4 ms·

I didn't expect you to double-down on "well, it's just the poor anyway" but I probably shouldn't be surprised by now. I wrote "over emphasis". Then you just go

• bhupy 6y ago
  > I didn't expect you to double-down on "well, it's just the poor anyway" but I probably shouldn't be surprised by now. Yes, that is exactly the point I'm making. Strictly from a utilitarian perspective, civil war/genocide affects more people, more uniformly than drug addiction. Attacking that from "won't you think of the poors?" angle isn't a constructive argument to be made. And lest we forget, the original point of argument was that peaceful restructuring of corporation is preferable to violent restructuring through wars, coups, and genocide. "What about the drug overdoses?" is an odd argument because I don't know anyone that would say "I prefer peaceful creative destruction over war, except if there are opioid overdoses, in which case I prefer civil war and violent coups, yes." > I wrote "over emphasis". Then you just go on about some irrelevant stats regarding the size of the public sector etc. Isn't that exactly what "free market" means? Economic freedom and the size of the private sector? > Hence the lack of proper welfare and universal health care (and we can go on to worker benefits if you'd like, or perhaps higher education?). Yes, and this is a failure of government policy. The US healthcare system is the least free market there is. I write software for claims processing and healthcare pricing systems for a living, and I can tell you right now that the US's healthcare system is a byzantine nightmare. The only thing remotely "market-like" about the system is that there are an obscene amount of profits...but that's all downstream of asinine incentives brought about by policy. It isn't some grand accident of the free market. I'm in agreement with you that this needs to be fixed. However the fact that these problems exist in the US but not elsewhere suggests that it also has very little to do with "free market ideologies", and your insistence to the contrary regardless of the empirical evidence suggests that your approach to this is purely driven by ideology.
  • jahaja 6y ago
    > I'm in agreement with you that this needs to be fixed. However the fact that these problems exist in the US but not elsewhere suggests that it also has very little to do with "free market ideologies", and your insistence to the contrary regardless of the empirical evidence suggests that your approach to this is purely driven by ideology. This is absurd. That the US is a country where business, markets, profits have been prioritized over people is blatantly obvious for everyone that's not a free market fundamentalist where every single instance of a negative outcome needs to be excused by either "it's not free enough" or "other's are actually also rather free", or ofc, put the blame on the government. You also jump onto the wording of course. I mean it in a general sense, free market, capitalist, market oriented society that applies it to much more spheres of society than other countries. So give me a break that I'm the one "purely driven by ideology" when you're writing with a convert's fervour. > regardless of the empirical evidence And the differences in worker benefits and welfare (etc...) is not empirical evidence of a society that's gotten way too hooked on capitalism? > I write software for claims processing and healthcare pricing systems for a living In a well functioning society your job should not exist.
    • bhupy 6y ago
      > This is absurd. That the US is a country where business, markets, profits have been prioritized over people is blatantly obvious for everyone that's not a free market fundamentalist where every single instance of a negative outcome needs to be excused by either "it's not free enough" or "other's are actually also rather free", or ofc, put the blame on the government. This is a bit of word salad, but 1) these traits exist in so many other advanced wealthy countries that pointing it out is irrelevant, and 2) the US is a mixed economy -> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_United_States > I mean it in a general sense, free market, capitalist, market oriented society that applies it to much more spheres of society than other countries. Yes, and all of those countries I listed out are "free market" "capitalist" "market oriented" societies. Switzerland -> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Switzerland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Switzerland Singapore -> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Singapore https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Singapore Taiwan -> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Taiwan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Taiwan Japan -> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Japan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Japan New Zealand -> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_New_Zealand https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_New_Zealand Australia -> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Australia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Australia Belgium -> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Belgium https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Belgium Canada -> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Canada https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Canada etc > And the differences in worker benefits and welfare (etc...) is not empirical evidence of a society that's gotten way too hooked on capitalism? Many countries with strong unions have seen a similar or even greater decline in labor share of income than the US. The US is not really much different than any other advanced economy on that front: https://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/mckinsey/featured%20insights/employment%20and%20growth/a%20new%20look%20at%20the%20declining%20labor%20share%20of%20income%20in%20the%20united%20states/mgi-a-new-look-at-the-declining-labor-share-of-income-in-the-united-states.ashx https://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/mckinsey/featured%20insight... (page 5). In the US, labor’s share of income is less than France, about the same as Germany, and more than Spain. It’s significantly higher than Sweden, which has robust unions. Moreover, nearly all the decline in labor’s share of income happened between 2000 and today (page 6). The decrease was very slight from 1947 to 2000. But unions stopped being a significant force in the US long before 2000. > In a well functioning society your job should not exist. This reaction of yours is illuminating, because it shows how little you know about how healthcare even works. I don't work for an insurance company, I write software that's used by insurance companies to process claims and price fees. This is an abstract actuarial function that's necessary regardless of whether a private entity or a public entity is the insurer. Public government insurers do not manually process claims by hand one-by-one. Ditto pricing, I work on generating fee schedules. You know where else fee schedules are used? Medicare and Medicaid. Their actuaries use software similar to what I work on to model risk and determine what premiums (or tax contributions) should be, and how much physicians should be paid.