Peter wrote:
Ah, but here's where your logic fails: There is no enterprise,
health care, education, etc., that cannot be done cheaper and better
by private industry. Take education, for example. No amount of money
can improve it as long as it remains primarily a government purview.
Wrong, wrong, wrong. I'll provide one example where I regard myself
as having more than average knowledge and understanding: the
military health care system. It provides much better care overall
than does the civilian sector, at substantially less cost. I know. I
trained at one of the best ivy league post-graduate medical centers
in the world, spent time in private practice, and then my entire
approx. 30 year Navy career in the Navy Medical Department, first as
practitioner, then as administrator, and occasionally, as a patient. Our
family still receives 100% of its care in military treatment
facilities. We don't have to. We could opt at essentially no cost
out of pocket to use civilian providers. We don't feel the need at
all.
I didn't say government programs were a disaster, I simply said that private
enterprises were better and cheaper.
I admit that the Walter Reed Medical Center is a top-notch facility (of
course it treats members of congress, but that's just a coincidence). On the
other hand, VA hospitals, in the main, rank somewhere between the the UK's
NHS and Cuba.
You don't seem to understand "wealth." The only people who believe
in a "national wealth" are those who believe wealth is a fixed
commodity and needs to be re-distributed. To a liberal, wealth is
like energy: it can be moved around but it cannot be created or
destroyed.
You are being condescending. You don't know me or my knowledge base.
I never said that I believed in national wealth. I don't. I know
that wealth is expandable and can contract. I know that when the
stock market tanks, everyone who is invested in those stocks loses
some of their wealth and that loss is not transferred as profit to
anyone else.
No, I'm not being condescending. I said "You don't SEEM to understand..."
That you do merely highlights your inability to express that understanding
or my inability to discern it from what you wrote. To the degree that the
slight is on my part, I apologize for getting you wrong.
To a conservative, wealth is like a souffle, it can rise or it can
flop.
Any person with a modicum of knowledge about economics, know that,
not just conservatives. Patting yourself on the back too hard aren't
you?
Well, then, liberals and progressives don't have that modicum. To them,
wealth is like a pie of fixed dimensions with unequal slices. In the
interests of "fairness," the size of the slices must be adjusted. Just
today, Hillary Clinton is reported to have said:
"The rich are not paying their fair share in any nation that is facing the
kind of employment issues [America currently does] - whether it's
individual, corporate or whatever [form of] taxation forms..."
With video of her speech
http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmi...r_share.h tml
"Fair" is a loaded word. Here's my definition of "fair:" Assume, in round
numbers, the national budget is $3 trillion and that we have 300 million
folks in the country. "Fair," then, is that each person forwards $10,000 to
the treasury.
A real-life and obvious example of wealth increase or decrease is
the stock market.
Every dollar the government spends in the general marketplace is a
dollar of wealth destroyed. Every transaction entered into by a
willing buyer and a willing seller creates wealth.
Wrong again. Every dollar the government spends in the general
marketplace is a dollar of wealth re-distributed.
Your "wealth is redistributed" notion has some merit, but often the money
spent is a result of the "broken window" economic theory, where the spending
is wasted. Had not the money (for a government project) not been taken in
the form of taxes, those who paid the taxes would have had money to pay
employees, make investments, or increase wealth.
And "every
transaction entered into by a willing buyer and a willing seller"
exchanges the value of the item sold for the value of the asset used
to buy it. No wealth is created by that transaction.
If there is no benefit, i.e., wealth creation, why bother with the
transaction.
Consider a farmer who sells a dozen eggs to a housewife for a dollar. To the
farmer, who has more eggs than dollars, he is richer as a result of the
sale. To the housewife, the eggs are worth more than a dollar, else why go
to the trouble of making the trade? Each leaves the transaction wealthier
than before.
I claim the reverse. Lobbyists and special interests are the foil to
the mob mentality of the masses.
If you believe that the masses are a mob, you probably believe in
totalitarian government. After all, how else to keep the masses in
their place?
I didn't say RAVAGE the masses, I said RESIST the masses.
I don't advocate SUPPRESSING the great unwashed, I encourage a COUNTER to
the plebians. When legislation is the product of an excited, sweaty, and
high-decibel crowd, you can be sure the legislation will be catastrophic.
Our system is broken. It is not working reliably or effectively at
present in either our courts or in our legislature.
Yep. It is the worst possible system, except, of course, for every other
system in the world (Hat tip to Churchill).
2. Those states with constitutional "mob rule" have the potential for
ruination. California has an "initative& referendum" methodology
where a group of citizens can propose a new law - or constitutional
amendment - and get it voted on by the public. This enables things
that sound good getting mandated even though they have catastrophic
consequences.
I finally found something to agree with. The California initiative
system is not a good model. That's why for the most part, we have
representative government. The problem is not the "mob rule", it is
that one of the most important functions of a government that
effectively meets the needs of all its citizens is to protect the
rights of the minority. In the type of government that I suspect you
envision, your minority views might be prohibited. Maybe you would
be happier living in North Korea or some other place where the "mobs"
have no say.
I never said I was opposed to considering the ravings of a lunatic mob. All
I've said is that laws created at the end of a pitchfork need to be balanced
by the input of those affected (lobbyists and special interests).
To the degree that you misapprehend my thoughts, I accept your apology.