[grassroots1]

How much more public education do we need? It already costs a fortune to run public schools relative to private schools. America already spend a fortune per pupil compared to other countries, the put our better educated students. Are you saying we need to spend even more money on this boondoggle called public education?

As for government controlled health care system, you do understand that anything the government presides over, ends up costing a whole lot more? So by that token why do you want a government-controlled health care system?

First of all, I think our public educational system doesn't get enough credit for what it does accomplish in difficult circumstances, and I think it provides a valuable no-cost alternative. Working people in this country already have enough to worry about paying health and utility bills. To me, education is something that needs to be provided free of charge to those who can't afford it and that's absolutely essential. Maybe there are inefficiencies in the system, maybe they need to be corrected, but I think we need to spend more on public education in this country. You only have to see 40 kids in a classroom to come to that conclusion.

As for health care, as far as I know national health systems in Canada and the UK both function at a lower per capita cost than American health care. Private care is the expensive option in this case, not to mention the potential for abuse. I think the profit motive should be kept as far away from health care as possible for more fundamental reasons than cost.

But with all the regulations out there, and minimum wage laws, do we still need labor unions forcing unrealistic wages on employers? Business is tough to run. Most business owners work 12-16+ hours a day, 7 days a week. When somehow, such business owner earns $200,000 a year, Obama wants to tax it to death.

My point is, at what point is enough enough with labor unions?

You're right, at some point, it begins to seem wasteful. I really don't know the answer to the question, except that it has to be taken on an individual basis. I think with the example of Greece leftists will have to admit that we can see clearly that government benefits can get out of control, but there are equally heinous (or more heinous) abuses on the other side of the equation. Wal-Mart is an example of a manipulative, scheming, anti-union corporation.

Free market system is not propaganda. If practiced properly, without crippling government regulations, it's actually the best system to have. It's self-regulating. Unfortunately, government regulations see to it that free market systems can't work.

I don't believe this is true. Government regulations can see to it that economies are robust and growing, especially if it invests its money correctly: into something like education, for example. This increases the value to society of the average member of society, and it also prepares them to be an informed and aware citizen. There's nothing I can think of that's MORE valuable to society and to the economy than a quality educational system that doesn't leave a single person behind. Here's a thread where we talked about this a lot:

http://www.politicsforum.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=49&t=129402&start=20

My point is that the so-called immoral act of theft is not actually immoral in every circumstance, and I'm sure every person on Earth would agree with me on that fact. It makes no sense to assess social policies only in terms of absolute moral principles, and to disregard the immense potential benefit of, for example, so-called "theft" (or taxation) in maximizing social mobility and, more generally, human potential.

Asymmetry of information makes any suggestion that somehow consumers will be able to exert control over the market a myth. For example, ratings agencies will have every incentive (and this is even the case in our own society) to not make waves with the businesses who pay their bills, to pass positive ratings on products which may actually be harmful in the short- or long-term, etc. Either that, or business will understand the simple fact that people have to eat, and exploit that need itself, damning ratings altogether. You're trying to open the door to profiteering of all kinds, when history has shown that unhindered market forces will chew up and spit out significant sections of the population, and will result in polarized economic classes and concentration of wealth and power. You're concerned about fascism from the government when the source of corruption in government is business itself.

I believe that what we need to do in America is not to banish government entirely, which is meant to be representative of the people, but to reclaim government and make it genuinely representative of the people. Restructure our system so that legalized bribery in the form of lobbyists does not exist in the form it now does, so that education encourages constant political involvement, so that education and health care and the well-being of citizens in general are not given a second priority to the health of business and the dollar value of our GDP.

The only thing I don't understand about Liberals is that, even though they are aware of the fact that if you push businesses too hard, they would go elsewhere, Liberals still do it. They then resort to guilt tactics like "if you love America, you wouldn't take your business to another country".

In reality, the statement should be, "if you love America, you wouldn't drive job creators away to other countries".

There is definitely a balance there.

[Rudolf Prikryl]

We cannot all be rich. True.
We can all be poor. True.
Only the rich can create jobs. True.

Sorry, I'm going to dispute your 'indisputable "facts"' because it turns out 2/3 of them are actually false!

They do indeed sit on their wealth, fail to create jobs, and generally cause havoc in the economy.

This is why "Liberals" hate the rich:









You don't think there's anything wrong with this distribution of wealth?

[lucky]

I have no problem with most rich people - but the ones firing thousands of Americans and sending the jobs overseas, or giving themselves millions in bonuses...

I had some spare cash lying around, so I gave myself a big bonus, just to spite you.

[rik]

First of all, I think our public educational system doesn't get enough credit for what it does accomplish in difficult circumstances,

What does it accomplish other than failing students?

and I think it provides a valuable no-cost alternative.

You must be joking. No cost to whom? Tax payer money runs the schools doesn't it? So how is it a no-cost alternative? Even if you are poor, and don't pay taxes, you still pay consumer/property taxes.

As for health care, as far as I know national health systems in Canada and the UK both function at a lower per capita cost than American health care.

Not true at all. Do you know the tax rates in these countries? Tax rates are sky high.

Government cannot run health care. Period. Government is incompetent when it comes to managing big programs.

Can you name a single program the government runs, that hasn't been run into the ground?

So, what sense does it make to let a failure run your business? The government has an awful track record. It shouldn't be running anything beyond what the constitution stipulates, i.e. defense and inter state commerce.

Health system in the UK sucks. Wait times for surgery are longer in Canada and the UK. Some expensive treatments are banned.

Health insurance in America is low. There is no profit motive like you said. Here's why:

- No VAT in America. VAT is about 20% of anything you buy in the UK/Canada. This is on top of sales tax.
- Gasoline is cheap in America. Gasoline is like $9/gallon in the UK, $5/gallon in Canada.
- Food is cheap in America. Food is extremely expensive in the UK/Canada.
- TV license imposed. $250 / year.

By the time you tally up all these crazy taxes just to have free health care, you're actually much better off just buying the health insurance yourself.

So while Canadians may think they're getting free health care, they actually pay multiple times over in other ways as above. Gasoline is expensive there due to imposed government taxes. Their government needs high taxes to fund health care.

[rik]

We cannot all be rich. True.
We can all be poor. True.
Only the rich can create jobs. True.

Sorry, I'm going to dispute your 'indisputable "facts"' because it turns out 2/3 of them are actually false!

They do indeed sit on their wealth, fail to create jobs, and generally cause havoc in the economy.

They sit on their wealth because Obama keeps threatening to raise taxes on small businesses making $200,000+
Tell your Obama to lower taxes, and see what happens to job creation.
Even Bill Clinton is telling Obama to lower taxes.

So here it is once again:

We cannot all be rich. True.
We can all be poor. True.
Only the rich can create jobs. True.

These are facts.

[Rudolf Prikryl]

What does it accomplish other than failing students?

I don't know, maybe, you know, occasionally educating a student? I went to a public high school and I know plenty of others that attended public institutions that did just fine. The main problem is the lack of funding and constant decrease in funding since education seems to be on the top of the pile for austerity.

Not true at all. Do you know the tax rates in these countries? Tax rates are sky high.

Government cannot run health care. Period. Government is incompetent when it comes to managing big programs.

Sorry, you're just flat out wrong! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_health_expenditure_(PPP)_per_capita

Can you name a single program the government runs, that hasn't been run into the ground?

The military seems to be doing fine. I wonder why that is?

Oh, right.

Some expensive treatments are banned.

Oh no, how will I ever get cosmetic surgeries on the taxpayer dime now! What an awful shame.

They sit on their wealth because Obama keeps threatening to raise taxes on small businesses making $200,000+
Tell your Obama to lower taxes, and see what happens to job creation.
Even Bill Clinton is telling Obama to lower taxes.

That's strange, that's not what you said here in the OP: "I don't know of one wealthy person who keeps his money under his pillow, or in his basement."
Unless you were weasel-phrasing and asserting "they just sit on their money in some other way," making you technically not wrong, just an insufferable pedant who shifts the goals of the discussion at their whim.

And try again, he's not "My Obama" (both US political parties are terrible), and Obama kept the Bush tax cuts. Taxes are lower than they've been in decades (for the rich and corporate.. again, see: graphs above).

Yet somehow...


&
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304665904576381331264252972.html

We cannot all be rich.

False. The average American is far richer than the average anyone else in the entire world, perhaps sans some European instances. (i.e. Americans are all rich!)
Not to mention that we could all be far richer if the income was distributed more equally (see: all of those graphs I posted)

We can all be poor. True.

Yeah, I'd say 70% of all people in most countries (in their respective national contexts, and to some extent generally... again, sans some European/specific East Asian examples [I'm looking at you Japan & SK]) already are!
Good job, rich people & "free market" economics.

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gini_Coefficient_World_CIA_Report_2009.png

Only the rich can create jobs. True.

So that job I got from a small business owner wasn't a job? The job my friend got from the government isn't a job? The job that a non-profit created isn't a job?

You're wrong in so many ways it's making my head spin. How is the view from underneath the sand, Herr Ostrich?


vvv Damn. Much more comprehensive on the healthcare angle. Kudos on that nice big effortpost! vvv

[Rei Murasame]

Haha! I'm going to have to put the brakes on your healthcare argument there Rik, as you are now stepping into my favourite territory.

Government cannot run health care.

Actually, it can, let me get out some theme music and the battle-flag, since this post is epic and comprehensive enough in my estimation to deserve one, and we can get started with this dance.


[Soundtrack!]

Here's a full comparison between the USA and assorted OECD national healthcare services.


Contrary to their claims, it seems there are indeed some people who are doing better than the USA at cancer mortality.


And don't look now, but the diabetes rate in the USA is set to double by 2034, so if you think it's bad now, imagine how much more horrible this graph will look a few years from now if nothing is done.


This is going to become a trend. USA spending double the amount that everyone else does on healthcare, while getting results that are not really as you'd imagine that spending double would cause. In fact, you'll notice in this series of graphs that the USA never makes it into the "A Ranking" on anything.


Now, the USA can argue that it's because their violent crime rate is higher (about one third of the bar for the USA is apparently crime-related), but everyone else has crime too, and so I'd expect that if we removed the crime from it, they'd still be in last place.


You'd expect they'd at least be able to pull ahead of the rest of us on this one. But still no.


This is going to keep rising for a while due to ageing populations. Again, we see USA still not pulling ahead of the pack, but still paying twice as much.


This also includes narcotic-related deaths.


Being paid so much more money, you'd think they'd at least pull ahead on this one. But still no.


Well, this is where it starts to get interesting. Free Marketeers will ask, "Oh, oh, but how much of that was lived in good health, eh?!"

Great question.


HALE: Health-Adjusted Life Expectancy is where they take the life expectancy and adjust the number of years based on the health of the population during that life, with weighting depending on the severity of the illnesses involved. What we end up with is basically a "who is the healthiest" or "who has the best quality of life" chart.

USA seems to be under some sort of curse, or something. Any explanation?

Hold on, I have an explanation! Here's what you are doing, let me just indent the post to go on this side-tour into the statistics of your system.

Beginning of detour into USA's statistics:


Accelerating into the stratosphere.


Health expenditure growing faster than the economy grows.


You spend more than anyone else and you don't get significantly better care than the rest of us either.






Projections of how much more you could be bombarded in the future.


This is a travesty.


Yeah, what was that about the market solving everything?





You are wasting money.

Why is that happening to you?

Part of the reason why you seem to be trapped on this issue is because for some reason you all value liberty above any other good, so in all dilemmas that involve people walking toward cliffs, you are constrained to either claim that they will somehow not walk off the cliff even though by all accounts they are doing it one-by-one right now, or that their liberty to walk off cliffs has a higher priority than their continued ability to function as a useful member of society:


• U.S. Obesity Trends
  
• Explosion of Child Obesity Predicted to Shorten U.S. Life Expectancy
  
• Why obesity is a national security threat
• Junk-food-addicted rats chose to starve themselves rather than eat healthy food
• Society is promoting obesity
• Life Expectancy Declining in many parts of USA

Yet meanwhile, your media is out there downplaying it every time anyone raises the issue on TV:
[youtube]72ScWxTxEQQ[/youtube]



Once in a while, moderation, come on...

Show me the one American who knows what that word means.

End of detour.

Now, back to the cross-country comparison:



And we've reached the point where the OECD nations did some self-assessment on what they thought about their own health. This is where the USA finally gets an "A Rank" on something, because that's the rank their citizens keep giving themselves, for 3 consecutive decades. The Americans are somehow still confident that they are in top health. They remain confident despite failing at everything.

On the flip-side, Japan and Italy seem to have some hypochondriacs among them, but that is probably why the rest of their statistics look so good, they are always worried about health and seeking to improve their national health systems (which were founded by Fascists, interestingly enough, something that Fascism got right 100%).

So where is this 'superior performance', and 'best healthcare in the world'? Not in the USA, surely. To recap once more, you still paid twice as much just to have a totally crazy system though:


Seriously, what the hell is that?
____________________________

Now, I'll explain why the 'free market' is not the answer to the healthcare problem:

• There may be several different 'sustainable' solutions, and many of them may involve betraying your own people and just letting them die of preventable diseases or have drastic stratification of life-expectancy and quality of life. If the market chooses to give your people the axe as shown above, then that's not the sustainable solution that you wanted.
  
  
• Also, that sustainable solution under the Free Market (assuming that the trajectory even ends up heading toward the one where the population group gets taken care of properly) could take so long to find that in the interim, the lack of proper care completely ruins the quality stock of your population group (epigenetics!) so that later on you have bigger problems to deal with than if you had just covered them with all something robust from the start and tweaked it as you went along.

Public health is not the sort of trivial commodity that the Libertarians seem to be behaving like it is, it's one of the cornerstones of building up a population group and it is a complex thing. Leaving solitary individuals to 'just figure it out', is simply not going to work because what is needed is a large organisation that has the power and the resources at its disposal to collect information and make deductions based on it. That organisation would also have to have one more element to it that is vital - a commitment to the maintenance and improvement of the quality of life of the population group it represents as its raison d'etre.

I can't think of any more powerful organisation that is purportedly established with that motive in mind other than the State.

[redcarpet]

They can't 'hate' 'rich people'. Especially not American Jews, as they ARE rich people.

[John Bob]

why do Liberals hate the rich so much?

Because 80 % of Liberals are lazy, looser and poor, they hate everybody who is better as them.

[rik]

I don't know, maybe, you know, occasionally educating a student? I went to a public high school and I know plenty of others that attended public institutions that did just fine.

You are giving me the exception, to prove the rule. When I say the public school system is failing, I didn't mean every student I too know students who are among the best.

The main problem is the lack of funding and constant decrease in funding since education seems to be on the top of the pile for austerity.

Lack of funding? Do you live in the same America I do? Education is among the most funded government sectors. ~$11,000 per pupil.

If you're looking for a sector that is constantly being cut, it's defense, not education.

We already spend more per student than most other countries. Yet you want even more spending?

Too many high salaried administrators in the public school system. They all earn union wages and pensions. This takes away money meant to teach the kids. So if education needs more money, look into cutting administrators.

The military seems to be doing fine. I wonder why that is?

The military isn't run by the government. That may surprise you, but the military runs the military, not the bureaucrats.

So, I take it you cannot name one program run by the government, that is a success. That is a shame.

But here are a few government programs that are giant failures:

social security - bankrupt
medicare, medicaid - bankrupt
post office - bankrupt
Amtrak - bankrupt
Fannie and Freddie - bankrupt
US government - bankrupt
US debt - gargantuan
war against drugs - lost
illegal immigration - out of control
public school system - poor graduation rate, and poor quality students
Also, the school meal program is not working. Most of that food is going in the trash. Another example of government waste.

So your government has this extremely poor report card. But yet, you want it to run the biggest program of all - health care? Why?

As for the per capita spending on health care, we spend more because we provide higher quality care. Most medical/pharmaceutical research is done in the US. Those are very expensive. Other countries just take our research and use them. So it appears as though they spend less on health care.

[rik]

They can't 'hate' 'rich people'. Especially not American Jews, as they ARE rich people

Yes American Jews is a confounding case, especially Hollywood millionaires. These people espouse liberal ideals, such as higher taxes. So that means they do hate the rich. The hypocrites do find ways to dodge their own taxes though.

[rik]

Now, I'll explain why the 'free market' is not the answer to the healthcare problem

Listen, if you want to solve a problem, you must know its origin. Your problem is that you do not understand why health insurance seems high in the US.

The issue of cost is easily solved.

- Tort reform.
- make it possible to purchase health insurance across state borders.
- Take government completely out of it.

Free-market works, if the government does not regulate things to death.

With little government involvement, smaller medical outfits are going to begin to spring up. That means more competition between the hospitals, and therefore cheaper health care overall. There are private hospitals now that are already "cash only". They are way cheaper.

[Happyhippo]

As for the per capita spending on health care, we spend more because we provide higher quality care. Most medical/pharmaceutical research is done in the US. Those are very expensive. Other countries just take our research and use them. So it appears as though they spend less on health care.

Have you looked into the numbers here? How much of the US expenditure on health care is going into research? What do you mean by increased quality?

Your blanket statement to a post filled with serious sources is nothing but incredibly unimpressive.

[rik]

Beginning of detour into USA's statistics

You did well with all the charts and stats. I like it when people provide concrete facts.

But you're barking up the wrong tree a bit. US health care is of higher quality. When people want critical care, they don't go to Canada. They come to the US. People die waiting for critical surgery in the UK and Canada. If you're over a certain age, you are red-lined. No such things in the US health care system.

Pharmaceutical drugs cost more in the US. That is because US companies do a lot of the expensive research. They need to recoup their investment. Also, the best medical equipments are created in the US. If we let Canada pay for all the research, they would be charging an arm and a leg. In reality they already are, with the crippling taxes they impose on everything and everybody.

Furthermore, it appears the US spends more, since we allow expensive cancer drugs, and expensive surgical procedures. Most of such expensive items are banned in the UK and Canada.

[Rei Murasame]

Okay, several issues here:

Listen, if you want to solve a problem, you must know its origin. Your problem is that you do not understand why health insurance seems high in the US.

The issue of cost is easily solved.

- Tort reform.
- make it possible to purchase health insurance across state borders.
- Take government completely out of it.

Free-market works, if the government does not regulate things to death.

How would that actually improve anything though? Also, none of that addresses the issue of preventative care.

With little government involvement, smaller medical outfits are going to begin to spring up. That means more competition between the hospitals, and therefore cheaper health care overall.

How do you know that this will happen, when the tendency is generally toward larger and larger conglomerates?

But you're barking up the wrong tree a bit. US health care is of higher quality.

If so, then why are so many of the results worse by comparison?

When people want critical care, they don't go to Canada. They come to the US.

That doesn't address the overall performance of the system though.

Pharmaceutical drugs cost more in the US. That is because US companies do a lot of the expensive research. They need to recoup their investment.

See, this is just wrong from the outset, since other countries also do R&D, and yet still manage to enact price controls:

In the UK, we have a world-class pharmaceutical industry - a fifth of the world's leading 100 medicines have been discovered and developed here - and that industry needs our continuing support.

And don't forget the pharmaceutical industry's contribution to the economy.

Apart from being one of the key knowledge-based industries on which the future of the UK's financial success will be based, we keep up 250,000 jobs and generated £14.6bn of exports in 2007 - the second highest in the European Union.

Also, just as an aside:
[youtube]GAaVwFEe4o0[/youtube]

[Suska]

Five years ago everyone was saying the sort of thing that Rik is saying here. In those five years everyone stopped saying that. The reason is simply that the laughter of the other nations of the world is too loud.

[Drlee]

They sit on their wealth because Obama keeps threatening to raise taxes on small businesses making $200,000+

Not true. Try again. Simply not true.

Tell your Obama to lower taxes, and see what happens to job creation.

Where in the fuck did you get the idiotic idea that Obama is a liberal? Don't tell me you are so foolish as to believe that the democratic party is liberal.

Even Bill Clinton is telling Obama to lower taxes.

This is also untrue. Clinton does not favor raising repatriation taxes but here is what he said July 1st on CNN:

"It's not class warfare to ask Bill Clinton, who was the disproportionate beneficiary of the economy for the last 10 years, to actually return to the taxes I was paying when all of America had a much stronger economy and all of America was benefiting," he told me during a one-on-one interview.

"I'm saying when your country's in trouble," he added, "we're all going to have to sacrifice."

So again you have posted nonsense.

So here it is once again:

We cannot all be rich. True.

Define rich?

We can all be poor. True.

False. The US is STILL BY FAR one of the the wealthiest nations on the planet. You can devise some idiotic apoclyptic fantasy but it is not going to happen. Even during the great depression the majority of Americans were not poor and we are far from that now.

Only the rich can create jobs. True.

False. Most jobs are created by small business. Most small business people earn less than $200K per year and very few are rich.

So your post was not based upon one shread of fact I fear. It read like a Glen Beck (net worth in excess of 50 million), Bill O'Rielly (net worth over $50 million) Rush Limbaugh (net worth by some estimates over $350 million) talking point.

Liberals (and I do not include the vast majority of democrats or independents in that group) do not hate the rich. Far from it. This so-called "liberal" you refer to is a construct of Fox News and the like. It is nothing more than a right-wing talking point. You are, in all probability, not old enough to remember this same old bullshit once before when we went on a national witch-hunt for communists. We deamonized a bunch of people then too.

Tell your story walking. People with your ideas are just tools in the hands of the wealthy. They are laughing behind their hands at you.

[eugenekop]

Government programs and private sector services are not mutually exclusive. It is very easy to make government provided health care, social security and other programs optional, and enable private sector option (without regulations). Then we will see who is better.

[Swinging Man]

This thread has turned into one big steaming shit taco. Just felt I had to state the obvious.

[grassroots1]

You must be joking. No cost to whom? Tax payer money runs the schools doesn't it?

Thank you I don't need one of these libertarian "everything comes from somewhere guys!" obvious lessons about economics. Yes, tax payer money funds the school, that's the point. It's no cost to the families that choose to send their children there.

Not true at all.

Medical costs in the UK and Canada are less than half of ours. There are something like 40 million people who are uninsured in this country. OUR costs are sky-high and the poor are bearing the brunt of the burden. Something is wrong with that picture.

Government cannot run health care. Period. Government is incompetent when it comes to managing big programs.

Government has, can, and will continue to run healthcare systems efficiently and effectively. Far more efficiently and effectively than private medical companies are doing in America today. This is what Rei's numbers above have demonstrated. Government is the ONLY entity capable of tackling large-scale projects like maintaining the roads of an entire nation, ensuring that certain safety standards for cars and buildings and pharmaceuticals are met, providing decent health care for every citizen, providing education for every citizen. Government is the only entity capable of running those things, and yet somehow you get it into your head that "government is incompetent when it comes to managing big programs?" And business is better... based on what evidence?

Can you name a single program the government runs, that hasn't been run into the ground?

Occupational Safety and Hazard Administration. Environmental Protection Agency. As my friend says below, the military.

Health system in the UK sucks. Wait times for surgery are longer in Canada and the UK. Some expensive treatments are banned.

I'm not going to have this discussion again, especially not with someone who is arguing on this level. If you're going to make claims, you need to source them. Wait times might be longer in Canada, who knows, but at least everyone receives medical care if they need it. That's the main problem here. The fact that there are about 40-50 million people in this country who would be in debt their entire lives if they suffered any serious injury.

By the time you tally up all these crazy taxes just to have free health care, you're actually much better off just buying the health insurance yourself.

I disagree. You've already shown how medicare is one of the largest sources of spending in America, and with medicare the government is essentially paying (slightly lower than) market price for health services. A fully government-run system is paying for these services at cost... you could essentially see a direct transfer of the money we use to cover health insurance for millions of Americans today into a system where the government actually runs and operates clinics and hospitals. I'm not sure about the raw numbers for this.