[CDB]

Originally Posted by Jayhawkk

There's a whole lot more to that than just your hatred for gov't. I'll admit they have their fair share of the blame but there are many more reasons. You can only support so much in so many places with sanitation, water, power grids. You also have schools etc than can not just grow every year. You can tear up historic landmarks to make a couple more apartments but in the end you have the same thing when population goes up and people have to move outward.

Which begs the question why such limitations don't hamper the ability of private industry counterparts.

CDB, i've always had the opinion you were a smart individual but your open bias and apparent hatred for certain things makes some of your arguments lacking. As in the singular point you make, makes sense but you never account for the other parts of the equation that make the whole. You also seem to think the gov't is a body not ran by humans and their nature. Drop government and put the people someplace else and you'll still end up in the same boat.

And I can just as easily say your biases blind you to other parts of the equation. That the government is run by people is not beside the point in my argument, it IS the point. It is the same imperfect people who run every business in the world. Except when they're in the government they have guns, the force of law, prisons to throw you in, and no accountability they can't manage into insignificance, not to mention they exist in a complete vacuum seperated from the very market signals they need to make the decisions they presume to take away from consumers and upon themselves. So I have to wonder why you don't trust people to voluntarily exchange, or not to do so, when they see it is to their benefit, but why those same people become transformed into angels when they enter the government and get less information, more power, more guns, and less accountability. It is you guys who argue the perfect government is the cure for an imperfect market. I argue the market is imperfect because life is imperfect, and that while you can't fix that is what you can do is let the market work as it does for all others goods and services on the planet to increase the supply and lower the price so more people can afford the good and service in question.

All of whish is also besides the point: the 'other factors' in the equation are often irrelevant or the result of previous government screw ups, and you have to engage in some serious temporal provincialism to argue for the government as a solution to a problem it created. Then there are pesky facts to deal with.

If there was a magic answer to these problems they would of been found a long time ago.

I am not claiming a magic answer. It is in fact you who argue for a government provided solution who are offerring a magic answer, at least if you define magic as making something that has hither to been impossible to achieve possible. The market has proven itself. We're surrounded by a plethora of goods and services at ridiculously low prices, all requiring the coordination of resources across continents and often decades worth of time, and the planning of a mere fraction of which would be enough to make a government central planner throw up his hands in futility and claim it can't be done. Yet it is being done as we speak, en masse. It's not magic, it's the lattice work of the structure of production that, once you see and understand how it works, makes arguments against it look ridiculously silly and ill informed.

[anabolicrhino]

Originally Posted by Jumper

I would like to hear from some of the thousands of Cubans that had their property and assets stolen by Castro, and are therefore now living here in the U.S. how that Cuban health care system is working out for them?

I can only speak for my girlfriend(when she lets me) who was born in Havana;

She receives US government assisted health care because she is a single mother. This will end when her children turn 18. This is paid for by state taxes.

If she were still living in Cuba she as well as her children would receive free health care for the rest of their lives, and of course there is no tax in Cuba!

She owned no property in Cuba and she owns no property in the USA.

She enjoys the "freedom of enterprise" here in the USA which is not available in Cuba, although she really hasn't taken full advantage of it yet!

[Jayhawkk]

Now were you making fun of my spelling error in the other thread?

I don't blindly believe anyone or anything. I also am aware enough to know that what I may think in one situation will not always work when you add other elements that were not in the previous situation. I think there should be government watchdogs and they should be accountable for their actions and my votes represent those beliefs that there should be gov't regulations but they should also be limited.

You and I have seen what happens when government does and doesn't step in to check markets. There is no clear cut and defined line. Since you referenced my other thread i'll so the same...Everyone always claims to have all the information and the solutions and the right answers and argue in ways to try and convince everyone else just isn't educated enough to follow along.

What is it exactly that is 'the way things are' that you agree with or are you just the average rage against the machine?

[Jayhawkk]

If she were still living in Cuba she as well as her children would receive free health care for the rest of their lives, and of course there is no tax in Cuba!

****ing great and if that is what makes a country then why leave? Everyone points out one thing that may or may not work from some country that never equals ours in size,population,economy etc and think they can just import the **** to the US and it'll work. Has anyone ever sat down and thought that maybe for good or bad that all that the US is, is what has made this "The greatest Nation" currently?

If you want free lifetime Healthcare and that is your priority in life then the answer to me seems simple.

If you want the freedom to purchase and use any currently illegal prodcut in the US and another country allows this and this is your priority, then get going.

Again, to get my point across: It is everything in the US that has made it what it is and i'm all for making it better but that isn't as simple as rolodexing the world's countries and societies and pulling all the perfect texbook examples to the US and turning into some utopia.

[anabolicrhino]

Originally Posted by Rufio

And you're claiming that all of the above occured in absolute Laissez Faire systems? I doubt it. The market and government of most countries are by and large interconnected. Let's be honest here: the government is run by corporate sponsors and they have the biggest influence behind domestic and foreign policy alike. The distinction between the two is razor thin. That's why the Democrat/Republican divide is such a farce. I

In any event, what I was talking about was the limits of a system based on voluntary taxing where people would try to provide their own relief from natural disasters, help for the sick and dying, etc. Sometimes it works and sometimes people are too disorganized or just don't care enough to contribute and everything turns to s**t. Of course sometimes the same thing happens when the government is managing these things. I think the best solution is somewhere in the middle. Personally I would love it if people were responsible and organized enough to chip in to the point where each state could have adequate disaster relief, life-saving prodcedures were more attainable, and poverty was reduced. I just don't think that's the case/

I agree with your points and would add, that the USA is far from an Adam Smith "free market" economy.

Regulation exists for one reason, the nature of mans greed !

De regulation of the California energy system opened it up for whole hearted rape by the Enron types!


How about a private system that does not allow for corporate ownership? or shareholder agreements?

or

Make the system unprofitable, but self sufficient like the police and fire departments so that only actual caring professionals would participate, not profiteers

You are free to go to whatever health care service you choose.
but the price of services would be uniform

The only regulation being a review system to make sure the health care professionals were all qualified to provide adequate care!

[anabolicrhino]

Originally Posted by Jayhawkk

****ing great

Again, to get my point across: It is everything in the US that has made it what it is and i'm all for making it better but that isn't as simple as rolodexing the world's countries and societies and pulling all the perfect texbook examples to the US and turning into some utopia.

What do you have against Utopia ?

I think you have made an excellent point in reverse.

Utilizing the best ideas that the world has to offer and incorporating them into this country's policies is a great idea !

[Jayhawkk]

Nothing but expecting it is a waste of time. People can be downright monsters and they are not few and far inbetween.

Make the system unprofitable, but self sufficient like the police and fire departments so that only actual caring professionals would participate, not profiteers

The profit is in the paychecks. You do realize that many firefighters and police make double or more over their basic salary, right? Not that i'm against cops or firefighters but I wouldn't use that as an argument on how to properly run a healthcare system.

[anabolicrhino]

Originally Posted by Jayhawkk

Nothing but expecting it is a waste of time. People can be downright monsters and they are not few and far inbetween.



The profit is in the paychecks. You do realize that many firefighters and police make double or more over their basic salary, right? Not that i'm against cops or firefighters but I wouldn't use that as an argument on how to properly run a healthcare system.

are you talking about bribes and grab money ?

..just kidding !

[Nullifidian]

Originally Posted by anabolicrhino

are you talking about bribes and grab money ?

..just kidding !

There are plenty of cops that do, sadly enough. They are in a position of power and power corrupts. For many there are a lot of opportunities to makes a lot of extra money without getting caught.

[CDB]

Originally Posted by Rufio

Actually it would be a restriction of any power that violates that right. For instance, if someone murders you they're violating your right to life despite not being part of the government.

Yes they would be.

Not really. It also prohibits other citizens from killing you, forcing you into slavery, torturing you to force you to convert to another religion, etc. When people violating your rights are arrested, that's government intervention to protect your rights. It is a paradox and I would much prefer anarchy if it worked in practice, but the majority people aren't really responsible or caring enough to function with no leaders.

If the majority of the people aren't responsible or caring enough to function without leaders, they likely aren't responsible or caring enough to trust to elect leaders either. The ethos of democracy, even in a democratic republic like the US, makes certain contradictions arise when you start talking about the incompetence or inadequecies of the people in managing themselves. Because, if they can't manage their own lives, they certainly can't be trusted to manage the lives of others even if it amounts to choosing leaders.

As for the rights violation, you're ignoring the fact that in order to enact and enforce the law the government has to take resources from people. And you're also ignoring the fact that punishment consists of the victim and the rest of society by and large paying for room and board for the assaulter or murderer during their stretch. The punishment is meant to instill respect for the authority of the law making body, protection of the rights of the injured is a secondary concern if at all, restitution of what was taken and/or reparations for what was done are often overlooked unless it is easy and obvious to do, such as returning stolen property.

Except that enforcing these rights already results in huge numbers of arrests and a costly incarceration system. I agree with what you're saying in theory, but in practice I don't think people are responsible enough to take care of the sick and poor in a complete laissez faire system. I also don't buy into your seeming Social Darwinist notion of "if you don't have enough money to save your own life, SCREW YOU."

Which presumes medical care must be costly and out of reach of everyone. As mentioned in my response to Jay, that's temporal provincialism in the extreme. Not only need it not cost so much, taking the steps to make it available to people for whom it is currently out of reach through the government directly hurts the long term prospects of them ever being able to afford it. It's not a matter of social darwinism, it's a matter of realism. The world is imperfect and government can not change that, and can in fact only exacerbate that fact over time in almost all instances, especially when it comes to trying to solve 'problems' of wealth inequality.

I was refuting your claim that taxes aren't synonymous with society. How many societies can you think of that had no taxes?

None off the top of my head. But by that reasoning then murder is also synonymous with society. So is rape, robbery, slavery, etc. Correlation doesn't mean causation. Nor do you address the nature of what's involved. Government and taxes, like herpes, may be inescapable once you've got it. That doesn't mean you should let it run amock and expand as much as possible. Murder may be a part of society, that doesn't mean you ignore it or worse, encourage it.

That's not what I'm implying at all. You're missing the point. Wanting to change the system is fine, but what I'm saying is that the society you're in sets up systems which allow you to make more money than you could otherwise, and taxes are part of the conditions of that system.

This is an expression of economic ignorance so vast it astounds. Please do tell, how much is any one person supposed to make? This is BS Ricardian rent theory which has been thoroughly debunked for well over a century.

I don't consider it outright stealing because the government's economic systems gave you the opportunities you have and the money you're making is a direct result of what they've done.

Again, economic ignorance that is astounding. The government is not the economy. The government at most sets up rules by which the economy must abide. It does not create opportunity, it does not create wealth, it does not serve any capitalist function, it does not serve any entrepreneurial function. The economy, or the market, is the interweaving system that is created by each and every voluntary exchange that takes place between people. Nothing more, nothing less.

It would be outright stealing if they were taking money you made without their assistance. They helped you get the money and are basically "capitalizing" on the position they hold. In some ways they're doing to you what Marx spoke of industrialized nations doing to workers in general (forced competition for shrinking wages).

They did not help you get the money because the government can only consume. Money is not wealth, it is a commodity used for exchange. Increased productivity leads to wealth, which is an increase in the available goods and services and a concurrent increase in buying power of whatever the money commodity happens to be. The government can not contribute to this process by definition, it can only distort it and/or live off a portion of the surplus after it has been created. Saying the government is the economy or an integral part of it completely turns the known structure of production on its head. The government can only exist on what has already been produced through productive activity. It can only reduce wealth by its very nature.

That's an interesting theory, but you're ignoring the fact that merely having a job or being a consumer makes you dependent upon the government. They can sell things for many times what they cost to make while paying the workers who made the products a micro-fraction of the money their work produces.

Actually they can't, and there's barely a modern economist left who doesn't know and acknowledge that wages are determined by marginal productivity. If someone tries to pay their workers less than MP they create profit conditions for other people to hire them and aquire their revenue stream. If they pay them more than MP then their profits and return margins get squeezed. If employers could pay their workers whatever they wanted wages would never go up, and indeed never would have gone up, and everyone except land owners would be living at or below subsitence levels. Perhaps you could look into economics post marginalist revolution. You know, after Menger and others figured this stuff out over a cenutry ago?

Expanding the tax consumers who are not tax payers wold expand power over those people but I don't see how it would do anything but limit the wealth of politicians. By and large they should want to limit tax consumers to few people outside of themselves while increasing the taxpayers so that they have more money from tax.

Their strategy depends on their time horizon: the next election. By definition it is a relative increase. The parasites can never outnumber the payers. But no one knows where the limit is, so it keeps getting pushed until resistance develops and sometimes beyond until revolution develops. What's more they don't need to tax. Once they have control of the money supply they can create money and credit for favored constituents and hide their actions, passing the inflationary debt burden on to the populace who by and large don't realize they're being screwed.

Yeah, now that's going way off the deep end. I wouldn't mind too much if a homeless person someone stole a Kit Cat bar I dropped on the ground and ate it because he was starving to death. If that guy stole my car, it would cause a much bigger issue. Taking away someone's life to save another person's life is a lot worse than taking away a minor amount of someone's blood to save another person's life. One is a relatively equal tradeoff and the other is a tradeoff of vast disproportion.

No, it is exactly the same. Theft is theft, period. There is no such thing as a little bit of robbery, or a smidgen or assault, or a sliver of rape.

I'm not proposing it at all. It's the reality of what happens. I'm proposing a change in management of what's already being done and very likely won't go away. I would be happy if voluntary taxing did manage to raise enough funds to keep society functioning. It's a great idea in theory. In practice it's very easy to end up with problems like what occured during the Irish Potato Famine.

A change in the management will not correct systemic problems that arise from the inability to calculate and allocate resources.

How do you propose that violent criminals be dealt with? Voluntary taxes for a prison system? Vigilantism?

I think a private justice system is workable, but I don't think most people would go for it, especially now. I am resigned to leaving law and order in the hands of the state and merely pushing for it to be focussed on restitution and reparations for the victim, rather than victims having to pay for the incarceration of the people who violated their rights. That doesn't mean I need to resign myself to full on nationalization of other industries.

And how would the state get the money for this support?

Personally I'd favor state level sales taxes so the burden can't be spread among the whole union. That way, with enough watchful people, the welfare budget become self limiting to some degree because the cost can't be hidden nor can it inflate out of proportion with competing states or the inflating state loses residents and business.

I mean the cost of conversion, for instance $2-3 million to switch from the current Social Security system to privatized accounts based on most estimates I've read.

The cost of conversion is BS because it is not true privatization. True privatization would mean the government stops collecting the tax and gives each person a return of what they've paid in, or not, and then does nothing. To claim that simple measure of stopping the tax and the simple accounting of paying back what's already been taken would cost $2-3 billion is pure nonsense. The $2-3 billion is really the cost of substituting a new set of regulations for the old set, nothing more. It is not privatization. It is a conversion from one doomed to fail system to another doomed to fail system. In political speak privatization never happens even when it's mentioned. What it means is reregulation.

And you're claiming that all of the above occured in absolute Laissez Faire systems? I doubt it. The market and government of most countries are by and large interconnected. Let's be honest here: the government is run by corporate sponsors and they have the biggest influence behind domestic and foreign policy alike. The distinction between the two is razor thin. That's why the Democrat/Republican divide is such a farce.

Indeed, but you're blaming the problems of neo mercantilism or corporatism on capitalism.

In any event, what I was talking about was the limits of a system based on voluntary taxing where people would try to provide their own relief from natural disasters, help for the sick and dying, etc. Sometimes it works and sometimes people are too disorganized or just don't care enough to contribute and everything turns to s**t. Of course sometimes the same thing happens when the government is managing these things. I think the best solution is somewhere in the middle. Personally I would love it if people were responsible and organized enough to chip in to the point where each state could have adequate disaster relief, life-saving prodcedures were more attainable, and poverty was reduced. I just don't think that's the case/

The states and nations which have the best systems for such services tend to be the ones where the government has by and large stayed out of the market and limited itself to securing property rights. As the government gets more active in trying to help people rather than letting them help themselves, things get more and more screwed up.

[CDB]

Originally Posted by anabolicrhino

I can only speak for my girlfriend(when she lets me) who was born in Havana;

She receives US government assisted health care because she is a single mother. This will end when her children turn 18. This is paid for by state taxes.

If she were still living in Cuba she as well as her children would receive free health care for the rest of their lives, and of course there is no tax in Cuba!

This is BS, AR, and you should know better. Someone pays or someone is a slave and is forced to deliver without pay. If it's so wonderful there, why did she leave and why is she staying here? Are you that good in bed?