Well, at least, they're releasing the Amelia Earhart files...

[snipelfritz]

Taxation is theft. Liberty, freedom, individual liberty.

That's how you libertarian. Freedom.

[goroth]

I believe that the free market would work in the health care system, HOWEVER, the health care system has never been close to a free market system.

Great discussion dudes, really interesting following everyone's viewpoints.

Health care is one of those markets that does not work in a freemarket, simply based on how people behave. That is, a free market works correctly, in theory, when people behave rationally (in economic terms) and as an extension of this, when the marginal utility of a product follows a typical curve, and when there is a broad agreement between the individual's value of a commodity/service and society's.

So for example, X-rays are cutting edge. They cost shitloads. Supply is minimal, demand is high. Technology develops, cost comes down per unit, allowing supply to go up, cost decreases. This virtuous cycle continues. Then someone invents MRI. Which costs a fuckload more than an X-ray ever did. And for a certain ailment it will deliver a 5% greater chance of survival. Economically, for the society, the marginal benefit of the MRI to cure the ailment is not worth the cost. Much better to keep using X-rays. But for the individual, a greater chance at survival is worth an irrationally high amount of money. Because we tend to value our own lives on the micro scale very differently to how society as a whole values a life on the macro scale. So the demand for X-rays drops, and MRIs are the shit, and their price goes through the roof.

This results in a situation where new technology only serves to drive prices (and premiums) up constantly, as no-one is prepared to pay less for an out-of-date technology.

Healthcare is a classic case of a market that cannot function correctly under a freemarket (even disregarding other non-inconsequential problems such as the incentive to hide your own illnesses to get a lower premium, which create information asymmetries that skew the market). As such it works best when treated as a common good, and taxed as such.

[goroth]

sorry if I've fucked up any of the economics terms there. There is a decade and a non-English language between my learning and that post...

[Disarm D'arcy]

Agree on all points with the suited dinosaur. The frictionless genuine free market is a theoretical model. In healthcare, the goods and services are not interchangeable enough, the information is by definition asymmetrical (you're no doctor/pharmacist), trademarks and equipment costs create de facto oligopolies and monopolies... healthcare is not buying tomatoes from 3 different competing suppliers at the local farmer's market.

There's also a cost the free market doesn't deal with. The cost of untreated sick people. Because microbes and viruses being true universalists, the ignore who has insurance and who hasn't, who is documented and who isn't. Public health, just as every macroeconomic issue, can't be solved by the religious belief in an invisible hand the will allocate resources properly

[Jwar]

I just want to note that taxation in the United States is not always a good thing. We get taxed on frivolous spending by our state and city officials.

Example. My city want's to put up an enormous hockey arena (like who gives a flying fuck about hockey anyway). That shit will be like a mile from my house and I live in the suburbs. You know, so I don't have to live around shit like that. Anyway, those cock suckers are going to raise our fucking taxes again because of that fucking shit. I didn't vote for it! Fuck them! Then down the street they are building a fucking mega church that has exceeded 110 million dollars so far in construction costs. 110 million!! Just think about how sick to your stomach that shit makes you. For a building that a bunch of dipshits will go to and donate more fucking money!!! Worst part is that I'm paying taxes on it because our piece of shit city decided to give them breaks on it. Fuck them. Fuck them in the ass.

Social security is also a joke. It's a pool I've been paying into for almost 20 fucking years and it will be empty when it's my time to retire. Fuck unemployment because when you actually need it and you've paid into it for years and years and years, they scrutinize every single fucking asinine detail. My wife and I had to pay back 5k in unemployment when she was let go because their HR person made a clerical error and even when she told the court so, they still made us pay it back.


So taxes can suck my dick. Taxes keep the wealthy wealthy and keep the poor poor. It's a broken system that never will get fixed because it's in the fat cats favor.

[D.o.S.]

It seems like the problem there is not the taxes but the administration of the taxes. I spend a bit of time following the construction/extortion of sports arenas for work and there is a lot of super-shady shit that goes on there, but I don't think you can throw the baby out with the bathwater in regards to the system of delivering services... i.e. I don't think anyone believes we shouldn't pay, say, firefighters with tax money, right?

Also that last bit reminds me of P.J. O'Rourke: "The Democrats are the party that says government will make you smarter, taller, richer, and remove the crabgrass on your lawn. The Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work and then they get elected and prove it."

Jwar I think you would like this book a lot:
https://www.amazon.com/Parliament-Whore ... B005EP20MM

I don't have a copy on me right now but I'm reliving reading these quotes and it's great:
"It is a popular delusion that the government wastes vast amounts of money through inefficiency and sloth. Enormous effort and elaborate planning are required to waste this much money.”

"The college idealists who fill the ranks of the environmental movement seem willing to do absolutely anything to save the biosphere, except take science courses and learn something about it. "

etc.

[Jwar]

DOS, I'd agree with that. For sure it's a distribution issue. For instance, the fact that Johnson County, which is the richest county in Kansas, will waste money of stupid bullshit like a sports stadium is appalling to me. Jackson County (on the Missouri side) did the same thing but it brought them more revenue, so they did it for a good ass reason at least. They are bitches though because they tried to get my county to pay for part of it since their officials extort so much money they can't keep stuff right there. I knew the Mayor of a major city in Missouri, I will not state who he is for obvious reason, that took money illegally from IHOP church. It was payoff money, and he spent some time in prison ultimately for it. It was a LOT of money. My point is that we let fat cats do what they want. The owner of that church (who I know personally) is a fucking millionaire from extorting weak minded people who will give their last dollar for bullshit. UGH!

Sorry got off on a little tangent there, but it's all related in some way.

Our government bodies need to do several things to make america great. Not great again, but great for the first time. I love this Country but it's run by a bunch of fucking assholes who only care about themselves. Fuck Trump, fuck Clinton and the two party system!

Anyway. In my head they need to do the following.

Increase the Federal minimum wage (but not by a drastic amount like they've suggested). Make it 9 or 10 an hour just to help compensate for the lack of funding available for things like forced healthcare. I mean, let's be real. We all know that just because you work at a crap job it doesn't mean you are a crap person. People shouldn't be allowed to shit on you because you have to work for a living.

Decrease the price of insurance or allow people to opt out of it. They can do this, they are just bitches and created this system without taking time to perfect it. They are making it worse each year, which it's quite an amazing feat! So put caps on what pharmaceutical companies can charge. Put caps on what hospitals can charge. Put caps on what insurance companies can charge! Fuck them! They are ruining our nation and making it almost impossible for people to survive!! We are possibly going to have to pay 8k in insurance this year! 8 fucking thousand dollars!!! That is absolutely insane and not ok! My wife got a 3k raise two weeks ago. We hit the wall where we are making
70k combined (with 3 kids, a mortgage, medical bills...etc). We were using Kancare because we can't afford fucking insurance for our children. So now my wife has asked them to not give her raise or reduce it. What the actual fuck! We save money if she makes less! I was planning on doing about 40k in sales this year and now I don't know what to do because if I increase my threshold to make money, and we go up to about 6 figures, we'll be extra fucked.

They can stop allowing billionaires to pay themselves in dividends. It's the most backass way to get out of paying taxes ever and it's not fucking fair. I'll give you a case and point. My father is very wealthy from having owned a 30 million dollar company that he sold a few years back (not for that though....). He went like 3 years without paying himself anything but minimum wage. Now you'd think "wow how honorable" right?? I saw his checks from dividends. He paid himself over 300k in a year. The fuck? Dividends do get taxed still, but not at the same rate. So you're basically making a lot and paying hardly anything in taxes. I don't want to say my dad is a bad guy, if it weren't for him, I'd be up shit creek without a paddle, but he did a lot of shaddy shit as a business owner.

Cut fucking interest rates. That's right! Don't raise them you greedy fucking assholes, cut them. They are raising them this coming year because the economy is doing better. Thanks guys! That helps us a lot. It's absolutely unfair that some companies can charge up to 30% on anything. It's bullshit.

I could go on for hours, but I'm starting to get pissed off. I fucking hate the way this country is set up. It's set up to fuck the everyday person who wasn't blessed with a golden spoon.

I'm seriously thinking of moving with you DOS. Can we share a bed though?

[D.o.S.]

Yeah I agree, there are a metric ton of flaws with the system as currently constructed. I can't really imagine that the Trump administration is going to make things any better, unfortunately.

To the last part. I will show my lady friend the ILFMas card and see what she says.

[Disarm D'arcy]

I just want to note that taxation in the United States is not always a good thing. We get taxed on frivolous spending by our state and city officials.

Example. My city want's to put up an enormous hockey arena (like who gives a flying fuck about hockey anyway). That shit will be like a mile from my house and I live in the suburbs. You know, so I don't have to live around shit like that. Anyway, those cock suckers are going to raise our fucking taxes again because of that fucking shit. I didn't vote for it! Fuck them! Then down the street they are building a fucking mega church that has exceeded 110 million dollars so far in construction costs. 110 million!! Just think about how sick to your stomach that shit makes you. For a building that a bunch of dipshits will go to and donate more fucking money!!! Worst part is that I'm paying taxes on it because our piece of shit city decided to give them breaks on it. Fuck them. Fuck them in the ass.

Social security is also a joke. It's a pool I've been paying into for almost 20 fucking years and it will be empty when it's my time to retire. Fuck unemployment because when you actually need it and you've paid into it for years and years and years, they scrutinize every single fucking asinine detail. My wife and I had to pay back 5k in unemployment when she was let go because their HR person made a clerical error and even when she told the court so, they still made us pay it back.


So taxes can suck my dick. Taxes keep the wealthy wealthy and keep the poor poor. It's a broken system that never will get fixed because it's in the fat cats favor.

You realize that you have just demonstrated yourself that the problem is not taxes but the stupidity (at least that you perceive) of your elected officials which falls back on voters (you included for voting him in, or not supporting an alternative majority that had better chance or whatever) and candidates (for failing to convince their platform was more suited)?

Just look at marginal imposition rates in countries all over the world. Look at the GINI coefficient which measures revenue equality after tax and transfers. You'll see that the US is ranking over 30 in that list. You'll also see that the countries that are doing better on equality are rarely (well, never, tax havens). You can also use the GINI coefficient before taxes and transfers and after taxes and transfers and realize it helps (France for exemple has double the revenue inequality before taxes and transfers, the US population is also more equal after taxes and transfers than before). Wikipedia has a list of countries by GINI coefficient that is convenient (and note the data is from the CIA world facts bureau): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_c ... e_equality

[snipelfritz]

Yeah, but the CIA also said Sadam Hussein had weapons of Mass Destruction

The problem is that most Americans see their government as inefficient and that they're not getting as much out of it as they are putting into it (which then leads to the mostly fictitious political manifestation bogeyman of the lazy, mooching, welfare-sucking "other" that Libertarians live and breathe off of). I'm not here to say whose fault that is, but there needs to be a grassroots movement from the progressive side of things to remake state and local governments as efficient and effective so that people see the reason to pay their taxes as a civic duty.

Of course, stadiums for billionaires is the exact opposite of that (we just started building one of those here).

[Disarm D'arcy]

You mean the CIA likes to serve the US government Agenda? Well if you guys need doctored statistics to look inequal as fuck, I'm really worried

[Jwar]

I get what you're saying my French friend.

I however think both things are an issue and they aren't going to be fixed overnight. I get that. I also know that who is President doesn't mean anything in regards to making things perfect.

The fact doesn't change though that taxes are way too high on numerous things and that we don't need a lot of them. Sure they are intended to be a good thing for the most part, but they are run by self serving douche nuggets who couldn't give a fuck less what your quality of life is.

I can't talk about this anymore because it's stressing me out too bad. I'm being serious too. It sucks man. The whole insurance thing has made me really upset and I wish that there was a solution that the US would consider but it likely will get worse.

Love you guys. Anarchy in the UK and all that.

[Fluffytime]

So many words.

[Chankgeez]

So many worlds.

[Lurker13]

So many swords.