While I agree that the system as it is is non-optimal, I remain extremely skeptical that changing the motivations which drive these decisions from "profit maximization" to "getting re-elected" would result in any improvement in the overall picture. The picture would change, yes, but I doubt if for the better.

Even in the case of national defense, government doesn't do it because it "does it better", but because nothing else can do it at all.

To paraphrase the common saw about lawyers: 90% of the politicians give the entire political community a bad reputation.

Why would you be skeptical that changing back to a system that worked wouldn't result in improvement over the radical (and failing) system that has been implemented over the last thirty years?

"back to a system that worked . . . "?????

I don't understand what you're referring to. The US gov't was never in charge of the overall health care business or the transportation industry.

For the (relatively) small segments of those industries that it does control directly (e.g., VA healthcare, AMTRAK), the record for performance and cost efficiency has been less than stellar. For things like the national highway system which it "controls" indirectly but funds a large portion of, you might recall the "get me re-elected" mentality of which things like the "bridge to nowhere" is an exemplar.

The US Government did take anti trust laws seriously up until relatively recently. Most of our current problems can be traced to oligopolies shipping high paying jobs out of the country while maintaining or increasing prices for their products.

There is not now, nor was there ever a need for the US Government to control industries, but that is completely separate from the constant (and now critical) need for the government to control large corporations abilities to adversely affect our standard of living.

There can be no free market when monopolies are allowed to form.

You're missing the point. In my post #61, I was responding to aehurst's post #56, not to you.

Please allow me to "... revise and extend my remarks." When I said government does do some things better I was thinking specifically of those necessary or highly desirable things that would not otherwise be done at all because there is no profit to be made. We would not, for example, have a national highway system or roads to rural communities absent government intervention.

I was also suggesting that leaving 1 in 5 people in my state without health insurance is a failure of the free market system to provide health care and that government may have to intervene to provide this necessary and highly desirable service. As you are probably aware, the US health care system ranks in the 20's internationally on most outcomes (such as infant mortality, longevity) while we spend more per capita on health care than any other nation. There's no profit in insuring the sick or poor.

You know, my wife and I decorated for Christmas this past weekend and on a whim I decided to actually look at all the knick-knacks and decorations and see where they were manufactured. Of the hundred or so things I looked at that had a 'Made in X" label of some sort, all were made in China.. save one. Which was made in Korea and assembled in China. :eek: :rolleyes:

To call our so-called 'free market' health care system a failure just isn't a strong enough word, although I doubt there is one. We tend to think that we're either insured or we're not, but the reality is that even people with health insurance aren't really covered. Many have 'discount health plans' that can't even be called insurance while many others have health insurance that's riddled with internal limitations. People who have group insurance at work are really only covered for minor illnesses and injuries because if something major comes up, they can lose their job, in which case they go on Cobra for 18 months and then lose all coverage. Not exactly the safety net that insurance is supposed to provide.

I had an interesting conversation back with a friend of a friend at a halloween party back last Halloween. He was obviously conservative, and I think he was raised that way and taught that way in college. He actually literally believed that trickle down economics works. He actually believed that all the slave labor in china would eventually trickle into making china a power house of industry.

He was taught this at a well known university and he majored in business. So, why would he not believe it? I mean this is higher education right? Or is it?

When China Privatizes, and they start owning their own industry, then they will make the money and become a world competitor. Until then, whatever we trickle into their economy through slave labor is doing nothing but oppressing them, and possibly making a few of them rich (like less than 1%).

That's sort of like saying that any positive number, no matter how small, is greater than zero.:)

What we have here is an inappropriate usage of terminology.

". . . leaving 1 in 5 people in my state without health insurance is a failure of the free market system. . ." is an invalid statement, IMO. By definition, a "free market" system works to provide things on the basis of profit, thus the "free market" system is working.

The fact that the "free market" does not always produce socially desirable outcomes, is a horse of a different color. As you say, it may be desirable to have government provide things that the "free market" does not. However, then the topic of conversation must be changed to getting common understanding of what is "socially desirable", etc. While a number of things are probably relatively easy to agree on, the contentiousness of our political system reflects the scope of the problem on getting agreement on what is and what isn't "socially desirable".

Be that as it may, no matter how one defines socially desirable, I remain firmly convinced that the "get me re-elected" aspect of government programs will always result in waste, inefficiency, and many other unintended negative consequences that often (though not always) are nearly as bad as the original problem the government tried to "solve". Please note that I am not saying that government should not play a role in these instances, just that it rarely ends up being the "nice", effective solution that people would like it to be.

Also note that I use "free market" in quotes, as we don't really have one.

Nor, IMHO, does one exist anywhere at the macro level; our only instances are probably flea markets and farmer's markets.

iampete, point taken. We would disagree only in the fact you seem to think people get elected with votes, and I am not at all sure that is the case. Or, at best, they get elected with votes but rarely respond in a manner designed to get more votes. My personal belief is they most often vote the way the lobbyists convince them is correct.

tlarkin... it really is amazing how many have bought into the trickle down myth.

It's downright scary. I could see taking it on faith if it was a concept that was hard to grasp, but all you need to do is look around and you can see that virtually nothing is trickling down.