Comments by jwiggins
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Posted on September 20 at 11:06 p.m.
Wait, there's more.
Back to Crakalakin,...it pains me to point out to you the elementary premise that rights, all rights, and your rights too cost somebody else. When an innocent person is granted their right to a jury trial, doesn't that cost you and I money? And so doesn't this give that defendant "a right to another's labor?" When the policeman responds to your distress call in the middle of the night (in defense of your rights to life and property), aren't you in fact making a claim on his labor, and mine too, since I pay the taxes that pay his salary? THIS is slavery? You are joking, right?
And finally, on the rancidly un-American, anti-American swill that criticizing any aspect of policy in America means you "hate" America and should be shown the door. First, given all the vitriol flying from the right wing toward the elected President of the United States over this health care reform issue, shouldn’t you call them America-haters, and ask them to move to Russia? Actually, you see, I don’t think you should, because if the first amendment doesn't protect the right to dissent, then it's meaningless. You, though, apparently miss its meaning completely. At this point, why am I not surprised?
Posted on September 20 at 10:57 p.m.
Gee, you go out of town for the weekend, and come home to find a whole new group of friends... It warms the cockles o' my heart. Now, where to begin?
Crackbaby, where did I recommend the Canadian national health insurance system? In referring to France, Germany, Japan, etc., I am specifically NOT talking about the Canadian system, which is very much different. These countries DO NOT have socialized systems. You see, Canada is not actually France. And France is not Japan. And Japan is not Bangladesh. Really, put down your video game, and try to pay attention.
Bluesdad, where did I recommend the UK national health care system? See above.
Crakalakin, where did I even mention the public option? (Did anyone criticizing this article bother to read this article?)
No insurance company rations care? In the country with the most expensive health care in the world by far (about 75% higher
than France on a per capita basis), to ration coverage is to ration care. And 2 plus 2 equals 4. We'll work on your threesies tomorrow.
The pharmaceutical companies spend considerably more on their deceitful, slimy marketing than on their genuinely beneficial R&D. So save the heroic strains of music...
Yes we have higher rates of cancer survival, and good for us. Where did I deny that we have an excellent health care system? As a matter of fact, I made that very point a couple of times. Truly, people, try to pay attention. But it's excellent for those with access, which includes me and probably you, but doesn't include those who don't have the money or coverage to pay for it. That's why we're 44th in the world in infant mortality rates. And in one study (I'll give you the citation & website if you'd like), we finished 19th out of 19 countries studied in "mortality amenable to health care." That's "deaths from certain causes before age 75 that are potentially preventable with timely and effective health care." Again, the problem is not a lack of quality, it's a lack of access to the quality.
Those French doctors making do with $50,000 net? They also get a five week vacation every year, and they have little or no malpractice expense, and all their education is paid for by the state, yes, that means medical school too. So maybe they aren't having to subsist on gruel after all.
So, in an aside to Bluesdad, is that pay "too low" to be attractive? France has more doctors per capita than we do. But, thanks to that hyper efficiency, they have 67% fewer people than we do working in administration. Of every health care dollar, they spend 95-97 cents on health care. We spend about 80.
Posted on August 25 at 1 p.m.
Let's try once more, Enk. What is the "true" part of the capitalism that you yourself said prevailed before the Federal Reserve System was created? You acknowledge a very significant government role in the early American economy, wholly apart from central banks and taxes. So true capitalism is perfectly compatible with a heavy government footprint after all? If not, what makes capitalism "true" despite government intervention in one instance, and apparently "false" in another?
And where did I say the "invisible hand, " meaning market forces, does not exist? (You can refer to your own earlier comment about the straw man argument.) Of course market forces exist. What I do say, no, what I positively mock is idea that those market forces alone infallibly work to perfectly regulate the economy in the best interest of the average person. That's the magical thinking that prevails in Laissezfairyland. That, and the particularly ludicrous notion that Laissezfairyland has ever existed.
Now, sometimes the market really does work to the benefit of the great majority, it's just that sometimes it doesn't. That's why we need some sort of external regulative feature,...let's call it government. That doesn't mean all government intervention is good, even in intention, much less in practice. And, yes, a bloated government, even if bloated in the name of necessary regulation of would-be plutocrats, can become a problem in and of itself. What's the ideal solution? There isn't one.
The differences between you and me, Enk, far more than that between the categories of Left and Right, is that you are dogmatically doctrinnaire, mesmerized by theory, and I am,...not. By all means, let's all read Marx, and Adam Smith, or whatever Libertarian savant has inspired you, but, being a student of history I simply can't ever fit the real world into narrow dogmas of any stripe, from any wing of the philosophical spectrum. In the end, they're interesting and thought-provoking, but still impractical.
Posted on August 24 at 8:35 p.m.
Oh no, Tom, surely that sorcerer-knight known as the "Invisible Hand" would have slain the Dragon of Chaos. In magical kingdoms like Laissezfairyland there can only be sweetness and light and happily-ever-afters.
Posted on August 24 at 2:43 p.m.
Yes, EnKiKur, Sweden curtailed their social services but they still remain far more extensive than ours. Again, change doesn't equate to fundamental instability. Sweden has by no means "devolved" to capitalism as you and Marx would want to imply.
By the way, you (who seem to be a fairly doctrinaire libertarian) are supposedly making the rightie argument here and yet you're constantly quoting Marx admiringly. I'm supposedly making the leftie argument and I'm constantly telling you you're taking Marx far too seriously. Does anyone else find this odd?
As to "true capitalism," you said outright that we haven't had it since before the Federal Reserve system was created (1913). So, one more time, what exactly was this "true capitalism" of the 19th century? You seriously think we had laissez-faire?" Is true capitalism defined only by 1) no central bank and 2) no income tax, regardless of whatever other role the government was playing? That's what you seem to imply. Gee, that would be news to most people.
And I'll remind you again that when I "the uninformed" talk about "unfettered capitalism" I am referring not to the fine points of banking law, but to a fairyland of some people's over-active imaginations. Capitalism has never been completely "unfettered" by some sort of government regulation and/or subsidy. In the early modern era, capitalism as we know it was literally born wallowing in the favoritism of kings. You, (apparently, "the informed") are the one chasing unicorns.
Posted on August 23 at 10:12 p.m.
And one more thing... I still want to know about the capitalist paradise that existed before 1913.
Posted on August 23 at 10:09 p.m.
EnKiKur, again you are constrained by your ideological straight jacket.
You are equating any change of any type of any degree with instability, which is ridiculous. All societies, particularly modern economies, change over time in any number of ways. The fact that Sweden has changed its tax rates hardly means it fits Marx's model of a return to capitalism.
And yes, another change over time in Sweden is the fact that income disparities have widened since 1980--as they have over the entire industrialized world. Still, those disparities don't come close to what we have here, for better or for worse.
Relatedly, you seem to think that in the ideal of a democratic "socialist" society there can't be any differences in wealth. And that the profit motive must be entirely eliminated. But that has never been the case.
In real world socialism, as opposed to theory, income differences were narrowed but never entirely leveled. No one thought they would be. And the precise degree of difference will of course vary over time. And businessmen were always allowed to pursue profits, domestically or globally, just so long as they followed certain guidelines. And again, those restrictions could and did vary over time. You try to isolate "capitalism" and "socialism" into two utterly antagonistic species, and then pretend (with Marx) that any cross-fertilization represents a flaw in socialism.
What marked, and marks, Sweden as "socialist" therefore was a steeply progressive tax system that was used to finance extensive social services. The result is a more equitable society, not a society of perfect equality. In that, they have been pretty successful. As your own source, the LBO, says, "Combined measures, all versions agree, show Germany, the Netherlands, and Sweden to be low-poverty countries; France and the U.K ., mid-level; and Canada, Israel, and the U.S., high-poverty (all in that order)." This doesn't mean they're perfect, or necessarily a good model for us, but let's please judge Sweden by what it has tried to achieve, not by Marxist-tinged pre-conceptions.
As I said, neither pure laissez-faire capitalism nor pure communism have never existed. Always and everywhere, there has been a mixture of private initiative and government initiative dictating economic events. What the mixture should be is the question.
Posted on August 23 at 10:52 a.m.
So, EnKiKur, Marx is your source for the idea that "socialism cannot remain in a static state, it must either evolve into communism or devolve into capitalism?" And that "socialism...widens the gap between the richest and the poorest, destroying the middle class as it does so?" And you apparently agree?
Whatever the source, surely you realize that each of these assertions has been disproven by history many times over. "Socialist" democracies such as Sweden have remained very stable over time. These countries today are every bit as committed to civil liberties and popular sovereignty as is the US (maybe more so). And the income gap has by no means widened in these countries, it has in case after case narrowed. Facts trump theories.
So again, other than some quotes from Marx dating to the 1840's, what evidence do you have for your points?
Also, you imply we had "true capitalism" before the creation of the Federal Reserve banking system in 1913. Really? I'd like to know your definition of true capitalism. A genuinely competitive, fully free market, laissez-faire system? One with no government regulation or subsidy? Like the system in which a tiny handful of mega-moneymen like J. P. Morgan could and did game the monetary system like a private and thoroughly rigged casino? (As in a great line from a Bertoldt Brecht play, "we could have robbed a bank, but instead we decided to buy a bank and use it to rob other people.") This is your idea of "true capitalism?" Because that in historical fact rather than theory is what the unregulated, wildly uncompetitive, boom & bust system of the 19th century was like.
Or is the "true capitalism" of your pre-1913 Golden Age embodied by the government policy that said, in the name of sacred "laissez-faire," it would be wrong to offer disaster relief to drought-stricken farmers, even as it was lavishing massive land grants on railroad corporations? That of course is just the most glaring example of the far more extensive 19th century tradition of corporate welfare. That tradition in the US goes back to Alexander Hamilton--protective tariffs, etc. Hamilton, let's remember was George Washington's Sec of the Treasury.
In fact, EnKiKur, your "true capitalism" has never existed. Just as Marx's "true communism" has never existed. They are speculative constructs, fairy tale lands of imagined but utterly impractical perfection, useful as talking points, but positively dangerous when some would try to fit the real world into their rigid straight jackets. That, is the tyranny we need to fear at the moment, that of theory over fact.
Posted on August 22 at 5:11 p.m.
Hope this isn't too late for a response, but EnKiKur, I get the impression you are a fan of F.A. Hayek's "The Road to Serfdom." True?
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Posted on September 27 at 7:03 p.m.
Regarding the impact of malpractice premiums and settlements on the totality of spending on health care, has anyone bothered to see what the real experts on this issue have said? Meaning the ones who have done actual analytical studies, as opposed to politicians and doctors?
From the 2004 study by the Congressional Budget Office: http://www.cbo.gov/doc.cfm?index=4968&am...
"Evidence from the states indicates that premiums for malpractice insurance are lower when tort liability is restricted than they would be otherwise. But even large savings in premiums can have only a small direct impact on health care spending--private or governmental--because malpractice costs account for less than 2 percent of that spending. Advocates or opponents cite other possible effects of limiting tort liability, such as reducing the extent to which physicians practice "defensive medicine" by conducting excessive procedures; preventing widespread problems of access to health care; or conversely, increasing medical injuries. However, evidence for those other effects is weak or inconclusive."
And this 2009 study from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University: http://kellogg.northwestern.edu/News_Art...
"When assessing out-of-control U.S. healthcare costs, malpractice and related litigation are just 'a drop in the bucket,' according to Kellogg School Assistant Professor of Management and Strategy Leemore Dafny.
'These costs, all told, have been estimated to be only about 2 percent of healthcare expenses,' says Dafny, an economist and expert in healthcare competition."
A saving of 2%, a "drop in the bucket." Yeah, that oughta cure what ails us.
If tort reform is a good idea, let's do it because of its own merit. And then, let's stop pretending the current system is a major cause of health care inflation.
The incentives of a "fee-for-service" payment system are a far more important reason for our out of control costs.
On Health care needs shot, not tissue