Willravel

It should have died out decades ago, though. Trickle-down should have died in the late 80s when it was demonstrated conclusively to be false. Exceptionalism should have died with the cold war and the advent of the true international community. They're still fricking here.

I'm normally a patient man, but this is ridiculous. Modern conservatism, conservatism in 2010, should be about simplifying government, things like reducing the complexity of the tax code or eliminating wasteful spending. Modern conservatives should be absolutely enraged at the defense budget. They should be calling for a public option while we on the left are calling for single-payer. Instead, we have fucking morons marching on Washington complaining about the how our Hawaiin president is a secret Kenyan, how Social Security should be privatized, and how taxes, which are at their lowest in generations and lowest among all of our international peers, are somehow too high. I've lost my patience. The Tea Party no longer, in my mind, has permission to exist, and Tea Party members will be treated as such from here on in.

Derwood

I'm fascinated by ace and his theories on intellectual/creative bootstrappyness

__________________
"You can't shoot a country until it becomes a democracy." - Willravel

dogzilla

Unless you are disabled, you have no right to any of my income. This is a vote issue for me, so I will vote against any politician who proposes anything like a public health care option. Let the wealthy socialists and liberals stop being hypocrites and devote their fortunes to helping the poor first.

Social Security should be privatized. FDR was an idiot to implement the Ponzi scheme he created where by law the only investments Social Security can make are in government bonds. I've taken the data from the document the Social Security administration sends me every year and the annual rate of interest on Social Security bonds and roughly computed what the present value of my payments would be. Then using the same 4% of balance figure that I've read should be your rate of withdrawal from a 401K to preserve the fund balance, my Social Security payout should be about 1.5-2x what the SSA tells me it will be

Not only that, but I am not allowed to pass on any remaining balance in my Social Security account as an inheritance even though it was my money that funded that balance.

Finally, I have managed to reach a balance in my 401K in just 15 years that it took me 35 years to reach in Social security.

Taxes are too high. I don't care what other countries taxes are. If you like government handouts, move to a socialist country. The government should be a minimalist provider of services of last resort and should stay out of a lot of stuff it meddles in today. Entitlement programs should be cut. None of you has yet even attempted to explain how the Constitution prohibits that.

If you want to be an ostrich and pretend the Tea Party doesn't exist, that's fine by me. Right now it looks like in about a month they will bring you the hope and change that Obama didn't.

Shadowex3

Yknow funny because I want to say basically the same thing to you. If you want to live in Sarajevo so much why don't you just move there, and you've never explained what in the constitution prohibits joining the first world either. At least not in a way that can't ALSO be used to argue against everything from the interstate to the airforce. Your position is fundamentally untenable as it is inherently flawed: Firstly it requires that people be perfect, and secondly it's not internally consistent while claiming outwardly to be absolutely so. Libertarianism, teapartyism, and the hard right in general basically boil down to "I should be able to do what I want when I want... but nobody else should be able to do it back to me."

To quote the internet:

We've already tried the articles of confederation, it didn't work.

__________________

Tully Mars

How disabled is disabled enough? I mean to get some of your hard earned fairly paid taxes does someone need to be a quadriplegic or could they just have lung cancer? What about mental illnesses?

And why not allow people people access to affordable health care through a single payer system? The more healthy people there are the more likely they are to be working and contributing to the system.

__________________
I used to drink to drown my sorrows, but the damned things have learned how to swim- Frida Kahlo

Vice President Starkizzer Fan Club

dogzilla

If your disability prevents you from working at the job you had, or if you were never able to get a job because of your disability, then you qualify. Periodic (5 year?) re-evaluations wouldn't be a bad idea.

As long as it's not at taxpayer expense, I don't care.

roachboy

so once again, we see the pertinence for conservative socio-economic views of being a narcissitic dick.

me me me me me me me me me.
die if you aren't like me me me me me me me.
me me me me me me me me me.
because this is america.


btw: i don't think its at all a foregone conclusion that the be-a-dick people are going to make much headway in the midterms.
i'm thinking: waterloo for the ultra-right, crisis for the republicans.

but who knows. it's possible that the obama administration's unwillingness to combat the right will bite us all in the ass.


at least emmanuel's quit.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

dogzilla

Compared to the me me me gimme gimme gimme attitude of the entitlement crowd or the hypocrisy of the liberal/socialist elite, some of whom are in that evil 1% of the population that is keeping the poor man down?

Derwood

Where in the Constitution does it say that the Government CAN'T bail out the auto industry?

Where in the Constitution does it say that the Government CAN'T implement Universal Health Care?

__________________
"You can't shoot a country until it becomes a democracy." - Willravel

Tully Mars

I think , depending on age, SS disability does reviews every 3 yrs. But I could be wrong.

If the tax payers aren't the single payer who would?

And why single health care out as a non-tax payer funded system? Why not build roads, schools the police, fire and the military as private systems?

__________________
I used to drink to drown my sorrows, but the damned things have learned how to swim- Frida Kahlo

Vice President Starkizzer Fan Club

The_Dunedan

Right here:

"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

Amendment 10

If the Constitution does not -explicitly- authorise something, the Federal Gov't has no right, authority, or business doing it.

__________________
"I personally think that America's interests would be well served if after or at the time these clowns begin their revolting little hate crime the local police come in and cart them off on some trumped up charges or other. It is necessary in my opinion that America makes an example of them to the world."

--Strange Famous, advocating the use of falsified charges in order to shut people up.

roachboy

here we are again, at the point where the strict constructionists depart from the reality of the legal system that the constitution put into motion. there is precedent. like it or not. you cannot wish it away. the american common law system, which is perhaps the smartest accomplishment of the founders, is one of the few aspects of the american political system that actually works. little wonder that the ultra-right opposes it and wants to overturn the most basic operational logic of that system in the name of keeping it pure.

what's hilarious is that, as someone noted above, what the ultra-right wants to do functionally is make the constitutional system back into the articles of confederation.

which...um....didn't work.

but hey, history be damned, we're talking about arbitrarily interpreted Principles here.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Baraka_Guru

What about.....

[...] to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States;

—The general welfare clause of the United States Constitution

and

[...] The terms "general welfare'' were doubtless intended to signify more than was expressed or imported in those which preceded; otherwise numerous exigencies incident to the affairs of a nation would have been left without a provision. The phrase is as comprehensive as any that could have been used; because it was not fit that the constitutional authority of the Union, to appropriate its revenues should have been restricted within narrower limits than the "general welfare'' and because this necessarily embraces a vast variety of particulars, which are susceptible neither of specification nor of definition.

It is therefore of necessity left to the discretion of the national legislature, to pronounce, upon the objects, which concern the general welfare, and for which under that description, an appropriation of money is requisite and proper. And there seems to be no room for a doubt that whatever concerns the general interests of learning of agriculture, of manufactures, and of commerce are within the sphere of the national councils as far as regards an application of money.

The only qualification of the generality of the phrase in question, which seems to be admissible, is this—That the object to which an appropriation of money is to be made be general and not local; its operation extending in fact, or by possibility, throughout the Union, and not being confined to a particular spot.

No objection ought to arise to this construction from a supposition that it would imply a power to do whatever else should appear to Congress conducive to the general welfare. A power to appropriate money with this latitude which is granted too in express terms would not carry a power to do any other thing, not authorized in the Constitution, either expressly or by fair implication. [...]

—Alexander Hamilton, Report on the Subject of Manufactures, December 5, 1791

Surely if Hamilton saw general welfare as an interpretation of the impact of it as a common good, then a President of the United States in the 21st century can.

__________________
Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

aceventura3

It is not as complicated as some try to make it out to be.

The basis of my view is that people are selfish, in that they lookout for their interests ahead of the interests of others or the community. Not to suggest that people are not charitable and don't care about others, but in the final analysis - I think we are a "me" first species. There are some species where this is not true, but not man - and I agree there are exceptions.

Given the basis of my view of humans, if wealth is to be redistributed, people want it redistributed in their direction. All people, rich or poor. So it goes, deregulate me, regulate others. Reduce my taxes, tax others. Give me benefits at the expense of others. People who own capital, fight to protect it. Those who lack capital, but have political/police/military/etc. power fight to control capital. The struggle is ageless and will never end - unless the nature of man changes.

---------- Post added at 04:40 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:29 PM ----------

I challenge your premise. You are suggesting that a trend of increasing regulation imposed by government, say starting with the industrial revolution, actually reversed. I can not think of any major industry where the regulatory environment actually shrunk.

---------- Post added at 04:49 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:40 PM ----------


Perhaps this is the third time I have asked this personal question. If you became a billionaire how many people would benefit on your rise to that level of wealth? I assume, you believe you would be the reasons X number of people would benefit from your efforts and if not for you their lives would be worse. If true, why do you think it would be different for everyone else who would become a billionaire? What is the ratio of a person legitimately becoming a billionaire and the lives of others improved? What should the ratio be? Isn't by definition this is "trickle down"?

Also, I am beginning to understand how this ties into the inception of "ideas". If I believed there were no original "ideas", that everything that can be thought of was a part of the public domain, so to speak, and stolen or borrowed, I would think anyone being personally enriched is doing so unjustly at the expense of others.

---------- Post added at 05:04 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:49 PM ----------

You are always good for a laugh lately.

A man + a tube + 2 mirrors is a man, a tube and 2 mirrors.

A man + a tube + 2 mirrors + an idea to use a concave primary mirror = a reflective telescope leading to an understanding of the heavens. Thanks Sir Isaac Newton, oops or was it Galileo, oh never mind he stole the idea from from some guys who certainly stole it from someone else. Either way it is awfully abstract, isn't it. Was Newton a greedy capitalist pig, with designs of exploiting poor people?

__________________
"Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on lunch."
"It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions on vegetarianism while the wolf is of a different opinion."
"If you live among wolves you have to act like one."
"A lady screams at the mouse but smiles at the wolf. A gentleman is a wolf who sends flowers."

Baraka_Guru

I'm not interested in comparing today's environment to the Industrial Revolution. Much in the same way, I'm not interested in comparing today's environment to the Old West, or the British colonization of North America. The reason is that there have been at least a few developments in economic theory since those times that would make such comparisons not very useful. There have been a few developments socially and politically as well.

__________________
Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

roachboy

ace, dear, what on earth are you prattling on about now?

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Tully Mars

Ace- I've seen the US population come together and work for a common cause I don't think, by nature, they're a greedy people. Allowing poor US children to die because their family lacks the ability to pay for medical treatment while paying for medical treatments for poor people in other countries seems completely crazy to me.

Dunedan- as BG points out I don't see your 10th Amendment argument standing. But I can see why you'd make it. I've always seen you strict constitutionalist. I have no problem with you having this opinion but I disagree. If we simply let the US constitution stand as written we'd have way more problems then we currently do... and we've got enough problems.

__________________
I used to drink to drown my sorrows, but the damned things have learned how to swim- Frida Kahlo

Vice President Starkizzer Fan Club

aceventura3

You point to a trend that reversed because of Reagan. That assumes the trend reversed by Reagan actually began at some point, when? That is the basis of my point, pick your own date or simply tell us what the basis of your premise was. Also, share with us the evidence of the trend reversal. I have no hidden agenda, I am not being humerus, I simply ask for elaboration because I think your premise is wrong. If your premise is a solid one, it should be able to stand up to questions.

__________________
"Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on lunch."
"It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions on vegetarianism while the wolf is of a different opinion."
"If you live among wolves you have to act like one."
"A lady screams at the mouse but smiles at the wolf. A gentleman is a wolf who sends flowers."

Baraka_Guru

My premise is that Reagan began a process of deregulation. Is that wrong?

__________________
Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

aceventura3

Just that there are exceptional people who come up with exceptional ideas that actually benefit the world. Exeptionalism, is not always motivated by greed or even a pressing need to solve an immediate problem. Oh, that supply often comes before demand, oh, just more supply side drivel - you know same o', same o'. And, I was wondering that if in your infinite wisdom of what motivates people if Newton wanted people to starve too?

---------- Post added at 07:28 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:22 PM ----------

Did I say "greedy"? I think people put themselves first, a bit different than greed. Although there are some greedy people, I would not say that is the nature of man. People will meet their own needs before thinking about the needs of others. If by nature the people of the US were not as I describe, we would not so disproportionately consume the total production in the world.

---------- Post added at 07:32 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:28 PM ----------

I think it is. I think it is a myth that there has been any deregulation in this country. From my point of view there has been a trend of increasing regulation since the founding of this nation and that it accelerated starting in the early 1900's. I do not take the position that all regulation is bad. However, excessive regulation hinders economic growth, productivity and living standards.

__________________
"Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on lunch."
"It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions on vegetarianism while the wolf is of a different opinion."
"If you live among wolves you have to act like one."
"A lady screams at the mouse but smiles at the wolf. A gentleman is a wolf who sends flowers."

roachboy

ace, dear....

i can continue to humor you as if your crackpot viewpoint is of something beyond anthropological interest. or i stop.

i think i'm going to stop.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Baraka_Guru

Wait...it's a myth that there has been any deregulation? That in itself requires subscribing to some kind of mythology.

Well, regulation really started to kick in during the 19th century as a response to such things as child labour and it being virtually impossible to enter a market due to gigantic monopolies. But a lot had happened since then and throughout the 20th century. Since Reagan, many changes have occurred that can be described as deregulation on the industry level. My point isn't to state whether it's good or bad in and of itself, but it is merely to state that how it happened in the U.S. since Reagan helped along the concentration of wealth.

I agree. I support reasonable and responsible regulation. I will also point out, however, that regulatory practices that are too lax is a danger as well. Just look to the history.

__________________
Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

dogzilla

I don't see anywhere that prohibits the government from doing this.

I'm going to agree with The_Dundean on this, that the 10th amendment prohibits it. The Constitution does grant the federal government the right to impose taxes, but does not grant the government the right to force people to pay arbitrary fees. Obama has gone to great lengths to claim his mandatory health care payments are not a tax, so Obama loses.

If I remember right, this is the basis for several law suits that the Supreme Court will get to choose from when deciding this.

So now it's your turn. Exactly where does the Constitution prohibit repealing or canceling an entitlement program?

---------- Post added at 04:36 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:24 PM ----------

If the government can't figure out how to make it work without the taxpayer paying for it, then forget it. I'm not responsible for other's health care and they are not responsible for mine.

The Constitution specifically directs Congress to maintain an army and a navy. Police, fire dept, schools, etc, I think that's up to the states. I don't see anything in the Constitution that says the federal government must provide them, and the federal government generally doesn't run them.

Roads, and other facilities may as well be private systems. We already at least partly pay for them on a user fee basis with toll roads and gas taxes. Maybe they will be run more efficiently.

Here in NY, one major toll road is the New York State Thruway. God forbid that there's even a bump in the pavement because the next day there will be a squadron of state highway construction trucks out fixing it. There might be six inches of snow on every other road in the state, but there won't be a snowflake to be seen on the Thruway because there's a squadron of snowplows continually circling their assigned region plowing and salting the road to death.

I think the last time the NY Thruway was closed was in 1969, thanks to the Woodstock concert. :-)

Willravel

Are there any bumper magnets that say "I support our troops unless they're risking their lives in the branch of the military not in the Constitution"?

boink

Dogzilla
I think I benefit from having generally healthy neighbors, it's like sharing cost for public schools, I benefit from living in a community of educated people.

would you prefer to live with uneducated sick people ? I remember you saying (I think) you had lived in a sketchy neighborhood at one time, well, it'd be nice I think if lower income neighborhoods didn't need to mean lack of education, violence, alcoholism drug use and trafficking broken homes, etc. don't you think ? shouldn't people be able to make it ok on lower income levels ?

it's like paying community 'rent'

people are also obliged to buy auto insurance, to protect the other guy at least, well I'd like to be protected from catching cold or flue from people who can't afford to stay home when they are sick...or how about polio or any other heinous sickness that could go epidemic, with that in mind, it becomes a matter of national security.

health care has always been about an economy of scale, so I just don't see why single payer wouldn't be a good thing ? I mean there's still private schools for those that can afford and prefer that. and our state colleges paid for partly by tax payers do tons of pie in the sky research so it's not like public (non profit) medicine has to be all bottom line and basic. I mean geez, this America (that's a good thing right ?) we do have a sense of pride and competition in the world, or we used to.

__________________
when you believe in things that you don't understand, then you suffer. Superstition ain't the way.

ring

Just how does the government make it work without taxpayer money, Dogzilla? The days of CIA drug monies are waning.

I quoted you slightly out of & fully in context.

You have fully admitted you would partake of any medicare benefits,
cuz...YOU paid for them, and you are owed.

I doubt that you have grasp on the pooling
of these taxes that are set aside for medicare, SC,& SC disability claims.

It's almost as if you believe that there is separate account just for you,
that's been approved somehow, because it's so darn obvious that you
are not one of: Those Gimme Gimme Fraudulents.

If you go back & read that Rolling Stone article,
that is one big fat glaring mindset that the author exposes.

I live in government housing for the elderly & disabled.
Much of the banter that hovers above the bingo tables is vile & ironic.

They got theirs & they justify it. They are morally pure & deserving,
no where near like: "Those nigger heathens/white trash sluts & their brats."

Shadowex3

So can I assume that in addition to prohibiting setting up a public option or single payer system, since those are not explicitly granted in the constitution, that you will also be demanding the government completely and totally dismantle the USAF? Executive Orders? Executive Privilege? What about Paper Money?

__________________

dippin

What I think is amazing is that any public policy that is progressive gets the "stay away from mah money" reaction, but the ones that are regressive don't.

Police, national security, foreign affairs, regulating the financial system are all things that benefit those with more assets more than those with less, and yet you don't get the same "get yer paw outta mah money" with those.

Which is my main problem with the American libertarian movement. If the state is oppressive, go all the way and become an anarchist. Don't stop midway and go "no, i like the state protecting me here."

Tully Mars

No you're right. You said-

I saw selfish and read greedy. My bad.

The fact we, the US, consumes so much of the worlds total production is a problem. Especially when it comes to oil. We're committing suicide by doing so and it's time for a dramatic change. Maybe that's what we've become- a me, me, me society but it's not our history. I think it's time to get back to working together.

---------- Post added at 07:08 AM ---------- Previous post was at 06:45 AM ----------

Well lets follow the constitution then and get rid of the Air Force. There's no mention of it so it must not be allowed either. Hell the money saved on jet fuel alone will help greatly in balancing the budget.

and...

How can the government do anything without tax payer funds? I mean I know the conservative answer of late is borrow and spend but anyone with a visa card should be able to see that not going to work long term.

__________________
I used to drink to drown my sorrows, but the damned things have learned how to swim- Frida Kahlo

Vice President Starkizzer Fan Club

dogzilla

Just move the Air Force back to a branch of the Army like it was in the first place. That solves that problem as well as the ridiculousness of eliminating an essential element of the military. I presume you wouldn't appreciate being a ground soldier with no air protection.

In which case we don't have a public option.

Obama has been setting new records in borrowing and spending in case you haven't noticed. At least until we take away his credit card in a month.

Tully Mars

I think the ridiculous part is assuming the constitution was written with the intent it never be changed or amended.

Look at the data and I think you'll see since Reagan the right has been increasing and perfecting the borrow and spend method of funding government.

__________________
I used to drink to drown my sorrows, but the damned things have learned how to swim- Frida Kahlo

Vice President Starkizzer Fan Club

The_Dunedan

It wasn't supposed to never be changed or amended. It was -supposed- to be left alone until a -big- important change needed making...and then a process for making that change was provided. It's called the Amendment process, and it's difficult, expensive, and time-consuming for a damned good reason. The Constitution is a contract between the Government and its' Constituents, and no half-decent employment contract allows the Employee (the Gov't, who badly needs to be reminded of this) to continually make changes to the terms of employment while giving The Boss (that'd be us, the American people) the finger and demanding the right to go through the till at any given moment.

Look at the data and I think you'll see that this is why GOP "establishment" candidates have been taking a ferocious beating so far this year. You're entirely correct about this, and people are -pissed-.

__________________
"I personally think that America's interests would be well served if after or at the time these clowns begin their revolting little hate crime the local police come in and cart them off on some trumped up charges or other. It is necessary in my opinion that America makes an example of them to the world."

--Strange Famous, advocating the use of falsified charges in order to shut people up.

Tully Mars

Who gets to decide what is a "big important" issue?

I think you're right and a lot of what we're seeing is people on the right being pissed at the spending. But there's a lot of loony mixed into that. I was in the US two weeks ago and saw several tea protests, somewhere between 8 and maybe 10. They all seemed to be in front of post offices, I have no idea why. Every protest I saw had signs like this-



This one was in Nehalem Oregon. On one side it reads "Stop the spending and big government!" The front reads "Save the military, impeach Obama" And of course you can read the side I managed to get a shot of reads "Save NASA, impeach Obama" All complete with picture showing Obama with a Hilter type mustache. I didn't talk to these people, too much traffic and there was a road crew trying to paint lane lines. But every group I saw had signs calling for smaller government less spending... but save the military and or NASA. Isn't the military and NASA big government spending? And to show the POTUS as Hitler or as I saw at other protest sites with a bone through his nose is beyond offensive. I stopped and spoke with 4 or 5 people at different sites. All seemed to have the same talking points. "Obama's a terrorist and a Muslim." "Obama hates white people." "Obama's a socialists." "We need to send him back to Africa." Etc, etc, etc...

Prior to my trip I was willing to believe the tea party folks were largely not racists. Now I'm not buying that, least not the tea party of Oregon. And after speaking to the group in Salem and finding out they we're getting their signs for free from some PAC out of Sacramento, Ca I suspect the racism extends nationwide.

__________________
I used to drink to drown my sorrows, but the damned things have learned how to swim- Frida Kahlo

Vice President Starkizzer Fan Club

The_Dunedan

Anybody who can get enough votes to satisfy the requirements of the Amendment process. The point is that the process itself is difficult, time-consuming, and expensive. The idea is to make it such a pain in the ass to change the Constitution that, for an issue to even -reach- that level, it's big and important by default.

Of course, Statists/Collectivists of both stripes long ago gave up on following the rules of the document/contract they swore to uphold and defend. They find it much easier to simply ignore the Constitution's strictures. After all, the only way to get a law, statute, punishment or ordinance definitively thrown out as unconstitutional is to get it alllllll the way up to the Supreme Court, which process is difficult, time-consuming, expensive, and rigged. By -that- time, the law has had its' intended effect, and the SCOTUS is notoriously unwilling to strike down Federal laws, programmes, etc. Sometimes they're a little less accommodating to State Gov'ts and cities, but only sometimes and only just.

__________________
"I personally think that America's interests would be well served if after or at the time these clowns begin their revolting little hate crime the local police come in and cart them off on some trumped up charges or other. It is necessary in my opinion that America makes an example of them to the world."

--Strange Famous, advocating the use of falsified charges in order to shut people up.

Cimarron29414

Tully, this is so commonly said by the....left....and it is simply untrue.

We have a very poor man who walks door to door on our street and works day labor. Several days a week, someone employs him for $85/day to mow the grass, trim the bushes, paint the shed, etc. We sometimes split a day with another family if we can't give him a day's work. He's a proud man and wants to live a dignified life. It's been this way for years. In the evening, he takes the bus home. Sometimes, one of us will drive him home if the last bus has run.

This year he had a massive heart attack - dying, EMS, Emergency Room, the works. He goes to the hospital, which in our city just happens to be a premiere cardiovascular hospital. He gets a quadruple bypass done by the same doctor who did my friend's dad. This doc is one of the top 10 in the country. Anyway, Randy spent 2 months in the hospital due to a bad reaction to the drugs and such. After two months it was safe to discharge him, and over time, he's gone back to working.

Guess how much Randy has paid to have a top ten heart surgeon save his life and two months in the hospital? You know the answer - not a penny. He got the best possible care that hospital had to offer, no different than the care you or I would have received.

__________________
Gives a man a halo, does mead.

"Here lies The_Jazz: Killed by an ambitious, sparkly, pink butterfly."

aceventura3

To use a simple example, if a 70 mph speed limit is reduced to 65 mph, there has not been deregulation. Regulators, simply decided to change a regulatory rule. If there is a stretch of road with no regulatory signs, like a stop sign, and one is added, regulations increased for those who drive on that road. I have not seen a situation where something was regulated and it became deregulated. I may be wrong, I just can not think of anything.

__________________
"Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on lunch."
"It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions on vegetarianism while the wolf is of a different opinion."
"If you live among wolves you have to act like one."
"A lady screams at the mouse but smiles at the wolf. A gentleman is a wolf who sends flowers."

Baraka_Guru

Industry regulation isn't the same thing as traffic engineering. Let's keep on topic. If a government either removes or simplifies rules/regulations/restrictions within an industry, it's called deregulation.

__________________
Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

Tully Mars

I'm not sure I understand all of your post. You and your neighbors pay some homeless man $85 a day to do chores?

How or who paid his medical bills? If it was paid for by the government then we must have national health care covered so why are we all debating this issue?

If you're trying to say that children in the US do not die due to lack of health care coverage John Hopkins Children's Center in Baltimore et el disagree with you.

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aceventura3

it was an example, since it is beyond the scope of this thread to go into the details of any specific industry there is a need to use simplified examples.

By the way trucking is an industry, and traffic regulation plays a material role. In fact there is a relatively new economic indicator based on diesel fuel purchases.

Backgrounder: Ceridian-UCLA Pulse of Commerce Index

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Baraka_Guru

Oh, I'm well aware of trucking (and transportation) as an industry. But your examples served to pinpoint something very specific when I'm actually pointing to wider implications of the term deregulation in the context of government controls and industry practices. Can we refer to the term as it is commonly known?

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