Debt Rattle July 19 2017
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US photographer MargaretBourke-White on top of the Chrysler Building, NYC 1931 • America Makes China Great Again – People’s Daily (CNBC) • Pent
[See the full post at: Debt Rattle July 19 2017]James McGill Buchanan; another galoot in the long history of galoots, in the short history of the U.S.A..
And yes, his name is new to me.
The Greatest Story Ever Told? The fairy tale that is the history of the U.S..
The Public School system in the U.S., grades 1 – 12, is all about schooling; education is nowhere to be found in that system.So many things wrong with Bilbo, it’s hard to know where to start.
1) The U.S. has universal health care: if you present yourself, you will be served good and hard.
2) Universal Healthcare in the U.S. is also completely illegal and would require a Constitutional amendment to grant proper authority. This has not gone well in many past Amendments.
3) It could be and has been done at the State level, which is already legal and enacted. It also bankrupted all of those states, including RomneyCare in Massachusetts. California discovered this year that providing health care would consume 100% of tax receipts alone.
4) The U.S. already (illegally) provides universal Medicare for the poor or old and forces the States to pay half. In effect, this means that the Upper and lower classes have access to affordable health care while the larger middle class pays for but does not have health care. This is because of points 1, 3, and 4. Perhaps giving health care to those who are not working and productive, but NOT giving health care to hard working and productive people is economically counterproductive?
5) As all health care is already given, hospitals must pay for it. They therefore overcharge clients, which is an open violation of collusion and antitrust laws. This causes the price of health care to get completely divorced from cost, which is divorced from its value or success. The system then literally has no idea how much things cost, how much effort they take, and how much social good they create. Billing therefore becomes irrational with 1,000-fold price discrepancies being common. This is perhaps the single greatest issue in healthcare, not intent to overcharge, but randomly charging as there is complete separation from reality.
6) The 1980 starting point Bilbo points to the U.S. pretty much had 90% private health care. Yet the costs were reasonable and the outcomes good. Why? This seems to undermine his entire argument, as that implies we should go BACK to 1980 structure and AWAY from our foray into socialized national health care. Every step the U.S. has taken toward his Bilbo’s stated goal has increased costs and lowered outcomes. It may have elsewhere as well, as the cost chart of all nations is rising.
7) MMT is a joke the same way that “pretending” health care comes from general receipts is a joke. Printing money is not free, it’s the most regressive tax possible, hitting the poorest and most vulnerable via inflation and economic destruction. Bankrupting the entire government is hardly as he claims, “irrelevant”, as Greece and Spain can attest. After several decades experience with MMT nonsense, we ought to be up to speed. Health care costs what it costs in lives, time, and resources. There is no free money tree.
8) As such, “the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health” cannot possibly be “one of the fundamental rights”. Why? Because to GIVE the highest possible care to every human who asks, they can only take FROM doctors, nurses, caregivers, and taxpayers. You cannot have a fundamental human right to appropriate my work for your “enjoyment”. That’s literally the definition of slavery, which is not a human right. If the society CHOOSES to tax itself to provide that, because we as a people WISH TO, that’s common taxation, but is not a human right to own my money and my life. We must examine the other premises of anyone who thinks these things very, very carefully, as they are very, very dangerous, because:
9) “Once you run a rights agenda then the only sensible health care option is a universal public system.” Yes, once you accept a false premise, horrors are indeed possible which seem good indeed at first. He says “If all available real resources are being fully utilised then to expand their use in one area requires another area(s) give up its (their) claim on those resources.” Quite so, and once it is a human right, we can legally take 100% of all other social resources, and you MUST do so when your stated goal is to provide the “Highest possible” level of care to 100% of the citizens. This thinking quickly leaves nothing for any other purpose: economic progress, research, defense, food. Since it is a human right, we must sacrifice those things and those people. By now a child can see you have a false premise running. Stop.Need more?
10) “There is no revenue constraint…government checks don’t bounce.” Really? How’s that working out in Greece, Venezuela, or even Spain, France and the U.K.? They’re governments, why do they appear to have revenue constraints, even at threat of complete collapse? Maybe once we have Mad Max gangs running down sugar trucks on the open highway, in Mexico and Caracas there is a constraint? Maybe also long before this point, a high level of health care is also not being provided?
11) “Any attempt to link the two via erroneous concepts” [i.e. money and the real world] is crazy and unnecessary according to Bilbo. Are we far enough into the weeds to stop listening to him yet? That there are no physical constraints, no limit of wishful resources, but that we dream of them, write them on a (legal) paper and they magically exist? This thinking would put Robespierre to shame, and has already killed more people worldwide.I wouldn’t be so harsh, but the longer we all remain inside a psychotic break, divorced from reality, the harder it is to address the difficult and necessary work of allocating fair and appropriate real resources, with real constraints, to help real, actual citizens. Bilbo is provably a maniac and I would have him institutionalized for his own safety if I could. Otherwise, he might decide there’s no longer a physical constraint of “gravity” or “automobiles” and jump in front of one. Instead, he’s trying to push us in front of one instead. Good heavens.
I’m having a hard time with calls for single payer / universal care on a website predicating itself on the need to downsize, to go local, and to strive for greater measures of self-sufficiency at the community level. I sometimes wonder if TAE finds globalism attractive, but with the very next level of economic and political control reduced to the plantation. No countries, states or counties to challenge our globalist Lords, just us serfs in little communities striving to feed ourselves. Not making an accusation here, but merely hoping for a greater appearance of consistency.
Of course, in a globalist world, we’ll ALL be planting GMO crops. Sooner or later, as part of a five year plan.
From Jim Rickards:
“The science of climate change is a sticky topic, but we don’t have to dive into it for our purposes. It’s enough to know that climate change is a convenient platform for world money and world taxation.
“That’s because climate change does not respect national borders. If you have a global problem, then you can justify global solutions. A global tax plan to pay for global climate change infrastructure with world money is the end game.
“Don’t think that climate change is unrelated to the international monetary system. Christine Lagarde almost never gives a speech on finance without mentioning climate change. The same is true for other monetary elites. They know that climate change is their path to global financial control.”
Disblo and Diogenes,
I think you both approach the subject with too much commitment to an ideological position. I think this is a mistake. I think the focus should be on what actually works. I have lived in the US, Austria and Korea. The US system is a complete disaster in my opinion, and the sooner the whole system implodes, the better. Then we can finally start with a new foundation. The Austrian system is a hybrid system. There is univeral health care, but there is also an overlapping private system that gives you more choices. And if you don’t want to wait in the doctor’s office for more than an hour, with private insurance you can cut to the front of the line. Everyone gets basic care, but it’s not a purely socialist system. The Korean system relies on price controls. If you are on the government plan, it only costs $3 for a doctor office visit. Some procedures like an ultrasound will cost closer to $50. An MRI will be about $400. A two week stay in the hospital will be about $2000 in a shared room. If you are a visiting foreigner not on the government plan, the prices are higher but still reasonable. Care is good quality and affordable. There is also private insurance, but most people just rely on the government plan. Almost everyone likes the system except the hospitals and the doctors. But there are still plenty of qualified people eager to become doctors. Both systems work 1000x better that the US system and give good care without pushing middle class people into bankruptcy. Kunstler is spot on that the US system is one big racket. Single payer raises obvious ideological issues, but it would work much better for most people. I can understand why hospital, insurance and pharmaceutical executives want to keep yhe system just as it is.
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