Friedman on Antitrust

Milton Friedman discusses monopolies and antitrust.

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News & Politics

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• Antitrust

[heavym3tal]

@cannotbebothered100 Look at the alternative, in your example of the insurance company. When you cap the price an company can charge a consumer, you limit its profit margin, and stop it from growing, and being able to provide more insurance at possibly lower rates. Any Microeconomics textbook will show that when the government sets a price control, there is an excess demand, which results in a rationing of the given commodity. Does this help those that need the commodity?

[stebecool]

@Saebeck32 People claim to say what the tax rates were in the past, but fail to say what the tax rates were that were actually paid. The best example is how people say that the top tax rate in the 50/60's was 70%+, but there were so many tax deductions and loopholes that no one paid anywhere near that much. The best place to look is the federal tax revenue as a % of GDP which has been essentially the same since WWII.

[Saebeck32]

@stebecool If you're concerned about solvency, let's return to the tax rate we had in the 1990's. Taxes were even higher under Reagan, that socialist, than they are now. Medicare has remained solvent since 1965. I think we can make some modest changes to ensure its solvency for generations to come.

[stebecool]

@Saebeck32 People forget that the stock market is risky. That's why you can make significant money investing in it. If you don't want to take on the risk, then you have the option of holding cash, investing in some low-risk bonds (though rare nowadays), or CDs that pay close to nothing thanks to the fed and government believing that interest rates should be near zero "for the greater good". Don't put money in something risky and cry foul if lose it. It's the high-yield game you signed up for.

[stebecool]

@Saebeck32 People pay into it all their lives, but they (might) receive the benefit decades down the road if anything is left. The way it's run, it's strictly a transfer of wealth from young to old (and if you're ok with that, and it might, that's your deal) because it won't be solvent by the time I reach an age to be eligible when I would finally receive my payment into the system over my lifespan. I agree it's moderately modest and I don't want to hurt the needy, but it's a bad system.

[Saebeck32]

@stebecool The money is not coming exlusively from the "young" with medicare and social security. People pay into this program all their lives. What if a 75 year old loses his retirement money because wall street tanks again? She can no longer afford health insurance, what is she supposed to do? Medicare provides some peace of mind to people in their old age. We pay rather modest amounts into the program, and we ALL do it. Medicare seems very reasonable to me.

[stebecool]

@Saebeck32 No one. They are already sick so it is not an "insurance" issue. It's a healthcare issue. If the 78 year old is not sick, then yes, the insurance would be expensive because the probability of that person becoming sick is very high, but someone will be willing to provide it for some price. We could have a socialistic system where the young WILL pay for the old. The young are generally more poor than the old, so it's a transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich. Is that what you want?

[cannotbebothered100]

If you don't put a price cap on a trade then a private entity may make a trade that at a lower price they would not, that is to say an insurance company could provide insurance at a higher cost for someone who had become ill and was old, who would have more costly insurance still if government, as it does in America, tried to equalise insurance payments removing direct financial incentives for the very removal of strain on the system that makes its care more available for those who need it most.

[Saebeck32]

@kriskats19 Before medicare seniors couldn't get adequate insurance! What insurance company wants to insure a 78 year old sick person?!?

[kriskats19]

@Saebeck32 Before Medicare doctors used to make house calls. Guess what we have now? We have corporate medicine. We pay thousands of dollars to get stitches because there are a million layers of bureacracy between you and the doctor. This is what happens when the government gets involved in ANYTHING. The cost explodes. This can be seen in education, housing, and medicine.