Adam Smith. Communist

[Sava]

Also, as someone who's made a lot of money off of college kids with disposable income, a system that affords such people even more discretionary funds by way of relieving the crushing burden of debt (from education and health care) is in my best interests. The biggest supporters of socialized systems should be small business owners.

That's why it's hilarious to see such types argue against those policies.

Yes! I want my consumer base to have less money to spend on my goods and services! Because, uhmmm, personal responsibility. Yeah!

As if individuals are Gods and absolutely responsible for everything that happens in life.

[kentonio]

How many people are needed to insure that everyone in the million are getting what they need?

A lot less when those services are planned out to cover everyone, rather than lots of competing services fighting for the same markets.

[The Mad Monk]

x-tory'd

Speaking of which, are you properly sending in State and City sales tax?

[The Mad Monk]

A lot less when those services are planned out to cover everyone, rather than lots of competing services fighting for the same markets.

...which is why socialist economies are thriving.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Proportional taxation with an ethical obligation to philanthropic charitable giving. Yay Adam Smith

[dannubis]

At Ken:

Reg is ignorant by choice.

Very similar to stupid but it has a dose of accountability to it.

[kentonio]

...which is why socialist economies are thriving.

The EU's GDP is higher than the US, what's your point?

It's also quite telling that you consider healthcare to be a market. To us it's a basic human right and imperative.

[regexcellent]

Let's try putting this in a really simple way. Let me know if you're still struggling and I'll provide crayons.

A group of 100 people try and negotiate a contract with a company to supply services. Meanwhile a group of one million people try and negotiate a contract for those same services. Which of those groups would you expect to pay the highest rate per person?

For bonus credits, if those million people are the sole customer of the company, while the group of 100 are one of thousands, which do you think will have the higher leverage when it comes to things like future price negotiations?

The idea of discount pricing only works on a microeconomic level. You have to be a ****ing moron to believe that you can get discount pricing for literally the entire supply of healthcare in the country, plus some more.

[kentonio]

The idea of discount pricing only works on a microeconomic level. You have to be a ****ing moron to believe that you can get discount pricing for literally the entire supply of healthcare in the country.

Which is why a large list of countries not only believe that but actually do that in practice. It's almost like you'd have to be a complete ****ing moron to not believe in something that is actually happening in a multitude of countries.

Here's a nice table for you. In it the WHO rank America at 38th in overall healthcare quality despite being number one in expenditure per capita.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_H...health_systems

[The Mad Monk]

The EU's GDP is higher than the US, what's your point?

It's also quite telling that you consider healthcare to be a market. To us it's a basic human right and imperative.

Did I mention the EU? They haven't gone full socialist for a reason.

[regexcellent]

The EU's GDP is higher than the US, what's your point?

So is the population, what's your point?

It's also quite telling that you consider healthcare to be a market. To us it's a basic human right and imperative.

Maybe it's both! Maybe everyone gets better health care when they pay for it themselves too. You know. Like food. Or shelter. Or water. All of which are more important than healthcare.

[regexcellent]

My food, water, and shelter aren't provided by the government. I can think of a few countries where they did that though, they mostly had "People's Republic" in their names.

I guess what we should take away from this is that the government should provide for free to all citizens all things that are important for life, except for some things that are too important, and people should just fend for themselves on those? As long as the goods and services lie in a happy medium between "critically necessary" and "luxury good" it should be socialized?

[Sava]

an ethical obligation to philanthropic charitable giving

Private charity is a failure in theory and in practice.

[Sava]

My food, water, and shelter aren't provided by the government.

It's likely that every bit of food you eat is subsidized by the government in some way. And unless you only drink bottled water, haha... which itself is probably subsidized in the form of tax breaks for those companies.

Without the government, you'd probably be working in a mine or on some rich man's plantation.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Private charity is a failure in theory and in practice.

Not really.