Re: OT - Michelle Obama & Pride In America

Bruce S wrote:


Looks like I just sent an empty response to this post - I hate when I do that - I'll try to actually put some content in this time.

I hate it when I do that, and when I respond to a message twice.

"Robert Allison" <rimshot27@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote

Bruce S wrote:

I have been around for a lot of years of the minimum wage law being in effect and I have never seen any damage caused by it.


But how much damage has there been that you have been unable to see? Are you aware that every time minimum wages go up, unemployment in inner cities goes down?

Wouldn't that be a good thing? Did you mean that unemployment goes up? I would guess that there may be a minor fluctuation in employment rates, but overall, the unemployment rate is pretty low, and I know that it is hard to find ANY employees in my neck of the woods, all the time. Especially good ones. And I pay far more than minimum wage.

The antitrust laws keep competition in the marketplace. Where is the harm in that?


In the case of antitrust, its more a question of waste than damage right now. The cost for a business to fight a claim of monopolistic practices is enormous. That is money that could be spent on good business practices. There has never been any successful monopoly without the assistance of the government. So the best way to prevent monopolies is for government to stop giving preferential treatment to some businesses.

That would be good. But keep the antitrust laws in place, also. How else would anyone fight Microsoft?

<snipped a LOT of conversation>


And that level of arrogance is why these failed economic programs are tried again and again.


<More snippage>

It is not arrogance. It is confidence. I believe that we can do it and I believe that the systems in place now all over the world are good tools for helping us to design and implement a better system of health care and insurance coverage.


If we can do it, and if it can be done for a reasonable price, why has the Massachusetts program cost over $400 million more in the first two years than projected? If we can do it, why is Medicare failing to do it?

I don't know much about the Mass. program as it is fairly small and has only been in effect for a short time. When changing over to a new system, unforeseen costs are to be expected, and the costs of start up are almost always higher at first. I don't like the Mass. program nearly as much as say the Swiss program. The Mass. program seems destined to make the insurance companies richer, though, that is for sure.

Not to mention that the first thing to do is overhaul the system that we have in place now. Turn in back over to the health care professionals instead of boards of directors whose only goal is profit.


So you want to eliminate profit as a motive for providing healthcare? Where do you plan to find doctors and hospitals who will work for free? Healthcare is no different than any other commodity - if you remove profit as a motivation, you will reduce the supply available to the consumers. Look at the British system to see what that means in terms of availability of surgical care.

It is always extremes with you, isn't it? There is a big difference between eliminating profits and making profit ONE of the goals instead of the only one. Although, I would not be adverse to making the health care system a not for profit business. That does not mean that doctors don't get paid, it just means that the entire business as a whole does not seek to make a profit. Everyone still gets paid. When profit is the only motive for a business, services become minimal. Do you think that is a good thing for health care? It is pretty much what we have now for a lot of people. The balance comes from fear of lawsuits. More than enough is done to protect the doctors, hospitals, etc. from lawsuits, but only enough to satisfy the insurers is done for the health of the patient. Does that seem like a good way to run a business? How about making the health of the patient first and foremost, and any other benefits are gravy?

Secondly, if you plan to eliminate profit as a motive, how will you reduce costs? Will you use the same system of cost reduction that is in use in Brittan and Canada - delay treatment until people die? Or will you provide every treatment everybody wants, no matter how efficacious it is, or is not. A perfect example is the girl they made such a big deal about on the news in the late fall. She had a medical condition that would cause her to die within 6 months. As a secondary problem, she needed a kidney transplant. The transplant would not keep her alive, just make the next (last) 6 months of her life slightly more comfortable. Her insurance company refused to pay for the transplant. She died earlier than she might have otherwise. What would you do for people in similar situations? Would you approve the transplant, or let her die now? This is they type of decision that has to be made, and is the type of decision that raises costs.

I do not make medical decisions. That should be left to the doctors. Not the government, not the insurance companies. I am sure that a doctor would approve the transplant if it were life threatening.

But that is not the point. In every system, there will be anecdotal evidence of apparently paradoxical problems or situations. That is not the best way to judge a system.

How about the real question, would you force everyone to pay for health insurance, even if they decide that they don't want it and are willing to pay the costs of their own medical treatment if it is needed? If not, how do you propose to pay for the system as a whole - after all, it is healthy people making premium payments who pay for the system. If you do plan to force people to make payments, we are back to your socialist redistribution by force.

Yes. Everyone has to pay. They do anyway. But the swiss system is different in that you purchase your own insurance from private companies that are for profit. The basic package is comparable to our premium package as far as quality of care goes, but is not for profit. The profit for the insurers comes from supplemental packages. There are subsidies for lower income families.

And, it costs about 2,000.00 less than the american system does now per year for a family of four.

Here is a pretty good round up of the system:

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/s_427691.html

And your kind of cynicism is why we don't have anything approaching what the rest of the industrialised world has as a matter of course. My mother is on medicare and although there are problems with it, it has helped her out quite a bit since she broke her hip last year.


Check one of her bills one time and see just how bad the health care provider gets screwed by the system. They provide treatment, submit a bill, and then get paid whatever Medicare wants to pay them. I remember looking at my father's bills - in one case a surgical bill was submitted for $10,000 (rounded numbers). Medicare decided that that procedure was only worth $950, so that is what the doctor was paid. How would you like to build a house for someone, present a bill for $100,000. and then be told that you would have to accept $10,000 as full payment, and that if you refused, you could never get another contract? Universal healthcare makes medical professionals into government slaves - or puts them out of business. What do you think that will do for the supply of doctors? And do you really think that the people who will then be able to get into med school will provide as good of treatment as the more qualified people who choose to go into law where they can work for a fair wage?

Are you saying that the rest of the industrialized world (all of which has universal health care, ALL of it) has a shortage of doctors? Predictions should be based on reality not speculation. Look around the world and see if the countries that are practicing socialised medicine are having a problem recruiting doctors. They are not. The swiss system actually LIMITS the number of people that are allowed to become doctors when the density becomes too high in four of its cantons (which are comparable to states).

I think that the system that worked for the founding fathers IS working today.



So maybe you could point out some document by any of the founders where they advocate the type of "safety net" programs we have today. They worked hard to avoid the possibility of such a system.


Perhaps you can show me a passage in the constitution that prohibits it.

"If we're going to have a successful democratic society, we have to have a well educated and healthy citizenry".

Thomas Jefferson


Where does he say that the government should pay for those services? In fact I can find several quotes from Jefferson where he expresses his fears that the governmentwill be misused to provide those things.

Did you just forget to point out the clause in the constitution that prohibits it?

``The terms `general Welfare' were doubtless intended to signify more than was expressed or imported in those which Preceded; otherwise, numerous exigencies incident to the affairs of a nation would have been left without a provision. The phrase is as comprehensive as any that could have been used; because it was not fit that the constitutional authority of the Union to appropriate its revenues should have been restricted within narrower limit than the `General Welfare' and because this necessarily embraces a vast variety of particulars, which are susceptible neither of specification or of definition.''

Alexander Hamilton


Ah, Hamilton. You are aware that he went into the Constitutional Congress with the goal of creating a monarchy, aren't you. He was never in the majority in determining what the Constitution would say, or what it would mean. He was voted down on all counts. He was never an "originalist", he was simply one of the people who said that regardless of what the convention had in mind, he wanted the constitution interpreted in such a manner as to create a strong nationalist government. The Federalists wanted a small Federal government, but with the power remaining in the states. The Federalists won every time in the convention and that was the government they sent out to be ratified in the Constitution.

You are certainly justified to believe anything Hamilton or his Nationalists tell you about the constitution, but you will not be an originalist, and in my opinion you will be wrong just as soon as you ignore original intent or replace it with some other interpretation.

So you are saying that one of the original founding fathers was not an original founding father? Or wasn't a member of the group that believed as you do? You wanted a statement from one of the founding fathers that supports my view, yet when I give it to you, it is not valid.

You mean like Medicare has done?


No, not nearly as beaurocratic and much more streamlined. The idea is to save money by using better strategies for providing health care. Promote staying healthy rather than waiting until the emergency room will take you. A prescription for antibiotics is far less expensive than a week in ICU.


AGain, do you propose forcing people to become part of the system, even if they decide they don't want to pay for it? Or are you planning to enroll everyone but collect no premiums?

No, you will pay. Everyone will be a part of it. If they get medical care, they are part of the health care system. They will just pay less than they do now, unless they are too poor and can't afford it. Then it will be subsidized.

creating millions of new jobs due to the innovation and invention necessary to deal with it, the minimum wage will have a cost of living raise tied to inflation,



Causing more inflation, putting poor people out of work, and making labor more expensive for small business.


Hasn't happened yet, and that is what everyone was claiming when it was enacted in 1938. Where is all the destruction?


So, if you were forced to give all your employees a $5.00 per hour raise, it would not increase the cost of doing business? How does that work, exactly? And if giving them a $5.00/hour raise doesn't increase the cost of doing business (and cause inflation) why not a $10/hour raise, so everyone lives really good? Or, if $5.00/hour really does increase your cost of labor, why wouldn't being forced to give a $1.00/hour raise do the same?

Why would I have to do that? My lowest paid worker is making well over 5.00 per hour ABOVE the minimum wage now. I don't know anyone that is paying minimum wage. The baggers at the grocery store make above the minimum wage. The guy flipping burgers at the McDonalds is making more than minimum wage. If the minimum wage went up a dollar, I don't know who would be affected. Maybe dishwashers?

I do not see any damage from our minimum wage law that has been in place for 70 years. When is the damage going to begin? Are you suggesting that it is going to go up to 20.00 per hour or more next year? That could have an effect, but I doubt that that is going to happen.

Expensive and resulting in further dumbing down of the educational system in the country. We currently rate 25th in the world in the quality of education, and more government meddling will not improve things. What we need is educational choice, an end to the influence of the teachers unions, and more local control. We need to get the feds completely out of education.


I agree. You should be able to go to any school that you want. And without the idiotic No Child Left..., the schools can concentrate their energies where they belong; teaching kids. Leave the schools alone and encourage innovation.


So you are OK with a voucher type system that would let parents make the absolute decision as to where their kids would go to school? They could take that money and go to a public school, a charter school, a private school, a church school, or be home schooled?

Why vouchers? Just let them go to the school that they want. I don't think that you need a voucher for that. If you want to go to a private school, you need to come up with the money to do that. It doesn't mean that you should stop supporting the public school system. Education is paramount to an educated electorate, so it is incumbent upon all of us to support our public school system. Even people having no children at all. Its another one of those agreements we made to all pitch in for the general welfare of the nation as a whole.

Just because you don't like the education that your kid is getting, doesn't mean that you should abandon the system. Educate him/her yourself, or change the school system. Why are so many people so lazy that they would rather abandon a system rather than work to fix it? Get involved and spend some time making sure that your kid gets the education that you think he should get. Don't just say I don't like this and I don't want to change it, so allow me to take my contribution back so I can go somewhere else. That would lead to a complete failure of the system.

But, I think that that IS your goal, isn't it?

more emphasis will be placed on developing alternatives to oil, we will all be asked to conserve and education and research will enable us to conserve our limited resources better,


All those goals will cost individuals more money, reduce the standard of living, and reduce choices for consumers.


How can having MORE ways to power your vehicle and heat your home result in less choice? Are you for remaining dependent upon oil forever? Why do you resist conservation and innovation?


I have never seen the government ASK for anything - you are either forced to do it, or it the government does not do it. We will be forced to drive vehicles that get higher mileage - even if that is not something we want (and even if it leads to more traffic deaths).

Did you know that there are still examples of the first vehicles ever made still driving around the streets of our country? If you want to drive one, you still can. Getting better gas mileage is a goal for me as it would save me quite a bit of money, but I guess we are different. If your gas mileage is too high, you could always buy a Mack truck.


We will be forced to pay for research and development of things like ethanol - no matter how wasteful the product is, and no matter that it provides no benefit in reduced oil use.

Or maybe not. Something better could be just around the corner. Or we could just wait til the price of oil is at 4.50 a gallon and then start.

We will be forced to use compact florescent lights even if we would rather pay the difference and use incandescents.

Or you could use halogens, or lcds, or xenons, or the new leds, or any of the newer technologies. But if you aren't in to saving money and taking advantage of all the NEW CHOICES that have come on the market in the last few years, you could always buy a few cases of the old technology. That should last you a couple of decades at least. You would have to buy them in the future when the old ones burn out, anyway. Did you know that the leds are supposed to last a 100 years or more? Have you used any of them? They are great! But they are expensive right now.


In all these things and many others we will see less choice - lots less. It is none of the government's business. the only thing the government should do is reduce regulations that get in the way of private development, and let the profit motive take over. If an idea is good, it will produce profit, and someone will be there to partake in that profit.

I am in an industry where it is imperative that I keep up with the latest technology. I peruse trade publications, I do research, I learn from the requests of my clients, I go to trade shows. Do you have any idea how hard it is to keep up with all the new technology that is coming out on a daily basis? I think that if you do some research, you will find that choice is becoming MUCH greater, so much so that it is becoming difficult to choose. Much like going to Baskin-Robbins. It was easier when we just had chocolate and vanilla.

Now, if I needed an old kerosene lighting system for my house, I may have some problems, but is that really so bad? And if I really wanted it. I could find one on ebay.

http://tinyurl.com/33vdlx

By comprehensive, do you mean including amnesty? Because that is what both Dem candidates are promising. Why would you think offering amnesty to 20 million illegals is a good thing? What makes you think that offering amnesty to those 20 million illegals will not increase the number of illegals coming into the country?


Amnesty is the forgiveness of guilt without consequences. So, no amnesty, but a path for people that have come to this country and become a part of it, to be able to remain, legally. Your other questions become moot.


Your description of comprehensive IS amnesty. Unless you are willing to punish those who came here illegally - make them go home and get in line to come her according to the rules that were in place when they broke the law and snuck into the country, it is amnesty. That is a bad program, and will result in more illegals entering the country.

No it is not. And with a program to come into the country legally that doesn't require 15 years of waiting, the immigration problem will cease to be, except for the ones that KNOW they couldn't get in. With less coming across due to the new procedures, the BP could be more effective against the few that still try.

Taking less from those who have nothing will do nothing to improve the economy. Making the Bush tax cuts permanent will continue the economic benefits that have resulted thus far.


Actually, we need to increase the federal revenue taxes, to pay the deficit down before servicing the interest on it becomes the largest federal expenditure that we have. I, for one, do not want my children to have to pay for it. We allowed it, we should pay it back. In doing so, those of us that won't have to miss a meal if we pay more taxes, should pay more. Those that will miss a meal if they have to pay more, should not.


Before blindly repeating Democrat propaganda, maybe you should check out the numbers. Since the tax cuts, the "rich" do pay more taxes. See:
http://www.ntu.org/main/page.php?PageID=6 You will see that the rich pay a lot more now than before the tax cuts, and the poor pay less. In 1999, the rich (top 1%)paid 36.18% of Federal income taxes. In 2005, they paid 39.38%, an increase of over 2%. In 1999, the poor (the bottom 50% of taxpayers) paid 4% of the Federal income taxes collected. In 2005, the poor paid 3.07% a reduction of almost one percent. Now, explain to me why we have to do away with the Bush tax cuts.

Do those figures include all taxes, or just the federal tax? If not, how much does everyone pay when you include sales tax, state income tax, usage fees, license fees, property tax and every other tax and usage fee that we all have to pay? What are the percentages of taxation, then?

In addition, if all the taxes coming in are so much higher, why are we still operating at a deficit? Why is the dollar so low? Why do we spend so much per year on servicing the interest on the national debt? Why is the economy slipping towards recession and stagflation? If the deficit spending continues just as it has under the last 7 years of a republican administration and (mostly) republican congress, how much will your children have to come up with to pay off the debt if we do nothing?

As to paying down the federal debt, see the post I made yesterday to Mike Hendrix. The tax cuts have reduced the federal deficit and if left alone, would result in a balanced budget in a few more years.


Bruce

I doubt that. Even if we had a republican administration coming into power, I still doubt that. If the economy continues to decline and stays that way for the next 3 years, are your numbers still correct? What kind of growth in GDP are those numbers based on and how do you know they are correct? How long will it take to pay off the national debt?


The CBO based its predictions on an average increase of 3 percentage points of GDP. The CBO itself estimates that with each drop in average growth of 0.1 percentage points, the cumulative surplus will be $245 billion lower. Consequently, average growth of 2.7% for the next 10 years means more than $700 billion less in surpluses. What was the GDP growth for the last quarter? I believe it was just .6 percent. Can you do the math on the supposed surplus if that continues?

--
Robert Allison
Rimshot, Inc.
Georgetown, TX
.

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