3 ms·

> it meant healthcare, education, ... Well you pay for this stuff, your money goes to semi-private institutions like universities (healthcare, education) inste

> it meant healthcare, education, ... Well you pay for this stuff, your money goes to semi-private institutions like universities (healthcare, education) instead of bouncing through taxes first. This is non-tax compulsory payments (NTCP), no? > housing, ... Real estate is California's #1 industry, biggest sector in San Francisco and Los Angeles, and according to everyone, community regulations and tax-adjacent policies like Prop 13 are the biggest influence on housing prices. So you kind of do pay taxes, you are obligated by law to play by the housing rules there. > food, ... Government subsidies are the #1 source of profits for agribusinesses. Similar to saying Tesla's main source of profit was carbon credits. Kind of a junk analysis by one interpretation, kind of central to the business by another. Anyway my point is the average person, according to some people, pays closer to 40% like many Europeans do, when you include orthodox defined NTCP. If you think deeply about how much you are forced to pay for by law or similar mechanisms, maybe it's higher. You live in the world you want right now. NTCPs go to regular people too. University health systems are many states #1 employers. They are socialized in a way that matters. Maybe it isn't funded through taxes but do you see how that's kind of a moot point?

hungie 2y ago
I think housing should not be a commodity. Medicine and education shouldn't be run for profit. (Ideally, commodity food would be grown for the common good, too.) But also, I'm posting here in recognition that my politics aren't exactly common here. And that's ok!
- doctorpangloss 2y ago
  I’m affirming that your politics are really mainstream, they are the status quo. It just doesn’t sound that way because of accounting.
  - consteval 2y ago
    I wouldn't say so, what's he's speaking about is nationalizing many industries. Healthcare, food industry, housing. I mean, this is socialism. Not communism, but socialism. Granted our media knows fuck-all about politics, but we have close to zero socialist politicians in the US. Nationalizing industries is wildly, wildly unpopular - practically unheard of. Every industry listed does, actually, turn a profit in our current system. They are, truly, private - although regulated.
    - doctorpangloss 2y ago
      UCSF is San Francisco's largest employer, UPMC is Pittsburgh's largest employer, UMMC for Baltimore, ... They are a complex web of entities, inexorably linked to the government in each community. A plurality of middle to upper income people work for the hospital-educational-state system, and a plurality of middle to upper income people living there use its services. It gets a mix of funding from governments and private payers, but for some of those people, their income is from UPMC. They might not be monopolies, they might not be nationalized, but functionally, they are like really effective monopolized community corporations. Think about it from the other side: define nationalized corporation. What would make it last a long time? What would make it provide services effectively and competitive against imported goods and services? You get something that looks like university hospital systems, state university education systems, the real estate lobby, etc. Nationalization in some reductionist sense doesn't work in the US for these industries because of the open market we live in - you can, after all, drive to another place for medicine and educations, and many people do. But the levers that are used to incentivize people to choose their local semi-private provider, and the way the communities are themselves employed / derive income from the provider, is holistically nationalization.

hungie 2y ago

I think housing should not be a commodity. Medicine and education shouldn't be run for profit. (Ideally, commodity food would be grown for the common good, too.) But also, I'm posting here in recognition that my politics aren't exactly common here. And that's ok!

doctorpangloss 2y ago
I’m affirming that your politics are really mainstream, they are the status quo. It just doesn’t sound that way because of accounting.
- consteval 2y ago
  I wouldn't say so, what's he's speaking about is nationalizing many industries. Healthcare, food industry, housing. I mean, this is socialism. Not communism, but socialism. Granted our media knows fuck-all about politics, but we have close to zero socialist politicians in the US. Nationalizing industries is wildly, wildly unpopular - practically unheard of. Every industry listed does, actually, turn a profit in our current system. They are, truly, private - although regulated.
  - doctorpangloss 2y ago
    UCSF is San Francisco's largest employer, UPMC is Pittsburgh's largest employer, UMMC for Baltimore, ... They are a complex web of entities, inexorably linked to the government in each community. A plurality of middle to upper income people work for the hospital-educational-state system, and a plurality of middle to upper income people living there use its services. It gets a mix of funding from governments and private payers, but for some of those people, their income is from UPMC. They might not be monopolies, they might not be nationalized, but functionally, they are like really effective monopolized community corporations. Think about it from the other side: define nationalized corporation. What would make it last a long time? What would make it provide services effectively and competitive against imported goods and services? You get something that looks like university hospital systems, state university education systems, the real estate lobby, etc. Nationalization in some reductionist sense doesn't work in the US for these industries because of the open market we live in - you can, after all, drive to another place for medicine and educations, and many people do. But the levers that are used to incentivize people to choose their local semi-private provider, and the way the communities are themselves employed / derive income from the provider, is holistically nationalization.