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Quest to 1000 pounds
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Senior

Joined: 31 Jan 2010

Posted: Tue Mar 16, 2010 12:28 am Post subject:

Fox wrote:

Senior wrote:

Writing off what you disagree with (don't understand) as "religious" is pretty weak.

I understand it just fine, Senior. There's nothing mystically incomprehensible about the libertarian sentiment you express here. I call it a religion because your faith in it is total and blind. You genuinely believe it when you say things like, "Governments are incapable of creating value," even though it's inherently ludicrious. Yeah I believed that too, when I was in high school. Then I grew the Hell up and realized anything a corporation could do, a government could do. I realized that governments are in competition with one another just like corporations are. I realized citizens who didn't like their government could immigrate. In short, I realized Libertarianism was a faerie tale from people who prize ideology over real-world results; a sort of bizarro communism which would ultimately be just as dangerous if we ever stupidly trusted our society to it.

Govts can't create value from scratch. Go to a deserted island and try to generate some tax revenue. You can't do it without human endeavor and entrepreneurship taking place first. If govts could compete with industry, why don't they? Surely they would be self perpetuating by now. What with all the super duper businesses they started with tax funds.

How has govt stewardship of our economies, currency and capital fared over the last century. It has been a disaster. Communism collapsed at the end of the 80s, corporatism lasted till the end of the 00s.

Quote:

Senior wrote:

I'm not advocating people consume as much as they like. MOST people don't do that.

What does this even mean? Of course most eople consume as much as they like. They after all have total choice over their own consumption.

I'm talking about MOST people don't consume things that are bad for them to the point that they require medical care. I've said it three times now.

Senior wrote:

So, you would advocate ANY change over the status quo even if it meant costing more for no guarantee of any improvement in the quality and quantity of the care?

No. For example, in response to your following comment:

Quote:

Senior wrote:

EDIT:I'm not going to address your edit, except to say, you mention incentives nary once in your whole screed.

Senior, what the Hell? I mentioned several things in this thread that are clearly related to incentives. Taxation on unhealthy goods is in part an incentive: higher prices operate as an incentive to avoid a certain type of purchase. Likewise, tax credits for healthy behavior operate as an incentive to engage in such behavior. In a private system, higher potential health care prices act as a deterrant and lower ones act as an incentive. In a potential public system, those deterrants and incentives can be replaced with taxation.

These kinds of govt incentives only FURTHER distort the market. People find ways to circumvent the rules or extract economic rents for themselves. Lobbyist lobby for special tax breaks for their special group. The so called "heart tick" on coacoa puffs boxes for instance.

Quote:

This isn't Fox News. I'm not going to use buzz words just to excite the crowd. There is more than enough in my post that relates to the concept of incentives to show that I'm taking them into account. The fact that I didn't say the word is because I didn't need to say it to get my point across.

Nice wriggle.

Quote:

Senior wrote:

That is the important thing about markets. They perfectly align incentives. If I know I'm going to have to pay for the heart bypass from the eating a box of donuts a day, I might just scale back my donut consumption.

This is just more religious talk as far as I'm concerned. America is a total hell-hole when it comes to health care costs. Any unhealthy behavior is a huge risk. You get diabetes from gorging on corn syrup products? You could well get kicked off your health care plan and never be able to find another one again. That doesn't stop our population from doing it. Incentives exist, but they aren't the mythical, all-righting force you make them out to be. By your logic, citizens in countries which practice socialized medicine should be engaging in substantially less healthy behavior than United States citizens, but they don't seem to be. I see no reason to believe in your holy gospel.

Who subsidized the corn in the first place? Talk about perverse incentives.

Quote:

[quote="Senior"] A public system skews incentives and leads to externalities down the track. Which is far more expensive for society then letting the losses lie where they fall.[/quote

I love it when people like you talk about human lives in terms like "losses lying where they fall." It always reminds me why I rejected Libertarianism a long, long time ago.

The ultimate font of those losses is govt action. I'm not saying the world would be a fairy land without crass govt interventions, but a huge amount of the current health problems are actually CREATED by govt. Are they really the people who should be in charge of fixing the problem?

flakfizer

Joined: 12 Nov 2004
Location: scaling the Cliffs of Insanity with a frayed rope.

Posted: Tue Mar 16, 2010 1:02 am Post subject: Re: Quest to 1000 pounds

pkang0202 wrote:

Not sure why anyone would pay to see a 600 pound woman stuff herself.

No kidding. Just take a job at an Old Country Buffet and get to paid to see the same thing on a regular basis.

Fox

Joined: 04 Mar 2009

Posted: Tue Mar 16, 2010 1:51 am Post subject:

Senior wrote:

Govts can't create value from scratch.

Then neither can corporations. But that's not the case you're making, so you're wrong. No idea why you keep saying these things. They're simply not true. If a corporation hires some people and builds a road, they've created something of lasting value. If a government hires some people and builds a road, they've created something of lasting value. This, "Government cannot create value," idea is just flat out wrong religious gospel.

Senior wrote:

I'm talking about MOST people don't consume things that are bad for them to the point that they require medical care. I've said it three times now.

Obesity rates, diabetes rates, lung cancer rates, and so forth in America are by no means low, despite the medical incentive to avoid them. By your logic, they should all be nearly zero, given our ridiculous health care system assigns such an immense cost to them (or locks you out of the system entirely because of them).

Senior wrote:

Lobbyists are an issue, but one that only active, involved voters can solve. Lobbyists are going to screw voters no matter what if voters don't get involved. That's true no matter what.

Senior wrote:

Quote:

Nice wriggle.

Not a wriggle, a fact. Your dismissal of it as a "wriggle" is itself a wriggle, though; you wrote something that was in essence disingenuous, and are now trying to avoid that fact.

Senior wrote:

Who subsidized the corn in the first place?

Who cares? If people were good at making health care decisions for themselves, they wouldn't stuff themselves with corn syrup to unhealthy degrees even if it were free. But people aren't the wise decision makers you need to construe them as to make your case.

Senior wrote:

Any problem related to what you willingly ingest is not created by the government. The government has mandated that products contain a list of their ingredients. We all know corn syrup isn't particularly healthy. People keep stuffing it down their throats. "But it's so cheap!" So what, it makes people sick! Anyone stupid enough to gorge on it to the point of getting diabetes is a liability to themselves no matter what. I don't see how much more of an incentive people could have to not gorge on cheap food than they currently have.

Senior

Joined: 31 Jan 2010

Posted: Tue Mar 16, 2010 2:18 am Post subject:

Fox wrote:

Senior wrote:

Govts can't create value from scratch.

In order for govt to build a road, it needs to tax people, or borrow against future tax income.

A business has to borrow money, or use cash reserves. The business obtained the money through creating value. The govt has to confiscate value in order to "create" value. Pure and simple.

The mental gymnastics you have to do to get to your point of view are, frankly, mind boggling.

Quote:

Senior wrote:

I'm talking about MOST people don't consume things that are bad for them to the point that they require medical care. I've said it three times now.

This doesn't follow. I'm saying most people don't eat, drink, take drugs, whatever to excess. I'm not even sure what you are getting at here. I'm assuming you think I believe the current health care system resembles something approaching a free market. A dunce could see that the American health care system is riddled with hackneyed govt interference.

Quote:

Senior wrote:

Lobbyists are an issue, but one that only active, involved voters can solve. Lobbyists are going to screw voters no matter what if voters don't get involved. That's true no matter what.

Why not just limit govt power? It seems like the easy option to me. I'm not sure how voters could affect in any way how lobbyists behave.

Quote:

Senior wrote:

Who subsidized the corn in the first place?

As a group, over a long time frame, free of skewed incentives, people almost always make the correct choices. This is what is so powerful about markets.

To rant about how you care about incentives and then to dismiss the most insidious disincentives of all is a little trite. The price of something, is directly proportional to the amount of that something, that people choose to consume. Is it surprising that people consume more corn (or sugar or soy or wheat) when it is made cheaper through subsidies? Or are you forgetting your ECON 101, again?

Quote:

Senior wrote:

The govt told people for 30 years that they should be eating that stuff!

"Cut out the sat. fat and substitute them for corn oil, margarine and starches". Eating this stuff goes against our instincts. It tastes like shit and it takes heavy industrial processes to produce it. Unfortunately, people trust their govt so they did as they were told. Now we have an obesity epidemic.

Fox

Joined: 04 Mar 2009

Posted: Tue Mar 16, 2010 3:09 am Post subject:

Senior wrote:

The original source of the money in question is totally irrelevant with regards to consideration of whether or not value is created. All that matters is whether something of lasting worth is created. The fact that business and governments collect the money that they use to employ labor through different means is irrelevant; they both do exactly the same thing: direct labor.

Watching you struggle with this is like watching a Christian struggle with evolution. Both evolution and the fact that governmental behavior can create things of lasting value are obvious truths. Both, however, contradict the religions in question. As such, the true believer is forced to deny reality to vindicate his faith.

Fortunately, unlike Christianity, most people recognize your views conflict with reality and vehemently reject them.

Senior wrote:

This doesn't follow. I'm saying most people don't eat, drink, take drugs, whatever to excess.

Enough do that it's a problem. I don't care about your unproven, dataless assertions based upon the word "most." Even if it's only 49%, or 30%, or 20%, it's still an issue, and their behavior still affects us no matter what.

According to Reuters, it actually is a majority of people who are gorging themselves unhealthily:

Quote:

Numbers posted by the National Center for Health Statistics show that more than 34 percent of Americans are obese, compared to 32.7 percent who are overweight. It said just under 6 percent are "extremely" obese.

However, nothing about my case relies on specific numbers like that. Enough Americans are making totally unhealthy decisions despite the non-nationalized health system that personally penalizes them for it that I really don't see any merit at all in this idea that we can't socialize our health care because, "It might provide people an incentive to behave unhealthily." They all ready are, and it's all ready affecting our health care accessibility and cost.

Senior wrote:

I'm not even sure what you are getting at here. I'm assuming you think I believe the current health care system resembles something approaching a free market. A dunce could see that the American health care system is riddled with hackneyed govt interference.

Of course you don't see what I'm getting at; you're here to argue, "Goverment bad!" and nothing further. All nuance escapes you as such. So allow me to refocus your attention. Say what you will about the American health care system, but the fact remains that individual people pay a price for their health care mistakes in it (an immense price), and it doesn't stop them from behaving unhealthily. The fact that there is some government involvement doesn't change that reality. As such, we can see that this idea that we can't socialize because it might take away an incentive for them to behave healthily is frankly, stupid: they all ready have that incentive, and they simply don't care. These people would all be far better off under a national health system.

Senior wrote:

Why not just limit govt power? It seems like the easy option to me.

You keep saying this while ignoring the fact that it's impossible to limit government power without voters enforcing it. Write your fancy document that limits governmental power, and as soon as voters stop voting out politicians who over-step those bounds, politicians will over-step those bounds. Torture is a great example. It's illegal to torture. The Bush Administration still did it. They didn't face any real consequences. Plenty of politicians actively support said torture; they didn't get voted out despite voicing support for illegal activity.

How do you propose to limit government power such that this can be avoided? The only true limit on governmental power is one voters enact themselves. Any document saying, "Government is limited in way X, Y, or Z," will be ignored or altered by a government that wants to ignore or alter it, unless voters immediately take action against them when they try. But if voters immediately take action against them when they try, the limits were never necessary in the first place.

This whole idea of "limit government power" is nice and all, but it's just plain unrealistic.

Senior wrote:

I'm not sure how voters could affect in any way how lobbyists behave.

Vigilant voters result in lobbyists having no sway, which results in paying for lobbying being a waste of time.

Senior wrote:

As a group, over a long time frame, free of skewed incentives, people almost always make the correct choices. This is what is so powerful about markets.

This statement means almost nothing. "As a group," is all ready a somewhat questionable qualifier; what size of group? "Over a long time frame," is even worse; this is totally vague, and ensures you can never be proven wrong because you can always say, "Just wait longer!" Nevermind if people are suffering now, the market needs time right? Then you add in, "Freed of skewed incentives," if large groups of people are good at coming to the correct decision, then they should be immune to "skewed incentives." It doesn't matter if corn syrup is incredibly cheap, for example. A group of people capable of making good decisions will not gorge themselves unhealthily on it, no matter what. Finally, you end in, "Almost always make the correct choices," which is the worst part of all. "Almost always?" How often do they not make the correct choices? And what the Hell constitutes a correct choice? You always talk about how markets make the best decisions, the correct decisions, but what does that even mean? For you it no doubt is measured purely in terms of economic efficiency, but guess what? There's more to life than that.

Maybe this kind of statement is persuasive to you, but I'm not falling for it. It's all just vagueries and dataless counterfactuals.

Senior wrote:

To rant about how you care about incentives and then to dismiss the most insidious disincentives of all is a little trite. The price of something, is directly proportional to the amount of that something, that people choose to consume.

Irrelevant. If something is unhealthy to consume in mass quantities, rational groups capable of making good decisions won't consume it in mass quantities even if it's free.

Senior wrote:

Is it surprising that people consume more corn (or sugar or soy or wheat) when it is made cheaper through subsidies? Or are you forgetting your ECON 101, again?

It's not surprising to me at all, because I think the average consumer is totally incapable of making rational decisions. The fact that the cheapness of corn leads to massive, unhealthy overconsumption of corn does, however, completely discredit any idea that large groups of people are good decision makers. I don't gorge unhealthily on corn syrup due to it's cheapness. I bet you don't either. Because we're good decision makers. A huge portion of the population isn't like us though.

Senior wro