 |
Originally posted by routerguy666:
Markets existed before the laws that regulated them. |
The very earliest written records we have of human civilization (Babylonian cuniform tablets) refer to inventory, regulation, and taxation. |
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11/09/2006 06:44:39 PM · #75 |
Originally posted by GeneralE:
Originally posted by routerguy666:
Markets existed before the laws that regulated them. |
The very earliest written records we have of human civilization (Babylonian cuniform tablets) refer to inventory, regulation, and taxation. |
Are you seriously attempting to argue that laws were created to address things that didn't even exist yet? Someone just sat down and thought, 'Hmm some day people might start trading goods and services using some form of generally acceptable medium of exchange... I better write up some rules and regulations to govern this behavior now before this starts happening.' |
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