A Plan to Replace the Welfare State

[Roxanne Appleby]

Why would this plan would work, since things like Social Security and Medicare were created to fill a need that existed when things were left to individuals?

Presumably, before SS and Medicare deductions started draining everyone's paychecks, that $10k per year never left the pockets of the earners as it wasn't collected. So, what happened to that money? People spent it on living costs, and not in saving for retirement and the health care costs of retirement. If the gov first takes the $10k and then gives it back without any safety nets left, we're going back to how things were without the safety nets. Why would it be any different just because you 'market' it differently?

You're cutting out the safety net, and giving people money doesn't mean the community will do a damn thing about those in need.

Norajane, the answer is in several parts.

First, we are hugely more wealthy than we were when social security, or even Medicare were launched: "The place to start is a blindingly obvious economic reality that no one seems to notice: This country is awash in money. America is so wealthy that enabling everyone to have a decent standard of living is easy."

Second, you mention "safety nets," but we have discovered they come with a price: "Institutions and individuals alike thrive to the extent that they have important jobs to do and know that the responsibility to do them is on their heads. For decades, the welfare state has said to us, 'We'll take care of that.' As a result, we have watched some of our sources of life's most important satisfactions lose vitality. At the same time, we have learned how incompetent--how helpless--government is when 'taking care of that' means dealing with complex human needs. The solution is not to tinker with the welfare state. The solution is to put responsibility for our lives back in our hands--ours as individuals, ours as families, and ours as communities."

Third, a number of people here have expressed skepticism that even knowing that WE are now the safety net, and having been given the resources to make it work, most people would just pocket all the money, shrug, and step over the bodies that would appear in their communities when the safety net was gone. I contend that most people would not do this, but would practice virtue in the Aristotelian sense of living "the good life" that requires honesty, compassion and generosity. Tom Wolfe wrote a description of the middle class that I think is accurate and explains why I believe this:

"The truth is that there is a common bond among all cultures, among all peoples in this world ... at least among those who have reached the level of the wheel, the shoe, and the toothbrush. And that common bond is that much-maligned class known as the bourgeoisie - the middle class. These people are to be found all over the world, in every continent, every nation, every society, every culture, everywhere you find the wheel, the shoe, and the toothbrush; and wherever they are, all of them believe in the same things. And what are those things? Peace, order, education, hard work, initiative, enterprise, creativity, cooperation, looking out for one another, looking out for the future of children, patriotism, fair play, and honesty. How much more do you want from the human beast? How much more can you possibly expect?"

That describes most of America. Murray's plan makes these people the safety net. They don't want to step over bodies and live in broken communities. Given the resources and the responsibility I think they are better able to deal with social problems than the welfare state.

 

[gauchecritic]

I can see a way to introduce the plan and make it work (even lets insurance co's make a profit). Simply limit the amount of earnings (and prices) The doctors fees are equal to (maybe slightly better than) the annual stipend. The pharmaceutical companies (especially the overseas ones) are then obliged to reduce their prices (increase their production, therefore jobs therefore wages) in order to meet demand and everyone gets the same for their degreejob or mcjob.

Oops. Just fell right into communism there and we all know for a fact that that doesn't and can't be made to work.

On a lighter, albeit disagreeable note, it seems that this plan takes no account of global economy either. That is unless you use dollars that are inflation and trade free.

(In case anyone is listening) Europe is apparently a gross exporter (or very close to being) the US is a gross importer.

Propping up failing economies, as history shows, is stop gap, the slide is inevitable particularly when the *richest* nation in the world refuses to or is incapable of making long term plans.

Athens, Rome, Greece, Holland, England then US. is a short list of international reserve currencies. (next in line are forecast to be Japan, China and Europe [possibly together with US])

Edited to add, having seen the word bourgeoisie applied to those that are altruistic. There are a hell of a lot more proletariat. (As our friendly white supremacist keeps reminding us)

 

[zeb1094]

It will never, ever, in a million years, be passed by congress! It would require them, the senators and congressmen, to give up some of their power. If everyone was to get this stipend, then they would have no portion of the population to sway to their parties platform.

The reason the welfare programs and social security have hung on so long is because it give congressmen and senators power. It gives them leverage to gain a block of voters to vote for them.

It's not about money or what would be good for the republic, it's about power, pure and simple. They have it and they don't want to give it up. No matter who they are, Democrate or Rebulican, they are where they are for one purpose and one purpose only. They like POWER! They like being in the drivers seat!

They ALL, no matter what they say in public, want to be exactly where they are. On Capital Hill, voting on things that will maintain the power they have or what will get them even more power.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

I can see a way to introduce the plan and make it work (even lets insurance co's make a profit). Simply limit the amount of earnings (and prices) The doctors fees are equal to (maybe slightly better than) the annual stipend. The pharmaceutical companies (especially the overseas ones) are then obliged to reduce their prices (increase their production, therefore jobs therefore wages) in order to meet demand and everyone gets the same for their degreejob or mcjob.

Oops. Just fell right into communism there and we all know for a fact that that doesn't and can't be made to work.

On a lighter, albeit disagreeable note, it seems that this plan takes no account of global economy either. That is unless you use dollars that are inflation and trade free.

(In case anyone is listening) Europe is apparently a gross exporter (or very close to being) the US is a gross importer.

Propping up failing economies, as history shows, is stop gap, the slide is inevitable particularly when the *richest* nation in the world refuses to or is incapable of making long term plans.

Athens, Rome, Greece, Holland, England then US. is a short list of international reserve currencies. (next in line are forecast to be Japan, China and Europe [possibly together with US])

Edited to add, having seen the word bourgeoisie applied to those that are altruistic. There are a hell of a lot more proletariat. (As our friendly white supremacist keeps reminding us)

If you limit the earning potential of doctors, the best and brightest no longer become doctors. The quality of care declines in proortion as those who were the best and brightest when they became doctors retire and are replaced by those who are taking the safe job, with no particular drive or ability. You will incidentally bakrupt just about every intern to fledgeling doctor in the country, as their theoretical earnings no longer support their student loan repayments.

Communism is built on the assumption people want to be ordinary. My experience is people want to excel. Nobody wanted to be utility infielder, everyone wanted to be shortstop. Nobody knockes themselves out to be just anbother file clerk, they strive to advance to paraleagal and hopefully, one day, go to law school. Communism removes the profit motive for innovation and thereby stifles innovation.

I've seen communism tried in Russia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Cuba, nicaragua, China. Can you tell me why you're so enamoured of it? I'm not trying to be bitchy, I'm just genuinely curious as to what you see in it.

 

[Pure]

Please be consistent, Roxanne,

"More than sufficient" means that if these basic benefits are all the company provides for the $3k, it will make a large profit. But companies could offer extras, and would compete for business by assembling attractive packages of extras that would still let them earn a lesser profit.

Let's not argue about the 3K.
But another posting says that *someone* is telling the company it has to take certain clients. Which is to say it's lessening its profit.

So either our stipulated price is sufficient or its not. Make up your mind.

If the ins. co. has to be told 'take these customers,' it's clear that the profit envisioned is inadequate (they don't refuse just to be mean, do they?)

What justifies this interference with the market? What gives anyone the right to tell shareholders and management of the ins. co. to take, say 7% profit instead of 10%? This has the same distorting effect as a price control, i.e., telling oil cos. what they can sell gasoline for, and everyone knows that just aint right-- and it doesn't work.

I'm a little surprised by your idea that a business would lower its profit to offer extras. If you watch your favorite Microsoft, it sells its helpline at iirc, $5/minute. That's what you're charged, above the purchase price, to help figure out their Windows. Or you can enroll for $100 a year (which you can bet is calculated to turn a profit).

How does this profit lowering thing work, exactly? (Please note we are not talking about the traditional 'sale' where a % profit [per item] is lowered for a limited time in order to drive up the volume *and increase the profit* as percentage of capital investment, at least in the long run.)

 

[gauchecritic]

If you limit the earning potential of doctors, the best and brightest no longer become doctors. The quality of care declines in proortion as those who were the best and brightest when they became doctors retire and are replaced by those who are taking the safe job, with no particular drive or ability. You will incidentally bakrupt just about every intern to fledgeling doctor in the country, as their theoretical earnings no longer support their student loan repayments.

Communism is built on the assumption people want to be ordinary. My experience is people want to excel. Nobody wanted to be utility infielder, everyone wanted to be shortstop. Nobody knockes themselves out to be just anbother file clerk, they strive to advance to paraleagal and hopefully, one day, go to law school. Communism removes the profit motive for innovation and thereby stifles innovation.

I've seen communism tried in Russia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Cuba, nicaragua, China. Can you tell me why you're so enamoured of it? I'm not trying to be bitchy, I'm just genuinely curious as to what you see in it.

Fairness? Communism is built on the assumption that all play an equal role in society. Nothing at all to stop people excelling in a fair society, particularly when they are no longer driven by excess and greed but by simply being the best they can be in a society that gives them the chance to be.

The clause "from those who can..." doesn't apply to money it applies to skill and ability

The idea that everyone will be mediocre is propoganda. A good footballer is a good footballer, a skilled surgeon is a skilled surgeon.

Are the surgeons in the 'free' west happy in their work or happy in their earnings? Don't they wish that they had stayed with the college band who are all now billionnaires rather than having to stand at an operating table for 3 and 4 hours at a time?

I could be bitchy and say I have a more open mind because I live in a more open society, but I have no idea if this is actually true or British arrogance. I suspect the latter and so refrain.

When you say "removes the profit motive" and equate it to a bad thing I am merely in the opposite camp and suggest that removing the profit motive is a good thing.

I believe it really is a case of being a member of the society to which we are born.

The problem we share is that you see only examples of Communism (capital 'C') and I see only examples of inevitable anarchy.

 

[R. Richard]

In California, at least, there is a good and efficient health care system offered by Kaiser Permanente. The enrolled patients get good, solid health care, with no frills, at rock bottom [still quite expensive prices.] If a Kaiser patient needs a specialist, one is provided by Kaiser from their staff. If Kaiser does not have a specific specialist on staff they will hire a good one for even a single patient.

Now for the bad stuff. The Kaiser waiting rooms are like a TB ward. Some of the people in the waiting rooms should be in jail, not a waiting room. The doctors are good, but you normally see a different doctor each time you go in for something. I, as a male, don't really care, although I have to explain the same thing several times. For a woman, the situation is probably very bad. I would assume that a woman wants a continuing relationship with a doctor who is peering inside her. Aint gonna' happen at Kaiser!

If it were not for the tort lawyers, a lot of medical care could be dispensed by nurses or technicians at much lower costs than current. However, if I am a doctor, there is no way I am going to let some low level employee treat a patient while I am not there to oversee. That way would lie financial suicide.

I was in a Kaiser hospital [for a pilonidal cyst operation actually.] I wandered around the halls from time to time, especially when the walls started to close in. I observed a patient in an oxygen tent leaning out to smoke a cigarette, puff by puff. I don't mind that the person was committing suicide, but NOT ON MY MEDICAL CARE DOLLAR!

There was a guy they had to bring in on a forklift. He must have weighed WELL over 500 pounds. I don't mind that the person was committing suicide, but NOT ON MY MEDICAL CARE DOLLAR!

Medical care costs can be contained. However, you may not like how they would have to do it.

JMNTHO.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

Pure: I'm a little surprised by your idea that a business would lower its profit to offer extras.

If the price is fixed at a high enough level to allow a substantial profit, offering extras is how you compete for customers. It's no different that competing by cutting prices and accepting a lower profit where the price is not fixed. In that case competition drives prices down to the point where the return on investment is just enough to keep offering the service. Where the price is fixed, competition drives extras up to the same point of just-adequate return on investment.

 

[gauchecritic]

Not defending anything here but the profit by volume rather than cost is arguably possible. The point of maximum profit (cost v. sales) is usually short of the point of volume v. diminishing returns.

How far short of diminishing returns you would be able to push volume (and therefore lower costs etc) is probably a moot point given that you are attempting to operate a closed economy within a trade deficit.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Fairness? Communism is built on the assumption that all play an equal role in society. Nothing at all to stop people excelling in a fair society, particularly when they are no longer driven by excess and greed but by simply being the best they can be in a society that gives them the chance to be.

The clause "from those who can..." doesn't apply to money it applies to skill and ability

The idea that everyone will be mediocre is propoganda. A good footballer is a good footballer, a skilled surgeon is a skilled surgeon.

Are the surgeons in the 'free' west happy in their work or happy in their earnings? Don't they wish that they had stayed with the college band who are all now billionnaires rather than having to stand at an operating table for 3 and 4 hours at a time?

I could be bitchy and say I have a more open mind because I live in a more open society, but I have no idea if this is actually true or British arrogance. I suspect the latter and so refrain.

When you say "removes the profit motive" and equate it to a bad thing I am merely in the opposite camp and suggest that removing the profit motive is a good thing.

I believe it really is a case of being a member of the society to which we are born.

The problem we share is that you see only examples of Communism (capital 'C') and I see only examples of inevitable anarchy.

Again, I'm not trying to start an argument. I'm genuinely curious and if my phrasing is pissing you off, just tell me and I'll drop it.

All I have seen from Communist countires is abject failure, in just about every realm. I haven't seen one that has been able to operate without vicious repression. I haven't seen one that hasn't become a police state. I haven't seen one that produces cutting edge anything. Or that even sucessfully pretends to have freedom for it's people.

China is by far the most sucessful, and they still cant produce a submarine the Japanese can't detect and track, nor a missile that can deliver a payload into this hemisphere (their workingmodels are copies of russian tehnology). There is no freedom there, even the number of kids you have is a matter for the state. People die in droves from disease outbreaks because the regional authorities are more apt to cover it up than report it.

With the track record Communism has, you're still an adherent. If you were an idiot, I wouldn't be curious, but you're n ot. You're almost scary smart. I would just like to see, what it is you see in communism, that makes it worth your time and energy to endorse and expouse.

If it's a pin in the ass to explain, please feel free to tell me nunya. I'm not real comfortable digging into people's personal motivations and privacy, but if you feel like, i would very much like to understand.

 

[gauchecritic]

could've been a PM but...

Again, I'm not trying to start an argument. I'm genuinely curious and if my phrasing is pissing you off, just tell me and I'll drop it.

Just keeping it light Cols. (trying to think of a nick that will piss you off in the interests of those that would rather see a catfight than a discussion)

If it's a pin in the ass to explain, please feel free to tell me nunya. I'm not real comfortable digging into people's personal motivations and privacy, but if you feel like, i would very much like to understand.

Put simply, I have a deep and abiding hatred of people that sit on their arses for 30k a year looking down on people with McJobs making short of 10.

People do jobs they can find or are (sometimes) best able to do (in almost any office or management job employees are promoted to the level at which they are marginally incompetent) I can not for the life of me understand why a degree guarantees someone in excess of 5 times the salary of someone who is really good with a shovel or excells in wiping drool from alzheimers patients.

You may ask why would anyone go through 5 years of college and 5 years of training to be paid the same as the burger flipper?

I would ask why would anyone take a job that they disliked merely because they could then afford to eat at the plushest restaurant rather than the burger joint?

Societal inequality is caused and maintained by 'the market price'.

Reading Kierkergard is no more worthy than reading Zane Grey. Listening to Liszt is no more rewarding than listening to Lemonhead. Playing GTA Miami is no less entertaining than Chess.

Access to broadening experience should not be controlled by your credit card limit nor the school where you were educated.

 

[R. Richard]

Again, I'm not trying to start an argument. I'm genuinely curious and if my phrasing is pissing you off, just tell me and I'll drop it.

All I have seen from Communist countires is abject failure, in just about every realm. I haven't seen one that has been able to operate without vicious repression. I haven't seen one that hasn't become a police state. I haven't seen one that produces cutting edge anything. Or that even sucessfully pretends to have freedom for it's people.

Colly:
One very successful communist experiment was the Jamestown colony right here in the US of A! If you remember the famous phrase, "Anyone who does not work, does not eat!" That is pure Marxist dialetic. "We tell you what to do, how to do it and only obedience will yield payment in the necessities of life." It was a necessary step in the establishment of Jamestown.

However, once the colony was up and began to function, they ditched the communist thing and everyone had to make his/her own way. At least in the opinion of the Jametown colony, communism was a necessary evil to be put up with for a minimum amount of time.

Another item you might consider is Italy. Italy, during the cold war had one of the largest communist parties outside of the Soviet Union. On paper, the communist party could have taken over the Italian government at any point in time. However, the communists were never able to get enough of their people elected to high office to control Italy. They asked a veteran Italian politician why the communists could not take control. The guy looked at the questioners as if they were insane and said, "If we give the communists the government, they will never give it back!" [In the South of Italy, many of the local officials are registered as Communists. They are decent, hard working people trying to get a better life for those they represent. They are not really communists, they are actually populists. If they can get a factory, something like a milk processing plant or a mill for the area, that is what they want. They don't want to run the national government.]

Communism is a grwat system, for the people who run the system, not for those who live under it.

 

[amicus]

Well, I am about to kick back in a recliner next to a fireplace, dim the lights and watch UCLA rout Florida in the NCAA finals and also watch the newest episode of '24' which begins at about the same time.

But I saw your question to Gauche and it is one that applies to many on this forum who seem enamoured by socialism/communism, but seem never to defend or justify that belief.

They will never, either, as it is a deep dark psycholgical secret they hide from themselves.

And yes, many of them are 'scary' smart, that is part of the key. They are so far superior in their intellect that they look down upon the unwashed masses and fabricate an 'order' that would best keep them under control.

Freedom/democracy is dangerous and messy. Total control, a command economy, is neat and tidy and fully regulated and can be made predictable and safe. (at least in their minds)

I think one has to 'imagine' being a 'block master' or a member of the ruling party to fully realize the surge of testosterone that comes from realizing you control the entire lives of all those under your command.

You control where they work, how much they earn, where they live, what they eat, whom they marry, their past present and future and that of all related to them, complete power and complete control.

That is the driving force behind the Gauche's and the Pure's, they want unbridled control and power over others.

There is also a 'snobbishnesh' involved; not the snobbery of the wealthy, who have earned the right, but the snobbery of the power of dismissal by force and isolation.

One might compare it to the inner sanctum of the Catholic Church, the ruling powers from Rome on down to the parish priest, ultimate control and power over those you minister to.

It is also the desire for the 'unearned'. They desire to be 'annointed' into power through social acceptance and manipulation, not to earn it by merit or skill.

Socialism like christian altruism, is a sick, sick philosophy.

Avoid it like the plague and give it no quarter, no mercy, stomp on it wherever you find it.


amicus...

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

Colly:
One very successful communist experiment was the Jamestown colony right here in the US of A! If you remember the famous phrase, "Anyone who does not work, does not eat!" That is pure Marxist dialetic. "We tell you what to do, how to do it and only obedience will yield payment in the necessities of life." It was a necessary step in the establishment of Jamestown.

However, once the colony was up and began to function, they ditched the communist thing and everyone had to make his/her own way. At least in the opinion of the Jametown colony, communism was a necessary evil to be put up with for a minimum amount of time.

Another item you might consider is Italy. Italy, during the cold war had one of the largest communist parties outside of the Soviet Union. On paper, the communist party could have taken over the Italian government at any point in time. However, the communists were never able to get enough of their people elected to high office to control Italy. They asked a veteran Italian politician why the communists could not take control. The guy looked at the questioners as if they were insane and said, "If we give the communists the government, they will never give it back!" [In the South of Italy, many of the local officials are registered as Communists. They are decent, hard working people trying to get a better life for those they represent. They are not really communists, they are actually populists. If they can get a factory, something like a milk processing plant or a mill for the area, that is what they want. They don't want to run the national government.]

Communism is a grwat system, for the people who run the system, not for those who live under it.

Are you sure you don't mean the Plymouth plantation in Massachusetts? Conservatives love to tell the story of how the pilgrims began with a commune system, starved, said "fucketh this," served up private property, thrived, invited the Indians to a party on the third Thursday in November, and watched the Detroit Lions get creamed. Amazingly, the story is actually true (if not certain details of my recounting), and is beautifully described in pilgrim father William Bradford's journal, "Of Plymouth Plantation" :

So they began to think how they might raise as much corn as they could, and obtain a better crop than they had done, that they might not still thus languish in misery. At length, after much debate of things, the Governor (with the advice of the chiefest amongst them) gave way that they should set corn every man for his own particular, and in that regard trust to themselves; in all other things to go on in the general way as before. And so assigned to every family a parcel of land, according to the proportion of their number, for that end, only for present use (but made no division for inheritance) and ranged all boys and youth under some family. This had very good success, for it made all hands very industrious, so as much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been by any means the Governor or any other could use, and saved him a great deal of trouble, and gave far better content. The women now went willingly into the field, and took their little ones with them to set corn; which before would allege weakness and inability; whom to have compelled would have been thought great tyranny and oppression.

The experience that was had in this common course and condition, tried sundry years and that amongst godly and sober men, may well evince the vanity of that conceit of Plato's and other ancients applauded by some of later times; that the taking away of property and bringing in community into a commonwealth would make them happy and flourishing; as if they were wiser than God. For this [Volume 1, Page 580] community (so far as it was) was found to breed much confusion and discontent and retard much employment that would have been to their benefit and comfort. For the young men, that were most able and fit for labour and service, did repine that they should spend their time and strength to work for other men's wives and children without any recompense. The strong, or man of parts, had no more in division of victuals and clothes than he that was weak and not able to do a quarter the other could; this was thought injustice. The aged and graver men to be ranked and equalized in labours and victuals, clothes, etc., with the meaner and younger sort, thought it some indignity and disrespect unto them. And for men's wives to be commanded to do service for other men, as dressing their meat, washing their clothes, etc., they deemed it a kind of slavery, neither could many husbands well brook it. Upon the point all being to have alike, and all to do alike, they thought themselves in the like condition, and one as good as another; and so, if it did not cut off those relations that God hath set amongst men, yet it did at least much diminish and take off the mutual respects that should be preserved amongst them. And would have been worse if they had been men of another condition. Let none object this is men's corruption, and nothing to the course itself. I answer, seeing all men have this corruption in them, God in His wisdom saw another course fitter for them.

(Apologies and all due respect to the esteemed Master Bradford for posting his words on a smut site.)

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Just keeping it light Cols. (trying to think of a nick that will piss you off in the interests of those that would rather see a catfight than a discussion)



Put simply, I have a deep and abiding hatred of people that sit on their arses for 30k a year looking down on people with McJobs making short of 10.

People do jobs they can find or are (sometimes) best able to do (in almost any office or management job employees are promoted to the level at which they are marginally incompetent) I can not for the life of me understand why a degree guarantees someone in excess of 5 times the salary of someone who is really good with a shovel or excells in wiping drool from alzheimers patients.

You may ask why would anyone go through 5 years of college and 5 years of training to be paid the same as the burger flipper?

I would ask why would anyone take a job that they disliked merely because they could then afford to eat at the plushest restaurant rather than the burger joint?

Societal inequality is caused and maintained by 'the market price'.

Reading Kierkergard is no more worthy than reading Zane Grey. Listening to Liszt is no more rewarding than listening to Lemonhead. Playing GTA Miami is no less entertaining than Chess.

Access to broadening experience should not be controlled by your credit card limit nor the school where you were educated.

My Pm's are wonky. Not getting some and apparently not sending some. Hopefully this last blooie was to fix it

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Are you sure you don't mean the Plymouth plantation in Massachusetts? Conservatives love to tell the story of how the pilgrims began with a commune system, starved, said "fucketh this," served up private property, thrived, invited the Indians to a party on the third Thursday in November, and watched the Detroit Lions get creamed. Amazingly, the story is actually true (if not certain details of my recounting), and is beautifully described in pilgrim father William Bradford's journal, "Of Plymouth Plantation" :



(Apologies and all due respect to the esteemed Master Bradford for posting his words on a smut site.)

How long has been watching the lions get creamed been a thaksgiving tradition

 

[Colleen Thomas]

thanks Amicus. RR and roxxy.

The reason I asked gauche was because he believes in communism, and his take is obviously going to be different than the take I have. Thanks to you too gauche for replying. I'll admit I still don't see what you see in it. But I think i'm better off for the explanation nonetheless.

Sorry fpr the threadjack to all others

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

How long has been watching the lions get creamed been a thaksgiving tradition

Sometimes I make myself LOL - this was one of them!

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Sometimes I make myself LOL - this was one of them!

I thought it was cute

 

[R. Richard]

Are you sure you don't mean the Plymouth plantation in Massachusetts? Conservatives love to tell the story of how the pilgrims began with a commune system, starved, said "fucketh this," served up private property, thrived, invited the Indians to a party on the third Thursday in November, and watched the Detroit Lions get creamed. Amazingly, the story is actually true (if not certain details of my recounting), and is beautifully described in pilgrim father William Bradford's journal, "Of Plymouth Plantation" :

Actually, the Detroit Lions have played 65 Thanksgiving Day games. Their record is 33 wins, 30 losses and 2 ties for a .523 wining percentage. The Lions are 15 wins, 11 losses and 0 ties in the Silverdome for a .577 winning percentage.

The Detroit Lions started playing the Thanksgiving Day games in 1934, not 1493, so it is doubtful that the Pilgrims watched the Detroit Lions. Perhaps you were thinking of the Oorang Indians?

 

[gauchecritic]

That is the driving force behind the Gauche's and the Pure's, they want unbridled control and power over others.

amicus...

Can't speak for pure (he defends himself much better than I) but I'll thank you not to put your tainted philosophy in my mouth.

Nowhere have I ever espoused communist government, nor yet supported those governments which claim to be communist. I have only ever supposed in as valid a philosophy as yours Horatio, the politics of communism.

Being Amicus I wonder if you can grasp that concept?

 

[NoFatChicks]

its a lovingtongue hate white people thread

 

[Pure]

Colly, thought you might like these; reviews of Murray

First Klein's blog, which references and elaborates on his review, then the original review.


http://ezraklein.typepad.com/blog/2006/04/charles_murray_.html
April 03, 2006

Charles Murray Returns

In the coming weeks, you're going to hear a lot about Charles Murray's new book, In Our Hands. Murray, you'll remember, is the crackpot conservative responsible for The Bell Curve, the racist, IQ-obsessed tract from the mid-90's that turned out to be little more than the thinking man's eugenicism. He was, as Jason DeParle once described him, a social science pornographer: the Larry Flynt for a new breed of smut that that legitimized his audience’s most poisonous suspicions about race, class, and sex by wrapping them in a veneer of sober scientism.

The question has always been why folks take his ideas seriously. The best I can come up with is the Murray discovered and skillfully exploited a fairly foundational flaw among journalists -- their generalist nature.

Most commentators are not wonks, and they're definitely not statisticians. Therefore, when faced with one of Murray's opuses, they're dazzled by the array of statistics, multivariate regression analyses, and other impressive techniques he uses, the flaws of which the reviewers are often ill-equipped to assess. Murray incapacitates them by talking over them, and few writers want to risk a humiliating display of ignorance by engaging his dense substance. So there’s a lot of ambivalence as to his conclusions, but much enthusiasm for his boldness and intellectual courage, virtues that self-important commentators feel well-equipped to identify.

Murray's newest is a grandiose plan to liquidate the welfare state -- Medicare, Social Security, welfare, everything -- and plow the savings into $10,000 checks for every adult American. This will, he argues, solve all our problems, from the purely economic dangers that loom on the Congressional Budget Office's projected horizons to the existential angst that afflicts our souls and hollows out our communities. I'm not kidding, as you'll see if you read my review of Murray in the latest New Republic (which I'm writing this post in large part to plug). [[reproduced below]]

I do, however, want to use my blog's blissfully unlimited space to go into some added detail on Murray's policy mistakes. The base assumption of his plan is that he can halt the growth of health spending -- the primary driver of budgetary inflation -- by restoring all power to the individual, who will then bargain with private insurers and demand better care, lower cost, and snappier service. His basic premise is that given the trillions floating around our government, the concept that we have any problems at all is absurd, and it must mean that government waste is subverting America's abundance.

The problem is, our country’s entitlement programs are models of bureaucratic efficiency. Social Security spends less than one percent of its budget on administration; for Medicare, it’s two percent. Compare that to the private health insurers, who blow about 14 percent on administration. Indeed, if you imposed the Plan immediately, it would cost staggering $355 billion more than the government currently spends. Some efficiency.

Murray replies that the costs of entitlement programs will rise, while costs of the Plan won’t (save for those imposed by population growth). Therefore, by 2011, the Plan will be cheaper. But this is a trick. What’s driving entitlement costs is health insurance, and what’s driving health insurance is technological advancement. Murray may think that “except at its frontier, health care should be getting cheaper,” but he doesn’t realize that when the frontier becomes standard, more people utilize it, and spending increases. MRIs haven’t gotten a whole lot cheaper since they were introduced, but that have become a whole lot more widespread.

Murray’s answer is that the Plan will stop health care inflation, ushering in a consumer’s utopia of choice, competition, and rationalized end-of-life care. “When health care is subjected to the same choice that people make about everything else in their lives – ‘Is it worth it to me?’ -- the health care industry will respond in the same way as other industries constrained by market forces, with better products and lower costs.”

But such starry-eyed free marketeering is belied by the fact that health care is not a normal market. Take Avastin, a widely deployed colon cancer drug that’s been recently approved as a critical weapon against breast and lung cancer. Its makers, Genentech, plans to charge $100,000 for it – double what they charge colon cancer users, even though the additional cost of producing the higher dosage is trivial. They’re doing so because the market – because the patients, who have to pay much of the cost out-of-pocket -- will bear it. They’re doing so because there’s no centralized bargaining authority that can tell them to stop.

In health care, an unfettered market is a cost driver, not a containment strategy, as it places extraordinary power in the hands of suppliers and, in the short-term, ailing patients need them more than they need patients. What health care consumers lack are large bargaining authorities that can act as countervailing powers against the suppliers. Murray seems to forget that, in other markets, its not consumers, but retailers, like Wal-Mart, who drive prices down. In other countries, the government plays that role in health care. But America is a suppliers market, and individual buyers suffer for it.

The numbers back up the contention: Private health spending has been rising faster than Medicare or Medicaid’s, and America spends more than twice as much -- per capita -- on health costs as any other system in the world, despite having no better health outcomes. The Veteran’s Health Administration, which is fully socialized, provides the finest care in the country and does so at the lowest cost. They pay up to 80 percent less for pharmaceuticals than the new Medicare Drug Benefit, which is barred from bargaining except through private insurers. Get less, pay more – it’s become the American way, and Murray is nothing if not a patriot.

He's also a bit crazy, and I address his loopy attempts to sell the plan as a cure-all for American ennui over in my review, which you should all read. In any case, as he reenters the media stream over the next few weeks, don't be fooled. Murray's a charming guy -- I've talked with him -- and he's masterful in crafting an air of authority and a tone of reasonableness, but bad ideas are bad ideas, even when otherwise sane people don't know better than to take them seriously.
April 3, 2006 | Permalink
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[Review from TNR]

CHARLES MURRAY'S NUTTIEST IDEA YET
Mr. Big
by Ezra Klein
Post date: 03.30.06
Issue date: 04.10.06

About once a decade, Charles Murray has a big idea, and they keep getting bigger and bigger. In 1984, he exploded onto the scene with Losing Ground, a wildly overwrought--but not totally misguided--attack upon the welfare state. Ten years later, he came out with The Bell Curve, a quasi-eugenicist tract designed not only to prove that whites are inherently smarter than blacks, but also to create an IQ-centric interpretation of modern society.

Now he is unveiling his latest and biggest idea yet. Laid out in his new book, In Our Hands, he calls it--in an unacknowledged theft from cackling Bond villains everywhere--"the Plan" (capitals his). The resemblance to 007's fiendish nemeses doesn't stop at etymology's edge, though. The Plan is gleefully grandiose. It proposes the replacement of almost every social program in the United States--Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the Earned Income Tax Credit, you name it--with a $10,000 annual cash grant to every American.

Murray's big ideas are typically ushered onto the public stage with great fanfare, and this one is no exception: a discussion forum at the American Enterprise Institute, a gigantic op-ed in The Wall Street Journal, respectful reviews in the conservative press. Even those who don't want to endorse the whole of Murray's schemes seem impressed with their world-domination scale. "There are few, if any, bolder policy intellectuals than Charles Murray," enthuses The Economist. Andrew Ferguson, adopting a similar tone of qualified endorsement, writes, "Above all, he deserves credit for thinking his way past our increasingly tiresome debate about 'big government'--even at the risk of being thought harebrained."

Well, OK, somebody needs to say it: Murray is harebrained. His particular brand of nuttery manifests itself in an obsession with bigness. Other conservatives can propose cutting this or privatizing that. Murray insists on something far more massive and extravagant. (Goldfinger wasn't content just robbing a bank: He wanted to contaminate Fort Knox with a nuclear bomb.) In the Plan, Murray's insistence on bigness has reached its final, loopy culmination.

The extravagant claim behind Murray's $10,000-per-American plan--actually, it only covers those over 21 and out of prison, and it ratchets the check gradually back to $5,000 for higher earners--is that it would sweep away the federal bureaucracy. "Only a government," Murray writes, "can spend so much money so ineffectually." The problem is that the federal bureaucracy doesn't actually cost much money. Our country's entitlement programs are models of bureaucratic efficiency. Social Security spends less than 1 percent of its budget on administration; for Medicare, it's 2 percent.

Compare that with private health insurers, who blow about 14 percent on administration.

So exploding the programs and writing checks to everybody would save barely any money at all (though that hasn't stopped President Bush). Indeed, if you imposed the Plan immediately, it would cost a staggering $355 billion more than the government currently spends. Some efficiency.

Murray replies that the costs of entitlement programs will rise, while costs of the Plan won't (save for those imposed by population growth). Therefore, after 2011, the Plan will be cheaper. But this is a trick. What's driving entitlement costs is health care costs, and what's driving health care costs is the pharmaceutical industry and technological advancement.

Murray's answer is that the Plan will stop health care inflation, ushering in a consumer's utopia of choice, competition, and rationalized end-of-life care. "When health care is subjected to the same choices that people make about everything else in their lives--'Is it worth it to me?'--the health-care industry will respond in the same way as other industries constrained by market forces, with better products at lower cost," he writes.

But the United States already has the most free-market health system in the developed world, and it's by far the most expensive--and getting more expensive all the time. Murray assumes not only that the Plan will slow this process, which is implausible enough, but he also assumes it will bring health care inflation to a stop. If the Plan failed to achieve this miraculous result, then the citizens of Murray's hypothetical libertarian paradise would be stuck with a fixed sum with which to buy life-sustaining health care that grows progressively more unaffordable every year.

Having quickly rewritten all of U.S. social policy in a scant 79 double-spaced pages, Murray moves on to even more outrageous claims. The last section of his book, "The Larger Purpose," unveils his true messianic intentions. There is, he writes, a "momentous effect of the Plan: the revitalization of the institutions through which people lead satisfying lives."

Thus follows an extended discourse on how the United States can avoid the perils of becoming like Western Europe--where many countries, surveys show, register higher levels of happiness than this country, but not the sort of happiness of which Murray approves. Murray then embarks upon a meditation on the nature of happiness.

One such section is titled, modestly, "The Nature of Man as Social Being." The following Murray sentence, from his Journal op-ed, captures much of the flavor: "f you agree with me that to live a human life can have transcendental meaning, then we need to think about how human existence acquires weight and consequence."

Apparently, the timeless quest for meaning comes back to abolishing government programs. "The welfare state is pernicious ultimately because it drains too much of the life from life," he argues. The ordinary conservative pundit maintains that Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid--which together account for over 75 percent of what the Plan would abolish--are unaffordable.

Murray argues that they have created an existential spiritual crisis. Our lives would have more meaning if we spent more time haggling with health insurance bean-counters rather than having Medicare bureaucrats do it for us. Because Murray is not an ordinary conservative think-tank hack. He is oh-so weightier, oh-so-much more meaningful.

EZRA KLEIN is a writing fellow at The American Prospect.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

Response to Murray critics.

That's it? These breathless screeds are the best they can do? A lot of name calling and strawmen, with absolutely zero engagement of the real concerns and issues underlying Murray's proposal?

Damn - This may have more legs than I thought!

Actually, I hope some thoughtful, serious commentators on the left do chime in with criticism that actually addresses the real concerns and issues. I think there are two possible appoaches.

First, that there's nothing fundamentally wrong with the welfare state in terms of its fiscal sustainability or its ability to effectively solve social problems. (I can't wait for these.)

Second, that there are legitimate problems and concerns about the welfare state that require something more than the usual political tinkering, but Murray's plan is not the way to fix them, because of x, y or z. Sarcasm aside, I really do look forward to these critiques.

 

[Pure]

This is your answer, Roxanne,

RA Actually, I hope some thoughtful, serious commentators on the left do chime in with criticism that actually addresses the real concerns and issues. I think there are two possible appoaches.

First, that there's nothing fundamentally wrong with the welfare state in terms of its fiscal sustainability or its ability to effectively solve social problems. (I can't wait for these.)

Yes, that is the answer. It's supplied by history. Any open minded person can easily google about, for instance, health care in Sweden and Finland, and see that it's working, and costs are contained. The Swedes have supplemented government heathcare with a bit of private enterprise and supplementary private insurance. (They now have a greater percent over 60 than do US or Canada, so they are up that road a bit further, in terms of facing a problem.)

Libertarians and Randist are passed by, even in the US. Most people concede a role of government in regulating and directing the economy (if only through fiscal means), and most people have liked or accepted government delivery of some services, such as old age pensions.

Contrary to amicus, Murray and others, problems have been or are being solved democratically. Plans for 'nuking' evil government and mandating/requiring 'responsibility' through devolving everything to the individual* and to 'free market' forces are simply retrograde and fantastical schemes. They arise out of these persons' ideological dreams about human nature, not anything remotely resembling realism.

Murray himself cannot be consistent, since he 'gives' people the 10K (of their own money) and then off the top, mandates that 3K go to (private) health insurance. By his own argument, this puts people's lives, for a key area, in the hands of (health cos. such as Kaiser Permanente) bureaucrats, and inclines them to live in a slack, unproductive and non transcendant manner.

He further has to 'stipulate' that this works, that there's no health cost inflation, and that Kaiser lowers its profit to care for the diseased crackheads.

And since that stipulation doesn't work, Roxanne adds another stipulation, a socialistic one (i.e. inconsistent with her own views)--the Gov is going to tell Kaiser et al. that they must insure the 'uninsurable.'

Lots of thrashing about, acting as if the wheel needs to be reinvented, and humanity given a new direction through the shiny refurbished capitalism (which existed in 1900).


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*e.g., putting private savings accounts in place of social security.