5 ms·

Students Support Socialism, but not when it comes to their GPA

7 points by tomohawk 8y ago

jimrhods23 8y ago
They only support it because they feel like they will never be wealthy and won't have to pay the tax increases. This is also most people that I know that support radical changes to the current system which involve government-run programs funded by sharp tax increases on the wealthy/middle class. I feel like there is something wrong with our system when people get to vote on things that will not only never effect them negatively (IE: tax increases), but will get all of the benefits (free health care/money).
- samayylmao 8y ago
  I agree that "wanting free stuff with no cost or contribution" is as you put it "wrong". I would like to see what a government-run single payer healthcare system would look like;also, raise my taxes to cover this. rough math says the government would need to increase my taxes by over 10% for the increase in taxes to equal my current premiums. Right now we pay more for healthcare than other countries because our system is so flawed. we pay more for both services and the same exact prescriptions that other countries do. I work for a healthcare system and the amount of charity care and unpaid medicare bills are astronomical. If your'e interested I can share a publicly published report that breaks this down. These are also part of the reason that we pay so much more, the people that actually pay need to make up the cost for those that don't. on top of that, medical claims processing and billing is overly complicated, time consuming, and expensive due to multiple insurers. My premiums to have my family covered are almost as much as my rent. ( disclaimer: i live in a state with a very affordable housing market)
- apacheCamel 8y ago
  >I feel like there is something wrong with our system when people get to vote on things that will not only never effect them negatively I really think you should take a step back and re-read this sentence. Is this really what you intended? Correct me if I am wrong, but it seems like you only want people to vote on things that will have a negative effect on them which seems counter intuitive to voting to begin with.
taylodl 8y ago
Oh good grief! I expected better from HN. Socialism is not about getting something for nothing. Period end. Full stop. Socialism is about owning what you produce. How does that differ from Capitalism? In Capitalism workers don't own what they produce - the company owners do. All a worker owns is their time and expertise, which they trade to the company based on how easily they may be replaced. Capitalism therefore provides no incentive for quality, only the incentive to not get fired. Those are completely different objectives. If you ever wanted to know what happened to people taking pride in quality and craft then know that Capitalism destroyed it. What Capitalism has become is a method for producing crap for the lowest cost possible. This is where we are today. That's not to say Socialism is a panacea, it's not. One of the problems Socialism has is providing incentives for people taking significant capital risks. This is why most people agree company owners and founders should have a greater financial reward, at least in the early stages. But it should also be recognized that employees are also taking significant risks in that they're putting their livelihood at risk by signing on with a new and unproven organization. Balancing this is tricky. In this brief discussion note I'm not talking about the old notion of Socialism where the government owns all the means of production and the workers shared in the proceeds. That form of Socialism has never worked. Governments have time and again proven themselves inept at moving anywhere close to the speed of markets. You must have private production and you must have workers being compensated proportionately to the value they produce and not by how easily they may be replaced. You do that and income inequalities will be minimized (not eliminated) and quality will increase. Sound easy? It's not - there's no obvious path for getting from here to there.
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7 points by tomohawk 8y ago

They only support it because they feel like they will never be wealthy and won't have to pay the tax increases. This is also most people that I know that support radical changes to the current system which involve government-run programs funded by sharp tax increases on the wealthy/middle class. I feel like there is something wrong with our system when people get to vote on things that will not only never effect them negatively (IE: tax increases), but will get all of the benefits (free health care/money).

samayylmao 8y ago
I agree that "wanting free stuff with no cost or contribution" is as you put it "wrong". I would like to see what a government-run single payer healthcare system would look like;also, raise my taxes to cover this. rough math says the government would need to increase my taxes by over 10% for the increase in taxes to equal my current premiums. Right now we pay more for healthcare than other countries because our system is so flawed. we pay more for both services and the same exact prescriptions that other countries do. I work for a healthcare system and the amount of charity care and unpaid medicare bills are astronomical. If your'e interested I can share a publicly published report that breaks this down. These are also part of the reason that we pay so much more, the people that actually pay need to make up the cost for those that don't. on top of that, medical claims processing and billing is overly complicated, time consuming, and expensive due to multiple insurers. My premiums to have my family covered are almost as much as my rent. ( disclaimer: i live in a state with a very affordable housing market)
apacheCamel 8y ago
>I feel like there is something wrong with our system when people get to vote on things that will not only never effect them negatively I really think you should take a step back and re-read this sentence. Is this really what you intended? Correct me if I am wrong, but it seems like you only want people to vote on things that will have a negative effect on them which seems counter intuitive to voting to begin with.

taylodl 8y ago

Oh good grief! I expected better from HN. Socialism is not about getting something for nothing. Period end. Full stop. Socialism is about owning what you produce. How does that differ from Capitalism? In Capitalism workers don't own what they produce - the company owners do. All a worker owns is their time and expertise, which they trade to the company based on how easily they may be replaced. Capitalism therefore provides no incentive for quality, only the incentive to not get fired. Those are completely different objectives. If you ever wanted to know what happened to people taking pride in quality and craft then know that Capitalism destroyed it. What Capitalism has become is a method for producing crap for the lowest cost possible. This is where we are today. That's not to say Socialism is a panacea, it's not. One of the problems Socialism has is providing incentives for people taking significant capital risks. This is why most people agree company owners and founders should have a greater financial reward, at least in the early stages. But it should also be recognized that employees are also taking significant risks in that they're putting their livelihood at risk by signing on with a new and unproven organization. Balancing this is tricky. In this brief discussion note I'm not talking about the old notion of Socialism where the government owns all the means of production and the workers shared in the proceeds. That form of Socialism has never worked. Governments have time and again proven themselves inept at moving anywhere close to the speed of markets. You must have private production and you must have workers being compensated proportionately to the value they produce and not by how easily they may be replaced. You do that and income inequalities will be minimized (not eliminated) and quality will increase. Sound easy? It's not - there's no obvious path for getting from here to there.

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