Can you do a video just about what you talked about in the last minute? You explained your point really well. I think it's true in a more broad sense than you meant as well. Pooling our resources in anything always works better overall than fighting amongst ourselves. I think a lot of people find that hard to understand, at least in politics.
The problem is insurance operates on a law of large numbers system, so the only competitive companies are typically local monopolies who can then mass capital and gouge local citizenry. Since there is typically little or no competition and people who have claims denied typically can not afford legal representation, the issue of passing on these costs to the tax payers is left completely unresolved. The only solution is single-payer healthcare which also shifts demand in favor of the consumer.
There is an easy solution for people who smoke, drink, over eat, etc. Tax those items and earmark those funds for healthcare.
As it stands, the insurance companies are fleecing us and the healthcare providers are fleecing the insurance companies. The companies that provide supplies to the providers are fleecing them. It goes on and on. I believe public healthcare would cut all of that fat.
Your idea about earmarking "sin tax" revenue is pretty good. Never thought of that before. Taxing unhealthy foods however would most likely only affect those who eat that way because its all they can afford. Eating healthy is expensive. Taxing unhealthy food makes that expensive, and increases demand on healthy food making it even more expensive. The other applications are pretty good though.
@Russlem I agree that food is a tricky one, but the reality is people eat sugary/fatty foods because they taste good. Healthy food is not expensive, it just doesn't sell as quickly, isn't full of preservatives and is slightly more time consuming than HF corn syrup and hydrogenated oil. Tax that crap and watch how quickly the healthier alternatives come down in price. And just like the alcohol, if you want it you can have it, it just costs more.
Also, one of the biggest problems for people sans health insurance comes in the form of maintaining treatment for chronic conditions (i.e. diabetes) or for conditions that don't appear to be emergencies and therefore treatment isn't sought until it becomes a huge expensive problem.
One point of contention, Ron Paul's former campaign manager didn't lack medical insurance due to ideological principle but from the outrageous expense caused by a preexisting condition (whatever that might be, the article I read didn't specify). I am unaware of a philosophical objection a Libertarian would have to health insurance, not that I am one.
This guy's argument is garbage. Charitable are declining yearly. What's more, total charitable donations now don't come anywhere close to the cost of covering healthcare bills alone (ie, assuming no other causes to donate to). It's fantasy to assume that if taxes were 0% their charitable donations would cover healthcare + other causes. This is not even taking into account the propensity to hold onto money for the sake of holding onto money (why tax cuts stimulate less than gov't spending).
What is the title of your source that says charities are declining yearly? If a business can afford to provide health insurance to their employees, why couldn't more charities be responsible for covering the costs of healthcare? Its isn't as if the government has more revenue than the population at large; the government steals revenue from certain individuals in the population ; That revenue that was stolen could be used to help the poor voluntarily. We had mutual aid societies previously.
@theskepticalheretic Which would not have occurred if the federal reserve banking system did not lower interest rates below the market value which lead to overborrowin and the housing bubble. Charitable donations would increase if people were allowed to keep a larger sum of their income. People are naturally altruistic as recently proven in the book titled " Origins of Altruism and Cooperation" by the physical anthropologists "Robert W. Sussman (Editor), C. Robert Cloninger"
@Pentazoid111 It's a mistake to assume I'm a fan of the banking system. It's a larger mistake to assume that the banking system is a component of the government.
I never assumed that you were a fan of the banking system. The federal reserve banking system works exclusively with the US federal government and has a very strong primary influence on our monetary policy. Many of its members are chosen by the US president and then approved by Congress. The federal reserve banking system is a quasi-private-public institution, much like british petroleum and the East Indian Company used to be.
@Pentazoid111 well statement 1, "works exclusively with the Fed govt." is observably false. 2. who elects congress and the President? Right, we do. The electoral vote works at the behest of the people, what needs to be done is people need to stop thinking purely locally when they elect their Senator and Congressman. Your form of small thinking is what gets us into this mess.
It must be nice to have the kind of disease you can go without treating, or treat with some kind of "alternative" placebo bullshit. I haven't found a cheaper substitute for insulin yet, and the Dept. of Homeland Security protects me from any cheap foreign prescription drugs.
There is a difference between the industry demanding a qualification and the costumer demanding safety standards. I am an engineer. If I want to hire an engineer I know which questions to ask to determine if he is qualified or not. That's why I do not need a government licensing to qualify engineers for hiring.
That's why the industry does not demand these licenses of qualification. The consumer can not have the expertise to judge qualifications on all subjects that he needs professionals for.
That's why I'm glad I live where I live. So what if there are wait time, at least we don't get stuck with a $400k bill. My mother had a heart attack. I wager that if I lived in the US, she might've died or if she lived, we'd be on the streets and either way there would be a few less HMOs in the world.
@RevJdubs you can't report someone for tlaking behind your back at all. Base don your logic, I could report you for goin around and harrashing everyone.
Actually I do think single payer is the best option. In a society different people live in different ways some cost less some cost more, due to decisions they make, luck, inherited diseases, whatever it is. In a sense it evens out but I can't see a moral or practical way to judge people on their decisions and reward or penalize them when it comes to health care.
Keep people healthy and they can then take responsibility in their lives.
Being British I pay my taxes for, amongst other things, the NHS, I really don't have a problem with this, in fact the opposite.
If I live a long and illness free life without ever needing it then great, money and care goes to those most in need i.e. in an extreme example, the severely mentally disabled who need 24hr care and cost the taxpayer around £100,000 a year for that care for the rest of their lives, any libertarians please explain how charity or the free market will provide for this?
@TC2642 I am in complete agreement with you. Not only do I not mind paying taxes, I want to pay taxes to help others and myself. I want street lights, schools, medical care when I need it, libraries, benefits, etc and I want others to have these things too.
I can't imagine living in a country that does not have a free at point of service health care system.
"I want street lights, schools, medical care when I need it, libraries, benefits, etc and I want others to have these things too." Why do you believe the only means to provide these institutions and services is through the political means, i.e. forcing people to pay for these services against their wills. We attain so many goods and services voluntarily , why do we have to make an exception for street lights, schools,medical care, libraries, etc?
@Pentazoid111 What if I have hardly any money but willing pay towards charities that provide social services, but my rich neighbour is a mean bastard and doesn't pay anything? Why should I pay for his street lights, police service etc when he doesn't?
If you want to live in a community with shared amenities you should pay your fair share. Not that all the rich do often pay their fair share, due to the many loops holes they'd rather pay accounts to jump through ~ but that's another issue.
Because they are public goods, are you likely to volunteer to care for someone with a high level of medical and social needs 24 hours a day? No because you wouldn't be able to afford to live yourself, unless you where very wealthy and then you'd get someone else to do it for you. As for one of your examples, how am I going to individually buy street lighting? Would you apply the same logic for national defence?
@StatelessLiberty I assure you, crony capitalism can arise without government easily. This is why most libertarians desire strong anti monopoly laws. Markets are such that ever firm has strong incentives to reduce competition and increase their profit. This is true of all firms. The closer to perfect competition you get the smaller the profit margin. So individual firms desire unfair market conditions, and sometimes collude with other firms to bring this about, which can result in monopoly.
"I assure you, crony capitalism can arise without government easily." By definition, it cannot. Here is the definition from the palgrave glossary:"A form of market economy in which the impersonal links of the market are superceded by personal links based on the relationships of those in government with business-people."
@Pentazoid111 So collusion between governments is completely different then collusion between firms? Oh wait, no it isn't. If you'd like a reference for this concept pick up any university text book on economics, and read over the chapters on perfect competition, oligopolies, monopolies and cartels. Functionally they are the same. And I would recommend in future you not cite a single sentence definition of a complicated problem. A dictionary is not a substitute for an education.
Not saying that monopolies in the private sector don't occur , but they are more likely to occur with governments or will the "private" industry is heavily propped up by the government and lower prices are more likely to result when private organizations are free to compete freely with each other and the price of the good and services they are providing to their consumers drops considerably.. Examples of government only monopolies would be the police force and education.
@Pentazoid111 I mean shit. 1) Private sector monopolies are likely to occur under any circumstance. Firms want to monopolize and will work towards that outcome. 2) There is no reason to believe that a purely free market system would result in lower overall prices. And there is plenty of instances when the free market has over and under priced commodities. 3) Those are not examples of government monopoly. Private police and schools exist. The only government monopoly is on violence.
No they are not, if their are no trade barriers, such as import tariffs, corporate subsidies,closed immigration, minimum wage laws, or expensive government sanctioned licenses that barr or make it extremely difficult for people to enter into a job profession.No , firms want to make a profit at the lowest possible costs for them. All businesses do. Government drives typically drives up the costs of products and is responsible for large unemployment.
@Pentazoid111 Look. You obviously don't understand the basic concepts at work here and I'm not going to tutor you in economics 101. I promise you if you read a single university text book on the basics of economics you'll understand why the whole anarcho-capitalist thing is just nonsense, that exists purely within hypotheticals and cannot exist in the real world. If you think firms aren't interested in becoming monopolies all I can say is you haven't the slightest clue what you're talking about.
I am not the one who needs tutoring. Economics not a hard science, like physics and chemistry, their are various schools of economics , and the prominent one currently doesn't make it the most accurate form of economics. Keynesian economics didn't predict the financial crisis, and their is an unpopular school of economics called austrian economics that gave legitimate critiques of keynesians economics .
@Pentazoid111 Market anarchy is where the government does not interfere with the market at all. Even libertarians don't go that far, as you have. By suggesting that collusion can only exist when the government exists, you are in essence saying the government is the problem, which is to say it ought be done away with at least as far as markets are concerned. Some of us are able to follow statements to their logical conclusions. Give it a try.
"Those are not examples of government monopoly. Private police and schools exist." OVER 90 percent of school age children received their education from a public school, and adults are de-incentivised to open up private schools because they still have to meet education standards promoted by their federal and state governments.
@Pentazoid111 Allow me to elaborate further, as you are apparently not very smart. There is no necessity for these services to be provided by governments. It is simply the case that social goals such as mass education are hard to make profitable. Because the more educated the populace the better its long term economic growth, there is an interest in promoting mass education, which free enterprise is not willing to do, due to it's lack of profitability, ergo government intervenes.
Why is it hard to make mass education profitable? HAve you looked on youtube lately? Khanacademy ring a bell? ARe you completely ignorant of all the educational services being offered on youtube(from traditonal universities such as MIT and IIT to informal, but competent educators) and other websites to people freely or at little costs to people. ARe you totally ignorant of all the e-libraries that offer books for free to people at no cost. Somebody is making a profit off that or for free
@Pentazoid111 If the primary source of your education has been these sources, it shows. I'm not an expert in anything, but it's painfully obvious to me that you don't know what you're talking about. The difficulty in mass education comes down to the inequality of wealth that exists. Not everyone can pay, so some people would go uneducated, and thus remain in poverty. So education is universal, to give all people a minimum standard by which they can claim legitimacy professionally.
@Prometheus46715 Who said anything about the source of my primary education? I've have attended public schools and like most of my fellow class mates, I received a shitty education. I received a much better quality education by checking out and buying books that would interest me, as well as utilized some of the educational resources offered online. the inequality gap in education is closing , because of educational resources being more accessible online that were not 10 years ago.
@Pentazoid111 It is likewise the case with police. Poor people, though needing police protection would not be a good market for a firm to base themselves around, so they don't. However high crime rates do large scale economic and social damage that can't be contained to single communities, ergo government intervenes and establishes a police force to protect all citizens, and reduce crime overall rather than simply in areas that can afford it.
The police treat poor people the worse out of all socio-economic groups . Some cops are even afraid to go into poor neighborhoods . Because of the negative interaction with the Los angeles police , two violent gangs , the bloods and the crips were spawned ,(who were originally vigilante forces, because never enforced order) . Cops partially responsible for the bloated prison population that has arisen over the past forty years by enforcing ridiculous drug laws.
"None of this would be solved by a private police force. Indeed you cited two examples of how such forces can go very very wrong." How do you know? We didn't have a compulsory police force in all US states until the mid 19th century.
@Pentazoid111 How is it exactly that you've managed to live this long without reading a little history? Before public education most people went without education entirely. But it was only after public education (in scotland) that the Scottish enlightenment arose. People like Adam Smith were products of public education. These were people who while brilliant would most likely have squandered their lives on the family farm if they had not been educated.
I read from a source that before compulsory schooling , most americans and english school age children where able to read and write before they were forced to attend schools, but thats not the point. In this modern day and age, where classrooms are brought to a computer screen , and where you can download books online, class lecture online, etc public schools today are pretty much irrelevant. Public schools don't allow children to customized their own education and it precustomized for them.
Compulsoryschooling was created in the united states with the main purpose of meeting the industrial needs of newly formed manufacturing industries , and to forced newly arrived children of european immigrants to adapt to american culture.They were not created to ,fostered critical thinking, creativity and individuality. The US public school system was modeled after the prussian school system. In the State of oregon, private schools were ban for awhile because they did not want catholic schools
@Pentazoid111 "They were not created to ,fostered critical thinking, creativity and individuality"
You certainly don't know your American history well. The public school system was built by the colonials because they asserted that the only manner of true freedom is freedom of thought, and to have true freedom of thought, one must be educated. Literacy in the US colonies was incredibly high before compulsory schooling. Once religion got a hold again, schooling had to become compulsory.
There were public schools systems in colonial america , but they became widespread in all US states the mid-19th century and a large number of religious schools were educating the american populace. Private schools in the US for the most part, up until that time period , outnumber public schools. Horace mann pushed for public schools in all US states and he wanted public schools to be modeled after prussian school system, which emphasized , obedience , discipline and learn industrial skills
Despite the fact that there are a plethora of resources online that do a job of better educating people than public schools essentially for free and despite the fact that in most public schools children are fully not allowed to pursue their own self-interests , but rather spend about a third of their day learning from a water down curriculum not designed by them, that they will not give a shit about once the school period will end.
@Pentazoid111 you are entirely out of your mind. The internet is a mile wide and an inch deep, and that is not enough education for a citizen of today. Students are going into schools today to train for jobs that don't even exist yet. Sure some of those kids wind up as janitors, but the technological fields require instruction that most aspects of the internet cannot deliver. I don't want to block you, you really need to get a better grasp of the material if you're going to spam comments.
I am not spamming anything, we just have different philosophies of how society should operate, and you are acting like a zealous religious person when someone disagrees with your ideology of the world. A mile wide an inch deep? Have you not heard of Khanacademy , MITopen course , and ITT which has nearly 5000 videos on hard sciences and engineering. Their videos that teach you computer programming and how to take a part a computer. NOne of these subjects were offered at my public school
Just googled the wired article on khanacademy's which is offer freely to everyone. A section of the wired article on khanacademy discussed normal children who attended public schools as young as TEN years old learning trigonometry from khanacademy. Its very atypical for american children at that age to learn trigonometry at khanacademy. If you look at the bureau of labor statistics, the majority of students go to work in retail and become janitor. Some life.
@Pentazoid111 I think TSH said all that needs to be said about this. But for myself, unless you have something of substance don't bother me with this crap again. Getting your economic and historical education from right wing blog sites is not a good methodology. Nor is relying on sources that just back up your own ideology. Have the integrity to check your beliefs against the facts. You'll be glad you did, even if it hurts at first.
@Pentazoid111 This is true, but only of America. Throughout Europe, most of the poor were illiterate even during the industrial revolution. While I hate to beat a dead horse about this, you are living proof that autodidacticism is completely irresponsible, because all it produces is people with an ideology that can't determine whether or not it even has any bearing on the real world. Seriously, stop blaming the government for your shitty job. Go out and get a degree so you can be taken seriously
"Throughout Europe, most of the poor were illiterate even during the industrial revolution." Not in Britain. "you are living proof that autodidacticism i... " No offense, but you don't know shit about me. If you are drawing those superficial conclusions about that me, then you are a perfect example of what sorts of students public schools typically dish out. "Seriously, stop blaming the government for your shitty job" I didn't , but it is partly responsible for the high unemployment
@Pentazoid111 No offense, but if you are educating yourself via those sources, you are engaging in autodidacticism. Reading books and declaring yourself to be educated is what I'm arguing against when I disparage you for it. Heaven forbid you let people who know about a subject than you disavow you of your misconceptions. As I said I'm no expert, but I have noticed how often I'm talking past you. The means to succeed out there exists, you just have to keep trying.
@Prometheus I never denied that I wasn't an autodidact. Why do you consider reading books not to be a form of education? Thats patently ridiculous. Saying that you are educated just because you have a college degree or graduated high school, but refuse not to further advance your own education once you departed those institutions isn't an example of being educated.A person is more educated who continues their education throughtout there life , than someone who regurgitates info for a test.
@prometheus "Heaven forbid you let people who know about a subject than you disavow you of your misconceptions." I listen to people who have expertise in my subject area of interest. I never declared that I was an expert in anything, just that I didn't get my education off of blogs like skep falsely accuse me of.
@Pentazoid111 You do seem to parrot a lot of market anarchist talking points. Let me, as someone slightly more educated than you in the subject of economics clue you in on something. Truly free markets don't exist. They don't because like all anarchies, they become autocracies. All markets are mixed as a result. This is the way things actually play out and it is best to base your preferences about the economy around real world behaviour rather than an ideology.
@PrometheusI am not parroting anything, I state the facts. I don't think that you are more educated than me in the subject of economics. I think you are only familiar and well versed in one school of economics and have not try to understand every other school of economics out their. I am aware that trully free markets don't exist, but that doesn't mean they are ineffective. One of the largest economic growths in human history took place when we had a relatively free market
@PrometheusGovernment interventionism gives way to autocracies, fascism, or communist dictatorships. Free markets are more likely to give away to personal liberties and economic freedoms(obviously) . Simply look at the economic index of freedom around the world and you will find out that the societies that tend to have the freest economics are the least likely to be autocratic and the societies with the heaviest form of government intervention tend have tend to more likely be autocratic.
@Pentazoid111 And for the record I live in one of the highest unemployment areas in my country. I've been unemployed for months and have been living off my savings. I am not expecting the government to just hand me a job, nor am I naive enough to think the government can just remove some regulations and suddenly a job will be there. That isn't how the world works, and if you stopped for a moment and took the time to evaluate your ideology, you would quickly find that it doesnt mesh with reality
@Prometheus46715 "I am not expecting the government to just hand me a job" I never said the govt would give you a job. "or am I naive enough to think the government can just remove some regulations and suddenly a job " While government regulations don't contribute to all unemployment rates in the US , they contribute to considerable amounts and they affect some demographics more harshley than others. Studies show that minimum wage laws hurts poor black teenagers more than any other group
Well let me disavow any misconceptions you may have about me. I'm canadian, and not black (of irish descent) nor does race exist as a cultural construct in the same way that it does in the states up here. But In the city I live the unemployment is about 9%. I've been turned down for jobs at McDonalds. Friends of mine with masters degrees are working retail. However, there is little the government can do to remedy this. My town required the U.S. for income, so we have fallen with them.
@Pro I never assumed that you were not canadian nor have I assumed that you were black and not irish. I am pretty much in the same both that you are in. There is a lot that government can do to remedy this and that is by not intervening in the economy. You would have a higher change of finding a job if their were no minimum wage laws or the mininum wage was lower, because as I have stated,that impacts unemployment greatly for some groups. Also, things would be more affordable without inflation
@Pentazoid111 This is quite honestly a childs understanding of economics. Inflation is necessary for banks to function. At a minimum there must be inflation just to account for population growth. Seriously, you don't understand these issues. No minimum wage would not increase me chance at finding a job, because there is no demand. I mean it. Get a textbook on economics, and it will explains these things to you.
@Pentazoid111 My unemployment is not the governments fault. Nor is it mine. I personally hand out two resumes a day and on tuesday pound the pavement looking for work. I admit that it is hard and often discouraging but that doesn't give me the right to blame the government for things that are beyond their control. It isn't Government intervention keeping me from a job, it's a bad economy keeping employers from hiring more people to deal with the demand, which at the moment does not exist.
@Prometheus46715 So it is the governments fault in part. But not for doing something but for not doing something.
In a situation like that the government should be deficit spending on infrastructure and education to improve the ramifications for the creation of new jobs and at the same time pump money into the consumer base to increase demand.
If they don't they are at least partially to blame for not improving the situation.
@Peter The government has been deficit spending and so far it has failed. the US government spends the most per student on education and we still perform the worst out of all OECD countries. We have a big spending package now and that has failed miserably at creating new jobs. Two harvard economists , Alberto Alesina and Silvia Ardagna, study the fiscal adjustments of over a dozen OECD countries and found that tax cuts are less likely to increase economic growtih than deficit spending.
@Pentazoid111 talking to you about economy reminds me of "life of galilei", a play by Bertholdt Brecht. Three "Church scientists" visit Galileo to discuss the existence of Moons orbiting Venus. Galileo tells them to look through his telescope to see them for themselves but they refuse and instead prefer to discuss if they can exists at all.
All western countries have public school systems and they work. But instead of looking there and adapting yours you want to abandon it all together.
@Peter "All western countries have public...." Depends. If you believe that scoring high on standardized test scores by any means necessary(cheating is suprisingly rampant in china) . If your high standards of education are children pursing their self-interests and customizing their own curriculum, then no , Most public schools don't meet this educational standard. I think that the best education model would be Montessori education model and the majority of PS systems don't have this mode.
@Peter "All western countries have public...." Depends. If you believe that scoring high on standardized test scores by any means necessary(cheating is suprisingly rampant in china) . If your high standards of education are children pursing their self-interests and customizing their own curriculum, then no , Most public schools don't meet this educational standard. I think that the best education model would be Montessori education model and the majority of PS systems don't have this mode.
@Pentazoid111 The same goes for deficit spending (btw, I never advocated tax cuts. I don't know why you mention that they are worse). Look what got the US out of the great depression or look at the job market. The number of jobs was declining until the stimulus package hit. Since then the number has stabilized. Watch /watch?v=L0PO_FrW9C8 to see it and then tell me this is a coincidence.
You simply refuse common sense and seeing the evidence. I am sorry, but there is no talking to you
I never said you did advocate tax cuts. What got US out of the Great depression was not a stimulus package but large private investment. Many economists argue that the New Deal actually prolonged the great depression. watch?v=apdeR_KYhH0 . I recommend Robert Higgs Book, Depression, war and Cold war. The stimulus package was executed in 2009 and the unemployment rate still increase. We had no stimulus package when poverty levels dropped significantly durring the Industrial revolution.
@Pentazoid111 First, I give you statistical data and you give me a poll of 68 people. Are you serious? Second, there are also historians who think the holocaust did not happen. I'll go with the majority vote on the new deal and also the fact that before the new deal the great depression had run rampart for 4 years. So for 4 years nothing worked, then the new deal was introduced and coincidentally for not connected reasons the depression ended...Are you 12?
You gave me nothing, and there are more polls that show economists don't agree with the stimulus package. What majority vote on the new deal? Nearly half of the economists don't agree that the new deal stimulus package got the US economy out of the Great Depression. the ad populum fallacies applies to scientists just like the ad populum fallacy applies to average layman. Most credible physicists in nazi germany did not agree with Einstein's theory of general relativity despite its validity
@Pentazoid111 The same goes for deficit spending (btw, I never advocated tax cuts. I don't know why you mention that they are worse). Look what got the US out of the great depression or look at the job market. The number of jobs was declining until the stimulus package hit. Since then the number has stabilized. Watch /watch?v=L0PO_FrW9C8 to see it and then tell me this is a coincidence.
You simply refuse common sense and seeing the evidence. I am sorry, but there is no talking to you
@PeterK1984 from cnn money(dot)com: "NABE conducted the study by polling 68 of its members who work in economic roles at private-sector firms. About 73% of those surveyed said employment at their company is neither higher nor lower as a result of the $787 billion Recovery Act, which the White House's Council of Economic Advisers says is on track to create or save 3.5 million jobs by the end of the year. "
In Canada we had a fairly large jobs stimulus. It worked in most of the province but the area I live in was particularly dependent on the auto industry which took a rather nasty hit, resulting in plant closings which then resulted in cutbacks at all other services due to lack of demand. It will likely take several years to reinvigorate the area.
@Pentazoid111 And just to ram this point home note the definition in the glossary of deflation "The general tendency for prices to fall." This is incredibly misleading. Deflation is the rise in the value of currency, which does cause prices to fall however, this leaves out the fact that is will result in a halt on bank loans, as banks loans, which will halt the growth of many businesses, which in extreme cases could cause mass unemployment and economic collapse. This is important to know.
I live in a single payer system and i must say that smokers as you pay more then us none smokers for healthcare because an added tax on the cigarettes. It is how they solve the unfairness
@theskepticalheretic G'day... Funny, how many of us are trying to remediate JW's Scatterbrain-effect. Also funny, you hate Bullshit ; but nicotine's a Bullshit-Tolerance Enhancer. As a Vasoconstrictor, it drops y' Cerebral Perfusion Rate. So, y' Brain gets less Sugar & 0.2, & makes less Electricity ; thus it processes less data... And y' don't notice the B.S..! It's a VERY Industrial Drug. Ban all Tax Breaks for Insurance- Premiums. Levy 1.5% Income Tax for Universal Medicare for all..!
I'm curious as to how people feel about healthcare being a 'for profit' business... Isn't that a bit of a conflict of interest? I mean, the powers that be don't want a 'cure' for diseases, right? There's no money in the cure, the money is in the treatment, right? Eh, I don't know...
As a smoker you pay more for insurance. You also pay more in taxes (cigarette taxes). Here in New York state it is $6.46 per pack.
So for a person who is a 1 pack a day smoker the cost is $45 a week. That is about half of what I pay a week for health insurance for me and my son.
What bothers me about the cig tax is that the tax revenue is not put into a fund for smokers but instead is used to fill budget gaps. Money/taxes meant for healthcare is not going into healthcare or prevention.
I am Canadian so I think of healthcare as a right not a luxury. Call it whatever you like when Im sick or busted up I go to the hospital and get fixed up. Costs me about $300 a yr. Is this the terrible treatment some Americans fear? Correct me if im wrong but isnt America the only 1st world country that does not operate this way?
Doesn't it say somewhere in the Constitution that the government is created for the people and by the people? How is the thought of having Universal healthcare against the constitution if it is FOR THE PEOPLE?
@RevJdubs "reported" Oh NOES! This isn't going on my permanent record is it?
Or did you write it down? "Serious serious injury.... Dassin won't go to the fast food restaurant that I work at."
Did Dassin make the little Libertarian cry? Really? Aren't you guys all big bad cowboy types armed to the teeth living in places where the men are men and the sheep are nervous?
Enough kidding around. What you need to do is stop eating the crayons and start using them so you can get your GED.
@RevJdubs "reported" Oh NOES!!!!!! This isn't going on my permanent record is it?
Or did you write it down? "Serious serious injury.... Dassin won't go to the fast food restaurant that I work at."
Did Dassin make the little Libertarian cry? Really? Aren't you guys all big bad cowboy types armed to the teeth living in places where the men are men and the sheep are nervous?
Enough kidding around. What you need to do is stop eating the crayons and start using them so you can get your GED.
@theskepticalheretic The first thing that comes to mind is the way the healthcare reform bill passed as it did (w/o a real public option). Basically, we socialized the health insurance industry much the same way transportation industries (airlines and rail) have been subsidized. That's a real stickler when it comes to understanding how and why certain goods should be socialized in terms of cost rather than internalized to the price of the good itself.
@StatelessLiberty That's like saying "When your brakes fail, don't blame the manufacturer".
The idea behind capitalism is to make as much profit as possible and that is what those corporations do. I can't understand why people defend capitalism so much. It's like we are looking at two completely different scenes. They look at the heavily regulated and taxed economy of the 50s and 60s and call it capitalism. I look at the unregulated exploitative 16 hours a day workplace of the 19th century.
@PeterK1984 "The idea behind capitalism is to make as much profit as possible."
No, the idea behind "capitalism" is that people do seek profit and so we should construct an economic system with that in mind. No advocate of "capitalism" (which is a term of contradictory meanings) is saying anybody *ought* to be selfish, only that they *are*.
Conflating an descriptive statement with a prescriptive one is not a minor error.
@StatelessLiberty as I said, substantiate your claim. How exactly is a "free market", depending on your definition of what a free market is, going to be able to prevent corporatism and crony capitalism? Keep in mind corporatism and crony capitalism need not have government involvement to ply their trade. And if you say independent private ratings bureaus, I will be sticking Moody's and Standard and Poor right in your face as examples of failure.
@StatelessLiberty yeah, we don't play wikipedia here. Crony capitalism typically is used to describe market collusion within capitalist economic systems. To say that a government must be involved is a lack of understanding of how crony-ism manifests.
Now corporatism is societal, not necessarily governmental.
Not understanding this nuance isn't leading me to believe you've done any research on this topic outside of what has been spoon fed to you from your third source, a blog.
"That's like saying "When your brakes fail, don't blame the manufacturer"."
When your brakes fail, you blame the manufacturer because it was a failure on the part of the manufacturer that caused your brakes to fail.
When corporatism and crony capitalism gives us terrible medical services, don't blame the free-market as, a) the free-market doesn't exist so it cannot be the cause of anything, and b) advocates of free-markets are strongly opposed to corporatism and crony capitalism.
@StatelessLiberty Define a free market. A free market by definition is an unregulated market. And in an unregulated market those corporations thrive.
Think about it, those big corporations are more profitable, that is why they are formed in the first place. Without regulations there is nothing to restrict them and prevent them from building monopolys and exploiting the people. A person who is pro free market and anti corporation is either willfully deceptive or has not thought it through
Not it isn't , it is a market regulated by private citizens , not the government , and corporations are partially government creations. An example of the market regulating itself would be when the electronics regulatory agencies inspects and evaluates electronic products before they go onto market and that agency is privatized. Governments create help create monopolies , through placing tariffs on domestic businesses, through subsidies , and through licensing laws.
@Pentazoid111 Please tell me you are not this stupid. Selfregulation does not, did not and never will work. Why do you believe that a company would support a fair and real testing of their products if they are not forced to do it? You just have to look at the amount of medical products that get on the market and have horrendous sideeffects to know that they wont.
There are examples of Self-regulation in the marketplace that you are apparently very ignorant of. The Underwriters Laboratories safety inspection agency that inspects the safety and quality of electronics before they go onto the market place is a great example, and they existed way before the organization OSHA "approved" of their safety standards. Why do you believe that federal government is more apt at looking at the welfare of people than private organizations . They are not.
@Pentazoid111 The reason why these organizations work is because they're overseen by public entities and are accountable to the people. You seem to have this issue with cronyism in the government, what makes you think that cronyism would be limited exclusively to government?
@theskepticalheretic further, you seem to be ignorant of the multitude of failures that UL has had within it's testing schemes over the years, and of course the rampant forgery of UL seals which is arbitrated purely by the government. The UL is useless unless they can levy the power of public office against fraud and forgery of their trademarks.
I never said that the UL was a perfect organization where there were zero flaws in its testing schemes. Where is the evidence that a public regulatory organization will better look out for the well being and safety of its citizens more so than a private regulatory organization? There is a lot of corruption within regulatory government agencies like the FDA. They have delayed drugsthat would helped patients, and there have been many accusations that the FDA allows harmful drugs on the market.
"The UL is useless unless they can levy the power of public office " What do you mean the UL its useless? It has existed since 1894 way before their were any federal government regulatory agencies such as OSHA(which came out in 1971) to oversee it. There are no government sanctioned licenses that are imposed on certain job professions such as IT and people who work in IT are not more incompetent because of it. The market decides the competency of people who work in IT
@Pentazoid111 And lastly, I have no doubt that some companies would go for the quick buck. Sell a drug of which you know that it has devastating long term effects, make huge profits and leave the country before the people start dying.
Look at what happened in the (mostly unregulated) financial sector. Those people did not care that they were ruining the lifes of honest workers. Watch "Inside man" to grasp how corrupt the corporal world really is.
@Pentazoid111 the certification process is manufacturer driven. The analogy of IT is a very poor one.
As for the UL, what prevents non-UL approved products from entering the market... nothing. So of what use is a UL certification, a certification that more and more commonly is not being sought after by manufacturers?
The analogy is very relevant.There is no government regulatory agencies to oversee the number of competent vs the number of incompetent IT professionals , and someone see services from a person who was hired with zero IT experience or knowledge.Likewise, a private regulatory agency can determined the quality of a product that customers buy. cont'd
cont;d Yes, there is a chance that non-UL products can enter the market, but thats a risk that people will have to take. HAving a government regulatory agency present doesn't reduce these risks to zero. In some cases, as I said earlier they exacerbate the risks by delaying safe products from entering the market or they allow products that are consider unsafe . Some products that the fda labeled hazardous poise little to no danger to the consumer.
@Pentazoid111 It's not about being apt or the safety standards, it is about being binding.
Why would a company that does not care for consumer safety ever give their products to a testing agency if they are not bound to? And if those tests showed a danger, what authority could that organization claim to prevent the selling of that product?
"Our data indicates that the drug you want to release causes chancer long term."
The company would care if consumers demanded it to care. The company have to imposed a set of safety standards on their products that the consumers demand otherwise they will be out of business quickly because consumers will go to another business that meets the level of safety standards that they desire. If the product shows a danger, people would not shopped their any longer . You will rarely be in a situation where absolutely zero risks are involved.
First, most people lack the scientific understanding. Including me, btw. I am an electrical engineer, I do not understand medicine and biology enough to judge what an adequate safety standard for a medical product is.
Second, many faulty drugs do not produce an immediate negative result. If 10 people buy a toaster and it blows up, the knowledge will spread. If 10000 people get chancer as a long term effect of a drug they took 10 years ago, it wont
@Pentazoid111 Third, you underestimate the ingenuity (or insidiousness) of companies. When the Bio-product boom started in Germany 6 different "100% biological" seals showed up with varying standards of "100%".
If you had only self regulation I guarantee you that different "testing institutes" would pop up that would guarantee safety of the products they tested with varying trustworthiness and again, the costumer can't judge the actual effectiveness of the tests.
"you're assuming that every participant in the market place has equal knowledge, which most assuredly is not the case. " Why couldn't they? They can get access to information on a product if they desire too. The better question is, why do you think that a government bureaucrat is better to access the quality of a product than the consumer? Or why do you assume that the consumer lacks the forsight or knowledge to hire another person to determine the safety and quality of a product?
"you're assuming that every participant in the market place has equal knowledge, which most assuredly is not the case. " Why couldn't they? They can get access to information on a product if they desire too. The better question is, why do you think that a government bureaucrat is better to access the quality of a product than the consumer? Or why do you assume that the consumer lacks the forsight or knowledge to hire another person to determine the safety and quality of a product?
"you're assuming that every participant in the market place has equal knowledge, which most assuredly is not the case. " No , I am not. I arguing that those in government are not more knowledgeable about the safety and quality of a product or service than people in the private sector, therefore they should not be given a monopolistic power to determine the safety and quality of a product that enters the marketplace.
@Pentazoid111 the private sector is not the citizenry. Those in government should be more knowledgable than the average citizen in their specified field, meaning they can advocate on the behalf of the citizen.
Your arguments are so poorly constructed, please do something other than parrot blogs.
" the private sector is not the citizenry" The government doesn't represent everyone, it can only represent special interests groups. "Those in government should be more knowledgable than the average citizen in their specified fiel" Should and what actually is, are two different things.
"Your.... " I've profusely studied all schools of economics, even those I heavily disagree with, from marxism to keynesian economics , to austrian economics. You are apparently the one reading blogs.
Second, are you really going to tell us we shouldn't have the FDA? That's borderline retarded at best. " Its completely retarded to put trust in one organization that has a history of fuckups . Its retarded to ASSUME that the FDA will more look off for the interests of the US population than any private regulatory agency.
Pentazoid111 And again, nobody says that the industry could not, in theory, regulate itself. The same experts that are hired by the government could be hired by private companies (sadly they often are hired by both at the same time, for different reasons, but that's another subject). Question is, if it is reasonable to assume it would.
And here common sense and experience from the recent financial crisis shows us the level of self regulation that the industry is willing to subject itself to.
Many of these so called experts would not be hired by the private sector who are now hired by the government because they will not tolerate the screwups made by some of the bureaucrats in government because it would be a huge loss to theirindustry. "And here common sense and experience from the recent financial crisis shows us the level of self regulation that the industry is willing to subject itself to." The private sector didn't caused the financial crisis, government did.
Spot on - Even if taken on the very narrow conditions of economy - public healthcare is a great idea. It's only that the right is not able to see the bigger picture.
Why the fuck should SHE be responsible for this medical bill?
TheRepublicOfUngeria 4 months ago
Well if it much MORE better then it must be good!
TheRepublicOfUngeria 4 months ago
The only man who thinks with his gut, is the man who has his head wedged firmly up his ass - (who can I attribute this too?)
TheRepublicOfUngeria 4 months ago
A man once said that alternative medicine is an alternative to medicine in that bleach is an alternative to water.
Killur10 4 months ago in playlist Videos from theskepticalheretic
Can you do a video just about what you talked about in the last minute? You explained your point really well. I think it's true in a more broad sense than you meant as well. Pooling our resources in anything always works better overall than fighting amongst ourselves. I think a lot of people find that hard to understand, at least in politics.
ScissorHand26 5 months ago
Shredder is planning on fucking up Jdubs. I hope he manages to do it. Somebody has to set an example to flase DMCA nut jobs.
Texemosis 5 months ago
The problem is insurance operates on a law of large numbers system, so the only competitive companies are typically local monopolies who can then mass capital and gouge local citizenry. Since there is typically little or no competition and people who have claims denied typically can not afford legal representation, the issue of passing on these costs to the tax payers is left completely unresolved. The only solution is single-payer healthcare which also shifts demand in favor of the consumer.
Russlem 5 months ago
There is an easy solution for people who smoke, drink, over eat, etc. Tax those items and earmark those funds for healthcare.
As it stands, the insurance companies are fleecing us and the healthcare providers are fleecing the insurance companies. The companies that provide supplies to the providers are fleecing them. It goes on and on. I believe public healthcare would cut all of that fat.
PaulBarte 5 months ago
@PaulBarte
Your idea about earmarking "sin tax" revenue is pretty good. Never thought of that before. Taxing unhealthy foods however would most likely only affect those who eat that way because its all they can afford. Eating healthy is expensive. Taxing unhealthy food makes that expensive, and increases demand on healthy food making it even more expensive. The other applications are pretty good though.
Russlem 5 months ago
@Russlem I agree that food is a tricky one, but the reality is people eat sugary/fatty foods because they taste good. Healthy food is not expensive, it just doesn't sell as quickly, isn't full of preservatives and is slightly more time consuming than HF corn syrup and hydrogenated oil. Tax that crap and watch how quickly the healthier alternatives come down in price. And just like the alcohol, if you want it you can have it, it just costs more.
PaulBarte 5 months ago
This has been flagged as spam show
Is that intro sequence from Iron?
BigFuckOffRevolvers 5 months ago
Is that intro sequence from Iron?
BigFuckOffRevolvers 5 months ago
Also, one of the biggest problems for people sans health insurance comes in the form of maintaining treatment for chronic conditions (i.e. diabetes) or for conditions that don't appear to be emergencies and therefore treatment isn't sought until it becomes a huge expensive problem.
secondact77 5 months ago
One point of contention, Ron Paul's former campaign manager didn't lack medical insurance due to ideological principle but from the outrageous expense caused by a preexisting condition (whatever that might be, the article I read didn't specify). I am unaware of a philosophical objection a Libertarian would have to health insurance, not that I am one.
secondact77 5 months ago
twitvid com 90MDR of course brett put this up, claiming he owned you.
benos 5 months ago
@benos lovely, now I have a copy.
theskepticalheretic 5 months ago
I hit the like button about 50 times, even if it doesn't work it's well deserved.
Great video sir.
UltraVert 5 months ago
Actually, homeopathic remedies are so diluted that you are lucky to get one molecule per glass of water. homeopathic remedies are just water.
Ye4hBuddy 5 months ago
This has been flagged as spam show
I Will Not Allowing Myself , To Go Into Polarity System ! ! !
Salihovicable 5 months ago
We can solve our healthcare problem tomorrow, EUGENICS
culturalhonesty 5 months ago
@culturalhonesty you are not only incredibly stupid, but also quite bad at providing any form of logical statement.
theskepticalheretic 5 months ago
@theskepticalheretic I will be posting a new video soon on racial genetic distances from the chimpanzee, I hope to see your response :))
culturalhonesty 5 months ago
This guy's argument is garbage. Charitable are declining yearly. What's more, total charitable donations now don't come anywhere close to the cost of covering healthcare bills alone (ie, assuming no other causes to donate to). It's fantasy to assume that if taxes were 0% their charitable donations would cover healthcare + other causes. This is not even taking into account the propensity to hold onto money for the sake of holding onto money (why tax cuts stimulate less than gov't spending).
TipzEOne 5 months ago
What is the title of your source that says charities are declining yearly? If a business can afford to provide health insurance to their employees, why couldn't more charities be responsible for covering the costs of healthcare? Its isn't as if the government has more revenue than the population at large; the government steals revenue from certain individuals in the population ; That revenue that was stolen could be used to help the poor voluntarily. We had mutual aid societies previously.
Pentazoid111 5 months ago
@Pentazoid111 go check the 503C for your favorite charity and compare them year over year.
When the economy hits the shit, people who typically donate to charities stop donating because they don't have the money.
theskepticalheretic 5 months ago
@theskepticalheretic Which would not have occurred if the federal reserve banking system did not lower interest rates below the market value which lead to overborrowin and the housing bubble. Charitable donations would increase if people were allowed to keep a larger sum of their income. People are naturally altruistic as recently proven in the book titled " Origins of Altruism and Cooperation" by the physical anthropologists "Robert W. Sussman (Editor), C. Robert Cloninger"
Pentazoid111 5 months ago
@Pentazoid111 It's a mistake to assume I'm a fan of the banking system. It's a larger mistake to assume that the banking system is a component of the government.
theskepticalheretic 5 months ago
I never assumed that you were a fan of the banking system. The federal reserve banking system works exclusively with the US federal government and has a very strong primary influence on our monetary policy. Many of its members are chosen by the US president and then approved by Congress. The federal reserve banking system is a quasi-private-public institution, much like british petroleum and the East Indian Company used to be.
Pentazoid111 5 months ago
@Pentazoid111 well statement 1, "works exclusively with the Fed govt." is observably false. 2. who elects congress and the President? Right, we do. The electoral vote works at the behest of the people, what needs to be done is people need to stop thinking purely locally when they elect their Senator and Congressman. Your form of small thinking is what gets us into this mess.
theskepticalheretic 5 months ago
True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.
-- Martin Luther King, Jr., April 4, 1967 I give this quote to every person who says we just need charity.
ProgressiveAudio 5 months ago
Unfortunately the RomneyCare bill Obama passed won't be giving people universal health care, but everyone knows that by now.
ProgressiveAudio 5 months ago
It must be nice to have the kind of disease you can go without treating, or treat with some kind of "alternative" placebo bullshit. I haven't found a cheaper substitute for insulin yet, and the Dept. of Homeland Security protects me from any cheap foreign prescription drugs.
tctheunbeliever 5 months ago
There is a difference between the industry demanding a qualification and the costumer demanding safety standards. I am an engineer. If I want to hire an engineer I know which questions to ask to determine if he is qualified or not. That's why I do not need a government licensing to qualify engineers for hiring.
That's why the industry does not demand these licenses of qualification. The consumer can not have the expertise to judge qualifications on all subjects that he needs professionals for.
PeterK1984 5 months ago
That's why I'm glad I live where I live. So what if there are wait time, at least we don't get stuck with a $400k bill. My mother had a heart attack. I wager that if I lived in the US, she might've died or if she lived, we'd be on the streets and either way there would be a few less HMOs in the world.
Universal heathcare works, get over it.
Satanos777 5 months ago
@RevJdubs you can't report someone for tlaking behind your back at all. Base don your logic, I could report you for goin around and harrashing everyone.
Krensharpaw 5 months ago
Actually I do think single payer is the best option. In a society different people live in different ways some cost less some cost more, due to decisions they make, luck, inherited diseases, whatever it is. In a sense it evens out but I can't see a moral or practical way to judge people on their decisions and reward or penalize them when it comes to health care.
Keep people healthy and they can then take responsibility in their lives.
I'm sleepy, I hope I expressed myself clearly :D
pookabun 5 months ago
I like nhs
jmm1233 5 months ago
TSH has the classiest intro on youtube.
ComradeAlpharius 5 months ago
Being British I pay my taxes for, amongst other things, the NHS, I really don't have a problem with this, in fact the opposite.
If I live a long and illness free life without ever needing it then great, money and care goes to those most in need i.e. in an extreme example, the severely mentally disabled who need 24hr care and cost the taxpayer around £100,000 a year for that care for the rest of their lives, any libertarians please explain how charity or the free market will provide for this?
TC2642 5 months ago
@TC2642 I am in complete agreement with you. Not only do I not mind paying taxes, I want to pay taxes to help others and myself. I want street lights, schools, medical care when I need it, libraries, benefits, etc and I want others to have these things too.
I can't imagine living in a country that does not have a free at point of service health care system.
DeeDemonwitch 5 months ago
"I want street lights, schools, medical care when I need it, libraries, benefits, etc and I want others to have these things too." Why do you believe the only means to provide these institutions and services is through the political means, i.e. forcing people to pay for these services against their wills. We attain so many goods and services voluntarily , why do we have to make an exception for street lights, schools,medical care, libraries, etc?
Pentazoid111 5 months ago
This has been flagged as spam show
*against their will
Pentazoid111 5 months ago
@Pentazoid111 What if I have hardly any money but willing pay towards charities that provide social services, but my rich neighbour is a mean bastard and doesn't pay anything? Why should I pay for his street lights, police service etc when he doesn't?
If you want to live in a community with shared amenities you should pay your fair share. Not that all the rich do often pay their fair share, due to the many loops holes they'd rather pay accounts to jump through ~ but that's another issue.
DeeDemonwitch 5 months ago
@Pentazoid111,
Because they are public goods, are you likely to volunteer to care for someone with a high level of medical and social needs 24 hours a day? No because you wouldn't be able to afford to live yourself, unless you where very wealthy and then you'd get someone else to do it for you. As for one of your examples, how am I going to individually buy street lighting? Would you apply the same logic for national defence?
TC2642 5 months ago
@DeeDemonwitch,
Very true, I cannot get over some American's vitriol against a health service free at the point of delivery.
TC2642 5 months ago
Double post, my bad.
Prometheus46715 5 months ago
@StatelessLiberty I assure you, crony capitalism can arise without government easily. This is why most libertarians desire strong anti monopoly laws. Markets are such that ever firm has strong incentives to reduce competition and increase their profit. This is true of all firms. The closer to perfect competition you get the smaller the profit margin. So individual firms desire unfair market conditions, and sometimes collude with other firms to bring this about, which can result in monopoly.
Prometheus46715 5 months ago
"I assure you, crony capitalism can arise without government easily." By definition, it cannot. Here is the definition from the palgrave glossary:"A form of market economy in which the impersonal links of the market are superceded by personal links based on the relationships of those in government with business-people."
Pentazoid111 5 months ago
@Pentazoid111 So collusion between governments is completely different then collusion between firms? Oh wait, no it isn't. If you'd like a reference for this concept pick up any university text book on economics, and read over the chapters on perfect competition, oligopolies, monopolies and cartels. Functionally they are the same. And I would recommend in future you not cite a single sentence definition of a complicated problem. A dictionary is not a substitute for an education.
Prometheus46715 5 months ago
Not saying that monopolies in the private sector don't occur , but they are more likely to occur with governments or will the "private" industry is heavily propped up by the government and lower prices are more likely to result when private organizations are free to compete freely with each other and the price of the good and services they are providing to their consumers drops considerably.. Examples of government only monopolies would be the police force and education.
Pentazoid111 5 months ago
@Pentazoid111 You didn't understand anything I said did you?
Prometheus46715 5 months ago
@Pentazoid111 I mean shit. 1) Private sector monopolies are likely to occur under any circumstance. Firms want to monopolize and will work towards that outcome. 2) There is no reason to believe that a purely free market system would result in lower overall prices. And there is plenty of instances when the free market has over and under priced commodities. 3) Those are not examples of government monopoly. Private police and schools exist. The only government monopoly is on violence.
Prometheus46715 5 months ago
No they are not, if their are no trade barriers, such as import tariffs, corporate subsidies,closed immigration, minimum wage laws, or expensive government sanctioned licenses that barr or make it extremely difficult for people to enter into a job profession.No , firms want to make a profit at the lowest possible costs for them. All businesses do. Government drives typically drives up the costs of products and is responsible for large unemployment.
Pentazoid111 5 months ago
@Pentazoid111 Look. You obviously don't understand the basic concepts at work here and I'm not going to tutor you in economics 101. I promise you if you read a single university text book on the basics of economics you'll understand why the whole anarcho-capitalist thing is just nonsense, that exists purely within hypotheticals and cannot exist in the real world. If you think firms aren't interested in becoming monopolies all I can say is you haven't the slightest clue what you're talking about.
Prometheus46715 5 months ago
I am not the one who needs tutoring. Economics not a hard science, like physics and chemistry, their are various schools of economics , and the prominent one currently doesn't make it the most accurate form of economics. Keynesian economics didn't predict the financial crisis, and their is an unpopular school of economics called austrian economics that gave legitimate critiques of keynesians economics .
Pentazoid111 5 months ago
@Pentazoid111 The concepts I'm citing are not in dispute by any school. You sir, fail hard.
Prometheus46715 5 months ago
Who the hell was talking about anarcho capitalism? I certainly wasn't. Did you miss reading comprehension 101?
Pentazoid111 5 months ago
@Pentazoid111 Market anarchy is where the government does not interfere with the market at all. Even libertarians don't go that far, as you have. By suggesting that collusion can only exist when the government exists, you are in essence saying the government is the problem, which is to say it ought be done away with at least as far as markets are concerned. Some of us are able to follow statements to their logical conclusions. Give it a try.
Prometheus46715 5 months ago
"Those are not examples of government monopoly. Private police and schools exist." OVER 90 percent of school age children received their education from a public school, and adults are de-incentivised to open up private schools because they still have to meet education standards promoted by their federal and state governments.
Pentazoid111 5 months ago
@Pentazoid111 Allow me to elaborate further, as you are apparently not very smart. There is no necessity for these services to be provided by governments. It is simply the case that social goals such as mass education are hard to make profitable. Because the more educated the populace the better its long term economic growth, there is an interest in promoting mass education, which free enterprise is not willing to do, due to it's lack of profitability, ergo government intervenes.
Prometheus46715 5 months ago
Why is it hard to make mass education profitable? HAve you looked on youtube lately? Khanacademy ring a bell? ARe you completely ignorant of all the educational services being offered on youtube(from traditonal universities such as MIT and IIT to informal, but competent educators) and other websites to people freely or at little costs to people. ARe you totally ignorant of all the e-libraries that offer books for free to people at no cost. Somebody is making a profit off that or for free
Pentazoid111 5 months ago
@Pentazoid111 If the primary source of your education has been these sources, it shows. I'm not an expert in anything, but it's painfully obvious to me that you don't know what you're talking about. The difficulty in mass education comes down to the inequality of wealth that exists. Not everyone can pay, so some people would go uneducated, and thus remain in poverty. So education is universal, to give all people a minimum standard by which they can claim legitimacy professionally.
Prometheus46715 5 months ago
@Prometheus46715 Who said anything about the source of my primary education? I've have attended public schools and like most of my fellow class mates, I received a shitty education. I received a much better quality education by checking out and buying books that would interest me, as well as utilized some of the educational resources offered online. the inequality gap in education is closing , because of educational resources being more accessible online that were not 10 years ago.
Pentazoid111 5 months ago
@Pentazoid111 It is likewise the case with police. Poor people, though needing police protection would not be a good market for a firm to base themselves around, so they don't. However high crime rates do large scale economic and social damage that can't be contained to single communities, ergo government intervenes and establishes a police force to protect all citizens, and reduce crime overall rather than simply in areas that can afford it.
Prometheus46715 5 months ago
The police treat poor people the worse out of all socio-economic groups . Some cops are even afraid to go into poor neighborhoods . Because of the negative interaction with the Los angeles police , two violent gangs , the bloods and the crips were spawned ,(who were originally vigilante forces, because never enforced order) . Cops partially responsible for the bloated prison population that has arisen over the past forty years by enforcing ridiculous drug laws.
Pentazoid111 5 months ago
@Pentazoid111 None of this would be solved by a private police force. Indeed you cited two examples of how such forces can go very very wrong.
Prometheus46715 5 months ago
This has been flagged as spam show
"None of this would be solved by a private police force. Indeed you cited two examples of how such forces can go very very wrong." How do you know? We didn't have a compulsory police force in all US states until the mid 19th century.
Pentazoid111 5 months ago
@Pentazoid111 How is it exactly that you've managed to live this long without reading a little history? Before public education most people went without education entirely. But it was only after public education (in scotland) that the Scottish enlightenment arose. People like Adam Smith were products of public education. These were people who while brilliant would most likely have squandered their lives on the family farm if they had not been educated.
Prometheus46715 5 months ago
I read from a source that before compulsory schooling , most americans and english school age children where able to read and write before they were forced to attend schools, but thats not the point. In this modern day and age, where classrooms are brought to a computer screen , and where you can download books online, class lecture online, etc public schools today are pretty much irrelevant. Public schools don't allow children to customized their own education and it precustomized for them.
Pentazoid111 5 months ago
Compulsoryschooling was created in the united states with the main purpose of meeting the industrial needs of newly formed manufacturing industries , and to forced newly arrived children of european immigrants to adapt to american culture.They were not created to ,fostered critical thinking, creativity and individuality. The US public school system was modeled after the prussian school system. In the State of oregon, private schools were ban for awhile because they did not want catholic schools
Pentazoid111 5 months ago
@Pentazoid111 "They were not created to ,fostered critical thinking, creativity and individuality"
You certainly don't know your American history well. The public school system was built by the colonials because they asserted that the only manner of true freedom is freedom of thought, and to have true freedom of thought, one must be educated. Literacy in the US colonies was incredibly high before compulsory schooling. Once religion got a hold again, schooling had to become compulsory.
theskepticalheretic 5 months ago
There were public schools systems in colonial america , but they became widespread in all US states the mid-19th century and a large number of religious schools were educating the american populace. Private schools in the US for the most part, up until that time period , outnumber public schools. Horace mann pushed for public schools in all US states and he wanted public schools to be modeled after prussian school system, which emphasized , obedience , discipline and learn industrial skills
Pentazoid111 5 months ago
I supposed you believed that their is a strong need for public schools today.
Pentazoid111 5 months ago
@Pentazoid111 yeah, there is.
theskepticalheretic 5 months ago
Despite the fact that there are a plethora of resources online that do a job of better educating people than public schools essentially for free and despite the fact that in most public schools children are fully not allowed to pursue their own self-interests , but rather spend about a third of their day learning from a water down curriculum not designed by them, that they will not give a shit about once the school period will end.
Pentazoid111 5 months ago
@Pentazoid111 you are entirely out of your mind. The internet is a mile wide and an inch deep, and that is not enough education for a citizen of today. Students are going into schools today to train for jobs that don't even exist yet. Sure some of those kids wind up as janitors, but the technological fields require instruction that most aspects of the internet cannot deliver. I don't want to block you, you really need to get a better grasp of the material if you're going to spam comments.
theskepticalheretic 5 months ago
I am not spamming anything, we just have different philosophies of how society should operate, and you are acting like a zealous religious person when someone disagrees with your ideology of the world. A mile wide an inch deep? Have you not heard of Khanacademy , MITopen course , and ITT which has nearly 5000 videos on hard sciences and engineering. Their videos that teach you computer programming and how to take a part a computer. NOne of these subjects were offered at my public school
Pentazoid111 5 months ago
Just googled the wired article on khanacademy's which is offer freely to everyone. A section of the wired article on khanacademy discussed normal children who attended public schools as young as TEN years old learning trigonometry from khanacademy. Its very atypical for american children at that age to learn trigonometry at khanacademy. If you look at the bureau of labor statistics, the majority of students go to work in retail and become janitor. Some life.
Pentazoid111 5 months ago
*Just google
Pentazoid111 5 months ago
@Pentazoid111 I think TSH said all that needs to be said about this. But for myself, unless you have something of substance don't bother me with this crap again. Getting your economic and historical education from right wing blog sites is not a good methodology. Nor is relying on sources that just back up your own ideology. Have the integrity to check your beliefs against the facts. You'll be glad you did, even if it hurts at first.
Prometheus46715 5 months ago
@Pentazoid111 This is true, but only of America. Throughout Europe, most of the poor were illiterate even during the industrial revolution. While I hate to beat a dead horse about this, you are living proof that autodidacticism is completely irresponsible, because all it produces is people with an ideology that can't determine whether or not it even has any bearing on the real world. Seriously, stop blaming the government for your shitty job. Go out and get a degree so you can be taken seriously
Prometheus46715 5 months ago
"Throughout Europe, most of the poor were illiterate even during the industrial revolution." Not in Britain. "you are living proof that autodidacticism i... " No offense, but you don't know shit about me. If you are drawing those superficial conclusions about that me, then you are a perfect example of what sorts of students public schools typically dish out. "Seriously, stop blaming the government for your shitty job" I didn't , but it is partly responsible for the high unemployment
Pentazoid111 5 months ago
@Pentazoid111 No offense, but if you are educating yourself via those sources, you are engaging in autodidacticism. Reading books and declaring yourself to be educated is what I'm arguing against when I disparage you for it. Heaven forbid you let people who know about a subject than you disavow you of your misconceptions. As I said I'm no expert, but I have noticed how often I'm talking past you. The means to succeed out there exists, you just have to keep trying.
Prometheus46715 5 months ago
@Prometheus I never denied that I wasn't an autodidact. Why do you consider reading books not to be a form of education? Thats patently ridiculous. Saying that you are educated just because you have a college degree or graduated high school, but refuse not to further advance your own education once you departed those institutions isn't an example of being educated.A person is more educated who continues their education throughtout there life , than someone who regurgitates info for a test.
Pentazoid111 5 months ago
This has been flagged as spam show
@prometheus "Heaven forbid you let people who know about a subject than you disavow you of your misconceptions." I listen to people who have expertise in my subject area of interest. I never declared that I was an expert in anything, just that I didn't get my education off of blogs like skep falsely accuse me of.
Pentazoid111 5 months ago
@Pentazoid111 You do seem to parrot a lot of market anarchist talking points. Let me, as someone slightly more educated than you in the subject of economics clue you in on something. Truly free markets don't exist. They don't because like all anarchies, they become autocracies. All markets are mixed as a result. This is the way things actually play out and it is best to base your preferences about the economy around real world behaviour rather than an ideology.
Prometheus46715 5 months ago
Comment removed
Pentazoid111 5 months ago
@PrometheusI am not parroting anything, I state the facts. I don't think that you are more educated than me in the subject of economics. I think you are only familiar and well versed in one school of economics and have not try to understand every other school of economics out their. I am aware that trully free markets don't exist, but that doesn't mean they are ineffective. One of the largest economic growths in human history took place when we had a relatively free market
Pentazoid111 5 months ago
@PrometheusGovernment interventionism gives way to autocracies, fascism, or communist dictatorships. Free markets are more likely to give away to personal liberties and economic freedoms(obviously) . Simply look at the economic index of freedom around the world and you will find out that the societies that tend to have the freest economics are the least likely to be autocratic and the societies with the heaviest form of government intervention tend have tend to more likely be autocratic.
Pentazoid111 5 months ago
@Pentazoid111 And for the record I live in one of the highest unemployment areas in my country. I've been unemployed for months and have been living off my savings. I am not expecting the government to just hand me a job, nor am I naive enough to think the government can just remove some regulations and suddenly a job will be there. That isn't how the world works, and if you stopped for a moment and took the time to evaluate your ideology, you would quickly find that it doesnt mesh with reality
Prometheus46715 5 months ago
@Prometheus46715 "I am not expecting the government to just hand me a job" I never said the govt would give you a job. "or am I naive enough to think the government can just remove some regulations and suddenly a job " While government regulations don't contribute to all unemployment rates in the US , they contribute to considerable amounts and they affect some demographics more harshley than others. Studies show that minimum wage laws hurts poor black teenagers more than any other group
Pentazoid111 5 months ago
Well let me disavow any misconceptions you may have about me. I'm canadian, and not black (of irish descent) nor does race exist as a cultural construct in the same way that it does in the states up here. But In the city I live the unemployment is about 9%. I've been turned down for jobs at McDonalds. Friends of mine with masters degrees are working retail. However, there is little the government can do to remedy this. My town required the U.S. for income, so we have fallen with them.
Prometheus46715 5 months ago
@Pro I never assumed that you were not canadian nor have I assumed that you were black and not irish. I am pretty much in the same both that you are in. There is a lot that government can do to remedy this and that is by not intervening in the economy. You would have a higher change of finding a job if their were no minimum wage laws or the mininum wage was lower, because as I have stated,that impacts unemployment greatly for some groups. Also, things would be more affordable without inflation
Pentazoid111 5 months ago
@Pentazoid111 This is quite honestly a childs understanding of economics. Inflation is necessary for banks to function. At a minimum there must be inflation just to account for population growth. Seriously, you don't understand these issues. No minimum wage would not increase me chance at finding a job, because there is no demand. I mean it. Get a textbook on economics, and it will explains these things to you.
Prometheus46715 5 months ago
@Pentazoid111 My unemployment is not the governments fault. Nor is it mine. I personally hand out two resumes a day and on tuesday pound the pavement looking for work. I admit that it is hard and often discouraging but that doesn't give me the right to blame the government for things that are beyond their control. It isn't Government intervention keeping me from a job, it's a bad economy keeping employers from hiring more people to deal with the demand, which at the moment does not exist.
Prometheus46715 5 months ago
@Prometheus46715 So it is the governments fault in part. But not for doing something but for not doing something.
In a situation like that the government should be deficit spending on infrastructure and education to improve the ramifications for the creation of new jobs and at the same time pump money into the consumer base to increase demand.
If they don't they are at least partially to blame for not improving the situation.
PeterK1984 5 months ago
@Peter The government has been deficit spending and so far it has failed. the US government spends the most per student on education and we still perform the worst out of all OECD countries. We have a big spending package now and that has failed miserably at creating new jobs. Two harvard economists , Alberto Alesina and Silvia Ardagna, study the fiscal adjustments of over a dozen OECD countries and found that tax cuts are less likely to increase economic growtih than deficit spending.
Pentazoid111 5 months ago
@Pentazoid111 talking to you about economy reminds me of "life of galilei", a play by Bertholdt Brecht. Three "Church scientists" visit Galileo to discuss the existence of Moons orbiting Venus. Galileo tells them to look through his telescope to see them for themselves but they refuse and instead prefer to discuss if they can exists at all.
All western countries have public school systems and they work. But instead of looking there and adapting yours you want to abandon it all together.
PeterK1984 5 months ago
@Peter "All western countries have public...." Depends. If you believe that scoring high on standardized test scores by any means necessary(cheating is suprisingly rampant in china) . If your high standards of education are children pursing their self-interests and customizing their own curriculum, then no , Most public schools don't meet this educational standard. I think that the best education model would be Montessori education model and the majority of PS systems don't have this mode.
Pentazoid111 5 months ago
This has been flagged as spam show
@Peter "All western countries have public...." Depends. If you believe that scoring high on standardized test scores by any means necessary(cheating is suprisingly rampant in china) . If your high standards of education are children pursing their self-interests and customizing their own curriculum, then no , Most public schools don't meet this educational standard. I think that the best education model would be Montessori education model and the majority of PS systems don't have this mode.
Pentazoid111 5 months ago
@Pentazoid111 The same goes for deficit spending (btw, I never advocated tax cuts. I don't know why you mention that they are worse). Look what got the US out of the great depression or look at the job market. The number of jobs was declining until the stimulus package hit. Since then the number has stabilized. Watch /watch?v=L0PO_FrW9C8 to see it and then tell me this is a coincidence.
You simply refuse common sense and seeing the evidence. I am sorry, but there is no talking to you
PeterK1984 5 months ago
I never said you did advocate tax cuts. What got US out of the Great depression was not a stimulus package but large private investment. Many economists argue that the New Deal actually prolonged the great depression. watch?v=apdeR_KYhH0 . I recommend Robert Higgs Book, Depression, war and Cold war. The stimulus package was executed in 2009 and the unemployment rate still increase. We had no stimulus package when poverty levels dropped significantly durring the Industrial revolution.
Pentazoid111 5 months ago
@Pentazoid111 First, I give you statistical data and you give me a poll of 68 people. Are you serious? Second, there are also historians who think the holocaust did not happen. I'll go with the majority vote on the new deal and also the fact that before the new deal the great depression had run rampart for 4 years. So for 4 years nothing worked, then the new deal was introduced and coincidentally for not connected reasons the depression ended...Are you 12?
PeterK1984 5 months ago
You gave me nothing, and there are more polls that show economists don't agree with the stimulus package. What majority vote on the new deal? Nearly half of the economists don't agree that the new deal stimulus package got the US economy out of the Great Depression. the ad populum fallacies applies to scientists just like the ad populum fallacy applies to average layman. Most credible physicists in nazi germany did not agree with Einstein's theory of general relativity despite its validity
Pentazoid111 5 months ago
@Pentazoid111 The same goes for deficit spending (btw, I never advocated tax cuts. I don't know why you mention that they are worse). Look what got the US out of the great depression or look at the job market. The number of jobs was declining until the stimulus package hit. Since then the number has stabilized. Watch /watch?v=L0PO_FrW9C8 to see it and then tell me this is a coincidence.
You simply refuse common sense and seeing the evidence. I am sorry, but there is no talking to you
PeterK1984 5 months ago
@PeterK1984 from cnn money(dot)com: "NABE conducted the study by polling 68 of its members who work in economic roles at private-sector firms. About 73% of those surveyed said employment at their company is neither higher nor lower as a result of the $787 billion Recovery Act, which the White House's Council of Economic Advisers says is on track to create or save 3.5 million jobs by the end of the year. "
Pentazoid111 5 months ago
In Canada we had a fairly large jobs stimulus. It worked in most of the province but the area I live in was particularly dependent on the auto industry which took a rather nasty hit, resulting in plant closings which then resulted in cutbacks at all other services due to lack of demand. It will likely take several years to reinvigorate the area.
Prometheus46715 5 months ago
@Pentazoid111 And just to ram this point home note the definition in the glossary of deflation "The general tendency for prices to fall." This is incredibly misleading. Deflation is the rise in the value of currency, which does cause prices to fall however, this leaves out the fact that is will result in a halt on bank loans, as banks loans, which will halt the growth of many businesses, which in extreme cases could cause mass unemployment and economic collapse. This is important to know.
Prometheus46715 5 months ago
@Prometheus46715 well said.
theskepticalheretic 5 months ago
I live in a single payer system and i must say that smokers as you pay more then us none smokers for healthcare because an added tax on the cigarettes. It is how they solve the unfairness
Gripen1974 5 months ago
@theskepticalheretic G'day... Funny, how many of us are trying to remediate JW's Scatterbrain-effect. Also funny, you hate Bullshit ; but nicotine's a Bullshit-Tolerance Enhancer. As a Vasoconstrictor, it drops y' Cerebral Perfusion Rate. So, y' Brain gets less Sugar & 0.2, & makes less Electricity ; thus it processes less data... And y' don't notice the B.S..! It's a VERY Industrial Drug. Ban all Tax Breaks for Insurance- Premiums. Levy 1.5% Income Tax for Universal Medicare for all..!
WarblesOnALot 5 months ago
I'm curious as to how people feel about healthcare being a 'for profit' business... Isn't that a bit of a conflict of interest? I mean, the powers that be don't want a 'cure' for diseases, right? There's no money in the cure, the money is in the treatment, right? Eh, I don't know...
moresnare 5 months ago
As a smoker you pay more for insurance. You also pay more in taxes (cigarette taxes). Here in New York state it is $6.46 per pack.
So for a person who is a 1 pack a day smoker the cost is $45 a week. That is about half of what I pay a week for health insurance for me and my son.
What bothers me about the cig tax is that the tax revenue is not put into a fund for smokers but instead is used to fill budget gaps. Money/taxes meant for healthcare is not going into healthcare or prevention.
deadman12078 5 months ago
All ya need is the "mrs" to come hand you a cup of warm kaluha n' milk and lay a comforting hand on ur shoulder. Youtube GOLD
ThisPageStaysREAL 5 months ago
I am Canadian so I think of healthcare as a right not a luxury. Call it whatever you like when Im sick or busted up I go to the hospital and get fixed up. Costs me about $300 a yr. Is this the terrible treatment some Americans fear? Correct me if im wrong but isnt America the only 1st world country that does not operate this way?
groovyengineer 5 months ago
Comment removed
atchisrj1 5 months ago
Doesn't it say somewhere in the Constitution that the government is created for the people and by the people? How is the thought of having Universal healthcare against the constitution if it is FOR THE PEOPLE?
Nightw0lf414 5 months ago
This has been flagged as spam show
@RevJdubs "reported" Oh NOES! This isn't going on my permanent record is it?
Or did you write it down? "Serious serious injury.... Dassin won't go to the fast food restaurant that I work at."
Did Dassin make the little Libertarian cry? Really? Aren't you guys all big bad cowboy types armed to the teeth living in places where the men are men and the sheep are nervous?
Enough kidding around. What you need to do is stop eating the crayons and start using them so you can get your GED.
xdassinx 5 months ago
@RevJdubs "reported" Oh NOES!!!!!! This isn't going on my permanent record is it?
Or did you write it down? "Serious serious injury.... Dassin won't go to the fast food restaurant that I work at."
Did Dassin make the little Libertarian cry? Really? Aren't you guys all big bad cowboy types armed to the teeth living in places where the men are men and the sheep are nervous?
Enough kidding around. What you need to do is stop eating the crayons and start using them so you can get your GED.
xdassinx 5 months ago
@xdassinx <---- Thumbs up for this guy! =]
rellik31486 5 months ago
@xdassinx <---- Thumbs up for this guy! =]
rellik31486 5 months ago
When corporatism and crony capitalism gives us terrible medical services, don't blame the free-market.
StatelessLiberty 5 months ago
@StatelessLiberty Substantiate your claim.
theskepticalheretic 5 months ago
@theskepticalheretic The first thing that comes to mind is the way the healthcare reform bill passed as it did (w/o a real public option). Basically, we socialized the health insurance industry much the same way transportation industries (airlines and rail) have been subsidized. That's a real stickler when it comes to understanding how and why certain goods should be socialized in terms of cost rather than internalized to the price of the good itself.
ladyattis 5 months ago
Comment removed
PeterK1984 5 months ago
@StatelessLiberty That's like saying "When your brakes fail, don't blame the manufacturer".
The idea behind capitalism is to make as much profit as possible and that is what those corporations do. I can't understand why people defend capitalism so much. It's like we are looking at two completely different scenes. They look at the heavily regulated and taxed economy of the 50s and 60s and call it capitalism. I look at the unregulated exploitative 16 hours a day workplace of the 19th century.
PeterK1984 5 months ago
@PeterK1984 "The idea behind capitalism is to make as much profit as possible."
No, the idea behind "capitalism" is that people do seek profit and so we should construct an economic system with that in mind. No advocate of "capitalism" (which is a term of contradictory meanings) is saying anybody *ought* to be selfish, only that they *are*.
Conflating an descriptive statement with a prescriptive one is not a minor error.
StatelessLiberty 5 months ago
@StatelessLiberty as I said, substantiate your claim. How exactly is a "free market", depending on your definition of what a free market is, going to be able to prevent corporatism and crony capitalism? Keep in mind corporatism and crony capitalism need not have government involvement to ply their trade. And if you say independent private ratings bureaus, I will be sticking Moody's and Standard and Poor right in your face as examples of failure.
theskepticalheretic 5 months ago
"Keep in mind corporatism and crony capitalism need not have government involvement to ply their trade."
Corporatism and crony capitalism involve government by definition.
en.wikipedia(.)org/wiki/Crony_capitalism
wordnetweb(.)princeton (dot) edu/perl/webwn?s=corporatism
"substantiate your claim"
I wasn't sure what claim to substantiate.
As to how a free-market would do better, that's complex but here's the best article I can find:
mises(.)org/daily/4434
StatelessLiberty 5 months ago
@StatelessLiberty yeah, we don't play wikipedia here. Crony capitalism typically is used to describe market collusion within capitalist economic systems. To say that a government must be involved is a lack of understanding of how crony-ism manifests.
Now corporatism is societal, not necessarily governmental.
Not understanding this nuance isn't leading me to believe you've done any research on this topic outside of what has been spoon fed to you from your third source, a blog.
theskepticalheretic 5 months ago
@PeterK1984
"That's like saying "When your brakes fail, don't blame the manufacturer"."
When your brakes fail, you blame the manufacturer because it was a failure on the part of the manufacturer that caused your brakes to fail.
When corporatism and crony capitalism gives us terrible medical services, don't blame the free-market as, a) the free-market doesn't exist so it cannot be the cause of anything, and b) advocates of free-markets are strongly opposed to corporatism and crony capitalism.
StatelessLiberty 5 months ago
@StatelessLiberty Define a free market. A free market by definition is an unregulated market. And in an unregulated market those corporations thrive.
Think about it, those big corporations are more profitable, that is why they are formed in the first place. Without regulations there is nothing to restrict them and prevent them from building monopolys and exploiting the people. A person who is pro free market and anti corporation is either willfully deceptive or has not thought it through
PeterK1984 5 months ago
Not it isn't , it is a market regulated by private citizens , not the government , and corporations are partially government creations. An example of the market regulating itself would be when the electronics regulatory agencies inspects and evaluates electronic products before they go onto market and that agency is privatized. Governments create help create monopolies , through placing tariffs on domestic businesses, through subsidies , and through licensing laws.
Pentazoid111 5 months ago
@Pentazoid111 Please tell me you are not this stupid. Selfregulation does not, did not and never will work. Why do you believe that a company would support a fair and real testing of their products if they are not forced to do it? You just have to look at the amount of medical products that get on the market and have horrendous sideeffects to know that they wont.
PeterK1984 5 months ago
There are examples of Self-regulation in the marketplace that you are apparently very ignorant of. The Underwriters Laboratories safety inspection agency that inspects the safety and quality of electronics before they go onto the market place is a great example, and they existed way before the organization OSHA "approved" of their safety standards. Why do you believe that federal government is more apt at looking at the welfare of people than private organizations . They are not.
Pentazoid111 5 months ago
@Pentazoid111 The reason why these organizations work is because they're overseen by public entities and are accountable to the people. You seem to have this issue with cronyism in the government, what makes you think that cronyism would be limited exclusively to government?
theskepticalheretic 5 months ago
@theskepticalheretic further, you seem to be ignorant of the multitude of failures that UL has had within it's testing schemes over the years, and of course the rampant forgery of UL seals which is arbitrated purely by the government. The UL is useless unless they can levy the power of public office against fraud and forgery of their trademarks.
theskepticalheretic 5 months ago
I never said that the UL was a perfect organization where there were zero flaws in its testing schemes. Where is the evidence that a public regulatory organization will better look out for the well being and safety of its citizens more so than a private regulatory organization? There is a lot of corruption within regulatory government agencies like the FDA. They have delayed drugsthat would helped patients, and there have been many accusations that the FDA allows harmful drugs on the market.
Pentazoid111 5 months ago
"The UL is useless unless they can levy the power of public office " What do you mean the UL its useless? It has existed since 1894 way before their were any federal government regulatory agencies such as OSHA(which came out in 1971) to oversee it. There are no government sanctioned licenses that are imposed on certain job professions such as IT and people who work in IT are not more incompetent because of it. The market decides the competency of people who work in IT
Pentazoid111 5 months ago
@Pentazoid111 And lastly, I have no doubt that some companies would go for the quick buck. Sell a drug of which you know that it has devastating long term effects, make huge profits and leave the country before the people start dying.
Look at what happened in the (mostly unregulated) financial sector. Those people did not care that they were ruining the lifes of honest workers. Watch "Inside man" to grasp how corrupt the corporal world really is.
PeterK1984 5 months ago
@Pentazoid111 the certification process is manufacturer driven. The analogy of IT is a very poor one.
As for the UL, what prevents non-UL approved products from entering the market... nothing. So of what use is a UL certification, a certification that more and more commonly is not being sought after by manufacturers?
theskepticalheretic 5 months ago
The analogy is very relevant.There is no government regulatory agencies to oversee the number of competent vs the number of incompetent IT professionals , and someone see services from a person who was hired with zero IT experience or knowledge.Likewise, a private regulatory agency can determined the quality of a product that customers buy. cont'd
Pentazoid111 5 months ago
cont;d Yes, there is a chance that non-UL products can enter the market, but thats a risk that people will have to take. HAving a government regulatory agency present doesn't reduce these risks to zero. In some cases, as I said earlier they exacerbate the risks by delaying safe products from entering the market or they allow products that are consider unsafe . Some products that the fda labeled hazardous poise little to no danger to the consumer.
Pentazoid111 5 months ago
@Pentazoid111 "Some products that the fda labeled hazardous poise little to no danger to the consumer."
Name one.
Second, are you really going to tell us we shouldn't have the FDA? That's borderline retarded at best.
theskepticalheretic 5 months ago
@Pentazoid111 It's not about being apt or the safety standards, it is about being binding.
Why would a company that does not care for consumer safety ever give their products to a testing agency if they are not bound to? And if those tests showed a danger, what authority could that organization claim to prevent the selling of that product?
"Our data indicates that the drug you want to release causes chancer long term."
"Ours does not. Bite me."
And then?
PeterK1984 5 months ago
The company would care if consumers demanded it to care. The company have to imposed a set of safety standards on their products that the consumers demand otherwise they will be out of business quickly because consumers will go to another business that meets the level of safety standards that they desire. If the product shows a danger, people would not shopped their any longer . You will rarely be in a situation where absolutely zero risks are involved.
Pentazoid111 5 months ago
Comment removed
PeterK1984 5 months ago
This has been flagged as spam show
@Pentazoid111 That is simply incorrect.
First, most people lack the scientific understanding. Including me, btw. I am an electrical engineer, I do not understand medicine and biology enough to judge what an adequate safety standard for a medical product is.
Second, many faulty drugs do not produce an immediate negative result. If 10 people buy a toaster and it blows up, the knowledge will spread. If 10000 people get chancer as a long term effect of a drug they took 10 years ago, it wont
PeterK1984 5 months ago
@Pentazoid111 Third, you underestimate the ingenuity (or insidiousness) of companies. When the Bio-product boom started in Germany 6 different "100% biological" seals showed up with varying standards of "100%".
If you had only self regulation I guarantee you that different "testing institutes" would pop up that would guarantee safety of the products they tested with varying trustworthiness and again, the costumer can't judge the actual effectiveness of the tests.
PeterK1984 5 months ago
"you're assuming that every participant in the market place has equal knowledge, which most assuredly is not the case. " Why couldn't they? They can get access to information on a product if they desire too. The better question is, why do you think that a government bureaucrat is better to access the quality of a product than the consumer? Or why do you assume that the consumer lacks the forsight or knowledge to hire another person to determine the safety and quality of a product?
Pentazoid111 5 months ago
This has been flagged as spam show
"you're assuming that every participant in the market place has equal knowledge, which most assuredly is not the case. " Why couldn't they? They can get access to information on a product if they desire too. The better question is, why do you think that a government bureaucrat is better to access the quality of a product than the consumer? Or why do you assume that the consumer lacks the forsight or knowledge to hire another person to determine the safety and quality of a product?
Pentazoid111 5 months ago
@Pentazoid111 you're assuming that every participant in the market place has equal knowledge, which most assuredly is not the case.
theskepticalheretic 5 months ago
"you're assuming that every participant in the market place has equal knowledge, which most assuredly is not the case. " No , I am not. I arguing that those in government are not more knowledgeable about the safety and quality of a product or service than people in the private sector, therefore they should not be given a monopolistic power to determine the safety and quality of a product that enters the marketplace.
Pentazoid111 5 months ago
@Pentazoid111 the private sector is not the citizenry. Those in government should be more knowledgable than the average citizen in their specified field, meaning they can advocate on the behalf of the citizen.
Your arguments are so poorly constructed, please do something other than parrot blogs.
theskepticalheretic 5 months ago
" the private sector is not the citizenry" The government doesn't represent everyone, it can only represent special interests groups. "Those in government should be more knowledgable than the average citizen in their specified fiel" Should and what actually is, are two different things.
"Your.... " I've profusely studied all schools of economics, even those I heavily disagree with, from marxism to keynesian economics , to austrian economics. You are apparently the one reading blogs.
Pentazoid111 5 months ago
"
Second, are you really going to tell us we shouldn't have the FDA? That's borderline retarded at best. " Its completely retarded to put trust in one organization that has a history of fuckups . Its retarded to ASSUME that the FDA will more look off for the interests of the US population than any private regulatory agency.
Pentazoid111 5 months ago
Pentazoid111 And again, nobody says that the industry could not, in theory, regulate itself. The same experts that are hired by the government could be hired by private companies (sadly they often are hired by both at the same time, for different reasons, but that's another subject). Question is, if it is reasonable to assume it would.
And here common sense and experience from the recent financial crisis shows us the level of self regulation that the industry is willing to subject itself to.
PeterK1984 5 months ago
Many of these so called experts would not be hired by the private sector who are now hired by the government because they will not tolerate the screwups made by some of the bureaucrats in government because it would be a huge loss to theirindustry. "And here common sense and experience from the recent financial crisis shows us the level of self regulation that the industry is willing to subject itself to." The private sector didn't caused the financial crisis, government did.
Pentazoid111 5 months ago
as Tim Mitchin said alternative medicine that works is called medicine.
angrywhenroused 5 months ago
Spot on - Even if taken on the very narrow conditions of economy - public healthcare is a great idea. It's only that the right is not able to see the bigger picture.
tristbjorn 5 months ago