Want free health care? Everyone covered? Here is one of the big problems. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/31/AR2008033102789.html?hpid=topnews Excerpt
I don't understand how that relates to health care. Aside from the fact that it shows the current administration loves to throw money around...
Do you need secret spy satellites and secret weapons labs more than you need health care? Do you need military contractors like Haliburton, Lockheed Martin, KBR (Kellogg Brown & Root) ripping off taxpayers on no bid contracts and sweethearts deals, or do you want hospital care? The reality is that our prosperity is there to not only provide for ourselves, but many other people in this country as well. It is intentionally being funneled through the government to the military industrial complex. The people I read asking for socialized medicine seem to think that the taxpayer is a stone loaded with blood for the squeezing. On the contrary, it's a government that hands out money in foreign aid, but then throws it's own military veterans onto the street that is the real problem.
While socialism in my opinion is the way to go, I think the way America is structured and set up, free health care wouldn't work, it would cause too much damage in the short term for it to be worthwhile in the long term. A big shake up is still needed though.
That is a totally weird argument against any type of movement toward healthcare. I had read the hard copy version of the story. $295 billion on military/weapons development cost overruns.....and that was only off of 95 selected programs. $295 billion.....that is roughly twice the cost of the annual expenditures by the US in funding the war in Iraq....which is a wasted misspent money that was pushed on the US by this administration. The military expenditure program is something that should be ripped apart and redone. I think I'd suggest focusing on the abuse of this program itself rather than tying it to a different effort. People can make all kinds of cases for and against different programs based on their own merits, needs, appropriateness, etc. IMHO this is an example of wayward uncontrolled spending in which govt. and military have gone berserk with no controls whatsoever. Eisenhower, who knew more about this than virtually anyone (former President and General in charge of allied forces fighting WWII in Europe) said..."beware the military industrial complex".
Ties into my whole "our prosperity is being subverted" argument. Don't forget the $2 trillion (??) that the Pentagon lost and was brought up in hearings just prior to 9/11.
LOL As regards prosperity....the markets can f*ck it up quite well on its own regard, with or without govt. Cr@ppy deceptive mortgages followed up by securitizing all of them and selling them to every buyer under the sun. It didn't need govt. to create a brutal recessionary bubble. One can make that argument quite consistently. In fact I got to see a microcosm of cr@ppy investments first hand in the 1980's that caused a somewhat similar bubble that caused the recession of the early 1990's. I wouldn't blame just the govt....any institution can f*ck things up quite brutally in and of its own right. Warren Buffet recently said something relative to his latest large purchases, wherein he had waited years before making a purchase of that size.....and I am paraphrasing. "everything has been overpriced" the vast majority of money that chases investments doesn't have his patience or smarts. I'd suggest that the markets can make wealth and they can destroy wealth. They can do it with the govt or without the govt. I'd be loathe to suggest that the govt is the only thing that destroys wealth and prosperity
Agreed! In fact, markets trend towards f*ck ups! But it also corrects them! 1% overnight rates from Greenspan made credit almost free. That lead to wicked teaser rates, a speculative price bubble, with attracted casual investors, and kept growing until the mortgages started resetting and people realized that their teaser rate was gone, and so was their guaranteed gain in equity. No, the government wasn't necessary, but it's highly unlikely the market would have had a credit expansion of near that magnitude if rates of return were set by investors. Not to mention that now we are in a position where it appears the government is going to bail out the commercial side, and it is going to cost the taxpayer. Everyone would gamble if they could only win and not lose. That perceived invulnerability, particularly with a former Goldman Sachs employee as Sec. of Treas. as well as the substantial padding of the election fund accounts of the major candidates by said firm.... I agree. But the government has the power to politicize the process. To influence who wins, who loses, who gets covered, who gets crushed. And, the government currently controls the racket, so they are going to get the heat. I don't think too many people who buy the argument, "well, we be just as screwed in a free market, so let's watch TV..." That FSK dude had an interesting post about the Compound Interest Paradox. I wish he had cut it to a 3rd of the words and included some diagrams. The biggest flaw of Austrian economists is the presumption that every layman can follow an 1200 word economic paper without pictures and small words. http://fskrealityguide.blogspot.com/2007/06/compound-interest-paradox.html I think that is going to be my goal this year. To take all of the accumulated knowledge I have and I can gather, and find better ways to present it, in simple, clear terms. And in this regard, I appreciate your taking me to task. It keeps me sharp, and exposes my weaknesses.
Nothing in this world is free - someone somewhere has to pay for it even if the one receiving it does not