Off Topic Poker Forums

As for "Captialism being the enemy of Democracy", I disagree.
Capitalism is one of the biggest liberators of people -- same as the Internet is a liberator of people's voices.
The "Freedom to Choose" and decide. Why do people want to come to the US? Not for the social programs, but for the freedom-advantage to make things happen (small businesses), without the boot of beauracrats deciding everything for them -- including how much they can make in $$$. But this is changing. Easier to start a business in Mexico (or maybe China) than in the US. Extremist regulations.

IMO and where we may agree, Cronyism is the real enemy of every economic system. Politicians paying off their political friends and supporters.
Most Politicians: "Vote for me. I am the best Santa Claus of all. Tax and share the wealth with my friends/supporters. Vote for me!"

<break> the capitalism vs socialism/communism debate is long.

Sneaks, I agree. Pure democracy still does exist in this country, however usually only at the smaller levels of government. I didn't take any poly sci classes so I wasn't familiar with the term polyarchy until I watched that documentary.

While I agree free markets are the best for personal freedom, we do have somewhat of a catch 22. I like the analogy in that Robin Williams movie, where he talks about politicians wearing corporate logos like nascar drivers. The really sad part is, it's so very true.

I'm not sure of any real solution to some of the problems we have. Market regulation is one of them. Currently we have regulators many of whom hold financial interests in the very industry that they're regulating. Total deregulation has essentially the same effect.

While some people may seriously disagree with me here, a lot of my friends share this same viewpoint with me. The model of the corporation is actually what's inevitably causing an economy to fail. Corporations have an obligation to make profits, that's their sole purpose. Stockholder fiduciary duty trumps everything else, and everything a corporation does essentially returns to this point. Even when a company contributes to charity or does something of that nature, it actually has a +EV through positive public relations.

What inevitably happens is the company looks for the cheapest way to provide their goods or services, while constantly increasing the costs. You as a worker don't benefit from the increasing profit margins.

The fact that people still believe "tax breaks create jobs" is so ludicrous it's sad. Demand for goods/service are what create jobs. Corporations essentially don't pay taxes anyway, the consumer does. The taxes that they pay are reflected in the cost of their goods, it gets passed down.

To use a local example:
If Heinz gets a government tax cut, are they all of a sudden going to hire more people? Of course not, if their production meets the demand for ketchup why would they?
Give me 1 company that doesn't try to push maximum employee efficiency (read making you do all kind of shit that's not part of your job, in addition to your job).
Are the workers going to get big bonuses? It's doubtful.
Who benefits from corporate tax breaks? The majority shareholders, the people that we aren't.

Most of us could never dream of being a major shareholder in any kind of corporation (with the exception of a small business we may start ourselves). "The American Dream" virtually is unobtainable for most. Sure to someone coming from unimaginable poverty (such as Mexico) living a lower class American life is miles ahead of what they've come from. However while most people can earn a "comfortable" living, they're never going to get close to being rich.

How many of you guys have corporate jobs, and have had a great idea, only for it to be stolen by your boss?
How many of you guys have been passed up for a promotion in favor of someone's cousin/wife/etc.

Is rising the corporate ladder really realistic based on your merits? For a very small amount of people yes, for the majority of people it's definitely not.

I disagree with most of this, and I have heard the debate a lot. No where in your post, do you say anything really good about Corporations. The truth is Corporations are you and me (if we decide to participate). Workers do get jobs, and better paying than the rest of the world.

Corporations are the current scapegoat for the Governments inability (and refusal) to balance a budget. Look at Greece....and now look at California. Utopian dummies run the state, and then wonder what "bankrupcty" is all about.

I was born in California (Northern), but I am in the process of changing to a different state. Any sensible business/corporation is doing the same -- negative dollar flow to the state. Business should go to a state (or country) where they are appreciated -- not demonized. For me personally, I am looking for the most tax friendly state (I travel a bit).
--
EDIT: I enjoy this conversation, as it is the foundation behind what the Government should do -- or not do for us. Unfortunately, I won't be able to keep posting. I get pretty passionate about the subject (I am bit famous for tilting lol). But more that that, it really does eat up my project time....and I don't want to get fired. I am my worst boss ever. Focus Sneakers Focus. Get off the forums and do some work. lol

Health should never be managed by corporations. All experience shows that it increases the cost.

Health should never be managed by GOVERNMENT. All experience shows that it increases the cost and reduces quality.

FYP
Most military people I have known will always take private-sector care over government stand-in-line-and-hope systems. My father retired 20 year Air Force (and 25 year Union), chose to go with Kaiser Permanente. He paid for the insurance himself (vs relying on his free pensioned govt healthcare).

@Improva. I am sincerely curious. What country are you from? I know you have touted the social-economics of Scandinavian countries, and I have heard others also use this as an example of successful Socialism models.

I am honestly curious (for my own research) to learn the history and past/current economics of your country. You often use your country's system(s) as an example/model for the USA. What are the gobal industries that generate the positive-cashflow to maintain your models? (I am guessing telecommunications is a big part. Companies like Nokia etc).
Thanks.

Sneaks i'd be happy to debate specifics.
Granted I know my post was very critical of corporations, I did remove the paragraph about not for profit, and S-types. For general purposes when I refer to corporations I'm referring to very large corporations.

Yes corporations employ the most people, 68% of Americans are office workers. The majority of which are still lower-middle class. In America the average annual wage increase is 3%, whereas that's generally around the annual rate of inflation. So essentially you're only getting poorer.

There's a very real reason people hop from job, to job,to job, to job, rather then retiring with the same company they got hired with.

The vast majority of corporations don't have any problems shipping jobs to India, China, Mexico, or wherever else they can, to make more money for the shareholders. How exactly does that benefit the US economy?
Fiduciary duty dictates they be good for the shareholders, not the employees.

Like I said before most employee shareholders don't own enough for this to be of any benefit. So that money is essentially being sucked out of the economy.

The basis of a strong economy is strong consumer spending. I don't see why so many people believe that a presidential candidate can actually fix the economy.

They already are more powerful the most world governments.

The US economy truly is dying, regardless of the BS the news might say.

Granted we all know the government does a bang up job of everything it touches, but it's corporations run amok that are tanking the economy, not Obama.

i think the basic logic of how to analyze some of these points can be found by watching the numerous Milton Friedman videos i previously linked itt, or some of it might be from Hazlitt.

and medic, i'm an amateur at this, and i'll probably get some of this wrong, so bear with me. let's see if i actually understand this stuff or if i'm just bs'ing?

While some people may seriously disagree with me here, a lot of my friends share this same viewpoint with me. The model of the corporation is actually what's inevitably causing an economy to fail. Corporations have an obligation to make profits, that's their sole purpose. Stockholder fiduciary duty trumps everything else, and everything a corporation does essentially returns to this point. Even when a company contributes to charity or does something of that nature, it actually has a +EV through positive public relations.

What inevitably happens is the company looks for the cheapest way to provide their goods or services, while constantly increasing the costs. You as a worker don't benefit from the increasing profit margins.

i'm going to cut it off here for the first point. you're arguing that the pursuit of greater profit margins cause services to degenerate over time. basically, "profits are bad." but i don't see the point of demonizing corporations here, so i'll just generalize to all for-profit businesses.

this is a fallacy because it sees only the current winners but ignores the entire business universe over history. businesses have profit, but businesses also have losses. too many losses, and the business dies. there very few companies that have been around for long periods of time. most (if not all) businesses go bust eventually given a long enough timeline. Hazlitt concluded that if we add up all the losses into the picture, businesses actually lose money overall.

so when the deck is stacked against them, why would someone ever start a business? profit is the incentive and lifeblood of a company. sometimes profits are good, sometimes not so good. but nothing is static. the profits stop at some point, and the business dies.

the only thing that is static in this market is this desire for profits and the activity created in the economy as a result--hiring, wages, technological innovations, efficient use of finite resources. all with no central planning.

assuming no government-sponsored monopoly structure, whenever profits are great, the word gets out. other people want in on the action. this competition is what drives costs down and services up in the end. as the edge in the game gets whittled down to nothing and the end product eventually becomes nothing more than a commodity, the only thing left to offer is service, and when that goes down too far, the business dies. it happens all the time, to businesses of all sizes.

this last part is crucial and can be taken further, but i'm gonna pull a Sneakers on ya for now.

and i'm going to leave the rest of the post for someone else or another time since it's more about the class system and social mobility in our society and doesn't detract, but rather supports a for-profit system imo (in short, would you rather live under communism? it's the best of the worst.).

this last part is crucial and can be taken further, but i'm gonna pull a Sneakers on ya for now.

LOL Sorry Nawhead. I try to tilt less these days. Being distracted by my studies and work (more $$$) helps with this. But I would love to see you tilt a little. Enjoy. I like most of your points so far. At least you seem to be balancing it. Not all corporate blame. Govt screws up a lot -- without any accountability for their Utopian madness (err dreams).

@medic, I promise to come back to this. I do understand your points. They are a common thread these days (of economic finger pointing from all sides)
........One thing for sure, I want you to know that I completely respect paramedics. Father was a fire-inspector (Aerojet). Uncle was a Fire Dispatcher ("Engine 51"). Cousin EMT. Good Friend is Captain (fire dept).
....... It might be good that we have people like yourself in these type of community positions (people caring). However, you probably know of all the stories of the big-bosses (fire/police dept) who live like royalty -- especially during their retirement. City of Stockton is an example of this..... claimed bankruptcy this month. Teacher Union Bosses are another culprit of failure (without accountability).
<break> I could type for days on this. Question is, can I do it without tilting. Zen break. ;-)

There's a very real reason people hop from job, to job,to job, to job, rather then retiring with the same company they got hired with.

The vast majority of corporations don't have any problems shipping jobs to India, China, Mexico, or wherever else they can, to make more money for the shareholders. How exactly does that benefit the US economy?
Fiduciary duty dictates they be good for the shareholders, not the employees.

you're hitting a lot of points at once, and i see you're very worried. but again, i'll just refer you to Hazlitt, CHAPTER 11 Who’s “Protected” by Tariffs? (skip to page 59). this is not a new problem.

Naw, I'm not saying profits are bad, I'm saying that profits at all costs are bad. And that the majority of the profits of a company do NOT benefit the workers. This all ties into my argument of regulation by people with vested interests, is no different then total deregulation.

Now this is one of the very few points I agree with the OWS people about, the income disparity of executives v. workers.

Little picture of a few fortune 50 companies.
http://www.payscale.com/ceo-income

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/02/ceo-pay-worker-pay_n_1471685.html
Above article talks about the trends of pay, and how worker productivity went up exponentially while the pay

Average US household income is about the same as it was 20 years ago, but it's a hellovalot more expensive to live now a days.
http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s0690.pdf

Those at the top are SUCKING the money out of the economy. The economy CANNOT recover this way. It needs a strong consumer base in order to recover, with workers not making enough, this can't happen.

Many large corporations care about global profits rather then the US economy.

Lets use Naw&Med co. as an example here, and we're part of the executive board.
Well we started out manufacturing and selling our solar powered flashlights right here in the U.S., but with the emerging markets in China and India we decided to try to sell our products over there as well.
Turns out they're a hit!
However the US economy isn't doing so well, and our products aren't selling so great over here. It's much cheaper to produce the flashlights in China, where our highest sales area is, so we'd save on shipping too. We move the majority of our production over to China. We'll keep a small plant here (that can keep pace with the domestic demand), but we're moving the majority of our operations overseas. As a result we lay off most of our US staff in lieu of foreign workers. Our HQ is still here, but that staff is relatively small.
Since our overhead is so much lower now, profits are soaring! If one of our domestic staff gets pissed off about a small raise, who cares? The unemployment rate is high, there's someone willing to work the same job for even less!
But now we're newly rich people, and we want to look fancy and smug, and make it onto the Forbes list.

So lets hold onto our money. Sure we're gonna buy new mansions, and I'll probably get a Ferrari. We'll take the occasional trip to Vegas and play Krantz and Gus Hansen for 2k/5k, but that's just pocket change to us anymore. We can even write if off as a business expense because we went to a convention out there!

Now I know my example was over the top (and hopefully funny). But what better stimulates the economy:
My example, us taking the huge majority of profits and making say 20m/year each.
Us passing some of those profits down to our US employees, and us making 5m/year each?

The difference is in the first example we're making an absurd amount of money, an amount that we probably couldn't even spend if we tried to. That's currently what's happening in the US economy.

I'm not advocating communism at all. Like I said I don't really have an effective solution, if I did I'd be hella rich wouldn't I?

However free markets still do work with sole proprietorship, partnerships,etc.
I can't seem to find the right search terms to cite something here. But I did remember reading an article that corporations weren't the primary business model until relatively recently.

I've already had the free market debate on here with AGTJ I think, so I'm not going to have it again. Nor am I going to waste time on someone who thinks x "is always best". They've already made up their mind.

I will only say that the phrase 'pursuit of profits' is not precise enough. Every company around the world pursues profits. Not all of them pursue the ultimate maximization of profits.

improva: Health should never be managed by corporations.

I couldn't agree more if I tried.

I've already had the free market debate on here with AGTJ I think, so I'm not going to have it again. Nor am I going to waste time on someone who thinks x "is always best". They've already made up their mind.
.....

Touché lol
If we must go into grammer (and the i's and t's) LOL
.........Normally in my documentation (academic or professional), I am very careful with generalizations such as always and never. ...... However in this case, with your dismissing response, it should be easy for you to name a couple of markets where COMPETITION (x) is not ALWAYS BEST for the consumer -- price wise and quality of product/service.

EDIT: I do remember those debates very well. I thouroughly enjoyed AssJiggler's responses . I agree with about 99.9% of what he said.

--------------------------------------------------------------------
Bad Thinking at the poker table: "Let's hope reality takes a vacation."

However in this case, with your dismissing response, it should be easy for you to name a couple of markets where competition is not ALWAYS BEST for the consumer -- price wise and quality of product/service.

No problem. Adding unreviewed, unregulated pharmaceuticals produced by monkeys into the drug market would not be best for the consumer.

No problem. Adding unreviewed, unregulated pharmaceuticals produced by monkeys into the drug market would not be best for the consumer.

I am okay with some humane rules: That does not remove the competition question. I give you all of the ethics regulations you want for this hypothesis. BTW, you picked one of the most competetive industries (pharmaceuticals). It is a race to make discoveries -- then a race to get past FDA Approval and first to market.

The question remains, When is competition NOT ALWAYS good for the consumer in any market? What is the result of a company not trying to ALWAYS stay CUTTING EDGE ahead of other companies in products/services?

----
Bad Thinking at the poker table: "Let's hope reality takes a vacation."

EDIT: I used the word "always", because it is like a gravity law regarding the benefit of competition for consumers. Without competition, Markets/Businesses become less innovative, because there is no threat to their market share (call it lazy or profit-maximizing etc). The fact is that competition is good (best? lol). With healthy competition (not govt style lol), companies stay more nimble and quick. A company's actions decide whether they improve/deliver, stagnate, or lose "consumers" to another company(ies).
........It seems to me that this very basic understanding should be a given for a conversation like this. If one truly does not believe "competition is always best for the customer", then it is much easier for me to understand the govt-knows-best ideology.

........It seems to me that this very basic understanding should be a given for a conversation like this. If one truly does not believe "competition is always best for the customer", then it is much easier for me to understand the govt-knows-best ideology.

When we are talking about health care it is paramount that there are no financial links between the patient, the hospital and the companies selling the medicine. Only then can we expect the doctors to be as unbiased as possible. Without unbiased treatment there cannot be any competition.

The US is a great example of why private health care does not work very well.

I have apartments in Vienna and Copenhagen.

Naw, I'm not saying profits are bad, I'm saying that profits at all costs are bad. And that the majority of the profits of a company do NOT benefit the workers. This all ties into my argument of regulation by people with vested interests, is no different then total deregulation.

Now this is one of the very few points I agree with the OWS people about, the income disparity of executives v. workers.

Little picture of a few fortune 50 companies.
http://www.payscale.com/ceo-income

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/02/ceo-pay-worker-pay_n_1471685.html
Above article talks about the trends of pay, and how worker productivity went up exponentially while the pay

Average US household income is about the same as it was 20 years ago, but it's a hellovalot more expensive to live now a days.
http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s0690.pdf

Those at the top are SUCKING the money out of the economy. The economy CANNOT recover this way. It needs a strong consumer base in order to recover, with workers not making enough, this can't happen.

this notion that the rich are sucking the money out of the economy, again, i have to go back to Milton's Why Soaking the Rich Won't Work response. you're still thinking of one company and the economy of a country as some zero sum game where if the bosses win, workers lose.

also, i again refer you back to Hazlitt, CHAPTER 20 “Enough to Buy Back the Product” (page 133). i don't know how to say it any better.

getting indignant and angry over issues is fine up to a point, it spurs us to action, but i think it's more constructive to use our time to understand a process better. some great minds have already analyzed these issues, and i'm of the opinion most regular folks have these issues backwards in their head (as with most popular notions of every kind).

as for the rise in CEO pay, personally i think it's due to the increased scale of corporations today in comparison to 30 years ago. and also that CEO's get fired a lot more than they used to. bigger risks demand bigger gains before the bottom drops out. but i have no data to back that up. similarly, movie stars and athletes also make a lot more money than used to 30 years ago. it's an obscene amount of money. but again, the increase in scale explains a lot of it i think.

and demanding that workers--whose productivity does not scale in the same manner--deserve to have their wages raised similarly doesn't follow. not to mention that increasing wages across the board to meet some moral demand leads to serious inflation and an increase in prices of all goods so that in the end, the worker is no better off than before (Hazlitt, 135).

Inflation is going to go up regardless as long as the federal reserve is indiscriminately printing money.

I still fail to see how we're doing fine when the household income is the same as it was 20 years ago, whereas your purchasing power is 56% lower then the same year.

While I do agree with Friedman (in your video from the 70s) that those people are reinvesting their money. Reinvesting your money into an equity firm does not stimulate production. Again 68% of Americans are working office jobs, there's not a whole hell of a lot of production going on in this country.

You commented how increased wages lead to inflation, but completely ignored that in order for the economy to recover you need to have strong consumer spending.

I did read your Hazlitt chapter, and I do tend to favor to Austrian economics.
He's not referring to wage stagnation and inflation, he's countering an argument for communism.

Digging through one of those links to wage proportions, the US had something like 475:1, whereas the next highest country had 50:1.

http://creativeconflictwisdom.wordpress.com/2011/10/07/ration-of-ceo-pay-to-average-worker-by-country/

And of course there is a substantial amount of hoarding going on as well:

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/business/2012/07/super-rich-hide-21-trillion-in-secret-tax-havens-says-tax-justice-network/

Inflation is going to go up regardless as long as the federal reserve is indiscriminately printing money.

I still fail to see how we're doing fine when the household income is the same as it was 20 years ago, whereas your purchasing power is 56% lower then the same year.

While I do agree with Friedman (in your video from the 70s) that those people are reinvesting their money. Reinvesting your money into an equity firm does not stimulate production. Again 68% of Americans are working office jobs, there's not a whole hell of a lot of production going on in this country.

You commented how increased wages lead to inflation, but completely ignored that in order for the economy to recover you need to have strong consumer spending.

I did read your Hazlitt chapter, and I do tend to favor to Austrian economics.
He's not referring to wage stagnation and inflation, he's countering an argument for communism.

Digging through one of those links to wage proportions, the US had something like 475:1, whereas the next highest country had 50:1.

http://creativeconflictwisdom.wordpress.com/2011/10/07/ration-of-ceo-pay-to-average-worker-by-country/

And of course there is a substantial amount of hoarding going on as well:

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/business/2012/07/super-rich-hide-21-trillion-in-secret-tax-havens-says-tax-justice-network/

You're talking about a lot of things here outside the scope of what nawhead is, and you're talking about practical application whereas he's talking about theory. He's not going to play your game because he can't. He's talking about the study of economics, which begins by removing everyone from the real world.

Our CEO subculture exists for a lot of reasons that have nothing to do with economics. They all know each other, serve on various other boards with each other, are members of the same clubs, etc.. It's such a small subset of the population that it is very unlikely to have more than one or two degrees of separation. CEO pay is a curiosity though. Real, important issues are what you are bringing up about wage stagnation and purchasing power. And the lack of production. It's funny how people's position on things like illegal immigration would change if they suddenly had to start paying even more for stuff as their purchasing power drops.


To the last, it doesn't even really matter if the super rich hide money in terms of money flow. It's bloody hard to the kind of money they have. Maybe if they bought a Bugatti Veyron for each day of the week, then turned the fleet over every few months.

......He's talking about the study of economics, which begins by removing everyone from the real world.....

Ahhh WTF OMG LOL Who teaches you this? Just a typo?

In fact, an economy relies on "scarcity". With no scarcity, we would have The Garden of Eden or a Heaven self-replenishing (no economy). On the other hand, if you remove all people, then there would be no "scarcity" of anything, and thus there would not be an "economy" either.
---paraphrased as remembered from Thomas Sowell "Basic Economics" (I think)

The rest of the post sounds a little like jealousy mixed with conspirancy. This is the current President's reelection strategy today. Demonize successful people, especially if they make crazy money (classwarfare jealousy)....... and then claim only the government can do anything (grow govt).

BTW, the other fundamental point? I am still interested in knowing a couple of industries, where "competition is not always best for the consumer. " I honestly do not believe one exists. But I am curious since you seemed to dismiss the statement completely.

-----
Bad Thinking at the poker table...."Let's hope reality takes a vacation."

BTW, the other fundamental point? I am still interested in knowing a couple of industries, where "competition is not always best for the consumer. " I honestly do not believe one exists. But I am curious since you seemed to dismiss the statement completely.

Healthcare seems to be the best example I can think of. Some reasons are as follows:

1. The metric by which we measure effective healthcare is primarily based on decreasing human suffering. This I would argue is the best metric because if we do not have our health then money has little utility. Providers of healthcare have an ethical responsibility to provide the best healthcare that they can in terms of improving the health of their patients. This is not necessarily the same goal as providing the lowest cost healthcare to their patients or making the most money they can for themselves, even if these goals overlap in areas. Turning healthcare into a business has the ability to create practices that decrease the quality of care provided to people because such practices make those business more money. One good example of this that immediately comes to mind are pharmaceutical company patents.

2. Putting a price on your own health doesn't fit so well with people. Should people with wealth deserve to live more than people without wealth? Were wealth more directly correlated with merit I could possibly see an argument for this, however distasteful it was, but as we still clearly have a societal situation where people are not necessarily wealthy according to their merit it seems unconscionable to have hard working people miss out on basic healthcare because of their financial standing.

3. People inherently have less choices with healthcare than they do in other areas. If you get extremely sick you don't have the luxury of shopping around for the best healthcare, you just take whatever you can get. The nature of many procedures in healthcare doesn't provide for competition in the same way seen in other areas.

4. The reason we have civilization at all is because when people work together in groups much more can be achieved than if people were all working alone. Due to the sophistication in education and technology required in modern healthcare there are many situations whereby no individual can reasonably cover the costs of treatment of many illnesses given their current life savings. The effects of scaling are such that when a group of people pool their resources to care for the other people in the group (and including themselves) that a much greater availability and quality of care is available to everyone. This both decreases the net suffering of that group of people and also makes them more productive. The positive effects of having some organization to pool these resources is certainly a good thing. So the question becomes, what is the best way to do this? Right now the 2 alternatives being discussed in this thread are insurance companies and government. The tricky thing with government is that many things are done in a way that might not be the most efficient (but in some cases they might be). The tricky thing with the insurance company approach is that there's often a mismatch in the goals of a company and that of actually providing healthcare. An insurance company is there to make money but the medical profession is often not motivated by making money, it's goal is primarily to reduce human suffering. This mismatch of agendas can be quite damaging as we have seen examples of before. A few things are very clear though, any approach with govenrment needs accountability and transparency. Any approach using the insurance company approach needs competition and transparency. It's a very tricky societal problem to address as ultimately there are flaws in both of these approaches as they currently stand and anyone who's saying that either is flawless has clearly lost touch with reality.

Sneaks, I'm not trying to demonize successful people. I'm actually in good shape financially. I own my house (which was bought at the peak of the bubble), my car, and have no debt outside of a small amount for my student loans (I owe 19k for my B.S., and i'll probably owe another 20 for my masters).

Our current situation however can inevitably cause capitalism to fail. The current income gap is what it was before the great depression, and one of the largest in history. The debt crisis is predicated by people's stagnant wages. People are having to use credit to purchase things to have a decent standard of living.

Debt and savings are inversely proportional. On average U.S. savings are at a historical lowpoint (virtually nonexistant for most).

When money flows upwards, but doesn't come back down, it's very difficult to maintain an economy as a whole.

I'm kind of lucky that EMS work schedules (a lot of services do 24 hour shifts) DO permit 2nd jobs , most people however can't work 2 jobs effectively. With most of the population being office workers, they're also salaried positions, so working extra hours isn't of benefit.

But I am curious since you seemed to dismiss the statement completely.

I tried to anyway.

"gimme one example where more competition is not always best"

"here you go"

"yes, but more competition is always best!"

I tried to anyway.

"gimme one example where more competition is not always best"

"here you go"

"yes, but more competition is always best!"

lol You proved my point. You make these dismissing statements, and then cannot back them up.

The example you gave, was pharmaceuticals. But you sidestepped how competition is better for the consumer. You focused on ethical problems (maybe criminal). We have a huge FDA and Civil Court system to curb that. BTW purist Libertarians think the FDA is not needed. That is not my stance, but I do understand their argument.

Competition is always good for the customer. Remove competition and allow monopolies (govt or otherwise), and the consumer will pay a higher price. Allow competition, and the consumer sees price and quality improve.

Taking it back to the beginning, healthcare has not had a free-market for a long time. Regulations have isolated (segregated) the markets -- creating regional/local monopolies. The US is 50 states. The EU has tried to create a similar situation as the US. -- creating a bigger market of cooperative countries.

Open up the state borders for health and insurance markets, Interesting that there were 2000+ pages in the bill (that no one read), and nothing was done to help the private-sector in regards to this issue. Completely ignored, because the plan was not to fix the healthcare system issues -- but to make everyone dependent on a government system. Every government system I have seen is bad -- because they have a monopoly and do not try to run lean and efficiently -- no competition while using other people's money.

You're talking about a lot of things here outside the scope of what nawhead is, and you're talking about practical application whereas he's talking about theory. He's not going to play your game because he can't. He's talking about the study of economics, which begins by removing everyone from the real world.

this is a fair criticism i think. but like Sneakers said, we haven't have true free markets in the US for a long time. but i have to refer back to the article by Friedman where his solution is that we need to either open up the healthcare market fully or let the government take it over (i prefer the former obv) because what we have now isn't working. what we have now are inefficient, non-competitive monopolies that form when government decides it knows better than the market and picks the winners and/or puts up barriers to competition.

i agree with Sneakers's assessment of the US healthcare industry. the problems it has now isn't due to competition or profiteering, but the opposite in fact (not to mention the disconnect of the payer and tort reform). Obamacare doesn't fix anything as it merely enlarges the current mess of a system.

and to address another point for Medic, the recent housing crisis and resulting financial crisis was largely due to the US government recklessly pouring credit into the housing market (tho the market does bear much blame in relying too much on derivatives and underestimating risks of blow-up) because of some moral desire that all Americans should have a "right" to a home. the same kind of government-produced bubble has been happening with the college market for years, tho its ramifications are less dramatic. so to blame capitalism for the world's evils when what we have now is not true capitalism isn't fair. (and Medic, i'll respond to your last few posts properly, it's just that replying to Steppin is so much fun!)