No its not, it is fine standard. There were people back then who opposed slavery and spoke out against it, and the fact that the founding fathers were not among them and in fact supported slavery by owning slaves themselves, reflects extremely poorly on their moral character.
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Nation in Crisis: The U.S.A. Health Care Debate
- Thread starter Janenmori
- Start date
If you took any US History class in high school, you would know that these "outspoken" members against slavery were a small minority. Most people didn't care one way or the other; it was an accepted part of society. It wasn't later (I'm talking mid later early 1800's to mid 1800's) that people became outspoken about slavery. And if my memory serves me, racism lasted well into the 20th century, so the goal of emancipation wasn't as glorified as you think.
Firstly, since when are free markets always highly efficient? Don't we have things like asymmetric information dramatically undercutting the efficiencies of the market (and specifically adverse selection effecting the insurance market). Stiglitz's work has brilliant catalogued this concept most clearly, both in academia and popular media (at least in my opinion).
This doesn't necessarily mean creating a freer markets isn't an option; however, what I am suggesting is that free markets are not the "solve all" for everything, unless you live in the magical world of Austrian economics where your models can violate empirical information but still be valid.
To get to health care, health care is an incredibly unique industry in that free markets for health care will never be able to resolve issues due to the way the industry functions. Kenneth Arrow wrote a brilliant article dated back as far as the 1960s demonstrating why this is so (and still remains quite true today). Even economists like Vernon Smith have admitted that free-markets cannot solve the health care issue, and he works at the Cato Institute - a libertarian think tank, you'd think he would be the complete opposite.
As many people have pointed out , the way health care works means the free market will never, ever solve the problem entirely. Going back to asymmetric information. The patient doesn't know what they need nor will they know when they need it. Because when medical treatment is needed, you don't know when it is going to be. This destroys the entire concept of nature of demand. Additionally, the incentive to reduce price does not exist because the consumer purchase is largely obligatory. Furthermore, because patients do not have knowledge of the treatments (again because of the asymmetry), they are not able to make educated choices and so the idea of consumer demand is again thrown out of whack.
The behavior of the provider is also non-business like. Because most people do not have the knowledge necessary to diagnose, or the available equipment necessary to treat it even if they do (plus, you can't perform surgery on yourself!), the consumer must rely on the doctor to make the best decision for them. Doctors don't have the same self interest as a car salesman. The free market works off self-interest, the medical community does not; this throws off the entire nature of the market.
We also run into pricing problems because price is distorted due to low income / at risk people (see: Medicaid, SCHIP, pharmaceutical coupons, doctors dispensing free samples to low income patients etc). The reality is, as a society, we are never going to let poor people die just because they are poor. The free market works in fine jewelry sales because nobody gives a shit if you can't afford a diamond ring. There is no TiffanyAid. But, medicine is different because of the special status we attribute to health care, and rightly so in my opinion.
If I want to make a huge purchase, I start saving for it down the road. No consumer starts saving for costly medical treatments that you may or may not require down the road. Thus, you would have to pay out of pocket which is nearly impossible - hence, insurance is needed for the market to function. Your insurance company makes the decisions - not you - and so consumer choice just becomes faulty because almost every consumer cannot adequately make the proper choice due to the asymmetry in information. Furthermore, insurance is modeled as a business. And because of the asymmetry in the relationship, insurance companies have widely taken advantage of the consumers ignorance to sell them bad products without them even knowing.
While I didn't specifically address arguments, you'll see what I'm showing has demonstrated that due to the radically different nature of the market in health care a pure free market solution can never be the answer. I'm not saying buying across state lines (although this has some interesting nuances I won't touch on), or tax credits, or whatever free market ideas are out there aren't usable. What I am saying is that free markets alone cannot solve health care. This has been proven empirically and theoretically time and time again.
As for my solutions, we need to have a modified version of Swiss Health Care in my opinion. With a combination of public care, subsidized private care, and private care. The public option in HR 3200 is okay but it needs some restructuring to keep prices down and some stronger language to prevent it from becoming de facto single-payer down the road. I also don't like some of the new restrictions on private insurers since it will drive up prices (preventative medicine is far more expensive than treating the problem once you get it, for example). With government competition and information, insurance companies would try to provide some comparable services at lower prices, helping everyone; but forcing them to do so will drive up costs. I'd even be open to more free market things, maybe some tax credits for people in that odd bracket between poor and low income. State lines can be opened up over time. It's not that free market ideas are bad, it's just they won't solve everything
On a quick note about universal health care, it's not politically viable in the US - but the main reason for inefficiency and flaws in those markets is that they are underfunded, not that they are run by government. Citizens of many of those countries are not willing to pay the level of tax necessary to support that system and that is the result.
BTW, none of the free-market suggestions put forth in this thread (like ending medicaid, catastrophic insurance only,which fails to appreciate that people require more than just catastrophic care and can't afford it,etc) solve anything. Dropping Medicaid / Medicare would help reduce costs for many of us (see my comments above of pricing distribution) - but this would also mean less people with health care which I don't think any of us want. This would accomplish virtually nothing since the nature of health care industry is the problem and eliminating those won't do anything. They'll just have more people without health care and more insurance companies abusing consumer ignorance as I outlined above. Anyone who suggests these free market solutions dramatically fails to appreciate the inherent differences in consumer markets. The health care market is not comparable to car market, and heath care insurance is not even comparable to car insurance.
edit: wow, I wrote too much =/
This doesn't necessarily mean creating a freer markets isn't an option; however, what I am suggesting is that free markets are not the "solve all" for everything, unless you live in the magical world of Austrian economics where your models can violate empirical information but still be valid.
To get to health care, health care is an incredibly unique industry in that free markets for health care will never be able to resolve issues due to the way the industry functions. Kenneth Arrow wrote a brilliant article dated back as far as the 1960s demonstrating why this is so (and still remains quite true today). Even economists like Vernon Smith have admitted that free-markets cannot solve the health care issue, and he works at the Cato Institute - a libertarian think tank, you'd think he would be the complete opposite.
As many people have pointed out , the way health care works means the free market will never, ever solve the problem entirely. Going back to asymmetric information. The patient doesn't know what they need nor will they know when they need it. Because when medical treatment is needed, you don't know when it is going to be. This destroys the entire concept of nature of demand. Additionally, the incentive to reduce price does not exist because the consumer purchase is largely obligatory. Furthermore, because patients do not have knowledge of the treatments (again because of the asymmetry), they are not able to make educated choices and so the idea of consumer demand is again thrown out of whack.
The behavior of the provider is also non-business like. Because most people do not have the knowledge necessary to diagnose, or the available equipment necessary to treat it even if they do (plus, you can't perform surgery on yourself!), the consumer must rely on the doctor to make the best decision for them. Doctors don't have the same self interest as a car salesman. The free market works off self-interest, the medical community does not; this throws off the entire nature of the market.
We also run into pricing problems because price is distorted due to low income / at risk people (see: Medicaid, SCHIP, pharmaceutical coupons, doctors dispensing free samples to low income patients etc). The reality is, as a society, we are never going to let poor people die just because they are poor. The free market works in fine jewelry sales because nobody gives a shit if you can't afford a diamond ring. There is no TiffanyAid. But, medicine is different because of the special status we attribute to health care, and rightly so in my opinion.
If I want to make a huge purchase, I start saving for it down the road. No consumer starts saving for costly medical treatments that you may or may not require down the road. Thus, you would have to pay out of pocket which is nearly impossible - hence, insurance is needed for the market to function. Your insurance company makes the decisions - not you - and so consumer choice just becomes faulty because almost every consumer cannot adequately make the proper choice due to the asymmetry in information. Furthermore, insurance is modeled as a business. And because of the asymmetry in the relationship, insurance companies have widely taken advantage of the consumers ignorance to sell them bad products without them even knowing.
While I didn't specifically address arguments, you'll see what I'm showing has demonstrated that due to the radically different nature of the market in health care a pure free market solution can never be the answer. I'm not saying buying across state lines (although this has some interesting nuances I won't touch on), or tax credits, or whatever free market ideas are out there aren't usable. What I am saying is that free markets alone cannot solve health care. This has been proven empirically and theoretically time and time again.
As for my solutions, we need to have a modified version of Swiss Health Care in my opinion. With a combination of public care, subsidized private care, and private care. The public option in HR 3200 is okay but it needs some restructuring to keep prices down and some stronger language to prevent it from becoming de facto single-payer down the road. I also don't like some of the new restrictions on private insurers since it will drive up prices (preventative medicine is far more expensive than treating the problem once you get it, for example). With government competition and information, insurance companies would try to provide some comparable services at lower prices, helping everyone; but forcing them to do so will drive up costs. I'd even be open to more free market things, maybe some tax credits for people in that odd bracket between poor and low income. State lines can be opened up over time. It's not that free market ideas are bad, it's just they won't solve everything
On a quick note about universal health care, it's not politically viable in the US - but the main reason for inefficiency and flaws in those markets is that they are underfunded, not that they are run by government. Citizens of many of those countries are not willing to pay the level of tax necessary to support that system and that is the result.
BTW, none of the free-market suggestions put forth in this thread (like ending medicaid, catastrophic insurance only,which fails to appreciate that people require more than just catastrophic care and can't afford it,etc) solve anything. Dropping Medicaid / Medicare would help reduce costs for many of us (see my comments above of pricing distribution) - but this would also mean less people with health care which I don't think any of us want. This would accomplish virtually nothing since the nature of health care industry is the problem and eliminating those won't do anything. They'll just have more people without health care and more insurance companies abusing consumer ignorance as I outlined above. Anyone who suggests these free market solutions dramatically fails to appreciate the inherent differences in consumer markets. The health care market is not comparable to car market, and heath care insurance is not even comparable to car insurance.
edit: wow, I wrote too much =/
Good read. It wasn't a wasted effort.
-- It looks to me as they[the gov.] put everyone in so many different "classes", so the rich can be uber rich, and the poor can "stay where they belong." That this idea of wanting everyone to do ONE idea fails.
Even if we accept that premise, do you honestly think government bureaucrats can do a better job of capturing said asymmetrical information?
That aside, information asymmetry is called "reality". Deal with it.
have you actually uh...read Austrian Economics? Or did you miss the extensive analyses, based on real world empirical data, that Austrians have done on economics for years (including the 1929 crash and the current reces-, er, depression?) However, without a coherent economic theory, you derive exactly the wrong conclusions from the data you see. You develop theories then support them with data, rather than vice versa.
Something that is consistently said for a multitude of industries.
Link?
"cato"
"libertarian"
:/
How can that possibly be true in all cases? This may be true as pertains to medical emergencies. How about to daily checkups? Dental appointments? Non-neccesary or cosmetic surgery?
Why don't patients have knowledge of treatments? Why can they not acquire knowledge? And I really doubt this is relevant to pricing other than to say "look here is assymetric info lol"
Most people do not have the knowledge neccesary to repair a car, or get a computer service, and thus must rely on the technician to make the best decision for them. The fact that consumers must make use of the knowledge of others does not affect the pricing of goods that stem from that information.
getting paid = self-interest
By creating a captive market (the government) through intervention, downward price pressures are reduced if not eliminated. This essentially translates into little or no net benefit for the poor. Medicare's coverage has extended FAR beyond "the poor" though.
And let's not get into the 60% or so decline in the value of the dollar (the only unit of value the poor have access to) since the 1970s.
Really? People cannot get information about family medical history, genetic predispositons, and save for potential medical products? And anyway, insurance should exist for major purchases.
Much of the assymetry derives from the fact that regulations pertaining to insurance are set up to create monopoly conditions, such as state mandates that most providers cannot provide and the state-subsidized HMO system.
While I didn't specifically address arguments, you'll see what I'm showing has demonstrated that due to the radically different nature of the market in health care a pure free market solution can never be the answer. I'm not saying buying across state lines (although this has some interesting nuances I won't touch on), or tax credits, or whatever free market ideas are out there aren't usable
where has there been a free market in healthcare, EVER
Not happening unless the government strictly limits how much funding is allocated to it, and allows it to fail if it proves unable to compete.
Spoken like a true statist. "our program fails because we don't have enough money, not because IT SUCKS"
Notice how the same logic is never applied to businesses? There's a reason for that.
Most people can afford to pay for non-castastrophic care, and people can determine how much care they can or want to acquire. The biggest expenses are (obviously) in non-discretionary medical procedures.
Why would I comment on something I haven't read? For god sake, they believe that economics is untestable. I suppose that is convenient for them since when their theories are proven wrong, they just go "economics is untestable" I can't think of a single Austrian theory that is correct.AR said:
Anyway, not sure what evidence you are referring too? Firstly, Hayek would've hurt the recession had he got his way due to their advocacy of not expanding credit and the money supply. In terms of the theory, if people decide to spend less on investment goods, then they are spending on consumption goods instead. Thus, there isn't a rise in unemployment. The Austrian theory can't explain why the rise and fall of investment demand leads to rise and fall in the entire economy. Also, their theory implies consumption would increase during recessions - clearly that has proven true lol. Additionally, how do they explain recessions before the central bank? Their theory is incapable. There is a reason no respected living economist is an Austrian, because the Austrian theory is about as valid as astrology. As the great Milton Friedman put it: "The Hayek-Mises explanation of the business cycle is contradicted by the evidence. It is, I believe, false."
The free market can't fix anything, that's pretty much true. The question is whether you want government to intervene in that market. Not every market requires intervention.
I doubt an article from the 1960s in on the internet. I read a reprinted version in a library. You can probably google "kenneth arrow health care" and get a summary of it since it was an incredibly influential paper.
Apparently their website lies.
If you have an insurance plan that cover non-necessary cosmetic surgery then it is probably one of the most expensive plans around. Furthermore, the non-necessity of cosmetic procedures fully explains why cosmetic surgery costs rise at a substantially lower rate.
Also, (I assume you meant yearly checkups or something). If I didn't have insurance that covered basic check ups I'd be dead. By the time they found out I had cancer, it would be to the point where it couldn't be reversed. So, for many people, regular check-ups are obligatory.
Certain pills are more expensive than others. Certain conditions require that brand-names be used rather than generic, others it doesn't matter. How is the patient to know which is the best? How does the patient know what type of chemotherapy would be most effective? They don't. So, the pricing mechanism becomes futile because there is no interest in "shopping around". Going to WebMD does not make you a medical doctor. We have a 30-40% population that is functional illiterate, you think they are going to journals to figure out which treatments are best for them at what prices? Of course not.
Knowledge to repair the car and the knowledge your car needs repair are fundamentally different. I may know my cars radiator is broken, but how do I fix it? There are only a few options, really. Whereas with many diseases you have a myriad of options to choose from, and you don't know which one is best for you and, again, diminishes competition.
Uh, no. They have self-interest, but it functions in that they are not trying to rip the patient off. Business is about the balance of convincing your consumer to buy an unnecessary product. That's what business mostly is. When I go for chemotherapy, the tech doesn't come up to me and say "now for only $25,000 we can upgrade you to get your tonsils out".
There are no downward price pressures in medicine. Nobody chooses whether to get chemotherapy or that tumor removed - you just do it. People choose whether to get an iphone, which is why prices go down. The existence of welfare programs affects prices because people aren't paying into the system and so the burden must fall on those that do in higher prices. It has nothing to do with captive market since the market doesn't have any natural method of price regulation.
I don't know what your comment about the falling dollar has to do with this.
30%-40% are functional illiterate. This just in, a lot of people in this country are fucking stupid. They wouldn't even know what a gene is.
Oh, and if insurance existed only for major purchases rather than regular check ups (which my family couldn't afford on their own) - I'd be dead. Flat out. So, basically that suggestion would've been equivalent to putting a bullet in my head. Frankly, I'd rather not die - but that's just my opinion.
State mandates don't create monopolies through that method, it doesn't make sense. If a provider doesn't meet the basic state minimums, they wouldn't likely succeed in the free market anyway.
Uh, Switzerland had a hugely free market system until they realized it didn't work. And free markets can't work in principle because free markets don't appease the poor, and we don't want to let our poor die ....
If it business doesn't have enough money, it either collapses or it cuts back on services (been to an airport lately?) Of course the same logic applies.
lol, statist. You clearly know nothing about my economic positions, mine just happen to be evidence based rather than ideologically driven.
Maybe you should look at Sweden. They have one of the best health care systems in the entire world and it's almost completely state run. Why? Their taxes cover it. All of the poorly run government health care systems face funding issues, the ones that don't work excellently. Clearly that is unrelated though.
Maybe you should talk to my family then. I don't know what distorted world you live in where going for routine check-ups, especially to specialists like I have to do, is an easy expense for most people. My father had to take out several pay day loans when I was younger just to cover that doctors visit that day. This is quite prevalent and not unique to me and I find the failure to recognize that either foolish or you desire for people who grew up in lesser economic situations like me to just die from a disease. By the time you catch it and need "catastrophic care" it's far too late.
No, you believe Paul Krugman when he says Austrians believe economics is untestable - however (and I was guilty of buying into this), one can only analyze data in the context of a theory, just like experimentation is only valid in the context of a hypothesis. Incidentally, when mainstream economics speak of "testing" they usually mean "models" that substitute homogeneous variables for heterogeneous factors.
Quick - define "capital".
Again, your non-understanding of ABCT leads you to misunderstand both the causes and solutions of the current recession. Credit and money expansion beyond the normal rate of interest leads to the undertaking of projects that are not profitable except in an environment of monetary expansion. Once monetary expansion ceases, the projects are seen to be a waste of money, and are liquidated (and individuals/banks invested in them go insolvent).
Because the money tied up in bad investments must be reallocated. Those bad investments in many cases provided jobs and income to people. When the investments get liquidated, the jobs and income go away. Because of lower incomes, consumption decreases as people cut back on spending.
stop copypasting krugman
credit expansion occurs via fractional reserve banking, which doesn't NEED a central bank; the central bank just institutionalizes it.
More like economists are trained at state-funded schools, and Austrianism is a threat to their job security.
ad authoritam woot
The free market has certainly outperformed every other system to date! Honestly I don't get what you're trying to say.
I doubt an article from the 1960s in on the internet. I read a reprinted version in a library. You can probably google "kenneth arrow health care" and get a summary of it since it was an incredibly influential paper.
Reagan said he was a libertarian.
Buckley said he was an anarchist.
Roosevelt ran on low taxes and less government spending.
Hoover is seen as a laissez-faire liquidationist.
The moral? People lie about their political positons.
And yet, millions of people go without checkups and end up just fine. Sorry, anecdotal evidence isn't an argument.
They can ask people...? Unless they're literally dying of cancer that very second, people will want to look to see what treatment we're getting.
More like there is no interest in shopping around because "insurance will pay for it" Going to WebMD can certainly let someone know "something's wrong maybe I should go to my doctor"
If you're going to call people functionally illiterate, please spell correctly :D
Other than that, don't make up stats.
Again, they likely would if they didn't think "Insurance will pay for it". But as usual with statists, they just assume a lot of people are stupid and need to be managed by Benevolent Government.
A lack of knowledge of the exact techniques needed to perform a service does not mean a lack of knowledge of whether the person can perform them at reasonable coat at a reasonable level of efficiency.
uh
you think this DOESNT apply to healthcare?
"Sure, of course you need that premium dental plan instead of the basic plan"
Like I keep saying, and like you refuse to even consider, people can shop around, or at least enough people can shop around to make providers see the value of adjusting prices downward. But I suppose you can sidestep this fact by just spouting "40% of people are too stupid to do this"
Look up "Cantillon effects". Inflation is essentially a wealth transfer from the poor and middle class to the rich.
stop making up stats.
Sorry, but this doesn't apply to the vast majority of patients, and would apply even less if overall costs were dropped for health delivery.
lol "basic".
State mandates are pretty extensive
http://www.cahi.org/cahi_contents/resources/pdf/HealthInsuranceMandates2009.pdf
This is not "basic".
Most providers simply cannot cover this.
And since they amended the law, costs have been slowly, but steadily outpacing people's incomes. And this is a MORE free-market system than ours.
Government programs don't go out of business. Notice the Department of Energy, created to reduce dependence on foreign oil, is still around?
Yeah, like "40% people are stupid", I need a source for that.
It's also amusing how people who advocate expansion of government are never "ideologically driven"
looool
http://www.nationalcenter.org/NPA555_Sweden_Health_Care.html
"What made Persson unique was not his wait for hip surgery. Despite the government promise that no one should have to wait more than three months for surgery, 60 percent of hip replacement patients waited longer than three months in 2003 "
again, typical statist, "it works, it just needs more money"
btw Persson at the time was the prime minister of Sweden
Not everyone needs specialists for healthcare.
And of course, I think "catastrophic" would cover "people at risk for cancer"
And in a free market, like I said, costs would go down for everyone -even the poor.
especially since the poor in America are actually middle-class by international standards
sources, sources, sources. How am I to believe this is "quite prevalent"?
Your arguments to this point have been both ignorant and little more than an appeal to emotive "THINK OF THE STARVING POOR", as well as mostly anecdotal. You have consistently failed to source your arguments, which are likely based on ideologically driven snippets of media stories of the "horrible free market health-care system" And your "understanding" of Austrian Economics is well, :/
Free markets are not perfect, but they are better than government management (if 30-40% of people are really stupid, how many of them are managing your oh-so-wonderful government system?), and they are not coercive - even if government subsidies saved your life, does it justify forcible expropriation of the resources of others?
Also, a note on life expectancy - it's only the worst possible measure of a health care system as it is affected by a multitude of variables - pollution, diet, lifestyle, crime, social instability, and the like.
Please name some. Because if there are any, they're RARE - this will always be the biggest criticism of the Austrian School. And guess what - Austrian School does the same thing - especially regarding the Business Cycle which Milton Friedman published two papers showing empirical evidence that pretty much contradicts it, while the one almost oxymoron "Austrian Econometrics study" has shown that it does support it - Austrians do the same thing really, the only reason they get a free ride on this is that they really dont use data at all.
I'm not defending mainstream economists in anyway who did do a terrible job because they literally relied TOO much on mathematics, but your defense is pretty pathetic.
Why bring Krugman to this when he thinks that Economists have been relying too much on mathematics, which is a totally valid criticism that has been echoed by many others?
Secondly, your statement is precisely why people comment that Austrians think in this way - they completely ignore how much of theory is supported by empirical evidence (sup econometrics).
Thirdly, I love how Austrians think that simply naming Krugman and bashing him constantly makes them look more credible - it doesn't really.
Oh and @Caelum - Hayek is probably barely Austrian now considering he had admitted to free market not being the end all solution to all of our problems. In the end, people are just misusing his ideas involving imperfect information and applying it everywhere, conveniently forgetting that markets aren't always the end-all-be-all-solution and needs government to keep them on track. oops.
So basically, Austrian school thinks that we'll always have bubbles, and they'll pop, and we'll have recessions. The only issue is that... they blame this SOLELY on the central bank and not the market for causing this bubble. While yes, the Central Bank *does* have the ability to prevent the bubbles (actually some of the really good explanations i've read regarding this recession involved central bank's extremely low interest rates), but in the end, the roots of the problem lies in the market, not the central bank - and I would actually argue that central bank lowering their interest WAS the right thing to do - the only problem was that it was done a bit too late.
Fractional reserve banking being a CLEAR consequence of the Free Market. So again, why do the austrians enjoy blaming things on institutions that the free market helped create/found necessary?
And you're an economist?
If austrians are really the better economist, then they'd be in higher demand.
Hint: no one still gives a fuck about Austrians.
Backed by two empirical studies lol
Outperformed under what conditions? I dont think the Free Market can shoot a satellite in space within 30 years of abandoning the masses of peasants and being industrialized.
Sounds like what we need is a more efficient governing system, if that's actually true! (I do agree that government intervention is VERY wasteful... but you really do put too much blame on it)
I'm pretty sure he's copypasting wikipedia but w/e
You essentially told me that Austrians fall short because they do not make use of econometrics. I readily admit I do not understand econometrics and how they are directly relevant to real-world economic phenomena, but I still have misgivings about how effective distilling economic factors into variables is (for example, to the econometrist, what is capital?) And while you have argued in the past that the models are only tools to aid in greater economic understanding, why do you fault AE so deeply for not making use of advanced math?
I never did read that Friedman paper though.
Again, empirical evidence is not solely limited to econometrics.
No, it's just that his argument about the ABCT was the exact same one made by Krugman (or was it DeLong?).
Oh and @Caelum - Hayek is probably barely Austrian now considering he had admitted to free market not being the end all solution to all of our problems.
Even though one can argue that government can cause the market to behave in ways that may be positive (and unlike most Austrians, I think the Bastiat "economics of the unseen" argument is really terrible), the disincentive for government to behave badly is much weaker than that of a private industry (political processes controlled by moneyed elites and lobbyists of said elites, the extreme difficulty of actually rectifying this)
Again, market actors acted in a way that led to the bubble, but individual actors:
1: do not have the understanding of economics that would allow them to see the direction that bubble activities would go
2: did have this understanding, but either could not predict the exact bursting of the bubble (for all one knows, it could pop in a year or in 5 years) or could not act on their knowledge because they risked short and medium term profits.
Fractional reserve banking has been backed by government in a variety of forms since its inception. Central banking is just an extreme variant of this backing.
If a mainstream economist, say, in academia, suddenly went Austrian, then let's see how fast they'd lose their job.
Hint: Advocating the elimination or downsizing of your job is not good for job security.
Again, "from peasants without satellites to peasants with satellites" :)
Still, the state can direct useful innovations to the point where the market can improve upon and distribute them.
I explained everything already on IRC and you have the gall to still respond with strawmans? Seriously...
I fault AE for not being able to use empirical evidence in any statistical manner - they completely ignore the idea of significance.
Austrians do not do this.
no, the incentive for the government is to be more conservative. Their actions weigh much much more than any single individual. Seriously think about what you have just said, and tell me that a government has more incentive to act badly than a private individual.
Why was there a need for banking?
The Government is NEEDED for the economy to run smoothly (see: Adam Smith), and yet i love how austrians just claim that the government, which was CREATED because of the free market (argue otherwise, try it), is inefficient. Oh. Wait.
Your question is a strawman anyway - stop trying to dodge the point of SUPPLY and DEMAND - there's a fuckton of Supply of austrian economist... the only Demand for them are in schools that no one has ever heard of, literally. Businesses will recognize the better train economist in the long run - and austrians are obviously not it... i wonder why....
Even Hayek admitted Free Market is pretty inefficient when it comes to moving in a specific direction. Free market is also VERY VERY TERRIBLE at allocating resources (which is SPECIFICALLY WHY THE BUBBLE HAPPENED) and that's why the government should be working on better allocating them (shame that the government has no direction nowadays to make this point almost null). Don't even try to strawman your way out of this because you're utterly missing the point. And you wonder why I don't take you seriously -_-
I don't fault AE for not making use of advanced math.
I fault AE for not being able to use empirical evidence in any statistical manner - they completely ignore the idea of significance.
Again, econometrics is a way to make sure your THEORIES are empirically sound.
Austrians do not do this.
Are you seriously arguing this?
no, the incentive for the government is to be more conservative. Their actions weigh much much more than any single individual. Seriously think about what you have just said, and tell me that a government has more incentive to act badly than a private individual.
Yeah just like Austrians "foresaw" that the bubble was going to pop a month or two before the stock market crash, right? Don't act like Austrians foresaw anything - they didn't - whatever they get right is literally "broken clock is right twice a day". (and seriously i find it hard to believe any serious economist except for a few notable clowns was not able to see it coming months before dow jones hit the peak so don't even try to use this as an argument because it's a terrible terrible bullshit way of austrians patting themselves in the back for childs play)
Sure, and why was there a need for fractional reserve banking?
Why was there a need for banking?
The Government is NEEDED for the economy to run smoothly (see: Adam Smith), and yet i love how austrians just claim that the government, which was CREATED because of the free market (argue otherwise, try it), is inefficient. Oh. Wait.
Why would they go austrian, which is clearly the weaker theory? It's like saying "Suppose anyone in congress suddenly became in support of anarchy, let's see how fast they lose their job"
Your question is a strawman anyway - stop trying to dodge the point of SUPPLY and DEMAND - there's a fuckton of Supply of austrian economist... the only Demand for them are in schools that no one has ever heard of, literally. Businesses will recognize the better train economist in the long run - and austrians are obviously not it... i wonder why....
Strawman again?
Even Hayek admitted Free Market is pretty inefficient when it comes to moving in a specific direction. Free market is also VERY VERY TERRIBLE at allocating resources (which is SPECIFICALLY WHY THE BUBBLE HAPPENED) and that's why the government should be working on better allocating them (shame that the government has no direction nowadays to make this point almost null). Don't even try to strawman your way out of this because you're utterly missing the point. And you wonder why I don't take you seriously -_-
Honestly, (even though I'm American,) I still think that we should follow the system of Health Care that England and France have (not to mention that even America's cap has it.) They have a universal healthcare plan. Payed for by your taxes, you can get free coverage. It's essentially, you pay for what you can, and sometimes you pay a little more for those who can't. Basically it's following the honor system. When I get my career, I'm moving to England and living there.
It is a safe assumption that socialized healthcare will be over-consumed. That is, if the government gives Joe Shmoe a subsidized/free health service, he will:
1) get anything and everything checked up and
2) be likelier to take liberties with his health
However, a fully privatised system would be underconsumed. Consider the tight Asian worker who would rather go to work with flu and infect everyone, than pay to see a doctor. Consider also the cash strapped employee who overlooks a lump in her breast, until it is too late. These are arbitrary examples of lost productivity.
Forget Econ 101 and Libertarian propaganda for just a moment, and apply common sense. Both over- and under-consumption are socially undesirable, so the question is (as so often in real life) which is the most beneficial/least costly?
I would argue that socialism wins on this occasion. While I disagree with good health being a "right" (it is most certainly a privilege and therefore should be priced, in an ideal world), this is a lesser evil in practice. In reality, people are irrational agents and need an incentive to make desirable decisions.
The caveat to the above is that socialized healthcare can become a political white elephant, especially in our culture of entitlement. Governments must be careful and monitor efficiency; the British NHS serves as a warning to excess.
1) get anything and everything checked up and
2) be likelier to take liberties with his health
However, a fully privatised system would be underconsumed. Consider the tight Asian worker who would rather go to work with flu and infect everyone, than pay to see a doctor. Consider also the cash strapped employee who overlooks a lump in her breast, until it is too late. These are arbitrary examples of lost productivity.
Forget Econ 101 and Libertarian propaganda for just a moment, and apply common sense. Both over- and under-consumption are socially undesirable, so the question is (as so often in real life) which is the most beneficial/least costly?
I would argue that socialism wins on this occasion. While I disagree with good health being a "right" (it is most certainly a privilege and therefore should be priced, in an ideal world), this is a lesser evil in practice. In reality, people are irrational agents and need an incentive to make desirable decisions.
The caveat to the above is that socialized healthcare can become a political white elephant, especially in our culture of entitlement. Governments must be careful and monitor efficiency; the British NHS serves as a warning to excess.
I'd much rather my mother had aborted me, but since she decided not to go through with that (she had an appointment booked and everything!) I'm quite glad that I've had vast mental health resources at my disposal, to cope with my absolute, crippling, daily horror at the fact I was born.
Of course I want the United States federal government to be involved with my health care. They showed brilliant efficiency with FEMA and the VA hospitals.
On a serious note, if we abolished the Federal Reserve, withdrew all of our troops, and abolished the income tax, this wouldn't be an issue. Health care costs would drop drastically.
On a serious note, if we abolished the Federal Reserve, withdrew all of our troops, and abolished the income tax, this wouldn't be an issue. Health care costs would drop drastically.
Please read this sentence aloud three times.
Then tell me what is wrong with it.
Zero upward social mobility. Zero power projection outside their own borders. Oh, and their policies are becoming less and less socialist over time anyway.
Did you know 70% of their power is nuclear?
Maybe we should be more like France in ways that don't kill the ability for individuals to prosper, and don't involve the disadvantages outlined above. Maybe France can afford to be a global player of minimal importance, but if America does so, the world becomes a more dangerous place.
Furthermore we have a better health care system for people who are actually sick, as indicated by superior cancer survival rates. It's this kind of skin-deep analysis that infuriates me. Why does percentage of GDP matter unless your sole purpose is to cut costs rather than innovate new medicine?
I'll tell you why there's a gap in percentage of GDP spent: The US actually spends money on health care research, not just health care delivery.
That's really funny since the United States has poorer socioeconomic mobility than most Western European countries (including France, according to one report).
http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/national/20050515_CLASS_GRAPHIC/index_03.html
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2006/04/b1579981.html
http://www.kent.edu/Magazine/Winter2007/MovingOnUp.cfm
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2005/apr/25/socialexclusion.accesstouniversity
http://www.suttontrust.com/reports/IntergenerationalMobility.pdf
And not everyone views "projecting power" as a positive. I do wonder why you think it is acceptable to spend more (taxpayer) money than the rest of the world combined on innovating new methods of killing people, but not on healthcare. (Besides, it's not like France is Switzerland. Who helped arm Saddam? Who helped overthrow Aristide?)
Ok
We need to get a medical program that helps the aged,the poor,frankly anyone that is sick.But we should not take what the UK has and copy it.The last two prime ministers left the UK asap for the USA.The majority of the Brits would leave if they could afford it or get visas,with the USA being top of the destination list.Subsidize insurance for those with low incomes, but do this without copying the UK whatsoever. It has a failing NHS,rising violent crimes,high unemployment,and politicians that have been caught in an expenses scandal that shows their morale values for what it is. As I end this post ask this question,why does the world want to move to the USA ?
We need to get a medical program that helps the aged,the poor,frankly anyone that is sick.But we should not take what the UK has and copy it.The last two prime ministers left the UK asap for the USA.The majority of the Brits would leave if they could afford it or get visas,with the USA being top of the destination list.Subsidize insurance for those with low incomes, but do this without copying the UK whatsoever. It has a failing NHS,rising violent crimes,high unemployment,and politicians that have been caught in an expenses scandal that shows their morale values for what it is. As I end this post ask this question,why does the world want to move to the USA ?
I want to point out that I think your poll is not addressing this issue...the option for us who oppose it, "Against it. I think the government should not help with healthcare costs." is inherently misleading. The simple truth is that it costs approximately 30-40 billion dollars a year to cover all the uninsured, while Obama wasted apx. 800 billion on the stimulus, 15% which is categorical pure waste. To drive premiums down, we simply need to make healthy lifestyle choices tax deductable, and break up the insurance companies (like we did to Oil Trust) to allow competition. Obama's healthcare plan is more about giving the government as much control over people's lives as possible. IMO it's another phase of his radical agenda.
So basically you just plastered a bunch of stuff on intergenerational mobility. That says nothing about what it is like for a person who wants to change their social class over the course of their own lifetime. When your parents and grandparents who got the "old money" die and pass it on, their heirs will be quite wealthy indeed. And where is there more old money than in Europe?
That you believe the military is entirely is about innovating new ways to kill people is all I need to know about you. The US military has spilled more blood to save more lives than all of Europe combined. Though that's partly because its usually Europeans they are saving from each other's bloodlust. The US military has also deployed more goods and more aid to more nations than all of Europe combined. When power was out in Indonesia after the tsunami, the United States Military sent that big, bad, evil war machine the Aircraft Carrier over there to provide electricity. Europe was SOL. They were too busy treating their citizens like costs to be controlled and cut to build something useful to the world.
Speaking of new ways to kill people, I hear Britain and France are developing newer, faster ways to euthanize granny to lower health care costs. Nothing says "just die already" like socialized medicine.
Intergenerational mobility is pretty important. You'll also note that the biggest factor in intragenerational (over the course of one's lifetime) mobility is education (pp. 11-12 of the pdf). And who is more likely to be educated? Well, let's look at those useless links I plastered. "A child from the highest income quartile is almost five times as likely to graduate from college as a child from the lowest income quartile" and "The study also found that the rapid expansion of higher education during the late 80s and 90s had not benefited the worst off. During that time the proportion of people from the poorest 20% of society getting a degree rose from 6% to 9%, but for the wealthiest 20% it rose from 20% to 47%." But yes, it is very easy to go from rags to riches in the US.
Yes, it tells you I am a sinister pacifist. But you're right, spending $500bn-1trn annually on "defense" is totally necessary and unrelated to warfare.
The USSR's death toll in World War II trounces US battle deaths in all American wars combined, so I'll take this self-congratulatory platitude with a few pounds of salt. Asides from such pedantry, "spilling blood to save lives" seems a bit silly to me, but maybe you are right: violence works. That's why we still have war, poverty, racism, totalitarianism, and all assorted ills after so much blood has been shed to end them, correct? And what exactly qualifies as "saving lives"? Fire-bombing Tokyo, France, Germany when "the Good War" was all but over? Cluster-bombing Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam? Invading Afghanistan and Iraq? I hope you'll pardon me if I seem unconvinced that such actions can be justified.
Because Europeans are so bloodlusty and Americans aren't.
I'm really not sure why you are so angry that (some) European nations actually attempt to take care of their citizens rather than invading countries for no reason. You don't need a military to distribute aid. The main purpose of armed forces is to kill people; that seems rather obvious from the name itself. And it seems a bit shortsighted to extol the American government's benevolence towards Indonesia after its 3 decades-long support for noted peaceful democrat Suharto, who "purged" some half million Indonesians and invaded East Timor, killing around 200,000 more. But you are right, our actions in the region are always pure and virtuous, as elsewhere.
But none of this is really related to healthcare, so I digress.