My nephew denied a job because of Obamacare!

[buckshot24]

I suspect you are massively overestimating the change in prices. But I could be wrong, and you may only be substantially overestimating them.

I'm not sure how much prices will increase but for people who are on shoestring budgets any increase will hurt them.

This isn't even an argument.

Its more a statement of fact as you seem to be implying that without health care insurance people are simply going to drop dead but if they get it they won't.

This is the closest thing you have to an argument so far, but let's understand the difference:

Transit is a relatively stable uncontroversial public good. Transit has a relatively broad funding model, and a lot of uses besides 'commuting'. The price of transit (to the user) does not change depending on income.

How does this change the fact that the government is subsidizing their employees transportation to and from their job?

No, McDonald's should decide for McDonald's how best to operate. 'We the people' get to define the 'state of the world' in which all businesses (including our own) must operate.

It's a simple question. Is it better for McDonald's to hire the 40 year old poor person or to not hire them at all? Which outcome is better for society and for the man?

I almost spit out my coffee reading that gem. I'm not sure you want to look down that rabbit-hole.

I wouldn't mind.

 

[buckshot24]

Yeh, that's why we have agricultural subsidies, govt built irrigation & flood control, FDA inspectors & food stamps, because the sacred Free Market takes care of everything.

You mean we have government programs therefore we have problems in a market? Politicians would never start a program we don't really need would they?

Big government shouldn't be used as evidence that we need big government.

 

[Jhhnn]

How does government subsidies for individual health care get funding? Taxes. Do employers pay taxes? Yes.

Are taxes adequate to cover it? Or should we just borrow to do so?

Are you suggesting raising taxes to support single payer healthcare, the method used by nearly all of the rest of the First World??

 

[buckshot24]

Are taxes adequate to cover it? Or should we just borrow to do so?

Are you suggesting raising taxes to support single payer healthcare, the method used by nearly all of the rest of the First World??

The money that is paid to subsidize the transit companies is borrowed.

 

[Jhhnn]

You mean we have government programs therefore we have problems in a market? Politicians would never start a program we don't really need would they?

Big government shouldn't be used as evidence that we need big government.

And "Small Govt" raving isn't reason to have small govt, either. It's just an emotionally driven assumption made by Righties' eager consumption of propaganda.

We had small govt prior to the obvious need for meat inspectors revealed by Sinclair Lewis 100 years ago. We had small govt in the 1920's, which led to overproduction of food & prices too low to make harvesting economically feasible, also to the over cultivation of fragile ecosystems, creating the Dustbowl. We had small govt in the crash of 1929, so when financialized capitalism collapsed in the wake of over extension of credit, it collapsed very hard indeed w/o govt employment to stabilize it. We had small govt in the age of quackerific patent medicines & beauty supplies. We had small govt in the age of the Robber Barons, too. We had small govt when rivers catching on fire was routine, and when some were devoid of aquatic life due to pollution.

We can bring back all that joy just by doing what Righties propose so ardently...

 

[buckshot24]

Jhhhn, saying you want a smaller government isn't saying that we want anarchy.

 

[Jhhnn]

The money that is paid to subsidize the transit companies is borrowed.

That's not entirely true. Metro Denver's Regional Transportation District derives its funding primarily from sales tax & fares, also from Federal grants. It's funded less by borrowing than, say, our bloated military.

 

[Jhhnn]

Jhhhn, saying you want a smaller government isn't saying that we want anarchy.

Heh. None of the examples are examples of Anarchy. It's not like we had Anarchy prior to the Progressive movement or the New Deal, just the small govt that righties yearn to recreate.

 

[buckshot24]

Heh. None of the examples are examples of Anarchy. It's not like we had Anarchy prior to the Progressive movement or the New Deal, just the small govt that righties yearn to recreate.

I don't want any of those things to happen. You're wrong.

 

[Jhhnn]

I don't want any of those things to happen.

I believe that. OTOH, you remain quite blind to the law of unintended consequences. Policy errors & weak enforcement will inevitably be exploited by the callous & greedy who always seek to privatize profit & socialize costs.

You're wrong.

History has shown that I'm right. History repeats itself when we let it.

 

[Juror No. 8]

We had small govt prior to the obvious need for meat inspectors revealed by Sinclair Lewis 100 years ago.

And how has that worked out? It's 100 years later, and we still have deplorable conditions and animal abuse inside meat-packing plants, along with frequent cases of food poisonings and recalls due to unsafe meat.

Those government meat inspectors really solved that problem! LOL!

We had small govt in the 1920's, which led to overproduction of food & prices too low to make harvesting economically feasible, also to the over cultivation of fragile ecosystems, creating the Dustbowl.

Oh no! Low food prices! How terrible! Let's get the government involved and make food prices artificially high! Yes! We'll even have the government destroy food crops if too much is produced!

Problem solved again!

We had small govt in the crash of 1929, so when financialized capitalism collapsed in the wake of over extension of credit, it collapsed very hard indeed w/o govt employment to stabilize it.

You mean the same crash that occurred under the watch of the government-created Federal Reserve System? You mean the same Federal Reserve System that increased the money supply throughout the 20s leading to a huge artificial boom? You mean the same Federal Reserve System that then quickly contracted the money supply over a very short period of time, leaving millions of people to the fate of bankruptcy?

How is it considered "small government" when the government creates a massive banking cartel with a money creation and credit monopoly that has the power to expand and contract the money supply as it wishes?

We had small govt in the age of quackerific patent medicines & beauty supplies.

And now we have a big government that sanctions the killing of hundreds of thousands of people each year due to the poisonous drug offerings of Big Pharma.

Woohoo, problem solved!

We had small govt in the age of the Robber Barons, too.

You mean the same robber barons who still exist under Big Government? You mean the same robber barons who can now exert even more influence under Big Government than little government?

We had small govt when rivers catching on fire was routine, and when some were devoid of aquatic life due to pollution.

Yes, and Big Government solved that whole pollution and aquatic life problem in the Gulf of Mexico (BP oil spill) and Prince William Sound (Exxon Valdez), eh?

Big Government to the rescue!

 

[Jhhnn]

And how has that worked out? It's 100 years later, and we still have deplorable conditions and animal abuse inside meat-packing plants, along with frequent cases of food poisonings and recalls due to unsafe meat.

Those government meat inspectors really solved that problem! LOL!

Oh no! Low food prices! How terrible! Let's get the government involved and make food prices artificially high! Yes! We'll even have the government destroy food crops if too much is produced!

Problem solved again!

You mean the same crash that occurred under the watch of the government-created Federal Reserve System? You mean the same Federal Reserve System that increased the money supply throughout the 20s leading to a huge artificial boom? You mean the same Federal Reserve System that then quickly contracted the money supply over a very short period of time, leaving millions of people to the fate of bankruptcy?

How is it considered "small government" when the government creates a massive banking cartel with a money creation and credit monopoly that has the power to expand and contract the money supply as it wishes?

And now we have a big government that sanctions the killing of hundreds of thousands of people each year due to the poisonous drug offerings of Big Pharma.

Woohoo, problem solved!

You mean the same robber barons who still exist under Big Government? You mean the same robber barons who can now exert even more influence under Big Government than little government?

Yes, and Big Government solved that whole pollution and aquatic life problem in the Gulf of Mexico (BP oil spill) and Prince William Sound (Exxon Valdez), eh?

Big Government to the rescue!

Gawd you're lame.

The perfect is the enemy of the good, something you attitude proves entirely.

The meat packing industry is vastly improved over what it was 100 years ago.

When farm prices are too low, producers won't bring them to market to lose money selling them.

The FRB got it wrong in 1929, but they got it right in 2008.

Drugs are safer today than at any point in the past, despite your incoherent raving.

Aquatic life has returned to many dead rivers & streams while air quality in this country has improved radically, particularly in places like Denver, where I live.

Under your Libertopian fantasy, none of that would have happened.

 

[3chordcharlie]

I'm not sure how much prices will increase but for people who are on shoestring budgets any increase will hurt them.

Its more a statement of fact as you seem to be implying that without health care insurance people are simply going to drop dead but if they get it they won't.

I said people wouldn't die anymore?

I assumed you would take the position as intended. In aggregate, people die without health care, who would not with health care. People also recover from injuries and illness (and return to being productive), who would not otherwise recover.

How does this change the fact that the government is subsidizing their employees transportation to and from their job?

Transit and roads are pretty much the case-study for public goods that work, and benefit all involved, well above and beyond their cost. Health Care could be structured the same way, but it isn't, and the incoming system isn't structured that way either. On the surface the comparison is reasonable. In detail it is not a good comparison for the reasons I already explained.

It's a simple question. Is it better for McDonald's to hire the 40 year old poor person or to not hire them at all? Which outcome is better for society and for the man?

That's actually a good question, when you are asking about an individual. When you are talking about society as a whole, there's little benefit to people working for less than it takes to keep them alive. Are businesses founded on the need for employees who live in poverty really providing value to society, regardless of their balance sheet?

Note that one of the key arguments for a free market is that 'everyone is better off'. But here we end up breaking the assumption of voluntary un-coerced behavior, at a minimum.

I wouldn't mind.

You should do some reading; I don't mind arguing with you about the things I do understand, but the twisted up world 'market' (I use the term loosely) for food, the myriad of subsidies, etc is too much for an internet post. I know enough that I will say this: Food cannot be evidence that an open market works, because it is probably the farthest thing in the world from an open market.

 

[buckshot24]

I said people wouldn't die anymore?

I assumed you would take the position as intended. In aggregate, people die without health care, who would not with health care. People also recover from injuries and illness (and return to being productive), who would not otherwise recover.

What percentage do you think will die if they don't have HCI (health care insurance) when they would have otherwise. Since one of the main benefit you cite are that dead employees don't show up to work. (paraphrasing)

My generous guess is 0.1% maybe. So one out of 1000. That's a big increase in business cost to save 1 out of 1000 of your employees. Remember this has nothing to do with morality but is purely economical so please lets keep the outrage to a minimum.

Transit and roads are pretty much the case-study for public goods that work, and benefit all involved, well above and beyond their cost. Health Care could be structured the same way, but it isn't, and the incoming system isn't structured that way either. On the surface the comparison is reasonable. In detail it is not a good comparison for the reasons I already explained.

You didn't really explain anything you just made some statements. To be honest I had no idea what you were trying to say. Are you saying employers aren't freeloading by having employees that use public transit or not?

That's actually a good question, when you are asking about an individual. When you are talking about society as a whole, there's little benefit to people working for less than it takes to keep them alive.

The choices are simple. McDonalds or Taco Bell can simply refuse to hire adults who are low skilled or are in a transitional phase of their lives. As far as I'm concerned them having no job is worse than having a low paying one wouldn't you think? Society is filled with individual cases and if it is better for individuals to have some form of employment vs being totally unemployed it seems that society would be better off as well.

Are businesses founded on the need for employees who live in poverty really providing value to society, regardless of their balance sheet?

Yeah if they alleviate the need for subsidization from tax payers.

Note that one of the key arguments for a free market is that 'everyone is better off'. But here we end up breaking the assumption of voluntary un-coerced behavior, at a minimum.

I don't follow you.

You should do some reading; I don't mind arguing with you about the things I do understand, but the twisted up world 'market' (I use the term loosely) for food, the myriad of subsidies, etc is too much for an internet post. I know enough that I will say this: Food cannot be evidence that an open market works, because it is probably the farthest thing in the world from an open market.

Yes, there are subsidies on both ends of the market. I wouldn't say it is evidence of free markets just that there are more market forces involved with food production and consumption than there are in the current health care industry.

 

[buckshot24]

Aquatic life has returned to many dead rivers & streams while air quality in this country has improved radically, particularly in places like Denver, where I live.

Under your Libertopian fantasy, none of that would have happened.

Even libertarians favor government oversight of environmental issues.

 

[Juror No. 8]

The meat packing industry is vastly improved over what it was 100 years ago.

LOL, improved how, exactly? The meat packing industry used to be comprised of hundreds of much smaller competitors. Now it's completely dominated by a handful of gigantic, consolidated megacorporations who have the influence and deep pockets to buy up favor with the politicians and federal regulators.

So how is that an improvement?

When farm prices are too low, producers won't bring them to market to lose money selling them.

Nice non sequitur.

The FRB got it wrong in 1929, but they got it right in 2008.

No, the Federal Reserve got it wrong both times by lowering interest rates below a safe rate of equilibrium, creating too much cheap money, expanding the money supply, and distorting the markets. Unsustainable economic bubbles were the result each time.

Drugs are safer today than at any point in the past, despite your incoherent raving.

LOL, is that why prescription drugs now kill more Americans than both motor vehicle accidents and firearms?

Boy, those drugs sure sound safe!

Aquatic life has returned to many dead rivers & streams while air quality in this country has improved radically, particularly in places like Denver, where I live.

Sure, but only at the cost of decent manufacturing jobs and productive capacity. Now those jobs and the manufacturing capacity are in Mexico, India, and China, along with the pollution it creates. In other words, they get our steady high paying jobs, and the pollution just gets exported from one place to another.

Under your Libertopian fantasy, none of that would have happened.

Well, considering the fact that I just blew your answers up, that sounds good to me!

 

[3chordcharlie]

What percentage do you think will die if they don't have HCI (health care insurance) when they would have otherwise. Since one of the main benefit you cite are that dead employees don't show up to work. (paraphrasing)

My generous guess is 0.1% maybe. So one out of 1000. That's a big increase in business cost to save 1 out of 1000 of your employees. Remember this has nothing to do with morality but is purely economical so please lets keep the outrage to a minimum.

Sick/injured employees don't show up either. Employees with sick children, etc. You're also taking my statement significantly out of context. Since you've so smugly thrown my words back at me, you can ahead and read them again, in context.

You didn't really explain anything you just made some statements. To be honest I had no idea what you were trying to say. Are you saying employers aren't freeloading by having employees that use public transit or not?

I know you think you've had an "aha!" moment here... The short answer to your question is "Not particularly".

It's pretty funny to be accused of not answering a question by you, in this thread. BTW I answered it the first time you raised it.

The choices are simple. McDonalds or Taco Bell can simply refuse to hire adults who are low skilled or are in a transitional phase of their lives.

LOL!! How is McDOnald's planning to operate without these folks?

As far as I'm concerned them having no job is worse than having a low paying one wouldn't you think? Society is filled with individual cases and if it is better for individuals to have some form of employment vs being totally unemployed it seems that society would be better off as well.

Yes, society is filled with individuals. No, your statement does not follow from this fact. There's some math involved. Or you could watch the bar scene from 'A Beautiful Mind' and maybe get it, a bit.

Yeah if they alleviate the need for subsidization from tax payers.

I don't follow you.

You don't follow me because you don't understand the mechanics of the free markets you say you believe in.

Yes, there are subsidies on both ends of the market. I wouldn't say it is evidence of free markets just that there are more market forces involved with food production and consumption than there are in the current health care industry.

Even that may be too generous Buckshot. Just go back and pick a better example of a life-critical 'good' that is well-distributed by a relatively open market. This may not be overly easy to find, but I guarantee that food ain't it.

 

[Jhhnn]

LOL, improved how, exactly? The meat packing industry used to be comprised of hundreds of much smaller competitors. Now it's completely dominated by a handful of gigantic, consolidated megacorporations who have the influence and deep pockets to buy up favor with the politicians and federal regulators.

So how is that an improvement?

The quality of their products has improved.

Nice non sequitur.

Not at all. That's what happened in 1929. Reference the Grapes of Wrath. American farmers, even back then, had he ability to farm themselves right out of any profit. When demand fell, prices plunged precipitously from an already depressed level. Crops were left to rot in the field even as millions went hungry. Quotas, subsidies & soil conservation efforts (removing land from production) have created a steady & sustainable level of price & production form the New Deal forward.

No, the Federal Reserve got it wrong both times by lowering interest rates below a safe rate of equilibrium, creating too much cheap money, expanding the money supply, and distorting the markets. Unsustainable economic bubbles were the result each time.

Hogwash. Interest rates were above 5% in 1929, and did not return to that level until the mid 1960's-

http://www.glencoe.com/sec/socialstudies/economics/econprinciples2001/pdfs/EM-17C-870487.pdf

LOL, is that why prescription drugs now kill more Americans than both motor vehicle accidents and firearms?

Boy, those drugs sure sound safe!

Cite your source, and try to remember that medicines of the patent medicine era contained ingredients like radium, mercury, belladonna, opiates & cocaine, to name a few.

Sure, but only at the cost of decent manufacturing jobs and productive capacity. Now those jobs and the manufacturing capacity are in Mexico, India, and China, along with the pollution it creates. In other words, they get our steady high paying jobs, and the pollution just gets exported from one place to another.

Labor costs are the main reason for offshoring, independent of environmental concerns entirely.

Well, considering the fact that I just blew your answers up, that sounds good to me!

Only in your Libertopian fantasies.

 

[buckshot24]

Sick/injured employees don't show up either. Employees with sick children, etc. You're also taking my statement significantly out of context. Since you've so smugly thrown my words back at me, you can ahead and read them again, in context.

I'm not sure if it was you or that eskimo dude or maybe Jhhhhn who said that I must be for people dying in the streets or something to that effect. Death has been a large part of the rhetoric in this thread. I'm not so sure that I took it out of context. If you were just being hyperbolic then I apologize.

I honestly don't know and I am sincerely asking you this. Are there any concrete numbers of work days missed due to illness between those who have HCI and those who do not? I would think that the differences are minimal. I could be wrong of course.

If there isn't a huge difference in productivity between an employee with HCI vs one without how could the employer be freeloading by not offering something where the ROI just isn't there? We're talking numbers here not morality so you can't say it isn't right or wrong.

I know you think you've had an "aha!" moment here... The short answer to your question is "Not particularly".

It's pretty funny to be accused of not answering a question by you, in this thread. BTW I answered it the first time you raised it.

Yeah you did, or at least you wrote some stuff but I didn't know what your point was. Could you reiterate that for me?

LOL!! How is McDOnald's planning to operate without these folks?

Aren't they freeloading?

Yes, society is filled with individuals. No, your statement does not follow from this fact. There's some math involved. Or you could watch the bar scene from 'A Beautiful Mind' and maybe get it, a bit.

If poor jobs are better than no jobs isn't it better that working poor people have at least some money coming in? By better I mean for society.

You don't follow me because you don't understand the mechanics of the free markets you say you believe in.

I just don't know who stopped making an uncoerced choice in your statement.

Even that may be too generous Buckshot. Just go back and pick a better example of a life-critical 'good' that is well-distributed by a relatively open market. This may not be overly easy to find, but I guarantee that food ain't it.

Fair enough.

 

[Juror No. 8]

The quality of their products has improved.

LOL, only a moron would argue this. The majority of the beef raised for slaughter today is injected with synthetic hormones, among other things. Compare this to the beef raised previously, which was raised all natural.

Really, which would you rather eat?

Not at all. That's what happened in 1929. Reference the Grapes of Wrath. American farmers, even back then, had he ability to farm themselves right out of any profit. When demand fell, prices plunged precipitously from an already depressed level. Crops were left to rot in the field even as millions went hungry. Quotas, subsidies & soil conservation efforts (removing land from production) have created a steady & sustainable level of price & production form the New Deal forward.

Meanwhile, millions are still going hungry, even with all that Big Government and farming subsidies.

That worked out real well, huh?

Hogwash. Interest rates were above 5% in 1929, and did not return to that level until the mid 1960's-

http://www.glencoe.com/sec/socialstudies/economics/econprinciples2001/pdfs/EM-17C-870487.pdf

LOL, your own link proves what I said. Look at the line on the graph throughout the 1920s and what do you see, Stevie Wonder? Declining interest rates! Cheap money! Look how low interest rates were in 1929 right before the crash!

Can you say, "ooops"?

Cite your source, and try to remember that medicines of the patent medicine era contained ingredients like radium, mercury, belladonna, opiates & cocaine, to name a few.

Here's one:

Car accidents are no longer the number one cause of accidental deaths in the United States. Drug poisoning is now top of the leaderboard of the ways we kill ourselves by mistake -- specifically, with prescription painkillers. A recent report, from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Centre for Health Statistics, cites analgesic pain relievers such as OxyContin and Vicodin as the main culprits, more than cocaine and heroin combined. From 1999 to 2008, poisoning deaths increased 90 percent, while deaths from car accidents fell by 15 percent.

http://now.msn.com/painkillers-now-more-likely-to-kill-you-than-a-car

Drugs kill far more people today than they did a hundred years ago, and it's not even close.

Labor costs are the main reason for offshoring, independent of environmental concerns entirely.

Nonsense, labor costs are a factor, as well as various forms of regulations (environmental, union/labor, taxes, etc...), all courtesy of Big Government.

Only in your Libertopian fantasies.

What, as opposed to your Communist fantasies?

Sure, absolutely!

​

 

[xj0hnx]

I'm making a practical argument. If you run a business that requires employees, you need those employees to show up. If they die, they don't show up. If they live only because the Government paid to treat them, you are a freeloader.

That is a complete, and utter 100% load of bullshit. Employees need to get to work, are employers "freeloading" because Timmy's mom and dad bought him a car, and gave him a gas card? You don't get to just pick and choose a facet of people's lives and assign responsibility of it to someone just because it fits your world view.

 

[3chordcharlie]

That is a complete, and utter 100% load of bullshit. Employees need to get to work, are employers "freeloading" because Timmy's mom and dad bought him a car, and gave him a gas card? You don't get to just pick and choose a facet of people's lives and assign responsibility of it to someone just because it fits your world view.

You completely and entirely do not understand what freeloading means from an economic perspective, and if you do, then you are engaging in pointless rhetoric to rationalize your own world view.

Cheers.

 

[xj0hnx]

You completely and entirely do not understand what freeloading means from an economic perspective, and if you do, then you are engaging in pointless rhetoric to rationalize your own world view.

Cheers.

I understand it, and it's still retard making that argument.

 

[3chordcharlie]

I understand it, and it's still retard making that argument.

It's always possible that I'm wrong.

But no, the argument isn't retarded. Or perhaps that's simply your usual mode of 'argument'. It might be 'fun' but it isn't effective. Heightened rhetoric is a natural outcome of sitting behind a keyboard, but if you're not going to put in any effort at all, why waste your time and mine?

 

[Ausm]

You mean we have government programs therefore we have problems in a market? Politicians would never start a program we don't really need would they?

Big government shouldn't be used as evidence that we need big government.

Tell that to the Rightists who are on a Jihad to get in every woman's vagina.