Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Strategies & Market Trends : Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sea Otter who wrote (100383)	8/4/2009 8:49:29 PM
From: roguedolphin	2 Recommendations Respond to of 116555

<<"Interesting. You know, I'm learning that the debate over health care really isn't about health-care per se, but what kind of society people want. At it's core it's really a debate about moral and social values.">> I happen to agree. If we lose all concept of moral and social value we won't have any society worthwhile left to live in....much more on this to come I'm sure. Atlas Is Shrugging .....sigh. *** *Texas Straight Talk, by Congressman Ron Paul, August 3, 2009: ....Make no mistake, government control and micromanagement of healthcare will hurt, not help healthcare in this country. However, if for a moment, we allowed the assumption that it really would accomplish all they claim, paying for it would still plunge the country into poverty. This solves nothing. The government, like any household struggling with bills to pay, should prioritize its budget. If the administration is serious about supporting healthcare without contributing to our skyrocketing deficits, they should fulfill promises to reduce our overseas commitments and use some of those savings to take care of Americans at home instead of killing foreigners abroad. The leadership in Washington persists in a fantasy world of unlimited money to spend on unlimited programs and wars to garner unlimited control. But there is a fast-approaching limit to our ability to borrow, steal, and print. Acknowledging this reality is not mean-spirited or cruel. On the contrary, it could be the only thing that saves us from complete and total economic meltdown."

To: Sea Otter who wrote (100383)	8/5/2009 12:55:20 PM
From: skinowski	5 Recommendations Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 116555

I use to believe in that line, but after living in Europe and Asia for some years, I began to value the public sphere more highly I wrote a rant about this on another thread... to save y'all a click, I'll just paste it here: During the Great Depression of the 1930s, agricultural price support programs led to vast amounts of food being deliberately destroyed at a time when malnutrition was a serious problem in the United States and hunger marches were taking place in cities across the country. For example, the federal government bought 6 million hogs in 1933 alone and destroyed them. Huge amounts of farm produce were plowed under, in order to keep it off the market and maintain prices at the officially fixed level, and vast amounts of milk were poured down the sewers for the same reason. Meanwhile, many American children were suffering from diseases caused by malnutrition. –Thomas Sowell, Basic Economics (3rd Edition, Basic Books, 2007), p. 56. I knew about this program, but Sowell puts it in simple and stark terms. This was criminal stupidity on the part of the government. Roosevelt and his circle of political and economic "experts" thought that the way to combat deflation was to support high prices and to insist on high salaries. The former led to programs like destroying food... the latter helped keep unemployment high. Who would start hiring workers at mandated high salaries during periods of economic decline and uncertainty? Today's measures are not any better. Taxing and redistributionist schemes (CO2 tax, bailouts, clunkers, various RE price supports, etc.) are a drain on productive citizens - and will only increase the degree of unpredictability. Investors are used to dealing with whims of the markets, but not many know what new schemes may pop up at any time out of left field in Washington. Now, the same [type of] people who brought us food destruction programs - as well as all those recent "big ideas" - claim that they can take over healthcare - and manage it from top and all the way down to specific individual doctor - patient interactions. Not only will they make a mess of it, but - perhaps, more importantly - allowing government to become so huge is a fundamentally un-American idea. Europe has a long tradition of strong, central governance - and over the centuries their centralized systems of government - time after time - kept deteriorating (or, perhaps, naturally evolving?) into empires and dictatorships. Believing that big government makes things better is... dancing with the Devil. I hope we don't go there, but it looks like we will. Good luck to us all -- we'll need it.