If someone is your servant, they do what you want them to do. If you pay them, it's because you agree on what their work is going to be worth to you. That's called a trade.
If someone is your master, they tell you what to do. If you pay them, it's because they require you to pay them. Sometimes that's called tribute.
Now compare the elites in Washington to those two definitions. Don't especially the progressive Democrats, pushing a health care bill that is overwhelmingly opposed by the people, fit the definition of Master better than that of Servant?
Has Democracy in America led to the servant becoming the master? Or has it always been somewhat that way and the idea of "Public Servants" has always been a sham?
They argue that "it's for our own good" and that the elites know better than the people do what's good for them. That may describe a more "benevolent' slave master in the pre-civil war south, but it's hardly how anyone would describe a good servant.
"The master and servant relationship only arises when the tasks are performed by the servant under the direction and control of the master and are subject to the master's knowledge and consent." - Answers.com
Even that argument falls down pretty flat in the face of billions for bailouts and pork benefitting their friends and fellow elites. It's not their money that's getting spent. Who's in charge here, anyway? Who's supposed to benefit again?
Gail Wilensky, medicare bureacrat who moved to an NGO: Tax more expensive health insurance more and give the secretary of Health and Human Services lots more power over everything.
Yep, Congress is too busy to make the important, hard decisions that the policy elite want to happen, so it's best to outsource it all to the "experts" in the executive. Better deniability for lousy decisions all around.
Joseph Antos, think tank academic: Fix the employer tax break, competition in state markets, give pricing information to patients, make Medicare compete with Medicare Advantage.
And here's our first set of proposals that would actually lower costs while improving things. The solutions are of the "tweak the existing system" mentality, but at least they are steps in the right direction.
Daniel Callahan, think tank guy: Medicare rationing and price controls on health insurance.
At least he comes right out in favor of legally limiting how much health care people get! I'm not sure that's going to be too popular. It's definitely not necessary for bureacrats to tell people how much they need. And of course, price controls always result in shortages anyway.
Leslie Greenwald, think tank academic: Setup rationing by the elite based on "evidence".
Some how I don't think she gets who should be making the decisions about how much health care people should consume...
Arnold Kling, economist: Use vouchers to move from third-party payers to patients as consumers.
Our second idea that would actually accomplish something positive. Not sure it's totally workable, but it's for sure a big improvement on the current system!
My answer to the same question is totally unrealistic in the current political environment, but just for the record:
Increase supply of medical care by removing legal obstacles. That means removing licensing restrictions (especially for Health care professionals trained in other countries) and removing AMA (Doctor's union) restrictions on the number of new health care workers trained every year. It also means severely limiting the FDA's ability to stop drugs from being produced. At most, they should evaluate and report on, rather then control the legality of drugs. That way Doctors and their patients could choose what risks to take based on their best information available.
Add more competition to the system by overriding state insurance regulators with a federal mandate that allows interstate commerce in insurance policies. Either end tax breaks for employer-provided plans or make sure that they are matched exactly by breaks for non-employer-provided plans. Prevent any regulators anywhere from regulating what is offered at what price in health insurance plans. Innovation in insurance service doesn't start in state health insurance regulation committees!
Allow prices to reflect demand as much as possible by providing methods for price transparency in service as well as allowing insurance as insurance instead of pay-for-service plans. Most of that would be taken care of by removing regulatory obstacles as above.
Health care is a solvable problem, but it's unlikely to be solved when most of the proposals to do so just provide more of the same ideas that created the problems in the first place.
When people in this country consume more books than people in another country, we don't lament that U.S. "book costs" are much higher than average and that "something must be done!" Some of this issue results from government distortions of the market for health care at State and Federal levels, but a lot of this issue is also a misunderstang of what's going on.
Submitted by Thomas Sewell on Thu, 11/05/2009 - 09:40
Prices communicate information to producers and consumers.
When the price of a product goes higher, that tells producers to produce more. It also tells consumers to spend their money on something different, buying less of that product.
When it goes lower, that tells producers to produce less and comsumers to consume more in relation to other things they could spend their money on.
As supply and demand for a product changes, that affects the price. Even though all the possible consumers and all the possible producers don't directly communicate otherwise, the effect of their mass actions on prices is that about the right amount of a product is produced for how much people want or need of it compared to other things they could have spent their money on.
The above is named Supply and Demand and it's about the least controversial idea in economics.
Yet somehow governments persist in ignoring it in the same way the Soviets used to.
The seasonal flu vaccine and the swine flu vaccine are both having shortages when people want them, while both will have plenty available when it's too late to matter much.
Why?
Well, how do producers decide when they need to have what flu shots available for distribution?
The short answer is, they don't. Government bureacrats in a command-and-control style of economics (like the old Soviet Union used) decide the price and also tell producers how much of what to produce when.
Using that same method, the same problems routinely happen in the flu shot market. Shortages, followed by over supply and waste, followed by more shortages, followed by more waste, year after year it goes on as most years the bureacrats don't have the information provided by the simple, lowly, price mechanism of supply and demand.
The "experts" don't have more knowledge than the millions of people combined that would set the price in a flu shot market. Without a market, they don't know where to send flu shots for them to be used the best. They don't know how many are going to be demanded and when they're going to be needed.
Pricing Externalities
If the objective is to increase the number of people that get a flu shot above the number that would naturally get one, because there are benefits that are external to the market transaction. i.e. you think other people benefit from every person more that gets a flu shot, then that's an externality and you can make a case that there should be a price subsidy. Most externalities are negative, meaning an aconomist would fix that by adding to the price in order to pay for it, but in this case the health authorities seem to think there is a positive externality.
The way to solve that externality isn't to take flu shots out of a market and turn the decisions over to a bureacracy. If you make the price producers are paid go up, but the price consumers pay go down, you'd get more production and more people and clinics would buy flu shots.
So if the objective is to be most effective, while also encouraging more people to get a flu shot, then the simple method is for the bureacrats to stay out of it all except to offer a set rebate or subsidy for each flu shot sold and used. Whatever the amount of that is will determine how many more people will get a flu shot.
Here's an extreme example to illustrate this. If the government gave $50,000 per flu shot used to producers and another $50,000 to the person that got that flu shot, I'd guess that there would still be a handful of people in the country that didn't get a flu shot, but not very many. Reduce the amounts and less people decide to sacrifice the time and other resources to get involved, but the same basic principle holds. The principle of Supply and Demand.
"Cheney puts up $50 million to change climate science." describing an attempt to create a new think tank funded by the oil industry to generate new "science". That should get a similar effect on the opposite political persuasion, except of course that, and the headline of this article, isn't actually happening.
My headline is a little misleading, because it's meant to make a point.
For Soros this is just part of purchasing influence to promote his political policies and power. He's does that a lot, in ways too numerous to enumerate here. He's upset that somehow large swaths of economists have managed to stay out of the Cathedral and have not yet turned 91% Democrat. Why, it seems that economists are closer to only 50% Democrats and most of those still prefer market solutions to government solutions!
I'm currently reading Tyler Cowen's 1998 book "In Praise of Commercial Culture". Cowen is better known as an economist writing over at Marginal Revolution. I'm also re-reading his 2007 book "Discover Your Inner Economist" at the same time. Maybe it's just the different target audiences, but I suspect Tyler would be the first to admit that his book writing style has gotten a lot better in the intervening 9 years.
In the process of explaining the influence of capitalism and wealth on art, he mentions a lot of artists in passing. Most I knew about, but many I hadn't. In 1998 Cowen couldn't have anticipated the process I've been going through while reading these books. I've actually been able to look up and sample the work of artists, from painters to rock bands, on the internet and get a taste of their work immediately and for free. That process, aided by things like wikipedia, Amazon's mp3 store (with it's music previews), plus tons of full-length videos with audio on youtube, is an amazing example of what in the book is a cultural optimism that allows for modern and historical art catering to all sorts of niche markets to be so much more accessible now than it ever has been in the past.
One of the facts referenced in the book is that Charles Perrault wrote "Mother Goose" in a deliberate attempt to match Aesop's Fables. I anticipate that my wife, currently teaching classic fables to the kids, will find that interesting. There's tons of similar tidbits in it.
Cowen talks about how because it was a big budget movie and thus had to appeal to a larger audience, the studio forced a happy ending on Blade Runner, but that when the movie was reissued in a Director's cut the original ending could be restored. I know that now it sounds amazing, but in 1998 DVDs weren't in commercial use. Laser Disc was supposed to be the next big thing. Ten years later, we'd fully expect that if the Director preferred a different cut to his movie, we'd get both versions plus a couple of voice-over explanations all on the same DVD and they'd throw in the deleted scenes and alternate endings!
I'm also picking up music tips from the "Possess All the Great Art Ever Made" chapter of his more recent book. He talks about how music tastes changes as individual identities change from different time periods and geographical regions and suggests trying out the best artists of all sorts of different types.
Tonight I've found lots to like. I also just figured out that youtube has tons of music in the form of videos... I know, slow to catch on, that's me.
Sometimes the familiar can be new again when seen through a different style of music. Also search for gamelan on youtube for some cool south-east asian hits.
Those guys are entertainers! Of course, it stands to reason that with literally billions of people to choose from, there are going to be a lot of great musicians (and other professions) available in the area.
A little closer to home, sometimes you just need to shake your head and tap your toes.
How could anyone not like that, whoever they are, unless they'd never heard it?
Barack Obama: "Reducing the waste and inefficiency in Medicare and Medicaid will pay for most of this plan." Arnold Kling: "And if we don't pass this plan, does he intend to keep the waste and inefficiency, out of spite?"
This little exchange illustrates a couple of problems with Obama's logic. First, notice the false dichotomy implied by Obama and exposed by Kling's comment. It's implied that the savings and the plan must go together, when nothing actually requires them to. Second, notice the implication his plan costs money, even though he elsewhere claims it doesn't.
It's not a sacrifice or a trade-off if it's something you wouldn't want to do anyway. "I'm going to give up paying someone to poke me in the eye so that I can afford to eat out for lunch" just doesn't have the same compelling sense of sacrifice as "I'm not off buying new shoes so that I can afford to eat out for lunch".
Obama's comment also nicely illustrates how progressives can get away with things that the media will never call them on, when their opponents would be instantly demonized. If a Republican president or congressman had suggested that we should reduce "the waste and inefficiency in Medicare and Medicaid", most of the press would be reporting this under a headline like, "Obama advocates budget cuts to programs that provide health care to millions of poor and elderly!"
See this Washington Post Story as an example. You'd have quotes in news articles like the actual news quote "... proposed cuts to Medicare would hurt older and disabled Americans and take a wrecking ball to many essential hospitals across the country". That was for a proposal to slow the rate of growth from 7% to 5% by eliminating waste, not even an actual cut.
What you won't hear Obama nor the Democrats talk about is what their plan will cost you in insurance premium increases. Most of the "reforms" in their "exchange" plan have already been implemented in several states. They've driven premiums up in those states. The government cost analysis of the bill won't reflect those costs, since you pay that directly, not indirectly to support the federal budget.
Submitted by Thomas Sewell on Tue, 09/08/2009 - 19:36
Wealth can be measured in many ways, including material possessions and time for leisure.
Wealth of most types can be destroyed by automobile accidents, but that's not the only way..
There is also a lot of wealth wasted while people wait for other cars. If you waste 10 minutes in traffic a day that you didn't have to, that costs you 60 hours of your time a year. Could you have fun with an extra 60 hours of vacation every year? How about another 60 hours worth of pay? How about multiplying that by everyone else who drives?
So please consider the following to assist in minimizing wealth destroying and time wasting events:
If you are at one of those newfangled round circles in the road, there is a yield sign to your right and a bunch of cars stopped behind you, please consider that your foot may be on the wrong pedal.
If you are on a multi-lane road like a freeway, there are no cars immediately in front of you and any cars to the right of you are traveling withing a few mph of you, you might be in the wrong lane.
If you are in a similar situation, except the cars to the right of you are moving faster than you are, you should seriously consider that you might be in the wrong lane. A good rule of thumb is that if the cars you are supposed to be passing (they call it a "passing lane") are traveling faster than you are, then you aren't actually passing them.
If you see a sign that announces a brief passing lane ahead and then another that says, "Keep right except to pass", please consider that they may be talking to you and not the car that's been tailgating you for miles.
If you are stopped at one of those red eight-sided signs and you arrived at the same time or before the car to your left, feel free to start to proceed as soon as possible after you have stopped.
If you are going straight at a four-way stop and someone else is turning left from the opposite direction, it's not considered polite to stop in the intersection and wave them on. It's actually quite rude, because they are likely waiting for you to clear the intersection. The basic rule is that left-turn cars turn just behind cars going straight when they both traverse the intersection at approximately the same time.
If you are entering a freeway or highway via an on ramp and highway traffic is moving at the same speed as you are, please consider slowing down or speeding up 5-10 mph in order to create a speed differential. You'll find it much easier to find a hole in traffic to merge into.
When turning onto a multi-lane road, there may be other cars that wish to use the other lanes at the same time you only really need one of them. Please be considerate and turn left into the left-most lane and right into the right-most lane. If the lane you really want is a different one than that, you can then signal and change lanes as normal once you are in the correct turning lane.
You do signal every time you change lanes, don't you? Before actually moving into the new lane?
If there is a middle turn lane and you want to turn left, please continue at the normal rate of speed until you have entered it, then slow down for your left turn.
If you are turning left at an intersection and the light is turning yellow, make sure you are as far into the intersection as you can be and still yielding to oncoming traffic. Remember, "three cars go", not just you.
Even if the light is green, if it doesn't look like there is going to be room for you to get through the intersection because the car in front of you is stopped, please consider that other people may want to use that same intersection in a few seconds traveling perpendicular to you.
If there is a sign that says, "No stop required" because the lane continues on by itself after the turn, that's a big hint as to which pedals you should and should not be using. (Yes, I'm watching you, people visiting St. George from I-15.)
If the light is green and everyone else is moving, you might have your foot on the wrong pedal. If you are stopped at a stoplight and don't know what color the light is because you're too busy with something else, please sell your car as soon as possible.
Everyone, feel free to add other advice I've missed as a comment.
Many universities have some students who just want a piece of paper (called a "Degree") in order to justify something to their parents and/or improve their odds of obtaining a job in their desired line of work.
There are other who students attend to obtain an education in order to better themselves, make themselves actually more valuable to potential employers, etc...
The mix between these types of students at any particular location of higher learning can vary wildly. Off the top of my head (i.e., no actual research done), I'd rate University of California, Santa Barbara as the biggest paper-seeking school in the nation and George Wythe College the one with the most students interested in an actual education. Having lived near and known students at both, UCSB is the "party" school, while GW isn't quite accredited yet (so no real piece of paper), but GW has a massive learning load that would astonish students at UCSB.
Both sets of students pay (via one method or another) in order to attend these colleges. The colleges don't pay them to attend class, do papers in their "free" time, etc...
Colleges and Universities have a long tradition and history in the world. There has also existed another tradition of learning, one typically considered more suited for less academic pursuits, but used in academia as well. It's the internship. Way back when, apprentices (or their parents) would pay the master of a craft to take them on as an intern. If they worked out they got a promotion to journeyman and started seeing some money, if not they went and found something else to do. Either way they learned something.
There are many industries where school doesn't prepare you to be an immediately contributing employee in your chosen field. Either the employer takes a hit while waiting for you to learn enough to be useful, or you just don't get a job. In a recession economy where employers aren't desperate to find new employees, guess which one they will tend to choose?
So to the people who want an entry-level job or an unpaid internship in order to learn something that will actually enable them to get paid quite well in the future, via the minimum-wage laws Congress proclaims, "Screw You!"
The media likes to compare Barack Obama to Ronald Reagan. They note their shared charisma, etc... and attempt to say that Obama is going to be the next "great communicator" and convincer.
What they fail to see is that unlike Reagan, Obama has never really had to convince anyone of his principles and ideals and has never had to convince people that disagreed with him to follow him.
Reagan had to convince the SAG to go along with him. He spent years convincing audiences across the country as a spokesman for General Electric until they fired him for becoming too controversial. He had to convince Californians to follow him as Governor and then convince the skeptics that Goldwater conservatism was the economic answer in order to be elected President after a couple of tries.
Do you recall Obama ever being considered "too controversial" during his pre-Presidential career? In contrast, Obama "organized" a community that already agreed with him. He taught law. He never proposed and fought for anything in the Illinois Senate that was controversial, preferring to stay aloof from the fray. His record is dotted with "bipartisan", not controversy and idealogical conflict. He didn't have a big signature initiative in the Senate that he convinced Congress to pass. The closest he had come in his pre-presidential life to leading people to a conclusion is when he was running for President and adopted a poll-tested platform to campaign on that didn't quite reflect his real goals. Even then, he was trying to get people to see that he agreed with them, not to convince them to change their minds.
With the above biography, is it really a surprise that while Obama may have charisma, he doesn't actually have any idea how to convince the American people to follow his ideas? Now that he's President and he's actually trying to accomplish his goals, he's suddenly discovered that no matter how high his personal popularity used to be, the people don't agree with him. That's causing his personal popularity to sink rapidly as he tries to campaign for what he actually wants to accomplish instead of what the polls said he should announce during the campaign.
Obama does have much in common with a different former President. He inherited a poor economy with problems caused by government regulations and then extended it and made it worse through more government involvement. He's being praised by the press as an "intellectual" president, since most of the media agrees with his core principles. You can find many comparisons between Obama and Carter already out there. Nixon and Ford's domestic and economic policies have more in common with Bush's "Compassionate Conservatism" than you might think.
Reagan had a clearly announced plan to fix the economy once elected. He followed his plan and the economy turned around very rapidly. Some of us were alive in 1981 to see it happen. Obama's plans have just made the economy worse. Like Carter, he started with "even more of the same" things his predecessor was already trying. Like Carter, he's getting more of the same results.
No, Obama's no Reagan, but when 2012 rolls around we're going to need another Reagan. A credible candidate with a clear vision of limited government, lower taxes, and limited spending to get us out of the mess Obama will have created.
I have a longer entry to discuss some of his ideas planned, but I couldn't resist sharing a quick preview from Mencius Moldbug's recent post on colonialism:
But fine. We'll start with the worst. Or after it, anyway. Our case study in colonialism: the Belgian Congo, aka Zaire. There is no defending the Congo Free State - but 1960 minus 1908 is quite some time. Observe the sinuosity with which this propagandist redacts an inconvenient half-century:
Government as a system of organized theft goes back to King Leopold II, who made a fortune [in the Congo] equal to well over $1.1 billion in today's money, chiefly in rubber and ivory. Then for fifty-two years this was a Belgian colony, run less rapaciously, but still mainly for the purpose—as with colonies almost everywhere—of extracting wealth for the mother country and its corporations. The grand tradition was continued by Mobutu Sese Seko...
In other words: skip from Leopold to Mobutu as fast as possible, noting only that the Congo under Belgian administration was... gasp... profitable. Sacre bleu! Another of those nitroglycerines, nurse - I think my heart just skipped a whole bar. Profitable government! Why, it's practically a second Holocaust.
That stance is fine for the group that just wants a little cash in their pocket (albeit 
Reagan had to convince the SAG to go along with him. He spent years convincing audiences across the country as a spokesman for General Electric until they fired him for becoming too controversial. He had to convince Californians to follow him as Governor and then 
