On Sat, Jul 18, 2009 at 12:24 AM, Doug Pensinger<brig...@zo.com> wrote:
> No, there is no communication problem. In its most basic definition, a free > market is a market that is free from government intervention. What has > become painfully obvious in recent years is that as the market frees itself > from governemental constraints, those in a position to manipulate it for > their own benefit do so without regard for the greater good. Except that, "in recent years", the markets have been far from free. Government intrudes into virtually every market. Just look at the thousands of pages in the Federal Register, and how the number of pages has grown over the past decades. The most egregious manipulation is done by politicians. > The private health care > companies wish to continue to 1. not insure anyone that can not pay their > hefty premiums and co-pays 2.Pay as little as possible for people that _are_ > insured and get sick 3. get the government to pay for as much of their > costs as they can get away with and 4. make as much money as possible. The > result being the f**ked up system we have today wherein we pay by far the > most per capita and don't get the best care and don't even cover a huge > segment of the population. The private health care companies cater to those who pay them, which is primarily the government and employer groups. If there was actually a free market for health care plans chosen by individuals, there would likely be plans that are much better than what is available in the current government-controlled market. As for people who cannot afford even the least expensive health care plans, that is a whole different subject, but I would not be opposed to a voucher system, something like food-stamps for health care. Although I would prefer a voluntary charitable system. > If non-profits and charities are such wonderful solutions, why do we still > have such a massive problem? Because people are not choosing where to best spend there charitable dollars, but are having much of their surplus resources taken from them and the choices made by politicians pandering to special interests. > Your pretext; that we were forced to pay for the Apollo program > is fallacious. We elected the leaders that conceived of the program and > re-elected the leaders that pledged to continue it. The only way there is no coercion is if those who did not vote for politicians who made the choices could opt out of having their money confiscated by the government for purposes they did not choose. And even for those who did vote for the politicians in question may not have supported spending money on the moon landings if they had been given a check box on their tax forms to give the money or not. >I have little doubt > that if you polled the world about man's greatest achievements, > the Apollo program would rank at or near the top of the survey. I think you are probably correct about that. But if you asked those same people to donate $X in order to do it, I have little doubt that few of them would. That's human nature. We want a great deal, but when it comes down to paying for it, we find that what we want and what we really need are quite different. A free market allows people to efficiently get what they need, whereas government coercion allows politicians and special interests to wastefully get what they want. > There are > many people that give of themselves, but this generosity is not pervasive > enough to make a dent in our larger problems. Which is to say that you believe you know better how people should spend their money than they do themselves. That people need to have their money confiscated and spent by the intellectual elite since otherwise people would spend it on a bunch of crap. _______________________________________________ http://mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com
