—But of course if everybody but the very, very rich was on Medicaid, then the doctors would have to see you wouldn’t they? The outrageous cost of Medical School, not to mention college in general is a related issue and needs to be addressed, but doesn’t vitiate the case for single payer, or for that matter, a public option. Lived in the UK many years ago with their NHS and also in Israel with their Kupat Holim.

Both work, or least worked, much better than what we have here, which was a border line disaster before Obamacare and remains one.

&&&&&&&&

British health care only works, sort of, because it has lived off the capital of what was the finest health care system in the world 70 years ago. It isn’t any longer, though — is in a steep state of decline that reflects underinvestment and the ravages of statist free-lunch schemes. You might say that Europe, too, “works” — but this only seems so in the kind of static analysis that liberal think-tanks love to perform. Look at, say, France, in that way and you could almost believe the country is prosperous rather than bankrupt. RA

Disagree, socialized healthcare is a great idea, health is fundamental, good should have their shit together to run such programs for the citizens of their country in a fair and reasonable way. They don’t, that’s the problem. There’s nothing wrong with rich people paying more taxes to support such programs rather than a system which supports them to get richer and screw the little guy all along the way while socking millions away like economic bloodsuckers. Inept, corrupt govt is the problem, no the idea of “social” programs which make the broader society of a country a more stable and fair place to live, which America had turned away from and is beyond repair.

Cheers, Mario

Bravo, Mava! Yes, the rich should pay more to subsidize the less fortunate since it is in their long-term best interest to keep the system going rather than let entropy occur. But that is what charity is for and all about. We should foster and cheerlead that rather than Big Brother. If society only works at the end of the stick rather than the carrot then I vote for natural selection to do its thing and hit the “intelligent life” reset button (at least for those that are agnostic or atheists, religious folks have their own endgame).

Though I love the philosophy and ideals in much of your writing, this is a BS argument Mava and I’ll tell you why. First of all your argument is not realistic, its theoretical and idealist, it doesn’t apply in the real world and therefore is not useful, practical, helpful. Secondly, reality is that RICH PEOPLE IN CHARGE MOSTLY CAN’T BE TRUSTED TO DO THE RIGHT THING FOR THE SOCIETY IN WHICH THEY GET RICH.

Now, we can start by asking, is that true statement? We only need look to thousands of years of history to say yes.

The pure, perfect, capitalist society where everyone is treated exactly equally is a theoretical, its impossible. Human nature, greed, self-interest, gets in the way. Secondly, people in a group need rules and laws to abide by. That’s why people gather up and form organizations including governments, ideally, to “govern” ! Then they screw that up! Why, again, greed and self-interest. They favor themselves, the rich, they can’t be trusted to do the right thing. Governance NEEDS to come along and make a set of rules that are fair to the community, not just the individual. In their attempts to do that, most governms themselves then also run amok. THAT’S the problem.

Let’s take a very small “country”.

Its 200 American style condominiums. And everyone wants their lovely little community to look nice. So everyone agrees to chip in $100/month to keep the place looking nice and follow some reasonable guidelines. The money is used to keep the grass and flowers pretty, to have a guard at the gate to keep everyone safe, to create some laws for the community by the 3 person board that was picked to be the overseers. That $100 is the “tax” for that little society, right? Then, for another $20/month they add the community doctor, there’s your socialized medicine for the neighborhood, right? Get the idea? EVERYONE is better off, the COMMUNITY is fundamentally well taken care of and stable. Those core needs are important. Along comes the 5-6 rich people in the community who start getting richer at everyone else’s expense. They take advantage of their power, the power of their money and their greed and they start playing games. They start creating all kinds of shenanigans that hurt the rest of the community. In fact, they even cause the lesser folks in their little country to not be able to earn a decent living. They cause the expenses of the everyone in the community to go UP with no added benefit.

WHO brings these a-holes under control? The governance of that community. And you say they shouldn’t have to pay “more” as “percentage” of their riches?

That’s what I find disgusting.

Cheers, Mario

&&&&&

I’m totally with Mava on this one — for more reasons than I have time to elucidate. I disagree with every point you’ve made here. As always, whatever big problems we have as a society, they are all attributable in significant part or entirely to Big Government. RA

I would dispute that the rich are hoarding anything, Mario, even if their defining characteristic is that they have more money than they can spend. By and large, they put their savings where the Guvmint cannot easily confiscate it. Yes, the rich are in cahoots with Guvmint. But it’s up to “good” government to incentivize investments that create jobs rather than asset inflation. The best way to do this would be for the Guvmint to get the hell out of the way. Meanwhile, there is the question Mava has repeatedly posed: What claim does the Guvmint or anyone else have to money earned by “the rich”? At best, in the evil hands of Guvmint, the money will only be criminally wasted anyway.

I challenge you to come up with a single big problem faced by America that cannot be directly attributed to the depradations, greed and stupidity of Big Government. Even the fatal indebtedness of American households can be traced to the free-lunch temptations and instrumentalities of fractional reserve banking. High medical costs? They are driven by healthcare that is a tax-free benefit to employees. “Racism”? A delusion made more powerful and destructive by the affirmative-action industry. Bad schools? No explanation is even needed. Etcetera, etcetera.

Hmm…maybe we are doing the same thing here in the USA. Women are getting all the good service jobs anyway – might as well let them work AND raise the kids.

I also think that big oil is setting us up for another huge spike. This way the car manufacturers (whom they collude with can sell all of the SUVs they have while gas is so ‘low’.

JJ, the traffic issue being lessened would be good. Driving on the 710 or 110 has become impossible with all the truck traffic.

Okay, so big .gov is the root of the problem?

Who owns/controls .gov if not the rich?

Guys, I’m saying “good government”….its not my fault a particular country or state or province or city may not have one. You cannot rationally generalize by saying things such as “all govt is the enemy” , “we don’t need govt” , etc. It is totally unrealistic to suggest societies don’t need govt, they ALL have one and always have for centuries. If your govt , meaning the govt leaders of that govt were doing a very fine, responsible job doing their job of governing, you would not be complaining, you would be glad. Govts do many very good and important things for societies, unfortunately it seems many are prone to also doing many things not so good and even terrible.

Cheers, Mario

Stephen G,

Absolutely. But not by a decree. I am for allowing every individual to decide on his property without exception. This would allow the poor to have the Medicare that is funded by those who wants to fund it. At the same time, anyone who doesn’t want it, won’t have to pay.

Mario,

While you think that your argument is irrefutable, it is full of holes. This should make you re examine it, not for the sake of the argument here, but for your own sanity with yourself. I know I would.

We should not make this a long discussion on fundamental issues, like RA says, there is no time to elucidate on. But here are few things from your assumptions:

-“everyone wants their lovely little community to look nice” Never everyone. In your example, the violent voting system is used. Let anyone optout from the system and you will see that as soon as the system gets screwed, people will de-fund it.

-“the 3 person board that was picked to be the overseers”. Here you delegate your own property decision making rights to the government. You are creating a reason for this government to start offering these rights for sale. Poor ain’t gonna buy them.

-“for another $20/month they add the community doctor, there’s your socialized medicine for the neighborhood”. Don’t lie. Obamacare makes me pay more than others, your example uses same 20 bucks.

-“the COMMUNITY is fundamentally well taken care of and stable”. This is Nazism, Mario. I don’t care for your community. I will move to a better community anytime. Caring for community is no smarter than caring for a drunk idiot on drugs who happen to pass out in your vicinity.

-“Those core needs are important” No. Those needs are only core and important to you, in your subjective estimation. This may or may not hold true for others.

-“start getting richer at everyone else’s expense” Not possible. Are you talking about your own corrupted government selling the powers you have delegated to them? Are you talking about criminals? If not, then you think that people necessarily get rich at someone else expense. This is not how economy works. In absence of violence (government), people get rich by adding value, producing, serving, creating, minimizing costs.

-“In fact, they even cause the lesser folks in their little country to not be able to earn a decent living.” In fact? They? This is no different than calling all black people criminals.

In conclusion, Mario, you want to create the seeds that will destroy your own community. You think, that taxing the rich will solve something. But you only create more stimulae and opportunities for them, and you propagate the violence. You conflate the principles on which a society can thrive into a mess, that will invariably lower the efficiency and eventually arrest your community altogether.

Secondly, any system as you just described, cannot regulate itself, because it does not have a working feedback loop. It will self-destruct even for this only reason. Again, this is because you do not allow opt-outs. It’s always “everyone” with you. You can’t really afford any other approach, of course, because with your confused understanding of economy, your view is that of “rich are exploiting others”. Therefore you must right the playing field, which necessitates institutionalized robbery, which in turn precludes any form of opt-outs. Thus, no feedback loop in your system, no self regulation.

You know why bad businesses go bankrupt (in absence of government)? Because people can and do opt-out. Well, your society is built from the start to become another USPS or Government Motors or AIG. Taxing the rich will not help you. No amount of money in the world could. The more you throw, the more it will gobble.