More Obamacare fuckups

[Parkbandit]

It's the basic proposition. I understand that you would miraculously trust everything more if it was privatized. I'm not so sure it'd be the idyllic utopia you envision. I think that you think it would be a utopia reveals the basic philosophy to be as naive as the people who believed in Communism.

I simply don't believe, as you do, that the government must provide everything for me.

[Warriorbird]

I'll blame the victim here, too, to a degree. As I've said countless times, there is no perfect system. We have to go with the most perfect. We could argue about what happened with Enron, and Worldcom, and Tyco, and others for a while, but it would be pointless. As I've stated before, people will be people. Some people are selfish and greedy...the system won't change that. The only difference between a Capitalist society and a Communist society is that in a Capitalist society, the rich people are the business owners, and in a Communist society the rich people are the Ruling Elite. In a Capitalist society, the rich business owners make everyone else more wealthy because it contributes to their own wealth...in a Communist society, the Ruling Elite just rape the common people for everything they have and keep it for themselves. I know which side of that fence I'm on. If the employees and shareholders of these companies did their due diligence, we probably could have avoided these scenarios.

History has proven, time and again, that personal responsibility is the only way to make things work. Any time you give over that responsibility, whether it's to a corporation or a government, you're setting yourself up for failure.



Well, yeah. I'm a big believer in personal responsibility...there is ample evidence that the great depression was caused by everyone blowing up their credit, and then the bank scare of 1930 taking all the backing out of that credit...the history is there for the reading. Here's a good study about it by that bastion of Conservative Thought that is UC-Berkely:

http://www.bis.org/publ/work137.pdf



Well, yes. If we hadn't bailed out the banks, what would have happened? Probably another depression, since the same factors were in place that caused the first one. I'm all for destructive creationism. By softening the blow of failure, we almost certainly insure future failure. The lessons learned from the first depression were lost on the common man three generations later...that's not surprising. We do a terrible job of educating our young.

Where to start? To begin with, nobody's arguing for a "Communist system" except nutjobs. We're just arguing for more of the mixed economy that we've had for quite a long time (which did better than what came before, but you'll never admit that).

"Personal responsibility" certainly can't be trusted. If too much credit is available, people will exploit it.

After a period of DEREGULATION (that goal of yours) (The 1920s) too much credit was available. When it is available people take advantage of it. It broke the economy. Banks and companies always want this because they don't care about society's best interests.

A racist ass from a town right near mine (Carter Glass) was naturally skeptical about banks. He was right and made the Glass-Steagall Act to stop them doing some of their fuckery.

Companies, lobbyists, conservatives, and some Democrats decided to destroy this law. Too much credit became available again.

This is your dream. DEREGULATION. It destroyed the economy again.

I'm going to end with your quote because you're an excellent example.

The lessons learned from the first depression were lost on the common man three generations later...that's not surprising. We do a terrible job of educating our young.

[Kembal]

I thought the Supreme Court found the appointments during Senate "recess" were unconstitutional? Weren't these 3 put there during that gray area.. and if so, couldn't their placement be questioned?

They weren't recess appointed. Republicans just lost the ability to filibuster them, so they were confirmed by the Senate.

[Thondalar]

Where to start? To begin with, nobody's arguing for a "Communist system" except nutjobs. We're just arguing for more of the mixed economy that we've had for quite a long time (which did better than what came before, but you'll never admit that).

"Personal responsibility" certainly can't be trusted. If too much credit is available, people will exploit it.

After a period of DEREGULATION (that goal of yours) (The 1920s) too much credit was available. When it is available people take advantage of it. It broke the economy. Banks and companies always want this because they don't care about society's best interests.

A racist ass from a town right near mine (Carter Glass) was naturally skeptical about banks. He was right and made the Glass-Steagall Act to stop them doing some of their fuckery.

Companies, lobbyists, conservatives, and some Democrats decided to destroy this law. Too much credit became available again.

This is your dream. DEREGULATION. It destroyed the economy again.

So basically your position is that people can't take care of themselves so the government has to? Unfortunately I agree with this...but only because we have things in place that allow people to fuck up and not face the consequences. People are no longer responsible for their own actions, and you act surprised when they make poor decisions?

I'm going to end with your quote because you're an excellent example.

Oooh. Burn.

[Warriorbird]

So basically your position is that people can't take care of themselves so the government has to? Unfortunately I agree with this...but only because we have things in place that allow people to fuck up and not face the consequences. People are no longer responsible for their own actions, and you act surprised when they make poor decisions?

We had your system for a while. People starved to death and elected FDR. You don't really want that, do you?

To sum up: If we dangle unlimited credit, corporations, banks, and all of us will destroy the country. We need government to prevent that.

[Thondalar]

We had your system for a while. People starved to death and elected FDR. You don't really want that, do you?

To sum up: If we dangle unlimited credit, corporations, banks, and all of us will destroy the country. We need government to prevent that.

No, we need to educate ourselves to prevent that. If we let Government prevent it we only trade one master for another.

[Warriorbird]

No, we need to educate ourselves to prevent that. If we let Government prevent it we only trade one master for another.

People just don't resist the lure of credit they don't deserve. Witness nearly every one of our economic downturns, credit cards, and the payday lending industry.

[Kembal]

The ACA did nothing to control the costs of healthcare. It's fucking crazy that I can call up my insurance carrier (Humana) and basically negotiate what they will pay and what they won't pay... and I have done the same with the hospital. It was as simple as saying "I can't afford the price of this surgery" for them to immediately take off 20%. That's shady as fuck IMO and leads me to believe the amount of padding in those costs is retardedly high.

I think it's also shady as fuck that I have 4-5 insurance carriers to choose from instead of the thousands in this country... that there are restrictions put in place to severely limit the amount of competition for my business.

Considering the major part of ACA has only been implemented for 6 months, I think it's a little early to determine whether it will control costs or not. I'd give it a year or two before deeming the policy a failure on cost control. (and that's me saying that without looking at studies as to whether cost control has started to occur or not yet.)

[Warriorbird]

Or maybe he just doesn't worship at the altar of government.

I simply don't believe, as you do, that the government must provide everything for me.

These would be really cool comments if they were true. I sometimes think that government is a helpful thing. I'm clearly a Communist.

[Latrinsorm]

You're right. We should just let the government run everything, both because they're so competent and can just print money instead of worrying about being efficient.

It's a good thing WB and Latrin are here to keep people like me informed.

The government running everything in the economy also turns out to be a sub-optimal solution. Don't you think it's interesting that you believe the criticism of one extreme but not of the other?

I've never once said Companies can do no wrong. Quite the contrary, they do wrong quite often. My position on that would be that governments have done FAR more wrong, historically. If it's just another excuse for prices to rise and consolidation to happen, why isn't it happening in Singapore?

Singapore is almost exactly as consolidated as we are. Why hasn't this resulted in dramatic price increases? Because the government made that illegal.

Seriously? Ok, fine. I'll direct you to your own word, system..."a group or combination of interrelated, interdependent, or interacting elements forming a collective entity"...price controls certainly go against what would be normally accepted as a "free market" economy, but this is only one small part of the full system. This is why I suggested you look further into it before commenting...it's actually a very small part of the system, and only used in certain situations. I firmly believe that the health care situation in Singapore succeeds despite these controls, not because of them...they aren't a big enough part of the whole picture to matter that much. I can't say it surprises me that you would fixate on this one small part while ignoring the rest of the system though, that's pretty much your MO...

The way you can believe this and simultaneously believe that minimum wage laws cause inflation would make my head spin. I certainly agree that other than the blatantly socialist elements, Singapore very much has a free market for healthcare... but I think that caveat is a significant one.

fixed.

Empirically, it looks like your reaction to price controls is a function of how much you support the system doing the controlling. You don't like minimum wages, so those controls are a big deal. You like Singapore's health care system, so those controls are a very small part. Am I wrong? If I said that America had a free market for wages, you would immediately point out minimum wage laws. No?