Socialized medicine's inevitable death panels

[subversive science]

[Seth]

[

If society really worked this way then the poorest among us, who work multiple back-breaking jobs, would be the richest. Instead, those who have wealth accumulate more wealth, while the poorest toil ever harder for less and less. This was the case before increased government regulations, the advent of unions, etc. The fiscal and regulatory policy of the US over the past few decades is returning us to the "Libertarian paradise" that we saw before the Great Depression by redistributing wealth to the top of the income ladder.

Complete nonsense.

People get paid what their labor is worth and what they agree it's worth. If they want more, they need to learn to do more valuable work and do it better than anyone else.

This is a Pollyanna-ish view of the way the world works.

No, it's a precisely accurate view of the way the world works. Now it is true that people don't generally get paid what they THINK or WISH they are worth, but they do get paid what they actually are worth on the open market for labor. Now maybe they get a little more or a little less than someone else in the same sort of job due to inadequate negotiating skills or local economic circumstances, but it is nonetheless true that the invisible hand of commerce affects (an unrestrained) labor market in exactly the same way that supply and demand regulate the price of goods. Workers are selling their "goods" to the employer, nothing more.

People are nowhere as mobile through the strata of society as you suggest. Inherent inequities prevent the average person from just "...[learning] to do more valuable work..."

"Inherent inequities?" Like what? Is worker A better at doing job X than worker Y? If yes, he produces more value and can therefore command a higher compensation for his product. If no, he produces less value and can therefore not command such a high price. The absolute physical value of the labor to do work X is entirely irrelevant. Doesn't matter if it's digging ditches or picking onions or negotiating billion-dollar business deals, each worker is in competition with the other workers in his industry, just as each product is in competition with other similar products in the marketplace.

The fact that the stoop-labor farm worker picking onions is not as valuable in absolute money terms as the arbitrager who generates billions in profits is not an "inherent inequity" anywhere but in the fevered imagination of MUIs.

The guy on the assembly line who tightens the bolts on the motor mounts of the Chevy Volt does not input enough labor value to the finished product for him to justly claim an equal share of the profits realized from the sale of the car. His value to the owner of the company is his skill in turning bolts, which is a relatively low-skill job that literally almost anyone can do with a minimal amount of training. Therefore the value of that labor is small as compared to, say, the design engineer whose expertise and skills in designing cars that people find attractive and will therefore buy. So the compensation for the engineer's labor is justifiably much higher because his labor inputs far more value to the final product than the bolt-turner's does. This is not an "inherent inequity," it's a simple fact of both physics and economics.

But the bolt-turner can, if he has the ability and the drive, go to night school and learn how to do engineering and design and then market those skills for a higher price. That he may not be physically, mentally or emotionally suited to either learning or practicing engineering design is not an "inherent inequity," it's simply a fact of life. Some people have better skills, more intelligence, greater drive and even better fortune than others. They may be better looking, which according to science, substantially enhances their likelihood of economic success. They may come from a wealthy family that could pay for a top-notch education.

None of those things are "inherent inequities," they are all facts of life. Everybody cannot be exactly "equal" in every respect. It's impossible. The bell curve theory dictates that there will be people at the high end of the economic success scale and people at the low end, and people in the middle (which must be why they are called the "middle class"), and that social and economic stratification occurs in every single human society on earth that has ever existed, and it will continue to do so forever, in spite of the idiotic Marxist "is/ought" fallacy that everybody must be made equal through government interference.

So what "inherent inequities" are you referring to, pray tell?

Also, work is not valued on contribution or worth, but on the money that it produces.

Wrong. The money that labor produces is the measure of both contribution and worth. If labor X adds value C to product A, and labor Y adds value C+C to product A, then the value of labor X is C-COGS-P, and the value of labor Y is C+C-COGS-P. If worker 1 requires time G to perform labor X, and worker 2 requires time G+G to perform labor X, then worker 2's contribution is worth C/2.

Simple math at work here my friend, simple math.

The fallacy that Marxism engages in it's valuation of labor and contribution is the "apples and oranges" fallacy. You see, markets operate on math, but Marxists want them to operate on social values. Unfortunately (for Marxists...not the rest of us) that's not how the world operates, and saying that labor X is worth C+abstract social values is mixing apples and oranges. Labor is worth what it's worth on the open market, and the math that determines what labor is worth is driven by the unstoppable force of commerce in fact. Commerce in idealistic wish has nothing to do with anything.

[Seth]

[

If society really worked this way then the poorest among us, who work multiple back-breaking jobs, would be the richest. Instead, those who have wealth accumulate more wealth, while the poorest toil ever harder for less and less. This was the case before increased government regulations, the advent of unions, etc. The fiscal and regulatory policy of the US over the past few decades is returning us to the "Libertarian paradise" that we saw before the Great Depression by redistributing wealth to the top of the income ladder.

Complete nonsense.

People get paid what their labor is worth and what they agree it's worth. If they want more, they need to learn to do more valuable work and do it better than anyone else.

This is a Pollyanna-ish view of the way the world works. People are nowhere as mobile through the strata of society as you suggest. Inherent inequities prevent the average person from just "...[learning] to do more valuable work..." Also, work is not valued on contribution or worth, but on the money that it produces.

Yeah, this is simple stuff, the kind of stuff that libbo's either don't get or, as I suspect, do get but refuse to accept it as it smashes their invisible hand of the market world view.

Reported as a personal attack by group reference!

[pErvinalia]

I didn't even attack libbo's this time. You should just report me for being me.

[subversive science]

There is no such thing as "the free market" in practice.

[Seth]

[

If society really worked this way then the poorest among us, who work multiple back-breaking jobs, would be the richest. Instead, those who have wealth accumulate more wealth, while the poorest toil ever harder for less and less. This was the case before increased government regulations, the advent of unions, etc. The fiscal and regulatory policy of the US over the past few decades is returning us to the "Libertarian paradise" that we saw before the Great Depression by redistributing wealth to the top of the income ladder.

Complete nonsense.

People get paid what their labor is worth and what they agree it's worth. If they want more, they need to learn to do more valuable work and do it better than anyone else.

Yeah, coz there's no distortion in the marketplace with wealth imbalance effectively seeing people born into a life of poverty and servitude.

Well, nobody said life is fair, or easy. That's precisely the problem with Marxism, it defies nature and human behavior by trying to make life "fair" and everybody "equal," which simply cannot happen. It's physically impossible for it to happen. This makes Marxism, and it's intermediate spawn Socialism, complete idiocy.

People lift THEMSELVES out of poverty and servitude because they choose to not be servants living in poverty. Reconstruction-era difficulties after the Civil War amply demonstrated that just making slaves free isn't always in their best social and economic interests.

Mexicans flock to the US, often undertaking one of the most perilous and arduous journeys one can find, where a good many of them die in the attempt because they CHOOSE not to remain bound by poverty and servitude, not because the government says "Hey, everybody, head north!"

There are just too many examples of poverty-stricken and underprivileged people who have taken the bull by the horns and made enormous economic and social successes for me to accept for one second that "distortions in the marketplace" can be rationally used as an excuse for enslaving the productive class to the service of the dependent class.

All government intervention that creates this servitude by the productive class does is breed sloth and dependency in the dependent class that keeps expanding and rendering them more and more helpless and less and less able to drag themselves out of the gutter. And the Marxists in our government know this, and it is a part of the plan of Marxism to use health care as a tool of control over a sixth of the economy as a way to bind more and more people to dependency on the government, which enhances the power and control of the Marxist elite. Marxists have known for a century that government control of health care is, next to government control of food sources, perhaps the most potent proletarian control mechanism that exists because it trades in the fear of getting sick. The entire health care insurance industry thrives on fearmongering and subtle threats to people's health in order to sell insurance, and Obamacare does exactly what Hitler did with Krupp Steel and other big industry in Weimar Germany prior to WWII; it tells private industry, "If you are obedient and subservient to our political objectives of controlling health care, you will be permitted to continue to make a profit. But if you balk at our ultimate Marxist political objective, you will either be destroyed outright or you will be seized by government under the guise of national emergency and you will lose everything to nationalization."

It's classic liberal fascism.

[Seth]

There is no such thing as "the free market" in practice.

Sure there is. It's just buried under too many layers of Marxist/Progressive manipulation and bullshit to work properly.

[subversive science]

There is no such thing as "the free market" in practice.

Sure there is. It's just buried under too many layers of Marxist/Progressive manipulation and bullshit to work properly.

Something is always going to tip the scales. The invisible hand tips them in the direction of the privileged.

[Azathoth]

Look at these young entrepeneurs. They are pulling themselves up by their bootstraps and will be millionaires in no time with the free market forces at their disposal. I dont know what all you pinkos are whining about.

[Seth]

There is no such thing as "the free market" in practice.

Sure there is. It's just buried under too many layers of Marxist/Progressive manipulation and bullshit to work properly.

Something is always going to tip the scales. The invisible hand tips them in the direction of the privileged.

No, it tips them in favor of those with entrepreneurial acumen and drive. "Privilege" is just a by-product.

[Seth]

Look at these young entrepeneurs. They are pulling themselves up by their bootstraps and will be millionaires in no time with the free market forces at their disposal. I dont know what all you pinkos are whining about.

Well, they aren't sitting around on their asses in an air-conditioned apartment watching a flat-screen TV talking on their Obamaphone and bitching about how "the man" is keeping them down are they?

Nope, they've got the entrepreneurial spirit I spoke of, and they have a far better chance at economic success that most of the dependent-class ghetto-dwelling welfare leeches we have around here do. I find that highly respectable. Those kids are worthy of my labor and property, which is why I voluntarily donate to various third-world relief efforts. Look Ma! No government coercion!

Besides, nobody said life is fair...or easy.

[subversive science]

Besides, nobody said life is fair...or easy.

I know. Poor rich people are forced to pair their less-than-fair share in taxes by the big bad government.

[Seth]

Besides, nobody said life is fair...or easy.

I know. Poor rich people are forced to pair their less-than-fair share in taxes by the big bad government.

What is their "fair share" exactly, and what calculations and rationalizations do you use in determining what that share is, pray tell?

I've heard many the socialist say that the rich don't pay their "fair share," in spite of the fact that the top 10 percent of taxpayers pay 68% of the taxes:

The latest data show that a big portion of the federal income tax burden is shoul­dered by a small group of the very richest Americans. The wealthiest 1 percent of the population earn 19 per­cent of the income but pay 37 percent of the income tax. The top 10 percent pay 68 percent of the tab. Meanwhile, the bottom 50 percent—those below the median income level—now earn 13 percent of the income but pay just 3 percent of the taxes. These are proportions of the income tax alone and don’t include payroll taxes for Social Security and Medicare.

Since the top 50% of taxpayers pay 97% of taxes, and the bottom 50% pay less than 3%, what's "fair share" in your opinion? Be specific. Give me a dollar amount, or a percentage of income, and some discussion of why a progressive income tax is reasonable, rational or fair.

I'll wait. For a while.

[subversive science]

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=B3lLYOGDst ... 3lLYOGDsts

[pErvinalia]

[

If society really worked this way then the poorest among us, who work multiple back-breaking jobs, would be the richest. Instead, those who have wealth accumulate more wealth, while the poorest toil ever harder for less and less. This was the case before increased government regulations, the advent of unions, etc. The fiscal and regulatory policy of the US over the past few decades is returning us to the "Libertarian paradise" that we saw before the Great Depression by redistributing wealth to the top of the income ladder.

Complete nonsense.

People get paid what their labor is worth and what they agree it's worth. If they want more, they need to learn to do more valuable work and do it better than anyone else.

Yeah, coz there's no distortion in the marketplace with wealth imbalance effectively seeing people born into a life of poverty and servitude.

Well, nobody said life is fair, or easy. That's precisely the problem with Marxism,..

No, it's a problem for your specious claims about a "free market".