Yeah, well, so you say. Sort of like the Paul-ite claims of impending hyperinflation that you used to repeat. Get back to me when it happens. Conservatives have been forecasting the death of California for as long as I can remember.
I don't think you have a good grasp on the situation with the California pension situation. Either that, or you don't believe in math. It is enormously underfunded and the only solution they have seems to be to raise contributions from schools and police depts, etc. It's not overstating it to call it a crisis.
Maybe that text tax will work?
But don't worry, when it fails, they'll blame it on GOP and capitalism and ask the feds for help. And the feds will oblige because they've proven over and over again that they won't let big dogs fail.
Mention of suicide rates seems kind of spurious in light of the fact that the suicide rate in the US is at a 30-year high and continuing to climb. I guess people don’t know that the economy is expanding.
The studies have been done on this and 80% of them show a positive correlation between suicide rates and recessions.
Hmm, well, I’d just as soon do both. At least I’d rather make the poor and middle class more stable, comfortable, and prosperous.
What you're proposal to do this. Economic engineering? More government programs... how much money do you want to put in the hands of our government to piss away? The best way to help people is create an environment where they can earn money .
Rely on themselves for what? To provide affordable health care or education? I’m not sure how that’s possible. An individual can’t do that. A collection of individuals can, and should. I’d rather NOT rely on slogans or cant, though.
Rely on themselves for their earnings. Rely on themselves for financing their health. Rely on themselves to learn new skills. The internet has and will continue to make higher education irrelevant and useless. Once that bubble pops I'm glad we have self-sustaining methods.
Obamacare was never going to deliver large long-term reductions in costs.
Oh - good thing we did it then!
I’m not sure why you’re picking this as a battleground, though, because it’s long proven to be losing territory for you.
Oh I think I was ahead of the whole "Obamacare is a disaster, will raise costs, and will fail" movement... and here we are. Please government, save us with a bigger program!
Remember the conversation about Medicare For All when you insisted that I was wrong that the projection forecast cost savings, before you ultimately conceded that point? I can point to all the available study that shows such a mechanism to be cheaper and more efficient than the current system
Yes I remember. Those equations always assume the medicare 40% discount we have today will be adopted nationwide. Color me skeptical. As a guy who is engaged to a doctor, I can tell you how much hospitals hate medicare patients because they lose money on them. I'm sure they'll be eager to adopt it for everyone. And when they are forced to, we'll get our predicted reduction in care and investment.
Meanwhile, I LOL at the idea that the government can run anything efficiently at all. They never have. They never will. Their entire existence is to get bigger, not more efficient. But sure - go ahead and tell me how we supposedly can't pay for doctors, nurses, and medications today... but we'll be able to pay for doctors, nurses, medications, and a monstrous government bureaucracy tomorrow.
And let's not forget that nearly half of this country's health insurance is paid for by employers. I pay nothing at my company... once we take that away - and we do that by raising my taxes - that's a huge cost I'll have to bear that I don't currently. I'm not unique in this scenario.
and you have—as has been demonstrated repeatedly—nothing to underpin the assertion that a market-based system would be superior.
Market-based system works all around us across multiple industries and technologies. Of course, how foolish of me to assume it could also work for health care and education. Health care costs accounted for 5% of GDP before the year Medicare was introduced... today's it's over 18%. There are legit reasons for this, of course... but the fact that we haven't been able to find some savings in the enormous technology advancement since then is staggering to me.
You don’t like the funding mechanism for single-payer or MFA, sure, but you can’t rebut that it’s actually far more efficient than the current system
Well it's tough to rebut something with no means of data showing it. But I'm pretty comfortable betting that the government is not more efficient at anything than the private markets.
And, fwiw, that’s precisely what I mean when I say that I would trade the rich being slightly less rich for the poor and middle class being more stable and prosperous. That’s precisely the trade-off of MFA, while you’re left talking about a market-based solution that doesn’t exist anywhere in the world, and never has.
Curious what the proposed funding mechanism here is. Are you going to raise middle class taxes? Just rich people? Just corporate? What's the plan to get the $32T over 10 years (assuming that's the actual number which I think is a naive assumption).
Pretty much. Like I said, I’m content to “confiscate” more money from the very wealthy to provide more security, stability, and prosperity for the rest of society.
I think that's pretty sad. I suppose you'd be fine with me robbing my rich neighbor because he has a mansion and 3 teslas... If you're not, please explain to me the difference. The justice-serving Julio has already determined my neighbor is too rich and is fine with him being less rich.
I’m referring to sentiments that you’ve repeated many times, along the lines of what thethe said earlier—that capital’s influence on the electoral system is bad. That so-called crony capitalism is bad. You decry the influence of money on government, yet you view it, in your own words, as a flaw of government, not of capitalism.
That's correct. The government takes bribes and makes legislation to benefit certain companies, individuals etc. That's what corruption is, or better yet, that's what government is.
I’m asking, first, whether you think the government subsidies of industry that you oppose are a logical outgrowth of capitalism?
No. Because what you described is not capitalism.
You think that government is simply offering those subsidies, or do you think that they’re being solicited or bought?
I think they're being solicited and bought.
If the latter, do you think this is a perfectly rational consequence of capitalism, or not?
It has nothing to do with capitalism. It's a perfectly rational action of companies trying to server their best interests. The fact that they can find a willing corrupt partner is a flaw from the willing and corrupt partner.
Upthread you’re talking about corporatism vs capitalism. I confess that I see that as a distinction without a difference (with the caveat that “corporatism” has a specific definition which is apart from what you seem to be referring to) I see capital gaining an advantage in the marketplace and seeking to keep it by whatever means necessary.
Government gives Walmart subsidies. They just gave Amazon massive subsidies. They keep cab companies from dying. They bail out failed solar and car companies. That is government making decisions - picking winners and losers - not the market. The market has decided that cab companies should die. The government has been bought off to not allow it, for now.
What you seem to be saying is sort of a “No true Scotsman” proposition, which keeps your platonic ideal of capitalism forever pure. When capital behaves as it is rationally wont to, and seeks to purchase an advantage by subverting the government, you say “that’s not a bug in capitalism” So tell me: why not? And what’s the remedy, beyond laws and regulation? Surely that’s not the answer.
I dont' think you'd see so much money influencing if the other side didn't benefit so much from it. I don't think this is complicated. What's the remedy? How about a government that acts in a way in which its intended to act? I.e, protect rights, not interests. This can't be though because our government is massive and cannot get smaller.
But hey, at least all these congress people can leave congress as multi multi millionaires.
There’s no viable market without a similarly viable legal authority to make and enforce rules. In our system, that viable authority is us. The market is as regulated or unfettered as we decide it is. If given the latitude to do so, corporate entities will do whatever is necessary to turn a buck and stifle competition, including colluding with their nominal competitors. We’ve seen this specifically (to pull a near-random example) in the agricultural sector, where ADM’s in-house joke was “the competition is our friend and the customer is our enemy” but more broadly where corporate interests have, for decades, broadly colluded on multiple fronts to weaken the power of labor and depress wages. The multi-generational effort to destroy organized labor has been celebrated by every pro-capitalist entity. It’s anti-capitalist, according to your definition, because it’s involved co-opting the government. But it seems to me about as pure an expression of capitalism in practice as exists.
This all seems like the same argument as above. So I think my answers will be redundant.
So, do you think that Citizens United was wrongly decided, that money =/= speech, and that unlimited, anonymous political contributions should be illegal?
I think you should have the right to do whatever you wish with your property, and that includes your money (for now). I'm fine with me contributing millions of dollars to Justin Amash if it means it will help him beat AOC.
I'm not fine with corrupt politicians taking money and returning favors. I understand that that inevitably will happen due to human nature... but that sounds like a reason for less government, not more... doesn't it?
If you think that the hyper-rich making a concerted effort to destroy the power of organized labor is fine, say so, but don’t say in the same breath that it isn’t capitalism.
I think people should have the right to organize... I don't think the government should decide that it must be done this way.
People organizing is capitalism... Capitalism is the freedom to make free exchange of goods and services... if labor unions are the most efficient way to get it done, that's fine by me.
Either you’re ok with the idea that our political system is a wholly-owned subsidiary of capitalism or you’re not. You’re somehow simultaneously arguing that both major political parties are corrupt and irredeemable, and that the world that they’ve created is better than any alternative other than some Randian fantasyland that exists only in theory. Put a marker down. Accept that the current system is a product of capitalism or explain why it isn’t.
Our political system shouldn't be an economic one. The fact that corrupt politician's let money influence them at the expense of others is not capitalism's problem, it's their problem.
We have had, for a large portion of our country, one if not the freest economies in the world. It's a reason we're so prosperous... and have the means to have arguments like the ones we're having. But two of the largest areas in which our government has decided to get very involved (education and health care) the US has become much less competitive and great.
We are the richest country in the world. That doesn't mean we can't get better and richer. That's a loser's mentality... along the lines "some people have more money than me and thus I'm fine with taking from them"
I guess my marker is that I don't wanna live my life being envious and a loser, but rather have the freedom to make my own decisions and God willing, become rich.
