Healthcare: More regulation or less?

Originally posted by sh76
Sweden trading Germany the iron it needed to fight the war is hardly neutral. Was the United States truly neutral in the summer of 1941? I didn't think so. In any case, Sweden was the only Scandinavian country that was "neutral" by any possible definition. Scandinavia was not neutral in WWII. Norway and Denmark were on the Allied side (by virtue of having been ...[text shortened]... he Axis until it capitulated in 1944. Sweden was, at best, a friendly "neutral" to Germany.

Scandanavia in general was neutral in adhering to the policies of most of their governments, until of course being invaded and not being a participant in the war anymore once that neutrality failed to pay off.

Originally posted by eljefejesus
Let's start with logic since even that is missing so far from the debate.

You take more of all people's money away that they use to invest for their retirement, then you spend it on consumption such as to keep elderly people's hospital bills paid for and to give out checks for the elderly to use for subsistence-level consumption.

what do you think ...[text shortened]... such as did Ireland.

Taxation is not in general corrolated with higher levels of growth.

I guess that means "no".

Originally posted by eljefejesus
Free trade is good, but high taxes are bad. They may not always and everywhere cause immediate decline, but they are usually and in most places a net drag. It depends on what it gets spent on. Social security and medicare are drags on growth.

Old people should just be put to death so that society wouldn't have to deal with their adverse effects on economic growth. Ditto with sick people.

Originally posted by eljefejesus
Scandanavia in general was neutral in adhering to the policies of most of their governments, until of course being invaded and not being a participant in the war anymore once that neutrality failed to pay off.

If you're neutral until being invaded then, in the last analysis, you're not neutral. In WWII, except for the UK, France, Poland and Germany, pretty much everyone was neutral at one point or another.

Originally posted by eljefejesus
Let's start with logic since even that is missing so far from the debate.

You take more of all people's money away that they use to invest for their retirement, then you spend it on consumption such as to keep elderly people's hospital bills paid for and to give out checks for the elderly to use for subsistence-level consumption.

what do you think such as did Ireland.

Taxation is not in general corrolated with higher levels of growth.

"[If economists ran the world]... the World would probably be a horrible place, but at least we'd all be really efficient."

- Steven Levitt*

Economic growth is not an end in itself. It's a means to an end of making the people of society more comfortable and making their lives easier and more pleasant. The primary way to do that is through economic growth; but you don't want to sacrifice the over-all good of the people at the altar of economic growth. A careful balance has to be struck.




* Paraphrasing from a recent Freakonomics podcast

Originally posted by sh76
Economic growth is not an end in itself. It's a means to an end of making the people of society more comfortable and making their lives easier and more pleasant. The primary way to do that is through economic growth; but you don't want to sacrifice the over-all good of the people at the altar of economic growth. A careful balance has to be struck.

Well said.

Originally posted by FMF
Well said.

Thank you 🙂

Originally posted by KazetNagorra
I guess that means "no".

Yes, but I'm not going to write a textbook for you, here is one good and impartial link to explain some of the basic economics behind the issue with facts:


http://economics.about.com/cs/taxpolicy/a/taxing_growth.htm

Originally posted by no1marauder
Old people should just be put to death so that society wouldn't have to deal with their adverse effects on economic growth. Ditto with sick people.

Sure, here's another either/or fallacy, rather than letting people decide for themselves how much to save up for their future healthcare, let's just kill off all the young healthy people and take their money to pay for the old people, ditto the people who start making ridiculous statements and expect a response to take it seriously. Garbage in, so here you go, garbage out.

Originally posted by sh76
If you're neutral until being invaded then, in the last analysis, you're not neutral. In WWII, except for the UK, France, Poland and Germany, pretty much everyone was neutral at one point or another.

Is your argument that if very many countries are neutral, then we should put them on a side to avoid so many countries being labeled neutral?

As I said when Teinosuke started this weak line of argument and you jumped on the bandwagon along with FMF: most of Scandanavia was neutral during World War II. What point are you trying to make about these countries, that once they were invaded by the nazis regardless of their neutrality they were somehow on a side in any relevant, practical way?

The reason this was raised was because their neutrality meant they were not as heavily destroyed as Britain or Germany or France or other rich countries that could have been wealthier in comparison to where they are, making Scandinavia a little better off, in theory.

The line of attack, and its relevance, are weak and debunked.

Originally posted by sh76
"[If economists ran the world]... the World would probably be a horrible place, but at least we'd all be really efficient."

- Steven Levitt*

Economic growth is not an end in itself. It's a means to an end of making the people of society more comfortable and making their lives easier and more pleasant. The primary way to do that is through economic growth ...[text shortened]... areful balance has to be struck.




* Paraphrasing from a recent Freakonomics podcast

Here's your latest economist hero of the day in another quote: ""I just don't know very much about the field of economics. I'm not good at math, I don't know a lot of econometrics, and I also don't know how to do theory."[16]"

So other than taking quotes out of contests or making straw arguments about growth not being superior to welfare (duh!), you fail to acknowledge that growth is a major long-term contributor to human welfare. Why do you think advanced economists can even afford to consider forms of nationalized or universal health care coverage (and with even US levels of technological and costs)?

Originally posted by eljefejesus
Yes, but I'm not going to write a textbook for you, here is one good and impartial link to explain some of the basic economics behind the issue with facts:


http://economics.about.com/cs/taxpolicy/a/taxing_growth.htm

What a poorly written piece. First of all, in the "extreme cases" we already know the tax rate is not optimal and has to be somewhere in between, so the extreme cases in fact do not tell us anything useful (both give very poor results and are unsustainable).

"If such a society were possible, we can see that people would be quite productive as any income they earn, they keep. " Is that the only thing determining productivity? What about education? You know, that stuff you fund from tax dollars. Don't collect enough taxes to educate the lower classes, and their productivity is going to take a nosedive.

"Do you think he'll spend more time at work or less if his take home pay is $8.00 rather than $2.00? I'd bet you that at $2.00 he's not going to spend a lot of time at work and he is going to spend a lot of time trying to earn a living away from the prying eyes of government." Well, I don't know. There isn't actually a country that taxes so heavily. We do know, however, that employment rates are very high in the current high taxing countries, so a tax rate of 50-60% does not appear to impact the willingness to go to work significantly. In fact, here in the Netherlands, where the top income tax bracket is 52%, unemployment is lowest of the EU.

"Government tax revenue does not necessarily increase as the tax rate increases. The government will earn more tax income at 1% rate than at 0%, but they will not earn more at 100% than they will at 10%, due to the disincentives high tax rates cause. Thus there is a peak tax rate where government revenue is highest. The relationship between income tax rates and government revenue can be graphed on something called a Laffer Curve. " But the Laffer curve does not tell us anything about where the optimum tax rate is. For all we know, it might be 90% (probably not true, but the Laffer curve cannot be used to disprove that statement).

Originally posted by eljefejesus
Here's your latest economist hero of the day in another quote: ""I just don't know very much about the field of economics. I'm not good at math, I don't know a lot of econometrics, and I also don't know how to do theory."[16]"

So other than taking quotes out of contests or making straw arguments about growth not being superior to welfare (duh!), you f ...[text shortened]... or universal health care coverage (and with even US levels of technological and costs)?

Actually, he acknowledged that in the very post you quoted.

Most (all?) estimates I've seen put current US income tax rates quite left of the peak of the estimated Laffer curve.

Taxes do introduces distortions and are generally a cost, but it's absurd to forget the benefits of spending those funds.

Originally posted by eljefejesus
Here's your latest economist hero of the day in another quote: ""I just don't know very much about the field of economics. I'm not good at math, I don't know a lot of econometrics, and I also don't know how to do theory."[16]"

So other than taking quotes out of contests or making straw arguments about growth not being superior to welfare (duh!), you f ...[text shortened]... or universal health care coverage (and with even US levels of technological and costs)?

But you tend to make exactly that argument - that economic growth is essentially the only thing that matters.

sh76 is pointing out that while economic growth is indeed a major long-term contributor to human welfare, it can't be the only thing we look at. One thing that almost all societies care about is ensuring that everyone "who plays by the rules" is able to attain a certain minimum standard of living. Experience has shown that the unrestrained free market cannot by itself do this. It can create rapid growth, but it also leaves behind a sizeable underclass that can't escape extreme poverty unless it stops trying to "play by the rules".

It is not good for a society to have a large class of angry have-nots that become a hotbed for crime and subversion. Marx's theory was based on this class rising up and tearing down the existing system of capitalism altogether.

A major reason why Marx's great proletariat revolution never came to pass in western Europe and the US was because the safety net was expanded to give even the poorest members of society reasons to choose to "play by the rules" of a capitalist system.