7 ms·

> The idea that the government would know specifically how much we spend, where we spend it, and could deny transactions sounds pretty distopian to me. Non Am

by Matl 3y ago

> The idea that the government would know specifically how much we spend, where we spend it, and could deny transactions sounds pretty distopian to me. Non American here. They already know and/or could trivially find out. There's no more barrier to them finding out now then there would be if there was some new, nominally independent government entity involved. That is to say a very thin wall preventing what you describe. I sometimes get the feeling we oftentimes allow for market absurdities to supposedly prevent the government from doing something that it regularly already does today, just as long as there's a 'business' somewhere in the chain. Americans seem willing to pay more to private business and thus actually part with more of their money than they otherwise would, as long as on paper they're not giving the money to 'the government' see i.e. healthcare.

_heimdall 3y ago
> They already know and/or could trivially find out. 100% agree here. Today the US goverment, I won't attempt to speak towards any other government, has way too much power and ability to collect inflammation in it's citizens. We've allowed the government to assume that powers but we could also take that power away. If the government owns the bank there's literally no way to do that. Healthcare here is a whole other massively broken system. In general yes I think it's a fair generalization that we would prefer to pay extra to avoid large governments, historically at least since we've done a really poor job keeping our federal government small for the last 80 years. It makes sense given our country's history though, and personally I'd rather pay a little more to a corporation than save a few bucks at the expense of living under a much more powerful centralized authority.
- pbz 3y ago
  > I'd rather pay a little more to a corporation It's hardly "a little more" though. We're spending almost twice as much and get almost half as little back. Objectively speaking the capitalist market has failed in this area. We have to first accept this fact before we can find any solutions. If we keep thinking "government is bad" and "private industry is good" we're only allowing further exploitation and pain; and for what? We need to be data/solution driven.
  - abfan1127 3y ago
    the banking industry has been heavily subsidized by FDIC, the Fed, and bailouts. This corporate socialization is certainly worse than either fully capitalist or fully centralized.
    - largepeepee 3y ago
      That is modern capitalism at its finest. Privatize the gains, socialize the losses.
      - _heimdall 3y ago
        That's really not capitalism at all.
        largepeepee 3y ago
        That is how capitalism works in reality.
  - SoftTalker 3y ago
    The healthcare marketplace is hardly capitalist. It's deeply influenced by government policy and spending, as most healthcare expenditure is for the old, and it goes through Medicare.
    - LordDragonfang 3y ago
      If the US healthcare market isn't capitalist, then no country's healthcare system is. It's rare to find a way to "no true Scotsman" as hard as communists, but you've managed it. But to address your point: contrary to what you're implying, Medicare spending is actually lower on average relative to spending on 65+'s in other countries; in e.g. the NHS, they're 18% of the population and 40% of the spending[1]. i.e. per-person spending is much higher in retirees. Contrast this with the US where per-medicare-enrollee spending (13k) is almost the same as the average spending (12.5k), because the non-socialized (capitalist) part of the market pays so much more than in other developed countries, that it doesn't bring down the average despite the younger cohorts having many fewer health problems. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/feb/01/ageing-britain-two-fifths-nhs-budget-spent-over-65s https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/feb/01/ageing-brita...
- Nullabillity 3y ago
  Those corporations are already powerful centralized authorities! The difference is that they don't even have to pretend to be beholden to the public like the government is.
  - bombcar 3y ago
    Exactly! If the government starts doing things to you there are legal recourses. If your bank decides you can’t have an account anymore, there’s not much you can do.
    - hollerith 3y ago
      Because a government would never freeze the funds in your bank account. Oh wait: that is what Canadian government did to tractor-trailer protesters a few years ago.
      - JetSpiegel 3y ago
        They frozen the funds held by private banks. So what's the value-add of banks, again?
  - _heimdall 3y ago
    As long as they are technically separate we have the chance to separate the two again, removing corruption and capture. If the industries are moved into the government officially we really have given up that fight and have to accept whatever they give us. I assume it will be cake.
- webnrrd2k 3y ago
  I just want to point out that ”to collect inflammation in it's citizens" is an great typo!
- I-M-S 3y ago
  "The West, so afraid of strong government, now has no government, only financial power."
AlgorithmicTime 3y ago
[dead]
User23 3y ago
People can trivially break a window but door locks are still effective in aggregate. Don’t underestimate trivial difficulties.
nightski 3y ago
No. There is a big difference to "they already know" and/or they "could trivially find out". Even if the latter may be true, the former is not. The government does not have direct access to personal bank account ledgers.
- joelfried 3y ago
  "They already know" is a red herring; there is no "they". "Government" as a single entity has no brain, so the best you can do is ask about individual actors. So let's talk instead about a person: Merrick Garland.[1] Pretend for a moment that Merrick receives a piece of memo from a subordinate that incriminates you in some form of bank fraud. Of course Merrick personally doesn't know anything about your bank account. Nobody has both the information and a brain big enough to store it. Hell, I have to check my own bank account regularly because I keep forgetting exactly how much is in there and it's my own money! If something came across Merrick's desk and it convinced _him_ that it was worthwhile to investigate, do you really expect other than delays waiting for signed papers before he got the information he wanted? Do you really think there's a difference to Merrick whether he gets that information in 60 seconds by logging into your bank "as you" and looking at it, or whether he waits a few days and gets hand delivered a piece of paper by a bank's legal team? [1] U.S. Attorney General and current chief law enforcement officer for the nation
  - kaczordon 3y ago
    Yes it matters, because there will be a court involved in this process as opposed to if the government “owned” your bank account nothing would stop it from knowing exactly what was in there at all times.
    - joelfried 3y ago
      I'm sorry, but courts have lost most of their credibility in recent years. There was an HN thread recently[1] about a person arrested and extradited from one state to another without what appears to be any oversight. Pretending the courts are magic isn't actually very helpful here. If any single person in power wanted this information, they could have it. If any single person not in power wanted this information, they would have to work really hard to get it. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35389566 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35389566
cmh89 3y ago
>Americans seem willing to pay more to private business and thus actually part with more of their money than they otherwise would, as long as on paper they're not giving the money to 'the government' see i.e. healthcare. Americans reject public healthcare because your average American has incredibly narrow view of the world, and many people buy lies about public health care in other places. They simply buy the lie that propagandist are paid to spread that public health care includes 'death panels' or insanely long ER waits, or that you can't pick your doctor (can you now?). The larger problem is that the government deals with things that are sufficiently complicated that they require dedicated time to understanding them and Americans aren't willing to do that on a scale that impacts government policy.
- wintogreen74 3y ago
  As a Canadian, right next door, I'm continually amazed that we can have two polar takes on healthcare and both get it so wrong. In Canada it is an incredibly expensive way to pay for a universal public system in case you personally need it, at which point it's pretty poor quality, especially for new approaches or preventative, non-emergent care. Then in the States you have so many with absolutely zero safety net or primary care, at which we do a better (but still bad IMO) job of, while the well-insured or very wealthy have the most amazing health options in the world. We should both be able to come up with a solution that prevents rural mothers from dying related to childbirth AND gets someone a hip replacement in less than a year so they don't irreversibly deteriorate. Governments on both sides of the border just dig in their heels for political motivations, actual health outcomes not a consideration.
  - cmh89 3y ago
    Canadian health care is relatively inexpensive though. Canadians spent $8,563 Canadian Dollars per capita on health care in 2022, which is currently equivalent to $6,320 US dollars per capita. Americans spent $12,914 American dollars per capita in 2021 for health care costs. We pay over double per capita what Canadians pay. Canada could increase the quality of the health care system by buying more services and paying more for services to increase quality. https://www.cihi.ca/en/national-health-expenditure-trends-2022-snapshot https://www.cihi.ca/en/national-health-expenditure-trends-20... https://www.cms.gov/research-statistics-data-and-systems/statistics-trends-and-reports/nationalhealthexpenddata/nationalhealthaccountshistorical https://www.cms.gov/research-statistics-data-and-systems/sta...
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

by Matl 3y ago

_heimdall 3y ago

> They already know and/or could trivially find out. 100% agree here. Today the US goverment, I won't attempt to speak towards any other government, has way too much power and ability to collect inflammation in it's citizens. We've allowed the government to assume that powers but we could also take that power away. If the government owns the bank there's literally no way to do that. Healthcare here is a whole other massively broken system. In general yes I think it's a fair generalization that we would prefer to pay extra to avoid large governments, historically at least since we've done a really poor job keeping our federal government small for the last 80 years. It makes sense given our country's history though, and personally I'd rather pay a little more to a corporation than save a few bucks at the expense of living under a much more powerful centralized authority.

pbz 3y ago
> I'd rather pay a little more to a corporation It's hardly "a little more" though. We're spending almost twice as much and get almost half as little back. Objectively speaking the capitalist market has failed in this area. We have to first accept this fact before we can find any solutions. If we keep thinking "government is bad" and "private industry is good" we're only allowing further exploitation and pain; and for what? We need to be data/solution driven.
- abfan1127 3y ago
  the banking industry has been heavily subsidized by FDIC, the Fed, and bailouts. This corporate socialization is certainly worse than either fully capitalist or fully centralized.
  - largepeepee 3y ago
    That is modern capitalism at its finest. Privatize the gains, socialize the losses.
    - _heimdall 3y ago
      That's really not capitalism at all.
      - largepeepee 3y ago
        That is how capitalism works in reality.
- SoftTalker 3y ago
  The healthcare marketplace is hardly capitalist. It's deeply influenced by government policy and spending, as most healthcare expenditure is for the old, and it goes through Medicare.
  - LordDragonfang 3y ago
    If the US healthcare market isn't capitalist, then no country's healthcare system is. It's rare to find a way to "no true Scotsman" as hard as communists, but you've managed it. But to address your point: contrary to what you're implying, Medicare spending is actually lower on average relative to spending on 65+'s in other countries; in e.g. the NHS, they're 18% of the population and 40% of the spending[1]. i.e. per-person spending is much higher in retirees. Contrast this with the US where per-medicare-enrollee spending (13k) is almost the same as the average spending (12.5k), because the non-socialized (capitalist) part of the market pays so much more than in other developed countries, that it doesn't bring down the average despite the younger cohorts having many fewer health problems. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/feb/01/ageing-britain-two-fifths-nhs-budget-spent-over-65s https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/feb/01/ageing-brita...
Nullabillity 3y ago
Those corporations are already powerful centralized authorities! The difference is that they don't even have to pretend to be beholden to the public like the government is.
- bombcar 3y ago
  Exactly! If the government starts doing things to you there are legal recourses. If your bank decides you can’t have an account anymore, there’s not much you can do.
  - hollerith 3y ago
    Because a government would never freeze the funds in your bank account. Oh wait: that is what Canadian government did to tractor-trailer protesters a few years ago.
    - JetSpiegel 3y ago
      They frozen the funds held by private banks. So what's the value-add of banks, again?
- _heimdall 3y ago
  As long as they are technically separate we have the chance to separate the two again, removing corruption and capture. If the industries are moved into the government officially we really have given up that fight and have to accept whatever they give us. I assume it will be cake.
webnrrd2k 3y ago
I just want to point out that ”to collect inflammation in it's citizens" is an great typo!
I-M-S 3y ago
"The West, so afraid of strong government, now has no government, only financial power."

AlgorithmicTime 3y ago

[dead]

User23 3y ago

People can trivially break a window but door locks are still effective in aggregate. Don’t underestimate trivial difficulties.

nightski 3y ago

No. There is a big difference to "they already know" and/or they "could trivially find out". Even if the latter may be true, the former is not. The government does not have direct access to personal bank account ledgers.

joelfried 3y ago
"They already know" is a red herring; there is no "they". "Government" as a single entity has no brain, so the best you can do is ask about individual actors. So let's talk instead about a person: Merrick Garland.[1] Pretend for a moment that Merrick receives a piece of memo from a subordinate that incriminates you in some form of bank fraud. Of course Merrick personally doesn't know anything about your bank account. Nobody has both the information and a brain big enough to store it. Hell, I have to check my own bank account regularly because I keep forgetting exactly how much is in there and it's my own money! If something came across Merrick's desk and it convinced _him_ that it was worthwhile to investigate, do you really expect other than delays waiting for signed papers before he got the information he wanted? Do you really think there's a difference to Merrick whether he gets that information in 60 seconds by logging into your bank "as you" and looking at it, or whether he waits a few days and gets hand delivered a piece of paper by a bank's legal team? [1] U.S. Attorney General and current chief law enforcement officer for the nation
- kaczordon 3y ago
  Yes it matters, because there will be a court involved in this process as opposed to if the government “owned” your bank account nothing would stop it from knowing exactly what was in there at all times.
  - joelfried 3y ago
    I'm sorry, but courts have lost most of their credibility in recent years. There was an HN thread recently[1] about a person arrested and extradited from one state to another without what appears to be any oversight. Pretending the courts are magic isn't actually very helpful here. If any single person in power wanted this information, they could have it. If any single person not in power wanted this information, they would have to work really hard to get it. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35389566 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35389566

cmh89 3y ago

>Americans seem willing to pay more to private business and thus actually part with more of their money than they otherwise would, as long as on paper they're not giving the money to 'the government' see i.e. healthcare. Americans reject public healthcare because your average American has incredibly narrow view of the world, and many people buy lies about public health care in other places. They simply buy the lie that propagandist are paid to spread that public health care includes 'death panels' or insanely long ER waits, or that you can't pick your doctor (can you now?). The larger problem is that the government deals with things that are sufficiently complicated that they require dedicated time to understanding them and Americans aren't willing to do that on a scale that impacts government policy.

wintogreen74 3y ago
As a Canadian, right next door, I'm continually amazed that we can have two polar takes on healthcare and both get it so wrong. In Canada it is an incredibly expensive way to pay for a universal public system in case you personally need it, at which point it's pretty poor quality, especially for new approaches or preventative, non-emergent care. Then in the States you have so many with absolutely zero safety net or primary care, at which we do a better (but still bad IMO) job of, while the well-insured or very wealthy have the most amazing health options in the world. We should both be able to come up with a solution that prevents rural mothers from dying related to childbirth AND gets someone a hip replacement in less than a year so they don't irreversibly deteriorate. Governments on both sides of the border just dig in their heels for political motivations, actual health outcomes not a consideration.
- cmh89 3y ago
  Canadian health care is relatively inexpensive though. Canadians spent $8,563 Canadian Dollars per capita on health care in 2022, which is currently equivalent to $6,320 US dollars per capita. Americans spent $12,914 American dollars per capita in 2021 for health care costs. We pay over double per capita what Canadians pay. Canada could increase the quality of the health care system by buying more services and paying more for services to increase quality. https://www.cihi.ca/en/national-health-expenditure-trends-2022-snapshot https://www.cihi.ca/en/national-health-expenditure-trends-20... https://www.cms.gov/research-statistics-data-and-systems/statistics-trends-and-reports/nationalhealthexpenddata/nationalhealthaccountshistorical https://www.cms.gov/research-statistics-data-and-systems/sta...

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]