Obama or Clinton? - Page 23

Hambergler · 05-15-2008, 07:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kerostasis

I'm picking up a hint of disdain for corporate profit in that suggestion.

Insurance companies do not provide my with insurance because they like me. They provide me with insurance because they think they can make money while doing so. If they can do so easily and cheaply, then I as Joe Customer can reap the rewards of that service easily and cheaply. If the government inhibits them from making money, they will be inhibited from providing me a cheap, efficient service.

Government regulations do have an important role to play in business -- they should protect us from outright scams, or businesses that don't actually provide the service that I pay them for. However, that is a very limited role, and government should not be in the business of telling corporations how much money they can make or which services they can provide.

I'm not trying to be contrary. I'm trying to understand your viewpoint.

I agree that government should stay out of enterprise. However there are exceptions, like healthcare. The insurance companies are saying the Drs are abusing them, and the Drs are saying insurance isn't reimbursing as they should be. Both are very true. So Joe consumer gets to pay extremely high premiums and enjoy a declining standard of care while these two factions play tug of war with Joes money and his wellbeing. I don't believe this situation will remedy itself and I think it requires the government stepping in on Joe publics behalf. Only the insurance lobby is so strong that it's not going to happen and that is where my disdain comes from.

I'm not really sure how your examples make good arguments for a more capitalistic society. I think the government is biased towards the interests of corporations in most cases. Which is basically the definition of a capitalistic society, but with health care it's more then just money it's peoples lives. A line should be drawn there.

I do agree that tort reform is needed badly, it only encourages lawsuits.

**Razcsak** · 05-15-2008, 09:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kerostasis

Nice elitism Raz. Last year my tax return was in the 10% bracket, and higher taxes for the rich aren't to my taste either.

Are you denying that most people who are rich tend to want reduced taxes on the rich? It is helpful to understand where most people are coming from since some people (like, presumably, yourself) are deciding based off principles while others, who may or may not be principled, are also coming from personal wishes. For background, both my parents are public school teachers and I'm paying for about half my tuition from my pocket because they simply can't take out enough loans. That said, they live in the DC Metro region, so I'm not badly off, all things considered.

More later, but Hambergler's got a lot of the right ideas.

Sara · 05-15-2008, 09:27 PM

I have a question to anyone here.
What do you think is more important?
Economic/War In Iraq, Taxes/Gas Prices, No Child Left Behind/Education.
What would you like to see being worked on first in your candidate?
I think No Child Left Behind is most important out of them all. Kids are the future of the country and if we want to preserve the future we need these laws.

Rob · 05-15-2008, 10:01 PM

No Child Left Behind= more money towards education=bigger school sports plexes, better and more modern desks and classrooms, and no better grade of education than there already is. More money in schools will not help education as a whole.

Sara · 05-15-2008, 10:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rob

No Child Left Behind= more money towards education=bigger school sports plexes, better and more modern desks and classrooms, and no better grade of education than there already is. More money in schools will not help education as a whole.

You may think differently but the enviorment of the school affects the kids grades.

Kerostasis · 05-15-2008, 10:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Razcsak

Are you denying that most people who are rich tend to want reduced taxes on the rich? It is helpful to understand where most people are coming from since some people (like, presumably, yourself) are deciding based off principles while others, who may or may not be principled, are also coming from personal wishes. For background, both my parents are public school teachers and I'm paying for about half my tuition from my pocket because they simply can't take out enough loans. That said, they live in the DC Metro region, so I'm not badly off, all things considered.

More later, but Hambergler's got a lot of the right ideas.

Because I am in a low tax bracket, you are willing to believe that I believe in lower taxes on principle and not out of self interest. Because Leejo is in a higher tax bracket, you assume that he must be in favor of lower tax rates primarily due to self interest instead of principle. Supposing I won the lottery or something tomorrow (or more credibly, started working full time instead of part time and got a better job offer), and suddenly moved up several tax brackets -- would I then lose my credibility in your eyes? My principles haven't changed, only my income level.

Are there people out there who make policy decisions purely on self interest? Most certainly. But if someone is willing to explain the principles behind his beliefs to you, it would be curteous of you to debate those principles rather than blindly pinning his beliefs on self interest alone.

Delta*RandyShugart* · 05-15-2008, 11:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sara

You may think differently but the enviorment of the school affects the kids grades.

i really don't mean to harp on the subject of spelling, but sara, come on, just for the sake of this argument you have to make sure that things are spelled correctly, I don't want to irritate you anymore than you already are on this subject bc i know you have long days we all do, but you are our supposed teaching expert, show a little gumbo.

I think it is true, however school budgets are constantly inflated year after year and it reflects on that city/town's taxes. Maybe there should be a flat salary for teachers across the U.S.A. and then with more certifications/tenure (i don't believe in tenure) the salary would go up.

**CingularDuality** · 05-15-2008, 11:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Razcsak

Two reasons. First, "richness" is as relative a scale as "poorness". A few pages back, people asserted that if the rich keep paying for the poor, then everyone becomes poor. Likewise, if the poor keep earning money, the standard that defines "richness" becomes erased. Everyone has exactly the same amount of money. That might be defined as "comfortable" or "liveable", but it can't be rich, since being rich requires that you have more than the average.

You're wrong. Being rich has nothing to do with whether you have more or less than anyone else, and only whether you have "great material wealth". If everyone here at TG suddenly had 5 million dollars, but Bill Gates still had a bazillion dollars, would that make us any less rich? No.

Quote:

Secondly, the capitalist system mandates that the person willing to do the most amount of work for the least amount of money be hired. That means that, barring government intervention or worker solidarity, someone will be making just enough money to live on because they will be willing to work for that little just so they can live.

You've got a twisted idea of how capitalism works. You're neglecting to see all the positives of the capitalist system. If someone can make just enough to live on, then they're going to find a better, different, or more efficient way to do things so that they can make more! Capitalism encourages productivity and innovation in a way that socialism simply cannot.

Sara · 05-16-2008, 08:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Delta*RandyShugart*

i really don't mean to harp on the subject of spelling, but sara, come on, just for the sake of this argument you have to make sure that things are spelled correctly, I don't want to irritate you anymore than you already are on this subject bc i know you have long days we all do, but you are our supposed teaching expert, show a little gumbo.

I think it is true, however school budgets are constantly inflated year after year and it reflects on that city/town's taxes. Maybe there should be a flat salary for teachers across the U.S.A. and then with more certifications/tenure (i don't believe in tenure) the salary would go up.

Sorry about the top paragraph but your right on one thing. Just recently like a month ago, the school I am working for just had there yearly budget vote. It has been passed for the pass 10 years I have heard. This budget offered better bathrooms, more supplies for teaching, a whole new gym. The budget was not passed so the school will not be working on their bathrooms, I will not be getting more supplies to teach them ie: Might be a textbook, might be a website, and the kids won't be able to play in a new gym. It's make my job harder, the kids life harder and just the overall movement of the school harder. So yeah getting the budget passed is a big deal. If not it hurts a kids future.

**leejo** · 05-16-2008, 09:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sara

Sorry about the top paragraph but your right on one thing. Just recently like a month ago, the school I am working for just had there yearly budget vote. It has been passed for the pass 10 years I have heard. This budget offered better bathrooms, more supplies for teaching, a whole new gym. The budget was not passed so the school will not be working on their bathrooms, I will not be getting more supplies to teach them ie: Might be a textbook, might be a website, and the kids won't be able to play in a new gym. It's make my job harder, the kids life harder and just the overall movement of the school harder. So yeah getting the budget passed is a big deal. If not it hurts a kids future.

I strongly suggest investing in textbooks. Your right about their needing to be sufficient funds For things like competent teachers and safe facilities but I also understand how the administrators might be looking at the decreased tax revenues and conclude that now is not the right time to be cutting state programs left and right while simultaneously building new gyms and bathrooms for third graders when that money might be best invested in ensuring that the children are being educated in things like spelling and learn how to punctuate and avoid run-on sentences.

I don't accept that it hurts a third-grader's future not to have a new gym and potty. I can completely understand how being told that they are in the best school system ever ever, while receiving a crummy education from crummy teachers might hurt a kid's future. First things first.

**Razcsak** · 05-16-2008, 01:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kerostasis

Because I am in a low tax bracket, you are willing to believe that I believe in lower taxes on principle and not out of self interest. Because Leejo is in a higher tax bracket, you assume that he must be in favor of lower tax rates primarily due to self interest instead of principle.

Not entirely true. I did not make the claim that it was entirely due to self interest, just that it, by necessity of his position, was part of his motivation. However, you are correct in that I was unnecessarily hasty.

Leejo, I apologize for that.

Cingular: If that money appeared from nowhere, you'd get inflation, quite simply. If everyone had 5 billion dollars, that 5 billion would be completely useless.

Further, you are again assuming a binary system only. For one thing, having socialized medicine does not lead to a completely socialist society. I am not arguing for switching the United States, or any other political entity, to a socialist system! Adding socialized health care would not suddenly make us "socialist". For another, socialist systems can easily encourage innovation. Health care in Japan is socialized, and they're doing some of the most interesting things with robotic and prosthetic limbs on the market. Much of the US' work on that matter is entirely copied or based off of Japanese research. The few innovative approaches on prosthetics the US is doing comes from defense spending related to the Iraq War.

Tell me, how does a worker in a factory who's working most of his waking hours to feed himself and his family find time to find a better, more innovative way to make more? He doesn't have time. You claim that this is how capitalism works, but I still think the exploitative periods in the early industrial show instead how it simply creates a tiny, horribly rich upper class, relatively small middle class, and then an expansive impoverished class. Movement from one class to the other is quite difficult. In this case, we do have historical precedent for distrusting capitalist systems and their treatment of the poor.

**El_Gringo_Grande** · 05-16-2008, 02:25 PM

What does everybody mean by "socialized medicine"?

If it is simply that the people, as a group, pay for the medical care for everybody then I really don't see the problem on purely ideological level.

We have socialized highways and a socialized military. Not many argue against those things. Space exploration is socialized. Many things are paid by the people for the good of the people.

And when it comes to health care it really doesn't play very well in a free market. It is very hard to decide to remain sick or die, and if it is your child you will not decide that.

It isn't like deciding to buy a big TV and saving up for it.

Dr. Bob: "Your child has appendicitis and needs to be operated on."
Parent: "Well, I think we will wait a couple of months and save up for it. Plus you are charging way to much! I hear that surgery gets cheaper during the fall months."

It doesn't work. The demand really cannot respond to market pressures. So people will pay as much as they can to get well. And doctors/hospitals will charge as much as they can. Add in insurance companies and the people don't even see the dollars flowing out. So insurance raise their rates. And they all raise their rates. The differences between Insurance companies for the same coverage is pretty darn small. What it comes down to many times is unique and creative accounting and policies.

So how do you handle a system where demand is ALWAYS high and getting higher and supply is rather fixed?

You can increase the supply.

You can artificially control the costs associated with high demand/low supply.

You can artificially control demand.

You can increase competition to stimulate new ways of providing the care more efficiently.

You can force those that do not demand the service to contribute resources.

I think the answer to the health care problem is a combination of all the above.

Increase funding to educate/train more doctors/PAs/CNs. And give PAs and CNs more credit and authority.

I like the idea of creating a single payer system that contracts out most of it's work to private or semi private insurance/health maintenance companies. Then require everybody to pay into one of these companies or pay higher taxes (which would be put into the single payer system anyway.)

Everybody is paying into the system anyway, we might as well formalize and control it better.

**luna** · 05-16-2008, 03:14 PM

So...

How about we get back on topic, or create another thread about wealth distribution, socialized medicine and tax brackets?

Kerostasis · 05-16-2008, 03:51 PM

Meh, the original topic was boring. But I wouldnt mind seeing some split-off threads to focus on some of the other topics we've brought up.

**CingularDuality** · 05-16-2008, 03:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by leejo

I strongly suggest investing in textbooks. Your right about their needing to be sufficient funds For things like competent teachers and safe facilities but I also understand how the administrators might be looking at the decreased tax revenues and conclude that now is not the right time to be cutting state programs left and right while simultaneously building new gyms and bathrooms for third graders when that money might be best invested in ensuring that the children are being educated in things like spelling and learn how to punctuate and avoid run-on sentences.

+rep for this post!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Razcsak

Cingular: If that money appeared from nowhere, you'd get inflation, quite simply. If everyone had 5 billion dollars, that 5 billion would be completely useless.

That's absurd. Think about it this way instead, so that you don't confuse the issue with currency, and we'll limit it to a small group of people instead: We're on a small island and there are 5 people. The island has plenty of coconuts, crabs, berries and fish. But only one person knows how to build a fire. The economy that they'll create is fairly obvious: the guy that can build a fire will get to kick back and relax while the others fish, crack coconuts, pick berries and catch crabs. Eventually one of the others might weave a net and catch twice as many fish per hour, and the guy with the fire might agree to teach him how to build a fire for an insane amount of fish.

Anyway, I could go on and on to describe how capitalism encourages innovation and hard work, but I wanted to ask you, what prevents any of those people from simply accumulating more and more economic wealth? Can the coconut guy not simply keep picking more and more coconuts until he has a large enough stockpile that he would never have to work another day in his life? (For the sake of discussion, let's pretend that coconuts won't go bad over time...) Can't everyone work hard enough to do the same? Can't the firemaker make contracts to teach the others how to build fire so that HE never has to work again? The answer is yes. There is nothing that stops EVERYONE from being rich in a capitalist economy, except, perhaps, for personal motivation...

05-15-2008, 09:27 PM	#333 (permalink)
Sara Join Date: May 2008 Location: New Jersey Posts: 153	Re: Obama or Clinton? I have a question to anyone here. What do you think is more important? Economic/War In Iraq, Taxes/Gas Prices, No Child Left Behind/Education. What would you like to see being worked on first in your candidate? I think No Child Left Behind is most important out of them all. Kids are the future of the country and if we want to preserve the future we need these laws. __________________ Me - I'll Just blame bush. Disciple - Bush? Is that some sort of slang for women? - Hahaha I love disciple. btw Bush = worst president ever.

05-15-2008, 10:01 PM	#334 (permalink)
Rob Join Date: Sep 2007 Posts: 143	Re: Obama or Clinton? No Child Left Behind= more money towards education=bigger school sports plexes, better and more modern desks and classrooms, and no better grade of education than there already is. More money in schools will not help education as a whole. __________________ BF2142:\|TG-Irr\|Robb_the2nd Cod 4:\|TG\|Rob

05-16-2008, 02:25 PM	#342 (permalink)
El_Gringo_Grande Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: OKIE HOMY Age: 40 Posts: 2,862	Re: Obama or Clinton? What does everybody mean by "socialized medicine"? If it is simply that the people, as a group, pay for the medical care for everybody then I really don't see the problem on purely ideological level. We have socialized highways and a socialized military. Not many argue against those things. Space exploration is socialized. Many things are paid by the people for the good of the people. And when it comes to health care it really doesn't play very well in a free market. It is very hard to decide to remain sick or die, and if it is your child you will not decide that. It isn't like deciding to buy a big TV and saving up for it. Dr. Bob: "Your child has appendicitis and needs to be operated on." Parent: "Well, I think we will wait a couple of months and save up for it. Plus you are charging way to much! I hear that surgery gets cheaper during the fall months." It doesn't work. The demand really cannot respond to market pressures. So people will pay as much as they can to get well. And doctors/hospitals will charge as much as they can. Add in insurance companies and the people don't even see the dollars flowing out. So insurance raise their rates. And they all raise their rates. The differences between Insurance companies for the same coverage is pretty darn small. What it comes down to many times is unique and creative accounting and policies. So how do you handle a system where demand is ALWAYS high and getting higher and supply is rather fixed? You can increase the supply. You can artificially control the costs associated with high demand/low supply. You can artificially control demand. You can increase competition to stimulate new ways of providing the care more efficiently. You can force those that do not demand the service to contribute resources. I think the answer to the health care problem is a combination of all the above. Increase funding to educate/train more doctors/PAs/CNs. And give PAs and CNs more credit and authority. I like the idea of creating a single payer system that contracts out most of it's work to private or semi private insurance/health maintenance companies. Then require everybody to pay into one of these companies or pay higher taxes (which would be put into the single payer system anyway.) Everybody is paying into the system anyway, we might as well formalize and control it better. __________________ I’m not racists, I have republican friends. Radio show host. - "The essence of tyranny is the denial of complexity". -Jacob Burkhardt - "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds" - Emerson - "People should not be afraid of it's government, government should be afraid of it's People." - Line from V for Vendetta - If software were as unreliable as economic theory, there wouldn't be a plane made of anything other than paper that could get off the ground. Jim Fawcette

05-16-2008, 03:14 PM	#343 (permalink)
luna Join Date: May 2003 Location: Rhode Island Age: 30 Posts: 4,136	Re: Obama or Clinton? So... How about we get back on topic, or create another thread about wealth distribution, socialized medicine and tax brackets? __________________ Resurgent's New Motivational Motto: "Now train harder! Live inside your character! If it dies, YOU DIE! Focus!" Jesus had a soulstone.

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